Chapter 7

It took me most of an hour to sort my way through the story, or as much of as had been published. Journalists tend to be very roundabout when it comes to tawdry tales about public figures. They never say things straight out, everything's "reported" or "according to" or that catch-all, "alleged"; nothing ever just plain old happened. And they mince about with euphemisms a lot. Well, they're writing for family papers, and I guess they have to worry about lawsuits, too.

Some of the bloggers, though, when I got down to them—I went through quite a few sites—were a little less circumspect. And anyway, by then I had a pretty good flavor.

It was pretty nasty, all right, but nothing that over the top for political Washington. In fact, I had a hard time seeing what all the fuss was about; and so, apparently, did more than a few of the commentators, who pointed out that yes, Sen. Golden did indeed seem to have strayed from the reservation, but he was young (relatively; he was somewhere in his late 40s), he was unmarried, and all things considered so what?

And I was still a long way from understanding Susan's panic about the whole thing.

"Let me get this straight," I said at last. "Uh, Susan, you're still here, right?"

"I'm here," she said in a strained voice.

"OK, what I got out of all this is that you were, well, a lady of the evening and—"

"I was a hooker," she said roughly. "A whore. Don't pretty it up."

" ... You know, my dad used to have a saying about that kind of thing," I mused. "He said it was OK to call a spade a spade when you had to, but that didn't mean you needed to call it a fucking shovel. I'm not trying to pretty it up, but why make it sound like you were pounding the streets?"

Her voice was still rough. "Jesus, Larry, where's the difference? No, I never got that far down, but the ones who are out there every night, they do the same things, don't they?"

"You mean the Senator's lady and Rosie O'Grady are sisters under the skin?" I asked, paraphrasing Kipling. "Well, I suppose in a way."

"I wasn't just the Senator's lady," she snapped. "I was anybody's lady, anybody with some bucks to spend and an itch to get off. Bobby was just another john, except he was a regular. You like regulars when you're in my line of work, they keep the bucks coming in without your having to worry about strangers. Although there were always enough of them, too." Her tone was very harsh.

"And this is it?" I asked. "This is your big secret, the thing you've been worrying so hard all night about telling me?"

"Christ, Larry!" she exclaimed. "I fucked guys for money, don't you get it? Yeah, that's my 'big secret.' What do you think? I mean, go back to that night we met at the symphony. I still remember you introducing yourself to me as 'Larry Costain, certified nerd.' I thought it was so damn cute. What would you have said, what would you have done, if I'd introduced myself as 'Susan Malone, certified prostitute?' Would you still have taken me out for a drink afterwards?"

I laughed. "No, because I'd have been sure I couldn't afford one as beautiful and terrific as you," I said. "But if you'd said you were off-duty? Hell, yes. I was enjoying myself talking to you, you were smart and you had great taste in music, why would I care what you did for a living? I never really thought you were a virgin, you know." She laughed unpleasantly. "Unless you're trying to tell me something about, well, about my performance in comparison—"

"Goddammit, shut up!" she all but screamed. "Larry, I told you I fucked guys for money. That's what I did, fucked them. I've made love to one man in my life, and I never even knew the fucking difference before, you know?" She was sobbing again.

"Then Susan, honey, I don't care," I said gently. "That was then, this is now. Sweetheart, we've all got pasts," I added when she still cried.

"Not like mine we don't, most people don't," she said, continuing to weep audibly.

I shrugged. "The past is the past, whatever's in it," I told her. "Why should it affect the present more than it has to inside yourself?"

She took a deep breath to control her tears. Sure, that makes no sense when you think of a spirit, or whatever she was right now, who didn't need to breathe at all. But I could hear it; I guess the habits of the living die slowly in those who aren't quite alive at the moment.

"That evening," she started. "You'd been talking to me like that was what you wanted to do, talk. You were talking to me, not to my tits like so many guys do. And you'd been listening to me, you'd been interested in what I had to say even though I wasn't sure what I had to say was interesting. I didn't really know anything about music, I just liked it, and I was trying to kind of say why just as I was figuring it out myself, and you cared. Larry, I'd never had a man just talk to me like that, not ever. So I decided I wanted to show you how much it meant to me, and I figured, 'hey, I'm gonna go home with this dude and rock his world!'"

"You surely did that," I told her.

"So we get to your place, and I start my act, and you don't get it," she continued. "You're all about me! You want to please me, and you don't quit. And after a while I start to think, OK, maybe this is what it's like for girls who are just dating their guys, and I start to go with it, to relax, and it just keeps getting better and better, and for the first time in my life with a guy I actually came! Not just once, several times. And then you did, too, and I figured OK, guess that's it. So we're lying there, and you start talking to me again. Nothing deep, nothing special, but still a connection, you're not hinting how it's time for me to leave, you actually still want to be with me."