Free I Loved You Wednesday by David Marlow Page B

don’t care. I’m going to call him.” “You are not!” I insist. “I am too!”
    “ You are not!” I raise my voice. “I AM TOO!” Chris tops me. “YOU ARE NOT!” I holler.
    Chris pushes back her chair, knocking it over, as she stands with determination and heads for the telephone. I jump up and, racing to the desk, get there first. Placing the telephone behind my back, I stand defiantly erect. “Give me that phone!” growls Chris. “No!” I stand firm. “I’m not playing with you!” “I’m not playing with you, either.” “This is not your business, Steve!” “It is too!” “It is not!” “It is too, damn it!” “Give me the phone!” “NO!”
    “GIVE ME THE GODDAMN PHONE!” “NO!”
    Chris jabs me in the ribs, hard, taking me by surprise. As she stretches around and manages to wrest the phone from me, I lurch forward and grab it back again. She hangs on. I pull. She tugs. I pull back.
    “Chris, let go, damn it!” I pull, getting really annoyed.
    “NO!” she insists, tugging.
    “LET GO!” I pull, clenching my teeth.
    “NO!”
    Back and forth. Back and forth.
    “I-SAID-LET-GO-CHRIS-G OD-DA MN-IT!”
    “I-SAID-NO!”
    “I-SAID-YES!”
    Back and forth.
    “NO!”
    “YES!”
    “LET GO!”
    “NO!”
    “Yes!”
    “No!”
    Whack!
    I haul off, sending a fierce open-handed slap directly across her face, flushing her cheek beet red.
    Both of us stand stunned for what seems a very long three-quarters of a second, recovering from the sting. Finally, I extend the phone to her, saying quietly, “Jesus, I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. Here. Make the call.”
    “I don’t want to,” says Chris, turning her back on me.
    “I insist.”
    “Go to hell.”
    “Aw, come on.”
    “You hate me!”
    “I do not!”
    “You hit me!”
    “You deserved it.”
    “I did not. It hurts.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “I don’t forgive you.”
    I extend the phone to her again. “Here. Take it.”
    “Screw you. I don’t want it.”
    “All right. I’ll do it.” Dialing information, I get the number of the Blue Owl, call the restaurant and ask for Bradley. When he gets on the line, I hand the telephone to Chris. She hesitates at first but finally accepts it. Switching on her siren voice in an amazing recovery worthy of Bernhardt, she seductively says hello and then asks if he’d like to come over to her place after he gets off work.
    There is a long silence on our side of the wire, and all I can hear is the buzz of whatever it is Bradley’s saying.
    Chris listens attentively a few more moments and then calmly says, “I wouldn’t count on it,” before she hangs up.
    “What was that all about?”
    “Nothing,” says Chris sharply, scratching at a newlyarrived hive on her forearm. “I invited him over. He said it was impossible tonight . . . maybe some other time. I told him not to count on it.”
    “But why?”
    “Because I’m not a toy. He can’t just control me when he wants.”
    “But maybe he can’t make it tonight!”
    “Why not?”
    “How do I know why not?”*
    “Whatever he’s doing is not as important as breaking it if he really wanted to see me.”
    “Chris. I have seen you personally go out of your way before to screw up and destroy relationships, but this time you’re outdoing even your own self-destructive self!”
    “Name me one thing I’ve ever done that was self-destructive!”
    “Are you serious!? What would you call last year’s trip to St. Vincent’s emergency room?”
    “A passing fancy.”
    “Well, the next time a similar fancy passes—please—DO IT IN YOUR OWN APARTMENT!”
    “Don’t start with me, Steve!”
    “Always playing games instead of just coming clean. What if you’ve turned him off for good?”
    “Fine. It’ll give me something else to be upset about.”
    “How you love to wallow in that bullshit self-pity. Jesus!”
    “I won’t have you psychoanalyzing me, Steve. I’ve already fired two shrinks. I don’t need it from