When I got back to the car, Grey didn't look up from her game. “Teryl?” she asked.

“It's taken care of. The single-mindedness is actually even less sexy than you'd think.”

“Not sure why you'd think I care. I'm not here to sexually arouse you.”

“No, but it wouldn't hurt you to value-add. But it's taken care of. I've planted the seed. She'll divorce her husband. It's only a question now of sooner or later.”

I dropped Grey back off at her place, and went home. The police kept Julee around until after midnight, answering questions. By that point she was less interested in sex than in sleeping.

We met the next night at Breen's, and stayed long enough to share a piece of pie. Then we walked, hand in hand, back to my apartment. I couldn't be sure if Petra was following us. It takes paranoia time to mature. But if she were, or if she knew anyone who saw us, that would help her along her way. 

The sex was all right. I think we both knew Petra wasn't watching, not yet. And that made the entire endeavor more perfunctory.

I left early in the morning, a little before five. I dialed Teryl. “I can't sleep.”

“I can't eat,” she said back to me.

“Can I see you?”

“Is that a good idea? I haven't come to a decision yet.”

“I need to see you. I've already made that decision.”

“You remember that coffee shop? I live right upstairs. I'll buzz you in when you get here.”

When I arrived, she did. She had papers spread out all over her bed. “I got the papers the day I moved out. Had my attorney draw everything up. I never wanted Dick's money, and I didn't care if I lost any claim to it. But...”

“It's okay,” I said, putting my arm around her. “I didn't come here to pressure you. I wanted to see you. I couldn't stay away.” I gently kissed her jaw, where it met her neck. She purred.

“To talk?” she asked facetiously.

“We could talk if you like,” I said, kissing my way up her cheek towards her ear. “But I didn't come here to change your mind.”

“I haven't made up my, mind,” she said.

“But isn't that basically choosing the status quo?” I asked, kissing my way across her forehead.

“It isn't that simple,” she protested, and pulled my lips down to hers. She pressed herself against me until I fell down on the bed, on top of the spread out pages of her divorce.

She made love to me on top of them; for my part I mostly laid there.

When she was asleep, I gathered the pages and scooped them into an envelope; well, that's what I did with the dry ones. The moist ones I microwaved first. I'd made an appointment for a courier pick up at six, which meant he'd be by in less than a half an hour. I set the envelope on her porch, and took a shower.

She still wasn't awake when I got out. Which was fine. I wasn't angling for a goodbye kiss. I left. I must have startled her, closing the front door, because she called me a few minutes later.

“My divorce papers?” she asked.

“I sent them to Richard. Had a courier pick them up. You can hate me, if you want. But I'm... starting to care about you. And I'd rather see you happy but hating me, than watch you keep torturing yourself.”

“Thank you. I never would have sent them. Probably not for another million years, anyway. Any now that they're not sitting in my davenport, I can't for the life of me see what the trouble was with just sending them off. Our marriage has been over a very long time. There's no shame in making that official.”

It was still early when I got into the office. I went straight to work. It'd been a busy weekend, and I knew the fallout was going to be exciting.

Around ten, I recognized my handwriting on a parcel under a courier’s arm. Richard's divorce papers. He called me into his office a few hours later, fuming. “Your pet US Attorney sold us out, and she's already 'resigned' her post on account of the ethical misconduct of our firm. How she can resign a job she's never fucking done is anybody’s guess.

I was thrilled to see her go. She was a well-placed political ally. And if she ever decided to come at me, I had proof that she’d violated attorney client privileges, and could see to it that she was disbarred. Keep your enemies close, and a gun to your friend’s faces.

“Warwick called for an emergency board meeting. He doesn't have the votes to kick me off, but that's probably a matter of time. I've called George. His campaign is sputtering, and he still has enough voting shares to qualify for a seat on the board. And after what happened to Alice, there's an opening.”

“Wait, what happened to Alice?”

“She was attacked. By Rob Kierkegaard. Man's a fucking asshole. He was the one who raped her, years ago, practically made Alice's career. In exchange for not suing the shit out of him, we guaranteed her a fast track to upper management. But apparently Rob's been stalking her. He even sent himself messages, pretending to be her, setting up a time and a place for her to be 'willingly' raped. Then he broke into her house and was going to have his way with her. I'm surprised you haven't heard of this. It was your new AVP who found it out, putting in long weekend hours. If it weren't for Julee Hendricks, Rob would have raped Alice. Again. And I can’t imagine the ransom she would have asked for to silence that bell this time.” 

“Rob’s a sick shit. It makes me feel ill. It's my fault he's been around all these years. I thought he was a friend to the company. But apparently he just liked swimming in a pool he could piss in whenever he wanted. And I was enabling him.”

“But he's off the board. Conduct like that, we don't even have to have a hearing or call the question. But Alice... she took it hard. Being helpless again, at his hands... she tried to cut her wrists. Did a shitty job of it, so she ended up in the hospital with only minor blood loss, but still. Doctors got her lucid, and Sunday evening she asked to have herself put into a long-term care facility so she wouldn't hurt herself. That's a board member and a senior executive, gone.”

“But this shit happened on your watch. This is bad, Mark, I'm sure I don't have to tell you. But this is the opposite of what a strategy officer is supposed to accomplish, and, frankly, if I didn't need you to get me out of this, you'd be on your ass out the door.”

“As I see it, my hand-picked second is the lone thing that salvaged the weekend for you.” 

“Has haggling with God over blame ever gone well for anyone? No? So get out of my office, and Moses me a course to the Promised Land, before I get old testament on your ass.”

I closed the door behind me, and a woman's voice startled me.

“I want you to know, it wasn't just that he needed you. He took a lot of convincing before he decided to keep you.” It was Grey, and she walked, with her sultry little wiggle, towards me. “Of course, it was the least I could do, after you got Teryl to send through their divorce papers. But you know the shitty thing about Richard?” But she didn’t stop in front of me, she kept walking, and like a greyhound after a robot bunny I gave chase.

“The dead frog eyes?”

“Thankfully I don't have to see them when I blow him,... no, it's that I blow him. I finish him in my mouth, which gets me all worked up, and then he's back to the salt mines, and I'm stranded back on touch myself island.” She led me into the copy room and shut the door behind me.

“Richard's a selfish lover? Who'd have guessed.”

“And I thought to myself, where can I find a grateful, selfish bastard who overcompensates for his limitless greed by being about the most giving lover I can think of.”

“I'm flattered, that you think of me immediately after blowing other men.”

“And sometimes during.”

“That's sweet. I think.”

“You know I've got a schedule, right? I can't banter-flirt in here with you all day. Richard will eventually wonder where I've gone. So sex on the copier, in or out?”

“I usually find copious amounts of both are necessary for good sex.”

“Humor's not as sexy as comedians want to think it is. Now shut up and get inside me.” She sat up on top of the copy machine, and accidentally kicked it on.

When we were done, I wheeled the copier back to where it started, and checked the print trays. “Is there anything you'd like to do with a thousand photocopies of your vulva?”

“Would it be too meta to papier mache a giant replica of my vulva out of them?”

“No, but it would scare me a little.”

“You're afraid of female power.”

“No, I'm afraid of vaginas large enough to swallow me whole.”

“And the central metaphor of that fear is anxiety about strong women.”

“I’ll just put them into the confidential shredding bins, then,” I said, and started feeding the pages a dozen at a time into the slot in the big blue receptacle.

When I was done, I stopped back in my office to call Julee. “How much does your editor love you?”

“Just this morning it reached tongue another man’s come out of my ass levels of ecstasy.”

“Literally?”

“Figuratively. Why? Would that make you jealous.”

“As a rule, felching isn’t one of those things I get possessive about. But after this he’s going to try to put a ring on you. That other shoe we discussed. It’s time to drop it.”

“I’m going to have to see some proof, here, about all these money transfers.”

“Do you think I’d ask you- or your felching editor- to take anything on my word? It’s in my office. I figured I’d help you write it up, just like last time.”

“I’ll be right there, then.”

I’d ordered a new chair from the workplace managers. Some people would have thought it unromantic of me, replacing the chair she’d Fatal Attractioned in so many times. But her eyes lit up, because she understood my thinking on the chair exactly. “Low back, without arms. You always get me the nicest things,” she said, and wheeled it around behind my desk. I sat down in it. Then she pushed me so my back was to my computer and keyboard, and straddled me. “Like a glove.” 

“I’d say more like a tailored pair of slacks. For a more glove-like fit,” I unzipped my pants.

“How’d you know I wouldn’t be wearing panties?”

“How’d you know I wouldn’t want you wearing them?” I retorted as she lowered herself onto my lap. 

Fifty minutes later she relaxed against me. I was glad I’d brought a change of clothes, because I was lacquered in our sweat- and other fluids. “Some of my best work,” she said in my ear, “and the writing’s not bad, either.”

I twirled the chair around, so she was facing the door and I was facing the screen.

“You don’t name Richard as the one shunting money into his brother’s reelection campaign.”

“Is that a problem? He’s not in the documents.” She was right on that point.

“No. I’m sure that’ll be enough.”