Free Wages of Sin by Suzy Spencer Page B

I thought I’d call and see where we’re at and how things are going. Do you have a roommate, or do you live by yourself?” she asked.
    “No, I have a roommate,” Hatton answered.
    “Is it anybody I know?”
    “It’s just this guy.”
    “Is it Glenn?”
    Hatton never answered her.
    Soon he knocked on her door. Ten minutes later, Chris Hatton and Lisa Pace were in her bedroom having sex.
    Lisa’s mom came home. “Open this door!” she screamed, pounding her fists on the bedroom door. “You son of a bitch, I hate you. I’m going to call the police! You did my daughter shitty, and I want you out.”
    Chris and Lisa escaped to Old Settler’s Park, where they’d sat many times in high school and talked about how much they had loved each other.
    “We can work on things,” she said.
    “I just need some space. I need some time.”
    “What about all of my stuff?”
    “What about your stuff?”
    They argued about money and possessions. He called her a “money-hungry bitch.” She denied the accusation. Pace said, “You can just take me home. This conversation is not going anywhere.”
     
     
    Days later, Lisa Pace pulled on a short, tight dress, stockings, and high heels. She put up her hair, circled on the lipstick, and drove to the H-E-B grocery store. It was time for Chris Hatton to be there checking the beer shelves for Capitol Beverage. It wasn’t the first time Pace had hit the H-E-B, hoping to run into Hatton.
    She got a basket, stuck a couple of items in it, and strolled up the beer aisle. “Hey,” she said casually, “how’s it going?”
    Chris Hatton’s mouth almost hit the floor. “Wow, you look really great. You look awesome.”
    She damn well knew she looked great. She was 38-28-38 due to her National Guard training.
    “Thanks, I just had a job interview this morning,” she lied nonchalantly. “I’m on my way home. I just had to stop and get a couple of things.” She waited to see what he would do.
    He didn’t do anything.
    She wanted to touch, hug, and kiss him.
    He acted as though he didn’t want to talk to her.
    Still, in Pace’s mind, it had been a successful mission. She’d wanted to leave a hot, sexy imprint on his brain so that he wouldn’t stop thinking about her for at least another week. She thought she had left that message.
    Not many nights later, Lisa Pace again pulled into the H-E-B parking lot. This time she was with a male friend from Fort Sam, when she looked up and spotted her Dodge Dakota truck in the grocery store parking lot. “I bet Glenn’s driving it,” she railed and ran into the store, scouring the aisles for Glenn Conway.
    “Where is Chris?” Lisa demanded when she located Conway.
    “I don’t know,” he answered.
    “If I had had the key to the truck, I would have taken it. Chris is lucky that he has both of the keys. Glenn, you tell him that I don’t have a way to get around, and I don’t have a way to look for a job.”
    The very next morning, Hatton phoned and asked Pace who her new boyfriend was. She denied having a new beau.
    “Oh, yeah. Who’s this blond guy with this teal truck?”
    She told him it was a platonic friend from Fort Sam.
    “You are such a slut. The whole time you were at Fort Sam, you were fucking around.”
    She hung up.
    He phoned back and ripped her with more profane accusations.
     
     
    The following week Chris Hatton picked up Lisa Pace in their Dodge Dakota truck, ready to turn it over to her.
    “Are you sure,” said Lisa, “that you want me to take you home?” Purposely she was trying to rile him. “I can just drop you off at the corner or at a bus stop or something. I don’t have to know where you live.”
    He rolled his eyes at her.
    They went to the Aubry Hills Apartments.
    “Do you mind if I come up and see the apartment?” she said.
    “I guess.”
    She walked up the stairs to the apartment and saw the couch, TV, VCR, lamps, and vacuum cleaner she and Chris had bought. I paid for this stuff, too. And