Free Tumblin' Dice by John McFetridge

vodka and Loewen could feel it, the way she let out a sigh of relief, a little overdone, kind of dramatic, when Armstrong walked away. Figured it was the gross crime talk, which was too bad because it didn’t leave him much to talk about, meant he’d be listening to more insurance bullshit. He watched Armstrong shaking hands with the cops, sitting down next to Jones, comfortable, confident, easing his way into their conversation.
    Miriam made a sound like a harumph, another grandmother sound, and said, “Affirmative action, eh? That’s Toronto.”
    Loewen looked at her and said, yeah, well, “What’re you gonna do?”
    She looked at him sideways, sympathetically, nodded her head, and smiled.
    He figured what was he gonna do? Call her a bigot and walk out? Now she thought they were bonding and she’d told him what a mover and shaker she was in the boardroom, she was ready to show him how fantastic she was in the bedroom. He said, “So your room is on six?”
    She said, “Yes, it is. But it’s on the south side — you can’t see the planes taking off.”
    Loewen said, “I’m not interested in the planes taking off.”
    Miriam smiled at him as she drank her vodka, actually winking at him over the glass.
    Loewen figured, what the hell, he was putting up with this boring conference, might as well get something out of it.
    â€¢ • •
    Sitting on the edge of the bed, arms behind her back hooking her bra, Angie said it’d been a long time since she’d had a nooner, and Ritchie said, it’s like, six o’clock.
    She said, “Shit, is it that late? I’ve got to get going,” and Ritchie said, why, you’re the big boss lady.
    Turning to look at him, still stretched out on the bed, naked and as skinny as he was when he was a twenty-five-year-old rock star-to-be, she tilted her head, hair parted on the side and falling over one eye, and she said, well, you know, “I still have a job to do — I can’t spend all day in bed,” thinking about Felix Alfano, telling him Frank couldn’t be bothered to show up, he had something better to do, and imagining Felix saying, oh yeah?
    Ritchie was lighting a cigarette, dropping the match in the ashtray on the bedside table, and she watched him take a drag and let the smoke out and then put his head back on the pile of pillows. He was smiling at her like a kid who got away with something, and she liked that, it made her feel like he thought she was something.
    She reached out and took the smoke from his hand, a strong guitar player hand that could still stroke her in just the right way, and she said, “I’ll tell you though, you’re better than ever.” She inhaled, blew smoke at the ceiling, and Ritchie smiled and said, it’s not me, Ange, it’s you, “You finally caught up,” and she said, what?
    â€œWhen we were screwing before, you were what, twenty-one?”
    She said, yeah, sure, not about to tell him it was closer to seventeen.
    â€œHell, chicks don’t really get interested in sex until they’re well into their thirties.” He held out his hand for the smoke, but she pulled it away, saying, “We’re interested, we just don’t hit our peaks till thirty-five.” She took another drag watching him smile that got-away-with-something smile through rising smoke.
    â€œYou start peaking at thirty-five,” he said, “or forty. I’ve known women didn’t really get going till forty-five, but once they start, they can just keep peaking. You want to smoke? Here.” He tossed the pack on the bed, but she handed the lit one back to him, saying, “I quit three years ago.”
    â€œEverything?”
    She looked up and down his naked body, slowed over his dick, and then looked him in the face and said, “Almost everything.”
    â€œRight. Anyway, at twenty-one you fuck because that’s what