Chosen Prey Read Free Page A

“error” as might a papal inquisitor: “Last year” Qatar had been two weeks late with the budget.
    “Well, that’s simply impossible,” Qatar said. “If you’d given me any notice at all . . .”
    “You apparently didn’t read last week’s departmental bulletin,” she snarled. There was a light in her eye. She’d caught him out, she thought, and he’d soon get a corrective memo with a copy for his personnel file.
    “Nobody read last week’s departmental bulletin, Charlotte,” Qatar snarled back. He’d been widely published and was permitted a snarl. “Nobody ever reads the departmental bulletin because the departmental bulletin, is, in the words of the sainted Sartre, shit. Besides, I was on periodic retreat on Thursday and Friday, as you should have known if you’d read the memo I sent you. I never got the bulletin.”
    “I’m sure it was placed in your mailbox.”
    “Elene couldn’t find her own butt, much less my mailbox. She can’t even deliver my paycheck,” Qatar said. Elene was the departmental secretary.
    “All right,” Neuman said. “Then by tomorrow. By noon.” She took one step backward, into the hallway, and slammed the door.
    The impact ejected Qatar from his office chair, sloshing coffee out of his cup, across his fingers, and onto the old carpet. He took a turn around the office, blinded by a red rage that left him shaking. He’d chosen the life of a teacher because it was a high calling, much higher than commerce. If he’d gone for commerce, he’d undoubtedly be rich now; but then, he’d be a merchant, with dirty hands. But sometimes, like this, the idea of possessing an executive power—the power to destroy the Charlotte Neumanns of the world—was very attractive.
    He paced the office for five minutes, imaging scenarios of her destruction, muttering through them, reciting the lines. The visions were so clear that he could walk through them.
    When the rage subsided, he felt cleaner. Purified. He poured another cup of coffee and picked it up with a steady hand. Took a sip, and sighed.
    He would have taken pleasure in throttling the life out of Charlotte Neumann, though not because she appealed to his particular brand of insanity. He thought he might enjoy it the way anyone would whose nominal supervisor enjoyed small tyrannies as Neumann did.
    So he would get angry, he would fantasize, but he would do nothing but snipe and backbite, like any other associate professor.
    She did not engage him—did not light his fire.
     
    T HE NEXT DAY, passing through Saks, he found that the cashmere sweaters had gone on sale. There wasn’t much cold weather left, but the cashmere would wear forever. These particular sweaters, with the slightly rolled neckline, would perfectly frame his face, and the tailored shoulders would give him a nice wedgy stature. He tried the sweater on, and it was perfect. A good pair of jeans would show off his butt—he could have the legs tailored for nine dollars a pair at a sewing place in the skyway. A champagne suede coat and cowboy boots would complete the set . . . but it was all too expensive.
    He put the sweater back and left the store, thinking of Barstad. She did engage his insanity: He could think of Barstad and the rope and find himself instantly and almost painfully erect. Blondes looked so much more naked than darker women; so much more vulnerable.
    The next day was Wednesday: Perhaps he could buy them after all.
    He would take the rope.
     
    B UT ON T UESDAY evening, still thinking about Barstad and the rope, feeling the hunger growing, he was derailed again. He arrived home early and got a carton of milk from the refrigerator and a box of Froot Loops from the cupboard, and sat at the table to eat. The Star-Tribune was still on the table from the morning; he’d barely glanced at it before he left. Now he sat down, poured milk on the Froot Loops, and folded the paper open at random. His eye fell straight down the page to a small article