Cassandra's Plan Ch. 05

Several numbers are played—a rather bland pop (or should that be pap?) medley. Then a number is struck up—I was dreading this. It's "Summer Breeze."

A nice song, certainly, even in this washed-out arrangement. Cassandra jumps up, crying out, "Oh, David, 'Summer Breeze'! Come on, let's dance!"

I hold back—really hold back this time. I can't go out on to that floor.

She looks at me as if I've lobotomized myself. "David, come on! I want to dance!"

I manage to squeeze the words out of my throat. "Cassandra, please . . . please go with someone else. I can't . . . Please, dance with someone else."

She continues to glare at me in mingled confusion and derision. I feel totally wretched. Finally she realizes she's not going to get her way this time. She looks around the room and seizes upon someone else—I should know him, but I've forgotten his name too. She gives me one more barbed parting glance and goes out on the floor with the guy.

How can I tell her that "Summer Breeze" was my prom song? That I took Lauren to that prom (the only prom she ever went to, since she didn't want to go to her senior prom without me), and that we danced every number? If you want to call clutching each other tightly and moving a few paces here and there dancing.

The rest of the evening is a disaster. Cassandra says next to nothing to me; scarcely even looks at me. The same scenario persists in the taxi ride back home. She's really angry, but she doesn't seem to give the least thought about me. Even aside from the "Summer Breeze" débâcle, I don't think she realizes what she made me endure this whole evening. She knows I don't like dancing; so why does she take me to these things and deliberately humiliate me? Don't my feelings matter to her in the least? What does she want from me? What did she ever want from me? She just wants me to be her ornament, the sober guy in the tux and bow tie whom she can introduce to all her friends and say, "This is my husband, David, the writer." It doesn't seem to matter to her that, when she does that, these same people just look at me blankly, dutifully impressed, as if I'm a prize pig at a state fair.

It's been a good marriage, I suppose. I do love her, and I guess she loves me; but there's something not quite right.

I just wish she'd leave me alone sometimes.

Justin Federlein / August 17, 1985, 4:48 p.m.

I don't believe it. It's Cassandra. She's stepping out of her Ferrari and walking right toward me.

"Hi, Justin. I was just in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by."

My tongue is dry—and not only because it's so damn hot today. I can barely say: "Gee, Cassandra, it's nice of you to come. I haven't seen you in months." I try not to make that sound like a whine.

"Yes, I know. I'm sorry. I've been very busy."

She looks at the paintings—my paintings—hanging on the side of the building. She looks at them for a long time, saying nothing. "They're good, Justin."

I stare at her as if she's just crowned me king of Sumeria. "Thank— I'm glad you think so."

"Have you been displaying long in Soho?"

"Oh, yeah. Years, really. Off and on. We have a little colony here, and we put up our work every Saturday." I sweep my arm around, although she probably can't tell the artists from the few spectators we have. Everyone seems to be looking at her—and her car—curiously and maybe resentfully. I don't think some of them believe she's really my friend.

"Do you sell a lot?"

I shrug. "No, not a lot. Sometimes. I don't really care."

She looks at me incredulously. "You don't care? Don't you want to make some money? Do you have any other job?"

"Well, I work part-time in one of the warehouses. And I work now and then for a moving company. That's it. I don't need much. And every so often I sell a painting. So I'm doing okay." I hope I don't sound too defensive.

She's still looking at me, but moving closer to my pictures. She comes up to one of them.

"This one's really nice. The use of color is superb. What do you call it?"

"I don't call it anything. Titles can be so limiting. It's just a bunch of reeds by the ocean that I saw once at sunset near Sheepshead Bay."

"No title, huh? Well, it's damn good." She is now about half a foot from the painting. "What would you sell this for?"

I look away from her. I'm feeling more and more embarrassed. My friends are either staring right at us or making a point of looking away. "Oh, Cassandra, you don't have to buy it."

"Justin, I want to. I like it. I like it a lot. What are you charging for it?"

She's obviously not going to give up. She never does. "Oh, maybe six hundred."

"Six hundred dollars?" I'm afraid I've offended her by asking too much when she says immediately: "That's crazy! It's worth a lot more than that! I'll give you a thousand for it."

This is getting to be more and more like a dream. I don't even know why she's here; she never paid much attention to me in college, and afterwards we would run into each other—mostly by accident—maybe three or four times a year. We don't exactly move in the same circles.

"Justin, come on, please make up your mind. It's so bloody hot out here. I want to buy this painting. Are you selling it?"

I guess she really wants it, although I can't imagine why. It's not that good. "Sure, if you want it."

"Good. That's settled. I can write you a check right now."

I start to take the picture down, then stop. "It's getting kind of late; I need to pack up my stuff and take it back to my place. I may have a frame there if you want one . . ."

"I don't think I do—I'll get my own frame, if you don't mind—but I can help you take your 'stuff,' as you call it, back. We can put it in my car. Okay?"

"Okay."

Some of my friends are smirking as they see us load up her Ferrari with my paintings. They all bid me a very curt farewell as we drive off.

The streets in lower Manhattan are so confusing that I have to guide Cassandra very slowly—and she doesn't like driving slow. But I don't live far away. We get there in five or six minutes.

"This is where you live?" she says with a kind of mingled disbelief and scorn.

"Yes." I don't see any point trying to defend myself.

The building is an old warehouse that has been converted into apartments. I live on the fourth floor, and have to use a freight elevator—which I operate myself—to get up. It's not very clean. The lower floors are still being used for storage.

We bring all the paintings—except the one she has bought, which she puts in her trunk—up to my place. It's a one-room apartment with a tiny kitchen alcove. There's not much furniture there, especially since I need to make as much room as possible for my art supplies.

"Jesus, Justin, it's so hot in here. I'm drenched already."

"Sorry. I don't have air conditioning." I turn on the fan, which I've placed in the one window in the place.

She sits down on a ratty easy chair which I picked up from a used furniture store on Varick Street. As she sits, some of the foam is pushed out of it and floats in the breeze. She looks around, but there isn't much to see. So she turns and looks at me.

"Well, let's take care of business first." She fishes out her checkbook from her handbag and writes out a check with something of a flourish on the arm of the chair. She hands it to me.

"Thanks." I stuff it into my pocket. I don't want to look at it.

"Justin, do you have anything to drink? I'm so parched."

"I keep some cold water in the fridge." I almost run in the direction of the kitchen alcove to get it. "Is that okay?"

She looks at me a little pityingly. "Well, to be honest, I was hoping for some alcohol."

I stop in my tracks. "Oh. Sorry. I don't have any." I look at my feet.

"You don't drink?"

"Oh, I do. Sometimes. It's just . . . just that I don't have any right now." I perk up. "But I can get some real quick. There's a liquor store about two blocks from here—"

"Never mind, Justin. The water will be fine."

I feel like a total failure. I get the water, but am almost ashamed to hand it to her. But she reaches out for it eagerly as I come close to her. Her hand brushes mine for a second.

"So, Justin, are you happy with your life?" She always was one for getting right to the point.

I squirm a little. "Sure. I like my painting, and I can get by doing this and that . . ."

"But what do you want to do in the future? No offense, Justin, but you can't just live like this all the time."

I feel like a rabbit being cornered by a fox. "Well, I think I'm doing okay . . . There's not much money in painting unless you get really big."

She presses on. "Well, why can't you get really big? You have the talent, I think. Can't you display your things other than on a wall on Soho? How about the galleries here?"

I shake my head, half in resignation and half in disgust. "The galleries here are all run by cliques. They have their friends, and if you're not one of them, then you're nothing. They won't like my work—it's not avant-garde enough for them. I may have to start outside New York—way outside. Like the South or the West. If I get into galleries there, then the snotty New York ones might consider me."

I think this is the most number of consecutive sentences I've ever spoken to Cassandra.

She looks at me with a kind of grudging respect, almost wonderment. "Are you doing that?"

"What?"

"Getting into galleries in the South or wherever. Are you trying?"

"Sure. I'm sending my slides all over. I have some prospects here and there." I feel I'm slowly getting control of things.

"That's good. That's good." She's smiling; it's as if she almost respects me.

Suddenly she leaps up from the chair—the water was finished long ago—and goes to stand right in front of the fan. "Oh, God, Justin, it's just so hot. Anybody'd be crazy to stay in New York in August. I wish I'd gone with my parents to . . ." She cuts herself off, almost as if she's biting her tongue.

Standing in front of the window, the fan making her dress cling to her, she says: "Hey, this is some view."

The window faces south, so that you can see the towers of the World Trade Center looming on the right and Battery Park and the Statue of Liberty almost straight ahead. Tourists would love it, I guess. I've never been to the Statue of Liberty.

I walk up so that I'm pretty close behind her—closer than I've been to her in years. I can smell perfume mixed with her sweat. Even her sweat smells nice.

She takes the neck of her dress and pulls it out, bending over a bit so that the air from the fan can reach there. My heart leaps into my throat as I see she's not wearing a bra. I've never seen her breasts before.

She doesn't notice my glance immediately; but then, when she straightens up and turns around, she seems a little startled to find me standing so close. I didn't really mean to, it just happened that way. She first looks at me blankly, then starts to smile slowly.

"It's hot, isn't it?" she says softly.

"Yes." It's all I can say, and it sounds like a groan.

Without warning she puts her arms around me. I can feel her dress cling to my T-shirt. I can feel her breasts against my chest. I can feel her sweat.

"Justin, you sweet boy," she says, then kisses me hard.

I'm dizzy—not from heat. "Cassandra, what—" I manage to say after she stops kissing me. "What do you—"

"Don't say anything." She steps back from me for a moment and, before I can even comprehend what's happened, in a single motion she unzips her dress and steps out of it. She has nothing but panties on.

I'm already so hard that I'm ready to burst. I can't believe this is happening. Things like this don't happen to me. She pushes me gently back, so that I have to walk backward. An obstruction hits my knees. It's my bed. I fall back on it.

She's standing over me, looking down at me, smiling. In a flash her panties are off. I can't move or speak.

She wastes no time. She unzips my jeans and pulls them, along with my briefs, as far down as they will go. They're now around my ankles. My cock is standing straight up. She seems impressed—not at its size, but probably at the speed with which it has risen to attention. She takes it in her hand.

She puts her mouth over it.

I can't believe this is happening. I just can't. Should I tell her how long I've dreamed of this—how many times, from the moment I saw her in a class sophomore year, I've pounded myself to climax just thinking about her? How sick I felt attending her wedding? How grateful I was that she would even be my friend? And now this . . .

Oh, no! Please, no! She's only licked me a few times, but I feel that familiar explosion coming from my balls up to my cock. Oh, God, not now!

But I can't stop. I come while her tongue is licking the top of my shaft. Her face is bespattered; some of it goes into her mouth.

I'm horrified, but I still can't move. I'm afraid she's going to yell at me, kick me, maybe kill me. But all she does, after being momentarily taken aback, is to take a Kleenex from the floor (I have no end table) and wipe her face daintily with it.

"You naughty boy," she says, smiling.

I smile so hard that I start to laugh. She laughs with me. I see her sharp, straight, white teeth.

"I'm sorry," I say. "I didn't mean that to happen." I reach to put my pants back on, but she stops me.

She looks me right in the face with a kind of amused outrage. "We're not done yet, are we? Don't you want some more?"

I'm stunned by what I'm hearing. This really isn't happening to me. "Ye-ye-yes, I guess so." I feel like a fool—a child.

"You guess so? You better be sure, Justin." With that, she climbs up on the bed and tugs off my T-shirt. My pants are still around my ankles, because my shoes are still on, but I manage to kick both of them off somehow. It seems to take forever.

We start again. More slowly this time.

When it's over, she rests her head on my chest; I wonder if my chest hairs are tickling her nose, but she doesn't seem to mind. We say nothing, but after a while she turns her head and looks right at me, saying:

"Justin, this was really great, but we can't do this any more, okay? We've done it, and it's over. Okay?"

"Yeah, sure." I never expected anything else.

"You can handle that?"

"Of course."

"And you won't tell anyone? I am married, after all."

"No, of course I won't. What sort of person do you think I am?"

"You're a sweet person, Justin. Very sweet." She rests her head on my chest again. I lie back, totally spent. I drift off to sleep.

When I wake up she's gone.