Day 29

Go there to shop, do you?

Chris isn’t expecting any more visitors.  It’s the third day since his surgery.  The traffic cops have already been, the day after the accident.  There’s no family to visit and he hasn’t told any of his friends or work where he is and what’s happened.  There’s no one else who should be disturbing his convalescence.

“Mr Baker, there’s someone here to see you,” the duty nurse tells him.

Instantly, Chris is on full alert.  His heart races and he can feel the adrenalin pumping through his body.

“Who is it?” Chris asks.

“It’s the police again.  A Detective this time.”  Chris can hear the nurse’s judgement, see it in her face.  In her mind he’s already guilty of something.

“OK.” What else can Chris say?  He feels a stab of pain in his abdomen, where his wound lies still fresh under the pristine white dressing that the nurse just checked half an hour ago.  Half an hour ago he was close to being at the end of his ordeal.  A bit of creative explaining at work and, not only would things be just about back to normal, he might even have a few days living in the soft comfort of his workmates’ sympathy.  Chocolates maybe, short days while he recovers from his injuries.  Wouldn’t be too bad.  Wouldn’t be bad at all.

Now, his world’s coming apart again.

“Mr Baker?”

The Detective is early fifties, tall, long face, clean-shaven, cropped hair, short-sleeved shirt and tie, plain brown shoes.  He’s more inoffensive than good looking.  The sort the cops would use to make up the numbers in an identity line up.  Who would have known the end of the world would come in such a neatly nondescript package?

The Detective shows Chris his ID.

“I’m Frank Lambert, CIB.  Mind if I sit down?” the Detective asks.  Such an innocuous first question.

The Detective pulls up a chair without waiting for further invitation and sits at the side of Chris’s hospital bed.  Chris sits propped up on his pillows, knees raised under the blankets.  His heart’s still racing and his mouth’s getting dry.  He wants to reach for the glass of water at the side of his bed, but he doesn’t want to seem nervous.  Wonders if the Detective will see his hand shaking if he picks up the glass and raises it to his lips.

“So, you’ve been in the wars a bit?”  The Detective’s second question is equally as polite as his first.

Chris doesn’t really know what to say.  “I guess,” is all he can come up with.

“Hmmm, serious thing, crashing your car,”  Lambert comes back with.

It’s not a question, but Lambert leaves it hanging there just long enough so that Chris feels obliged to fill the space with an answer.

“I guess.”  Chris realises he’s repeating himself the minute the words are out of his mouth.  He wants to say more so he doesn’t look quite so stupid, but decides to hold his tongue.  He looks the Detective in the eye, but after a few moments can’t hold his gaze.

“So, want to tell me how it happened?”

The Detective’s politeness is already getting to Chris.  He knows this isn’t why Lambert’s here.  He’s already told the traffic cops what he remembers of the accident.  He knows he’s dropped himself in it.  It’s all his fault.  He’s got an idea he’ll be charged with something.  They told him that no one but him was seriously injured in the crash, but there’s culpable driving, or something like that.

But Chris knows the crash isn’t what the Detective’s come to talk to him about.

Chris goes over the sequence of events that amounts to the crash again.  He’s told the traffic cops that he misjudged the distance and speed of the approaching car as he turned across traffic on the highway.  He thought he’d have enough time to get across.  He repeats the lie to Detective Lambert.  Better to be consistent.  Who knows, maybe the other car was speeding or something.

“You live near the school on Caulder Road, don’t you Mr Baker?”

The Detective’s use of the formal address makes Chris’s heart race faster.  He looks at Lambert.

“Yes?”  The rising note of his voice makes Chris’s answer a question as well. What he’s really saying is, “Why the hell are you asking me about that?”

Detective Lambert leaves Chris’s question unanswered.  For what seems like a very long time.

Chris can hardly bear the agony of the wait.  He searches inside himself for things he might have done wrong, transgressions he might have buried under memories heaped untidily one on the other.

He wants to confess, but he doesn’t know what the Detective’s getting at.

He waits.

The Detective waits.

Chris knows he’s fucked.

“So, do you drive by the school?”

Chris does, every day on his way to work and on the weekends as well.  It’s the most convenient route to the highway and the highway is his connection to the world outside his suburb.  Without the highway, Chris has no life.  Of course he drives by the school.  But Chris doesn’t want to say it.  Knows if he does he’s more than fucked.  He’s guilty of something, something terrible, something beyond his own imagining.

Something.

Chris waits, says nothing.

“Mr Baker,” again the formal address, “Do you drive by the school?”

“Yes.”

“And the shopping centre, Queensgate City, do you go there?”  The Detective’s next question follows close behind Chris’s answer.

“Yes, it’s my local shopping centre.  I go there to shop,” he adds redundantly.

Chris feels like he’s getting back onto solid ground again.  Of course he goes to the fucking shopping centre.  Of course he drives by the school.  So do thousands of other people.  Every day.  He’s done nothing wrong.

“Go there to shop, do you?”  The Detective’s tone tells Chris that he knows something that he’s not letting on.  It’s not quite accusing, but Chris feels pinned by the question that, under different circumstances could have been as ordinary as asking an acquaintance, “How’re you going?”

Chris knows right now, with cold certainty, that Detective Lambert is dangerous.  He’s shivering under the hospital blanket.  He wants to call the nurse to ask for the air conditioning to be turned down.

It’s a bit like coming down off coke

Tiffany is still sleeping when Karla wakes up next to her.  The room is bright, dust hanging lazily in a streak of sunlight that filters through a gap at the top of the curtains.

Karla props herself up on an elbow and lies watching her friend.  Tiffany is sleeping on her back, her mouth slightly open, top lip curved in a slightly imperfect cupid’s bow.  The sun highlights the otherwise invisible hairs contouring Tiffany’s cheek, which is creased and flushed red from sleeping.  Tiffany’s eyes are lightly shut and smeared with the makeup she didn’t remove last night.  She’s imperfect.  Beautiful!

Karla rolls out of the bed quietly and pads through to the kitchen, putting on the kettle and then pouring a glass of water.  When the kettle boils she makes two cups of instant coffee and returns to the bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed, putting one cup down while holding the other in her two hands.  She goes back to watching Tiffany.

Tiffany comes awake quietly.  Her eyes open and she looks around the room getting her bearings.

“Hi, Karla,” Tiffany smiles at her friend.  “Fuck, I feel like shit.”

Karla smiles.  “Cup of coffee,” she says, as she hands Tiffany the cup.

“Thanks, mate.”  Tiffany sits up in the bed, pushes up the pillow behind her and takes the cup.

The two sit and drink.

“So, what do you want to do today?  Now that you’re unemployed,” Karla asks her friend, with more than a hint of mischief in her eyes.

“Fuck you, Karla, I was trying not to think about that. At least for a while.”  Tiffany’s mock anger does nothing to make Karla back off.

“Well, you’ve got to do something sweetie.  It’s the weekend.  I thought we could have some fun.  Usually, you’re up to your arse in important stories,” Karla says these last two words mockingly.

Tiffany doesn’t say anything, just drinks.

“C’mon, get over yourself, Tiff.  When was the last time you had a chance to stop being Tiffany Robson, Newsreader, and just be yourself? Let’s go out somewhere tonight, go see a band or something.”

“Oh, god, K, I dunno.  I haven’t had a chance to really think about things yet.  Tell you what, I’ll go home and sort myself out a bit, do a few things and then I’ll give you a call, we can see what’s happening a bit later, yeah?”

Karla’s disappointed with her friend, but she tries not to show it.  As she sees Tiffany off at the door, wearing some borrowed clothes, Karla thinks about calling out for her to come back, asking her one more time to stay and hang out.  She’s lonely, more than she realised until this moment, but she says nothing.

When she’s home, at he inner city apartment, sitting on a black and chrome leather chair that’s big enough for three of her, Tiffany’s greatest feeling is one of loneliness.  Coming in behind that is something she’s having difficulty describing to herself.  It’s deep in the background of her consciousness, a wide, engulfing cave of a feeling that, when she tries to describe it to herself with words, slinks out of sight of her mind’s eye.  It’s a bit like coming down off coke, but , what’s the word?  Bigger.

The feeling interferes with Tiffany’s thinking.  She’s running through her options, but she can’t bring anything into clear view.  The spartan tiles and sharp lines of her apartment, the furnishing so carefully chosen and purchased at such great expense, make her feel like she’s in a dental surgery.  The artwork hanging on her walls, originals by local artists, selected by a gallery owner for their investment value, makes no sense to her, the pictures and shapes say nothing to her or about her.  The black screen of the enormous LCD TV, on loan from a local electronics outlet, is the only thing in her lounge room that makes sense to Tiffany right now.

She’s trying to sort out her future.  Needs an answer right now.  But the answer isn’t coming.  Tiffany’s usual clear head has been replaced by a confusion of thoughts and a sense of being overwhelmed by her surroundings.  She feels strange and alone in her home today.

She makes a decision.  “Karla?  Hi.  You out having fun yet?”  The lightness of Tiffany’s voice gives nothing away to her friend.  “No? Good. I’m coming over. Let’s do something.”

Karla smiles as she puts down the phone.  She’s so happy her best mate’s coming over.  She feels like she’s eighteen again.

Tiffany smiles too as she applies makeup to accentuate her eyes, cheeks and lips while giving the impression that she’s wearing nothing on her face.  She dresses in jeans, low cut around her hips and tight fitting, and a simple fuscia satin blouse, fitted at the bust.  Her blonde hair is carefully set to appear flowing and natural, a little messy.  Her black ankle boots look casual and comfortable, but their four-inch heels accentuate her legs under the blue denim.  An oversized black bag finishes her outfit and contains everything she might need for the rest of the day, evening and on into the night.

As she takes the lift down to the basement car park, Tiffany is aware of the scent of her perfume filling the confined space.  The lift stops on the way down and an older man gets in.  The two passengers in the lift make no eye contact, but Tiffany smiles to herself when she catches him looking at her in the mirror.

Starting up the Prado, Tiffany’s sense of dread about her future has begun to recede.  Things feel almost normal again.

Fat chance of that

She awakes in a hospital bed.  Her left wrist is a dull ache under fibreglass, the back of her right hand is stuck with a cannula and plastered over where a clear tube of slightly yellow fluid snakes into her vein.  Her head aches, throbs like it’s getting ready to explode.  Her mouth is dry and tastes of sour metal.  She’s wearing a loose white hospital gown and there are three other women with her in the four-bed room.

She’s terrified and alone.  The best thing to do is just lie still and wait.  She closes her eyes again just before a nurse enters the room.

“Hello ladies.  Just come to do your obs.  Any sign of our friend waking up yet?”  The nurse begins to work her way efficiently around the hospital room, figuring she’s not going to get a response to her question from any of the women.  She knows they were asked to keep an eye open for the dark-skinned woman stirring at breakfast this morning.  It’s on the nurse’s handover notes.

The woman was brought in from recovery last night after having surgery to set a compound fracture in her wrist.  She’d come around from the anaesthetic and all her vitals checked out OK, but she’d been asleep since then and showed no sign of waking.  They knew she couldn’t speak English, because they’d not no sense out of her since she was admitted, and she’d come in without ID, so there was no way they could call for family or friends.  A bit of a mystery, really.

The nurse leaves the mystery woman’s obs until last.  Working her way around the room, the usual round of routine elective surgery  gall bladder, in-grown toenail and, slightly more interesting, a breast reduction.  The nurse wonders what the woman’s story is while she keeps up the jolly banter with her other patients that is expected of all those in her profession.

Coming to the woman in the last bed, the nurse speaks to her gently.  “How are you, my love?  Ready to wake up yet?”

She sees the woman’s eyes flicker open with a sense of satisfaction.  Good, she’s awake.

“Hello.  It’s good to have you back with us.”  The nurse’s smile shows her pleasure and relief that the woman is finally awake.  Her words are drawn out and carefully pronounced, voice slightly raised, the way you might talk to a dull child.  The woman just looks back at the nurse and then closes her eyes and turns her head away.

“C’mon, love, we can’t be having that.  You’re very lucky, you know, you’ve had a nasty break, bump on the head, but you’re going to be fine.”  The nurse knows she’s not getting through to the woman, but she keeps chatting to her as she checks her vitals, making notes on her chart.

Back at the nursing station, she tells the duty nurse manager that the mystery woman in room 25 is finally awake.

“All her vitals are fine, but she’s not communicating.  She’s withdrawn, maybe depressed.  Guess it makes sense, though,” the nurse finishes with, as the manager picks up the phone to call for an interpreter.

“What language do you need?” the operator from hospital interpreter services asks.

“I don’t know,” replies the nurse manager. “ This woman came in last night through casualty.  Accident or something at a shopping centre.  She hasn’t spoken since she came in.  She was wearing one of those black head-to-toe things though, a burqa I think they call them.”

“A Muslim, then?”

“I really don’t know.  She’s dark skinned, but not real black like an African,” is the only other detail the nurse manager can add.

“I’ll try and send someone with multiple languages, see if we can get lucky.  Could be a while.  In the meantime, why don’t you show her some of the hospital pamphlets we’ve got translated into foreign languages, see if she recognises any.  Let me know if you have any luck.”

“Will do,” says the nurse manager before hanging up.  “Fat chance of that with my workload,” she thinks before getting her head back into the monthly ward accounts.

The police come later in the afternoon, but without an interpreter there’s nothing they can learn.  The uniformed Constables speak to the duty nurse manager and she tells them she’s waiting for someone to come from hospital interpreter services.  One of the cops leaves a card and she tells him she’ll call when someone comes to translate.  They all go back about their business.

In her handover notes for the afternoon shift, the nurse notes that the mystery woman’s vital signs are good, but she’s withdrawn.  The surgeon’s coming to visit on Monday to check that all is well.  Otherwise, there’s nothing to report.

The nurse manager knocks off at 6.30 without noting that they’re still waiting for an interpreter.

The afternoon and night shifts pass without incident.  Friday becomes Saturday.  The nurse unit manager’s not due back on until Monday.  Most of the weekend shift is made up of agency staff.

Hospital interpreter services still have the job of finding an interpreter for the mystery woman logged on their system, but won’t have the staff to keep making calls to people who might have the right language until Monday.

Look after yourself

“What were you wearing when you had the crash?”

Chris knows that the Detective is playing with him now.

“He knows,” Chris thinks.  “And he knows that I know he knows.”  He feels like he’s caught up in a B-grade spy movie.  “Why don’t we just get to the point?”

But the next thing Chris says is:  “Jeans, t-shirt,” and leaves it at that.

“Anything else?”  The Detective’s next question comes after the longest pause yet.  Lambert’s looking directly at Chris and, when Chris can make himself meet the Detective’s gaze, he can see that he’s enjoying this.  Enormously.

“What do you mean?”  Chris counters with a question of his own.  He knows that it’s inevitable that they’ll get to what they both know the Detective’s here to talk about, but Chris can’t bring himself to face it head on.  A life time of hiding and subterfuge has brought him to this point and he’s not about to give up his avoidance just yet.

“OK, let’s get to it then, shall we?”  Chris is almost relieved when the Detective signals a change in the pace and direction of the interrogation.  “Maybe I should talk a bit while you listen and then we’ll see where we’re at and where we’re going?”

Chris says nothing, just blinks.  He would have swallowed, too, but his mouth’s now completely made of cotton wool.  He can feel his heart skipping beats.  Maybe he should call for the nurse?  Maybe a bit of medical intervention will get him out of this?  But then he remembers the look on her face when she told him the Detective was here.  He has no allies.  No one is going to rescue him from this.

While he waits for the Detective to speak again, Chris knows what it’s like to be completely alone in the world.

Detective Lambert begins to speak, his voice holds a note of certainty as he goes through the facts of the case.

As he begins to listen, Chris knows that that Detective has compiled all the evidence in his own mind and knows exactly what it all means.  Why it would take a Detective Senior Sergeant of the CIB to bring Chris to heel is the only thing he doesn’t know.  He’s never been in this world before; the place where cops interrogate crims, make arrests and put people away has always been just a TV fantasy for him, but he doesn’t think his crimes warrant the attention of the CIB.  He’s not even sure that who he is and what he does is even a crime at all.

“When you came into the hospital, you were wearing a g-string.  Black, women’s underwear,” the Detective adds for emphasis.  “You were also hairless all over, including under your arms and your genitals, legs, arms, the whole lot.  We know this, because staff at the hospital informed us.”

“When traffic looked through the items in your car, after the crash, they found a bag containing women’s clothing, a wig, make up, some jewellery, condoms and personal lubricant.  When they examined the clothing they found, among the items in the bag, a black women’s bodysuit that had stains on the front.  We haven’t had the stains looked at yet, but we’re pretty sure it’s semen.”

Detective Lambert isn’t even looking at a notebook as he recites his information.  He’s got it all off by heart.

“Now, we have information received that puts your car regularly in the vicinity of the school on Caulder Road.  We also have CC-TV footage from Queensgate City shopping centre of you on the day that Peter Johnson disappeared.”

Lambert stops here.  Returns to his staring contest with Chris.  Only, the Detective won the contest a long time ago and this is no game.

Chris is confused.  He’s been expecting all this and it doesn’t seem so bad now that it’s happening.  As the Detective has recited each line Chris has ticked them off in his mind:

G-string.  Tick.

No body hair.  Tick.

Clothes, wig, make up.  Tick.

Stains on the body suit.  Tick.

CC-TV footage from the shopping centre.  What the fuck is that all about?

Things have taken a turn that Chris could never have expected.

“What are you talking about?”  Chris asks the Detective.  He’s not playing hide and seek any more.  Chris is genuinely confused.

“Which bit isn’t clear to you, Mr Baker?”  The Detective returns to a more formal address as he closes in.

“The bit about the school and the shopping centre.  About the boy.  He’s the one who’s been missing for a while now, isn’t he?  What’s that got to do with my crash?  That was only four days ago.”

Detective Lambert’s given up with his pauses.  He’s shifting into high gear. “Chris, you’re a perve, right.”  It’s not a question, it’s a statement of fact unsullied by any shred of doubt. “ You get about in women’s clothes.  You hang out at the school, you’ve been seen around there.  A lot.  You were at the shopping centre the day the boy disappeared.  Just exactly what is it you’re telling me you’re confused about?”

The horror of Detective Lambert’s deductive logic is just beginning to plough a path through the neurones of Chris’s mind.  “He thinks I had something to do with the boy’s disappearance.”  Chris forms the words internally as his mind begins the descent.  He must have a drink, can’t talk again without water.  Chris reaches over to his bedside as deliberately as he can, keeping his eyes all the time on the glass, knowing that the Detective is watching him with the powerful intensity of telescope.  Chris knows that they can both see his tremor; can see the surface of the water in the glass disturbed as it moves in Chris’s hand; can see the intensification of the shakes as Chris raises the glass to his mouth; can see the dribble of water over Chris’s lips and chin as he inevitably spills some of the liquid while he drinks.  Can see that this is a further sign of Chris’s guilt.  The only difference Chris and Detective Lambert share in this observation is their understanding of what it is that Chris is guilty of.  The Detective knows.  Chris has no idea at all.

Chris’s mind begins to process his guilt, and as his thoughts pick up momentum, he feels his head literally lurch to the side.  Chris expects the Detective to ask at any moment whether he’s OK.  But the Detective has gone back to waiting.  He knows he doesn’t need to say anything else.  For the time being, anyway.

“You think I had something to do with the boy’s disappearance?”  The water hasn’t helped Chris form the words with any composure.  His whole body is in a rapture of complete terror.  Every limb feels like it’s turned to rubber, his heart’s racing so fast he can no longer feel it beating in his chest.  Chris feels no pain, but there is a sensation in his chest that feels like a numb weight pushing down on him from the inside.  His voice sounds to him like a child’s.  It is cracked and uncertain.  The words feel foreign in his mouth and his tongue forms them like it’s the first time he’s ever spoken.

“Yes, Chris. I’m certain you took that boy.  I haven’t got all the pieces in place yet, but I know you’ve got him somewhere.”

Chris closes his eyes.  He tries to concentrate on bringing his breathing back to normal.  He can feel the tingling beginning in his feet and hands, the dizzy sweat of a panic attack sweeping over his head and chest.

“Chris, the doc says you’ll be discharged tomorrow.  I’ll be back here at ten in the morning and I’ll give you a lift home.  I think we need to keep talking about this.  In the meantime, take care, Chris.  Look after yourself.”  The Detective gets up to leave, “Oh, and don’t think about going anywhere, disappearing or anything like that. We know where you live.”  Chris sees the Detective smirk, just before he turns and leaves.  He feels relief for a moment.

Then the terror comes flooding back.  He can’t breathe.  He knows he’s going to die.

Chris Baker lies awake in his hospital bed.  Tomorrow, he’s got a Detective Senior Sergeant from the CIB coming to question him further about his involvement in the disappearance of a twelve-year old boy.  Four days ago, Chris was a quiet, clean-living citizen, suburban resident, city worker, nodding terms with the neighbours.  Just an ordinary bloke.  Now he’s a suspect in the disappearance of a kid.  God knows what else the Detective thinks he’s been up to.

And what he’s really been up to he can’t tell the Detective. There’s no way he can explain that.

They used to be called bouncers

Karla and Tiffany greet again at the door of Karla’s house.  This time Karla looks her friend up and down before leading her inside the house.

“Geez you look alright, unna,” she says, as she has many times before, but not recently.

“Why, thank you,” Tiffany replies, playing her part in a well-rehearsed routine, “You don’t look half bad yourself, you know.”

Karla curtsies and breaks into a giggle as she leads Tiffany down the hallway.

Tiffany’s had a few drinks, but she’s not pissed.  She’s standing at the back of the hotel’s front bar where a local band is playing original songs, a rare occurrence in a city where most people would prefer note-perfect covers of whatever happens to be in the top twenty.  Karla’s down the front somewhere dancing in what isn’t quite a mosh pit – not enough people – but it’s close and sweaty, noisy and, most of all, completely uncomplicated fun.

Tiffany’s thinking about the invitation-only event she’s blown off to be here tonight.  It will be filled with local celebrities and as boring as hell.  She’s glad she’s not there discussing the rehabilitation of prawn cocktail as an entrée and pretending to give a fuck about the latest factional workings of the local political parties and businesses.  Best of all, not a single person has given her a double take tonight.  She’s had plenty of glances and some meaningful eye contact, but not a single person has recognised the newsreader.  It’s been great.

“Come and dance!”  Karla’s back, breathless and sucking her drink through a short black straw.  She’s yelling to be heard over the music.

“No way!  I don’t want to look like a spastic in front of all these kids.”

The two women giggle, heads together.  In their late twenties, they have to be pretty close to the oldest people in the room.

Before the pub closes, Tiffany and Karla catch a cab into the CBD and a nightclub where the vibe is completely different.  The place is packed and Tiffany’s glad of being recognised for the first time tonight as they walk straight past the line of punters waiting to get in and are chaperoned through the entryway and the past cashier’s desk by a black-suited security officer.  They used to be called bouncers when the two friends first started going to nightclubs.

Inside it’s smoke free, but still has the claustrophobia that comes with too many bodies and too little space.  The music is being played at a penetrating level, nothing Tiffany recognises, and the dance floor is full.  The bar is crawling, too, but that’s where the friends head once they’re inside.  Tiffany gets in the drinks, bourbon and coke for Karla and water for her.  She’s still pacing herself, feeling nicely buzzed by the alcohol she’s drunk so far tonight, relaxed but in control.  Her confusion and sense of don’t-know-what-but-something-nasty from this afternoon have retreated and what to do about work is far from her mind.  She stands leaning against the bar scanning the room while Karla hurries through her drink so she can get out onto the dance floor.

“ It’- --eat Tiff, I -----ng ---- you.”  Karla says something, but Tiffany can’t hear properly above the din.  She smiles and nods emphatically at Karla, and Tiffany’s friend hugs her and kisses her low on the cheek, close to her lips, before turning and making for the dance floor.  Tiffany watches her go and, as her eyes make their trajectory across the room, she settles back into observing the Friday-night goings on unfold before her.

As the years go by and his stomach grows

Home that night, Lambert goes to kiss his wife, Diana, but she turns her head at the last moment so that his lips touch only her cheek. As they sit watching the TV after dinner, the evaporative air conditioning chugs away, moving the air in the room but making no impression on the heat that remains long after the sun has gone down. After hours of sitting in silence, Diana goes to bed and Frank Lambert walks up the passageway to the bedroom they use as a study, checking on his sleeping son and daughter on the way.

After a few minutes, Lambert is immersed in images depicting a woman in various poses with two men. His cock is hard inside his shorts before his left hand finds it.  He strokes himself, manipulating the series of images with his right hand by clicking on the left button of the mouse.  He stops at a particularly pleasing image in which both of the men are inside the woman.  She is straddling one while the other penetrates her arse from behind.  Lambert lets go the mouse and switches hands so that he can masturbate more effectively.  He pulls his shorts down around his buttocks and his t-shirt up over his belly.  As Lambert ejaculates, he moans almost silently.  His semen tracks up his stomach, fills his belly button, which is recessed more and more deeply as the years go by and his stomach grows.  Lambert curses quietly as he realises he’s got no tissues to wipe up his mess.  He swivels the chair towards the door of the room behind him and sees, as he turns, a movement in the hallway.

“Fuck!” The curse is almost silent.

When he goes into the bedroom he shares with his wife, Frank Lambert finds Diana asleep.  He’s checked the kids on the way, they haven’t moved since he last looked in on them.  As he gets into his side of the bed, Frank feels Diana shrink away from him.

He lies on his back, right arm above his head.  Awake.  Hot.  Searching for a rational explanation should Diana ask him what he was doing in the study.