Karin Baker

Author's Note

Though not my first short story, this is my first short story in a very long time. Any constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated.

Aside from the town in which this story takes place, any reference to persons, places or events is fictional. Any similarities are, of course, entirely coincidental.

I hope you enjoy.

*

"Excuse me," I said, waiving my hand to grab the woman's attention. She looked up from her book as I motioned to the clock on the wall.

"Oh I'm sorry. Could you give me five more minutes?"

I was at the gym, and this woman was cutting into my time on the elliptical machine. But, then, what's five more minutes? I said to myself. I was in no rush. I decided to make a go at some small talk.

"What are you reading?" I asked, pointing to the book laid out on the control panel in front of her.

"It's a biography of George Harrison."

"Are you a Beatles fan?"

"Of course. Who isn't?" She said as the machine gave an audible click and whirr, bringing her up to a higher level.

"Believe it or not, I could introduce you to a few people," I said in a jesting manner.

She flashed a bright smile. "No thanks. I prefer people with good taste in music."

I chuckled. "Me too."

I couldn't help but notice her body, well toned like a dancer. It stood out from those of the many undergraduates surrounding her, all pumping and huffing and sweating. Although she looked to be an older woman, she had a youthful, exuberant complexion. Her face was handsome, with pronounced features that betrayed some sort of Eastern European ancestry.

Later that afternoon I ran into Karin Baker again, this time while I was drinking chai and chatting with a friend at a local bakery on the corner of Jordan and 3^rd street, an establishment that, no doubt, will be familiar to those who have attended the music school at Indiana University Bloomington.

Our rather heated discussion on the merits of digital music froze as she walked through the door, dragging a breeze of cold December air behind her. She looked up from the mat where she was stomping her slush covered boots and flashed that bright smile of hers in surprise. I motioned to her join us. We sat there for hours as it grew dark outside, myself sipping my tea until it got cold (as is my usual habit) while she carried the conversation with stories about her travels around the world and about running her own business. She was an interior decorator, it turned out, which she facetiously explained as marching into people's houses and getting the to buy very expensive furniture. I always try my best not to judge. After all, twenty four year old graduate students should not be judges of character. Karin was unbelievably easy to talk to – bright, intelligent, intense. She punctuated her stories with animated hand gestures and had a habit of nodding her head intently whenever I put my two scents in.

"She's something else, huh?" I said to my friend as Karin was walking out of the door. "Do you think I've got a shot?"

"I don't know. Don't you think she's too old for you?" She said.

There was no denying this. Karin must have been fifteen years older than me, at least.

Of course this didn't stop me from fantasizing about her later that night, and the next, and the one after that. I pictured the two of us in all sorts of scenarios, many of them taking place at the gym where I had met her. Karin Baker took a prominent role in my masturbation schedule. But at this the reader should not be alarmed. I knew that Karin and I would never be together. I was just behaving like a young man.

So I played it as cool as the weather. I never made a move, and Karin and I became friends. Every week we would meet at the same spot for tea. As winter dragged on we started doing other things as well – lunch dates, dinner dates, even the occasional movie. We began to spend a lot of time with each other, and before long my platonic relationship sparked the interest of my friends, who all seemed to agree that there was something off-kilter about the whole affair. I couldn't argue with them; it was a strange friendship indeed, though completely harmless as far as I was concerned.

One Sunday night I was slouched over a bar, enjoying a pint of stout when I felt a tap on my shoulder.

"Karin!" I said, very surprised to see her. My eyes shifted to the right and fell upon a man standing next to her. He looked to be in his early fifties. He was solidly built, with large, powerful looking hands, and he wore a short-cropped hair-cut and a mustache. His eyes appeared small relative to his face, and they were permanently squinted, so as to convey a cold seriousness.

"This is my husband Bill."

The shock was clear as day on my face. He didn't seem to notice; he just shot his hand forward. I met it with mine and he gave it a quick shake, dropping it like a piece of dirty tissue.

"So you go to school?" He asked.

I nodded and took a sip of my beer.

To this he responded with a strange sort of grunting sound. He sat down at the bar, demanding a menu an then jumping into it head first. Karin looked at me apologetically.

"I'm sorry about all that," she said. It was later that night. We were parked outside of my apartment. "He was in one of his moods."

"I'm just really surprised that you didn't tell me you were married."

I tried my best to hide it, but there was a hint of disappointment in my tone. Her failure to disavow this information somehow hurt.

"You know what it is? I guess I just don't like talking about him. I always get upset."

For the life of me, I can't understand why, I thought to myself.

"Is that why you don't wear a wedding ring?" I pointed to her vacant left hand.

"You know, part of it is that I just don't like wearing jewelry. But now that you mention it, I bet that's also part of it."

It was raining, and the sound of the drops on the car roof, combined with the food in our stomachs made us both reluctant to move. I was fishing around for something complimentary to say about the man.

"What does he do?"

"He's chair of the economics department."

"Well then, he must be a really smart guy."

To this Karin didn't directly respond. Instead she looked out of the window for a few long moments.

"You'd think so," she finally said. "But I gotta tell you. Most of the time he sure doesn't act like it."

"Is he the absent minded type?"

"No, he's fully aware of everything the he does. I think he does stupid things just because he's inconsiderate. Like last night, he left the orange juice bottle on the countertop, unscrewed. He just left it there and walked away, and of course I had to clean up after him. He's always doing stuff like that. He never puts a top on anything or puts it away after he's done with it. He just leaves it around the house. And I've told him over and over again. Seriously. You know what my new name is for him? 'Retard boy'. I mean, he's gotta be retarded, right? Why else would he act like that?"

The light from an apartment directly above us was shining through the windshield. It cast a strange sort of illumination on Karin's face, and somehow I was looking at it from a new perspective. She seemed older to me at that moment, but in a displeasing sort of way that I couldn't quite put my finger on.

"Well, I don't know what you can do about stuff like that," I said.

"Oh it's not just that. If it was just that I could handle it."

Silence.

"I should get going," Karin said.

"Yeah, it was nice seeing you. I'll talk to you later."

I didn't hear from Karin for two weeks after that. Then one day she kidnapped me as I was walking home.

"I need your opinion," she said as we drove across town.

"Are you gonna tell me what it's about?"

"Nope. Not 'till we get there."

"Have some coffee," she added, pointing to a cup sitting in the divider.

'There' turned out to be the medical complex on the West side of town, comprising the hospital itself, a five story building on one side and a number of affiliates and private practices on the other. We pulled into one of the parking lots of a private practice and turned off the car. Karin looked at her watch.

"Perfect," she said.

I sipped my coffee quietly, waiting for the surprise. After a few minutes he walked out of the door.

"There he is."

"Who's that?" I asked.

"That's Brad Stezner."

"And who exactly his he?" I continued.

"He's my dermatologist."

"Oh."

"I'm thinking about sleeping with him."

I took another sip of my coffee.

"Wait. What?"

"What do you think about him?"

I watched this man as he popped the trunk of his car and rummaged around for something. He wasn't very tall, probably no taller than Bill, but he looked well built, and he had powerful looking hands. I was beginning to recognize Karin's type.

"He looks alright, I guess."

"Do you think I should do it?"

"I don't know," I said. "Is he interested?"

"I think so. We've been flirting a lot the last couple of times that I've seen him."

We sat there for a good five minutes, watching the doctor move from the trunk to the back seat, and then to the trunk again, obviously unable to locate whatever it was that he was searching for. I started to feel dirty and creepy; I wanted to get out of there. "Honesty, I don't think you should do it," I said.

She looked at me with a mixture of shock and disappointment, as if she had expected my ringing endorsement of the affair.

"I think you'll regret it," I added.

There was a long silence during which she kept an eye on the doctor – who by now had given up his search and was driving away – and meditated on the situation. I decided not to add anything else, but to let her reach her own conclusion. Finally she spoke.

"Maybe you're right."

Those three words were filled with an emptiness the likes of which I had never heard a human utter before. I suddenly felt like a thief who steals the last wish of a dying man. On the way home I had numerous chances to enable Karin, but I kept quiet with the knowledge that I had said the right things.

But I assure you that Karin was not the type to give up. She was strong, and when she rebounded she did so with speed and power. So, over the next couple of weeks she kept bringing up the doctor. And soon it was not only that. She told me about other guys that she flirted with – at the gym, at the post office, at the bank. Really, anywhere she got the chance. I tried my best to listen openly and objectively, as a friend first. But I always gave it to her straight. On more than one occasion I recommended a marriage councilor, but it was always to def ears.

One weekend during the summer I needed to go home, to the Adirondack mountains to pick up a car that my mother had bought.

"You know what? Bill's out of town for a couple of weeks, and I don't have anything to do around here, how about I drive you up?"

It was the middle of June. We were having lunch outside, late in the afternoon, as people were shuffling past us lazily. A cool, sweat summer breeze was playing around with my hair, and I was feeling like everything and anything was a good idea.

"That sounds like a great idea," I said, crunching down on a pickle. How soon can you leave?"

"Tell you what. I'll go home tonight and pack, and we'll leave in the morning".

When I talked to my mom about it later that evening she was concerned.

"Isn't she married?" she asked.

"Yeah. But it's no big deal," I said. "She's not very close to her husband."

"Make sure you do the right thing," my mom said. I wasn't exactly sure what she meant by this, but I told her not to worry.

We couldn't have left on a nicer morning. The plan was to cut through Canada. We took their convertible Jeep Wrangler, heading straight north to Port Huron, where we crossed over, and once we were on the 401 we let the top down. I lost myself in the thick, cotton-ball-esque clouds that hovered in the horizon, in the farm houses and open fields that sped past at 80 mph, in the high pitched wail and thumping bass notes of Geddy Lee as we blasted Rush from the radio.

For lunch we stopped at a plaza deli on the outskirts of Toronto. I left Karin sitting outside, talking to someone on her cell phone, while I ordered a couple of sandwiches.

"$7.49", said the girl behind the register. I handed her a twenty.

"Ummm . . ."

She looked confused and a little embarrassed. Suddenly I realized that the Canadians have their own currency.

"Sorry about that," I said. "I don't have any Canadian money. I'm not from around here."

"Oh yeah? Where are you from?" Her voice was slightly shaky and her face a little flushed.

"Indiana," I said. "Bloomington"

Oh, I hear it's beautiful down there."

"Yeah, it's nice."

I did a quick turn around to find a line of three customers that had built up behind me, with Karin standing off to the left. The girl rummaged around in the registrar drawer and placed some coinage in my hand.

"I think that's right", she said.

"It's probably close enough," I replied with a smile.

"Are you just passing through Toronto?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh, well . . . if you like, I get off work in an hour. I could show you around the city."

Now I started to blush.

"Actually, I'm traveling with someone. I don't think it would be fair . . . you know."

"Yeah, of course."

"But otherwise," I added hastily.

"Sure."

She grabbed a pen and scribbled something on my receipt.

"If you change your mind," she said, sliding the paper to me.

I was glowing brighter than the afternoon sun as we walked outside. Next to me Karin was silent.

"Who were you talking to?" I asked her as we sat down at a small table.

"I was just talking to Brad."

"Not going well?"

She just shook her head and bit into her sandwich. I watched the sun illuminate her face, and all of a sudden I was back in the car that night a couple months ago. But this time the shift in perspective was concrete, like a gestalt drawing. I finally new what it was about Karin that was so displeasing to the senses. She looked old, not physically but in a worn down sort of way, like a dancer at a topless bar who never made it to the big city. I focused my attention on my own sandwich, and we ate the majority of our meal in silence, save for the occasional empty remark about how the trip was going nicely, or about some passers-bye. The rest of the afternoon slipped by the same way.

At about 7:00 in the evening, as the horizon was turning to a brilliant mixture of scarlet and purple, we were nearing the end of our journey through Canada but were too tired to go on. We stopped at the first place we found, a small, low-end motel just off the highway. There we booked two rooms for the night.

"Knock, knock, knock."

Slowly I opened my eyes.

"Knock, knock, knock."

The rapping sounded, at first, like a hazy echo, but it quickly came into focus. I lumbered to the side of the bed and arranged my thoughts. What a deep and sublime slumber I had been awoken from!

"Coming," I finally managed. I grabbed a robe from the foot of the bed and threw it on.

It was Karin on the other side of the door.

"Oh I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's cool," I replied as I motioned her to come inside. She flicked on the lights, half of which, thankfully, were burned out, with the other half so dim that my eyes were spared the agony of sudden intrusion.

In the dim light the room took on that look so characteristic of roadside getaways, warm and inviting to the spent traveler, yet unmistakably transient at the same time. The glossy prints of French artists on the wall – now cast in shadow – the white rings on the cheap knock-off oak night table, the cigarette stains on the carpet, all told the weary guest to relax for a while, but to move along after two-nights time, at the most. But then there was Karin, who had seated herself upon my bed, leaning backwards, propped up on her hands, her legs dangling. She looked vibrant, cheerful, a full turn around from earlier that afternoon.

"Hey, I'm sorry if I was a downer earlier today."

"Oh, it's no big deal," I lied, too tired at the moment to get into a serious conversation about her failing marriage. She, however, didn't even notice, but simply perked up instead.

"Can I use your shower? Mine's not working, " she said.

"Sure, help yourself."

With that she sprung up and trotted to the back of the room.

I threw myself onto the bed and switched on the TV. I was restless, a fact which I ascertained after speeding through the twenty three channels and realizing that I didn't remember anything I had seen. It occurred to me that I should make myself useful, so I hastily dressed and set out to find the desk clerk and report the broken shower.

Outside the air was cool and invigorating. A chorus of crickets and highway cars in the distance serenaded me as I made my way through the parking lot and over to the main building.

"That's weird," the clerk said, "I was just in that room yesterday. Everything looked to be in order. Do you need me to come over right now?"

"No," I said, "It can probably wait until we check out tomorrow."

He was an older man, with a daughter living in the New England area, and he was very interested in hearing about the Adirondacks. We probably talked for twenty minutes before I called it a night. After a quick stop at a vending machine I made my way back to my room. The water was still running. This, I thought, was strange, so I knocked on the bathroom door.

"Everything alright in there?" I asked.

Karin responded cheerfully, "Yeah. Just fine."

I changed back into my robe and resumed my position on the bed, flipping through the channels once more and wishing that I could get back to sleep soon. No sooner had I expressed this thought to myself when I heard the sound of creaky faucets, dying water and shower rings being shuffled.

Karin emerged from the bathroom, completely naked.

I had no time to sufficiently express my shock, as she quickly crawled on top of me and placed her lips on mine. Her tongue pried my mouth open and jumped inside. Her saliva tasted sweet. I felt one of her hands work itself under my robe and grope around, finding my cock (already semi-hard), and then releasing it from my underpants. Suddenly all of the friendly warnings of the past few months flashed before my mind, along with my mom's voice, telling me to "do the right thing."

None of this made a difference, though, when Karin pulled back and looked me in the eyes. I could see them widen in excitement as my cock grew hard under the influence of her hand, now methodically stroking it. She truly wanted me; she needed me, and it felt fucking unbelievable. The switch had been flicked. I pulled her back in. We kept kissing while I instinctively reached back and grabbed her ass, squeezing her cheeks and pressing her into me as firmly as I could. Her skin was still moist from the shower.

"Come on," she whispered. "Get naked for me."

I did as I was told, jumping off of the bed and practically ripping off my robe, undershirt and underpants.

"Are you clean?" She asked.

I nodded.

With that she pulled me back to the bed. In one fell swoop she positioned my cock beneath her and sat down on it, coming down hard so that every inch of it was as far up her cunt as possible. Slowly she started rocking back and forth, expelling tiny, nearly inaudible grunts as she did so. Her eyes were shut tight, all of her concentration fixated on keeping us as one inseparable entity.

Faster she rocked as her juices started to flow more freely and the bedspring started creaking. I could tell that she was close to climaxing as the walls of her pussy closed in one me. She dug her nails into my chest, arched her back and drew in a sharp breath. I couldn't hold it any more, and I came myself.