Free Rake by Scott Phillips

exploding head, reading a comic book.
    “Listen, Fred, you can’t just stare at her all night. Go over and sit with her. Ask her to dance. What you’re doing right now is giving her the creeps. Hell, it’s giving me the creeps.”
    “Oh.” He stared at his feet.
    “When’s the last time you courted a woman?”
    “That was my wife. Eight, nine years.”
    “Were you better at it then than you are now?”
    “Not really. My wife was pretty aggressive.”
    I turned to the assembly and announced that I was going to dance.
    •       •       •
    That girl in the cage was dressed even more skimpily than before, and I swear this time I saw a glistening flash of vulva through those raggedy shorts. I started off dancing with Esmée, while Fred took Marie-Laure for a partner and Mathieu shook it with the assistant. Esmée had a most disconcerting way of staring deep into my eyes while we danced, a look so fraughtwith implications I couldn’t help but think that moving into her empty place was going to be a mistake. I started a silent mantra: Her husband is going to help finance the movie. Her husband is going to help finance the movie. Her husband—
    But then I saw the way those hips moved and I didn’t care about the movie at all.
    When the song changed I danced with the assistant. I would have sung Fred’s praises, but she seemed completely lost in the music, transported and almost unaware of my presence. I took careful stock of her with the intention of helping Fred: She was young, no more than twenty-five, she was ambitious (I thought), she was a long way from home (her accent suggested the Côte d’Azur), she was quite pretty (prettier than I’d noticed, previously, which may not have boded well for poor Fred), and she was quite a graceful dancer. She also had very long legs.
    Shit. Having convinced my friend that he should make an effort to sleep with her, and him having taken the idea quite seriously, I found myself in the uncomfortable position of wanting to fuck her myself. Another mantra: She’s Marie-Laure’s assistant. She’s Marie-Laure’s assistant. She’s Marie-Laure’s—
    The music changed again and I found myself dancing with a frankly chilly Marie-Laure. I was under no illusion that her anger stemmed from any particular attachment to me; it was the presence of a competitor, one who might be getting the upper hand pure and simple. She refused to look me in the eye, and I really hoped that she was going to agree to come back to the suite with me tonight, because that kind of angry sex is really better than any other kind.

DIMANCHE, HUIT MAI
    S HE DID COME BACK WITH ME AROUND 3:00 AM, and she confirmed my hunch that the bottles of champagne that Esmée had sent were expensive, even more so than I’d guessed. We drank half of one bottle along with some of the cheese from the basket, then got up to some of that grudgefucking I’d been looking forward to. Afterward, lying on the floor naked, we polished off the rest of the bottle
    “Doesn’t your husband object to these nights when you don’t come home?” I asked her.
    “It’s not that kind of marriage.” She stretched out a long leg and stared down it as if down the barrel of a sniper’s rifle. “You be careful with that Esmée. I did a little checking up, and her marriage isn’t that kind.”
    “Meaning?”
    “Meaning her husband is the kind who’d object strenuously if she strayed.”
    “I don’t picture her as the type that strays.”
    Marie-Laure snorted at me. “Don’t be a shit-for-brains. I saw the look she was giving you all night. So did Mathieu, who, I would remind you, works for her husband.”
    “Mathieu’s his partner, strictly speaking.”
    “Don’t be a dumbass. He’s pure front, a manager posing as an owner. All I’m saying is if you fuck her, you’d better be damned careful.”
    “You hadn’t struck me as the jealous type before,” I said with my famous, teasing TV smirk.
    “Don’t be