Free Siren's Garter: Issue One August 2016 by Miriam F. Martin

living.
    Or rather, what Elsie did for a
living. She still wasn’t sure exactly what it was Kevin did. If
she’d ever get to find out.
    But then, after proclaiming his
love, he turned and walked away, shoulders slumped and head bowed.
Not at all looking like a man who just had wild sex with the woman
he loves.
    What did it mean?
    Elsie dried off quick and streaked
nude across the hall to the downstairs guest bedroom. Her luggage
was there. She grabbed a set of lacy black bra and panties, a black
sleeveless blouse, and jeans. She didn’t bother drying her hair, or
with makeup.
    She walked upstairs with her
strappy wedge sandals in hand. Kevin was at the dinette table, with
a stack of Mom’s magazines at his elbow. He read the January
edition of Red Book .
    “ Engaging read?” Elsie said, not
trying real hard to hide her smirk.
    “ Amazing what you can learn from
the lady mags,” said Kevin.
    “ Such as?”
    He hid his face behind the
magazine, peering over the top at her as if sharing the world’s
dirtiest secret. “Ten ways to improve your sex life.”
    “ I remember that article! Pretty
solid advice, if I recall correctly.”
    “ Or how about the one on five ways
to tell he’s not really into you.”
    “ Also solid advice. Saved me more
than a few times.”
    “ Oh?”
    “ Yeah.”
    “ You going to tell me about
that?”
    “ How about you blab first,” said
Elsie. “You mind telling me why you’re in big trouble with Miss
Biggins?”
    Kevin sighed and tossed the Red Book aside, avoiding
eye contact with Elsie. The color in his cheeks blanched. He sat
still, hardly moving a muscle except for a nervous tap-tap-tapping
of his forefinger.
    Elsie opened her mouth to say
something—anything to break the awkward silence—and then words came
out of his mouth too, overlapping with her words and making a
garbled mess of sound.
    “ Go ahead,” she said, and sat on
the red cushioned barstool next to him.
    “ Ever wonder,” Kevin said. He
shifted his butt on his stool. “Ever wonder if we’re not meant to
be?”
    Elsie grabbed his hand, a little to
roughly perhaps, but she had to stop the annoying little tapping.
Then she squeezed his hand and put on a pleasant smile.
    “ All the time,” she said. “Baby, I
worried about being with you constantly from the day we
met.”
    “ You did a good job at hiding that
worry,” Kevin said.
    “ I’m sorry. I just wanted a normal
life, without intrigues and danger. I wanted to be a housewife and
join a bookclub and garden or whatever the fuck normal suburban
people do.”
    “ I wanted that, too.” Kevin
adjusted his collar, and looked her in the eyes. “Well, not being
the housewife part. But you know.”
    “ Yeah, I know.”
    She wanted to add so much. To say
things to make him feel better, to comfort him, win him back. Hell,
Elsie wanted to talk to comfort herself. But she let the silence
hang. It was a sweet moment of tension.
    She’d have preferred the tension of
rough sex.
    Kevin tapped with his other
finger.
    She grabbed his other hand, and
squeezed tight once.
    “ I don’t have this nervous tick in
the field,” Kevin said at last. “Just seems to happen with
you.”
    Elsie had noticed the habit, often
when Kevin was trying to hide something. Like when he proposed, but
he tried waiting until the “perfect moment” to pop the
question.
    It’d been at Ned’s Bistro, a pasta
and lasagna joint in New York City. The tapping drove Elsie near
insane, until she grabbed him by the hands, much like she was doing
now, and peppered him question after question.
    He broke down, got on one knee, and
presented her with the most beautiful diamond ring she had ever
seen.
    Elsie had often wondered if he were
a spy, but that nervous tick told her he was a normal guy. A
confident, sweet talking guy, but just a guy. She’d been
wrong.
    What else had Kevin been hiding all
this time?
    She clutched his hands, tickling
his palms with her fingernails. The skin was sweaty