Free Fag Hag (Robert Rodi Essentials) by Robert Rodi Page B

You need your sleep.”
    “We wouldn’t have to stay out late. I don’t know. Maybe I shouldn’t let him down. I mean, I’m just tired, not dead.”
    She looked at him sternly. “Peter Leland, you have no idea how to take care of yourself.”
    He shrugged. “Guess not. Well, hell. I’ll just go. If I start to flag, I’ll tell him we have to make it an early night, that’s all.”
    She sighed. “Well, I suppose.”
    She finished her pasta and went back to the buffet for seconds. When she returned, Peter was staring into space.
    “Honey? You there?” she said teasingly, resuming her seat.
    He looked at her dully. “Huh? Oh, yeah. Just really tired, that’s all.”
    “You do look like death warmed over,” she said, digging into her food.
    “Okay,” he snarled; “you don’t have to keep harping on how bad I look!”
    She was thrilled by his irritation; with any luck, he’d tear Lloyd to pieces this evening.
    Natalie slept well that night; she dreamed giddy dreams of Lloyd offending the barely conscious Peter and of the tremendous bust-up that must follow. Lloyd didn’t stand a chance. He wasn’t beautiful enough, or stylish enough, or witty enough to have any hold over Peter after a scene like that. She woke up feeling silly that she’d ever let him get under her skin.
    By nine o’clock Peter hadn’t called, so she took an enormous risk and called him first. The phone rang eleven times and she debated hanging up, but then he answered. “Good morning,” he said, his voice drowsy but unmistakably cheerful.
    “Hi, honey, it’s me,” she said, furiously trying to interpret his mood. “I was so worried about you being out last night in that exhausted state. Just wanted to see if you’re okay.”
    “I’m great,” he said, and offered nothing more.
    “Oh,” she said, momentarily stumped. “You stayed in, then, like a good lad?”
    “Not really. When Lloyd got here, I explained that I was really dragging my heels, and he understood. So we just went to Ann Sather for a quick dinner and then I came home and went to bed.”
    “I,” not “we.” Natalie grinned in triumph. “Doesn’t sound like much of a date,” she said. “Why did you send him home? Was he horrible to you?”
    “Well, actually, I did invite him up. I mean, I was too tired for sex but I thought we might cuddle, at least. And then, in the morning, who knows? But he turned me down. I think he’s really old-fashioned. He seemed kind of shocked that I’d suggest it on the first date.”
    Natalie was a little apprehensive now. “So he’s a prude, too?”
    “I guess. I thought it was kind of sweet, to tell the truth.”
    Lloyd Hood, the gun monger— sweet? She was having trouble with that one. “Well, I’m sorry it wasn’t starry-eyed romance and skyrockets,” she said desperately. “But they can’t all be. Someone else will come along, never fear.”
    He laughed. “Don’t be silly. I like Lloyd a lot. Over dinner, he really got my adrenaline flowing. We had this great discussion about corruption in big business. I asked him how he could support a free market when corporations in this country are destroying it with their criminal greed, you know? And he starts in with this theory he has that that’s all because companies are allowed to incorporate—that if he had his way, corporations would not exist. Like, a company is just what it says, a company of individuals running a business, and responsible for it. But a corporation is just what it says, too: a single entity, and, in the eyes of the law, the equivalent of an individual like you or me. Which it shouldn’t be. Lloyd says corporations encourage corruption because, if you commit a crime on the job, it’s really the corporation committing the crime, not you; you’re hiding behind this legal identity that doesn’t really exist, this monolithic corporation that takes the rap for you—and can afford to. Lloyd says every man should be responsible for his own