Free The Touch of Treason by Sol Stein Page A

and windowsills, too? Your place reminds me of church, Joanne. Or Florence, who wore a bra with cut-outs that let her nipples show against her dress. If you wear something like that again, I’ll come in wearing a codpiece.
    Joanne and Florence were figurines. Nora was dangerous, a malpractice specialist, an independent who made more money from her one-third share of insurance settlements than Ned Widmer did down on Wall Street. He liked her crazy energy till he realized that it was all real for her, not a game; she wanted to bring every doctor who made a mistake—and who didn’t?—to his knees because her father had been a great surgeon who, when she was a kid, never once held his daughter in his arms, or smoothed her hair, or made her feel like an incipient woman. Not even Thomassy, with all his skill, could unlock the steel box in which her sexuality rattled like ball bearings. Maybe there was a safecracker for her somewhere, but it wasn’t him.
    Oh there were good ones, Elaine and Louise and others who had their own careers and lives and strengths. It was Elaine more than the others who made him realize that women seemed to see life in stages: this is what it’s like now, this is what it’ll be after we get married. Didn’t they see that every time they gave him a glimpse of the future, they unnerved him because he liked them as they were? In New York City, on the occasions when he couldn’t avoid the subway, Thomassy would watch the row of seated women opposite and pick out the long-married ones, the not-so-long-married ones, and the ones that were still single. How do you find a wild animal you can keep at home that won’t domesticate? Marry a Siamese cat.
    Francine was as direct as Nora had been, with a difference. Somewhere along the line Ned Widmer had given her the keys. Hell, she was as direct as a straight line. Lather my back in the shower. I want to eat. I want to be eaten. She didn’t advertise her desires, she announced them when he was a little off guard, because she knew the value of surprise. And he had to admit that the most erogenous physical attribute he had ever encountered were the convolutions of Francine’s brain, the light-and-sound show of Francine talking, flashes of insight that explained the world to a mere lawyer who hadn’t learned how to get her high-watt stations on his dial. “George,” she’d said to him, “you’re smart, why don’t you think?” and he’d wrestled her lovingly down to the bed, and she’d flicked the head of his ready member with her finger and said, “It’s your other head that needs the exercise, George.” Cracks like that turned him on, and she, the bastard, knew it. “I’ll suck your brain dry,” he’d answered, and she’d said, “That’s not where my brain is, George, but keep looking.” You don’t find a woman like Francine twice, he warned himself. Don’t let her get away.
    *
    Thomassy heard the siren, saw the motorcycle in his rearview mirror. The cop motioned him over. Officer, there’s a lady waiting for me in the shower with a bar of blue glycerine soap.
    Thomassy rolled the window down. “Was I speeding?”
    “No, sir,” the cop said. “Your license plate’s about ready to come off.”
    Thomassy stepped out into the drizzle and followed the cop to the back of the car. The license plate hung at an angle by one loose bolt. Thomassy squatted, took a nail file from his wallet, tightened the remaining bolt enough to secure the plate until he could replace the missing bolt.
    “Thanks,” he said to the cop.
    “That’s okay, Mr. Thomassy. Getting a replacement plate is a real pain in the ass.” The cop mounted his cycle and roared off.
    Some people liked being recognized. Last year, when he defended the Morgan woman, he was twice trapped by TV newsmen as he was leaving the courthouse by a rear door. Each time he said “No comment.” And while his face was on the screen that night the reporter’s voice said, “Defense