"You didn't ask me," he thought to himself. "But in all fairness, I probably wouldn't have told you even if you had asked."
The air was warm and close in her third floor walk up efficiency apartment. Summer had come early and the air conditioning hadn't been turned on yet. The parquet floors were worn by years of similar scenes and some of the shingles shifted in place when you stepped on them. But there was no escape for the shingles or the people. The tiles were held in place by the geometry of the floor just like the people were held in place by the geometry of their lives. Clothes were piled randomly on an overstuffed chair that was beginning to leak its stuffing through worn spots on each arm. The apartment smelled vaguely like a used book store and even the wide open window, which overlooked another building only a few feet away, did not provide any relief for the victims, trapped in time by close air and circumstance.
She was sitting up in the bed with a sheet pulled up and clenched tightly in her fists to protect her modesty. Her face was contorted with agony and disbelief, as her mind went back over the events that led to this betrayal. She had been sitting at the bar with her girlfriend when he had casually drifted over. It had all seemed so benign. He said that he was new in town and asked if all the bars were this noisy and smoke filled. He said that the loud music gave him a headache. He had seemed vulnerable and not at all on the make so she let her defenses down. She wasn't even sure if he was interested in her. At one moment they were just strangers sharing observations. In the next moment he would lean closer and share a more personal view: a remark followed by his slightly shy boy-next-door smile. A smile that drew you in like a field of emotional gravity. Any less attention and she would have thought he wasn't interested. Any more and she would have felt like he was coming on to her. But he walked the line of ambiguity like a tightrope and before she knew it they were leaving together looking for quieter place where they could talk. One thing led to another, as they say, and now they were here with the many sins of the nights hanging heavy in the still air. So much was now at stake - her trust, her equilibrium, the lenses through which she would see the world. The sense of betrayal welled up in her again until she could no longer contain it and she screamed at him, again demanding some sort of explanation to make sense out of this outrage.
Garner Bullis inspected her with an unruffled, cool detachment. Her eyes were rimmed in red and her cheeks were flushed. The skin just above her modestly exposed cleavage was blotching in irregular patterns. Tears flowed down the sides of her face catching wisps of stray limp blond hair that began matting to the sides of her face. Garner knew how to get control of the situation. He would speak softly and reassuringly. He would look her in the eyes and tell some outrageous lies, calculated to make her feel better. Then, at the right moment he would smile that warm ingratiating, vulnerable smile that says, "I am at your mercy, please forgive me." She would pause for a moment and consider it. She would hold out on principle even after she had given in emotionally. Then, with the magnanimity of Mother Theresa she would say, "Well, I guess it was just a misunderstanding." And he would be forgiven. Yes he knew what to do, but there were two problems. First, he didn't feel like making the effort. And worse yet, he wasn't a hundred percent sure that he could pull it off. For lately he had been slipping.
One of those slips had just occurred. He had gotten up and started dressing. She (he didn't quite remember what her name was … Myra or Moira or something like that) had asked him to stay a while longer. He was distracted by other things on his mind and had mumbled something about Rose waiting up for him. Then all hell broke loose. He had let the situation get out of control, which was something he never did. It happened because he had too many things on his mind. Five years ago, this would never have happened. But it was happening now and Garner wasn't even sure if he cared.
Garner, or 'Gar' for short, was an even six feet tall, with sleepy gray blue eyes and thick medium brown hair. An off-the-rack 38 long suit hung on him like it had been custom tailored. His jaw was square but not angular and his teeth were perfect. When he lowered his voice to a confidential tone and broke into his boyish, slightly awkward smile, you would give him your wallet for safe keeping. And long after your wallet had turned up empty, you would half expect Gar to show up again with a perfectly reasonable explanation.
"Well!!" She demanded, her chest heaving in rhythmic gasps. Tears still streamed down her cheeks and her nose was turning alcoholic red.
"You really look like shit," he thought, as he weighed the merits of salvaging the situation.
It was Garner's thirtieth birthday and he had decided to treat him self with a little action on the side. He had been with Rose for two years now and felt like a change of pace was in order. Picking up a little trick in a bar was so easy that Garner had given it up completely when he met Rose. There was no satisfaction when there was no challenge. But, he had been down lately and thought that a little fling might perk him up a bit.
She was still waiting for an answer. His apathy turned to disgust. "On a scale of one to ten," he thought, "you are a six at best and I am a nine. So you should be grateful instead of angry." A nine. He used to be a ten, until... Well that wasn't something to dwell on now.
Rule one of the grifter was to always leave the mark happy. But he just wasn't into it. So he decided to not even deal with the situation. Instead, he pulled on his jacket, turned and walked out.
"Timothy Markus," she screamed on the verge of hysteria. "You are a son of a bitch!"
He smiled to him self and felt warm inside. At least he hadn't used his real name.