Compromising Positions Read Free

its own way.
    “Judith,” Bob called in a hoarse whisper from the top of the stairs. “I’m waiting for you.” I finished hurriedly, leaving the broiling pan to soak overnight. He was indeed waiting, I saw, as I passed through the hallway to the stairs. His Valentine present lay on the shelf where he had left it, unopened. I walked up the stairs to him. “Hi,” he said softly, standing slim and naked and erect. He didn’t like to waste time. “Ready?” He asked me that three nights a week.
    “Bob, could you call Claymore tomorrow and try to find out some more information? Please?”
    “Come on, Judith. Who cares?”
    “I care. It’s interesting.”
    “Clay probably doesn’t know anything.”
    “But maybe he does. Or he could speak to his lawyer friend.”
    “How would that look?” he demanded.
    “It would look like you’re curious. Tell him I asked you to find out what’s going on. Clay likes me. He’d do it for me.”
    “I don’t have to bring you into it,” he snapped. “Come on, Judith, it’s getting late and I want to get to the office early.” I stepped toward him and ran my hands over his chest and stomach, firm from his daily prelunch workout, hairy and warm. “Come on,” he urged. “Let’s do it in bed. Okay?”
    We did, finishing neatly in our usual twenty minutes. It was fine; one hundred watts of sexual incandescence discharged, a baked potato’s worth of calories consumed, a faint aura of warmth and friendliness established that lasted through the night and into the first few minutes of the morning.
    At seven-thirty the next day I even smiled, then glanced out the living room window and noticed the Times on my driveway, practically pulsating with what I knew to be a major story on the Fleckstein case. But my path was blocked by Kate and Joey, having their first skirmish of the day.
    “Dumbhead.” Her dark brown eyes narrowed.
    “Chicken-doody-faggot,” he retaliated.
    Then Bob came downstairs, wondering aloud why I couldn’t find two extra minutes to roll his socks into nice little balls instead of stuffing them all into his drawer. By nine o’clock, they were finally dispatched to their respective first grade, nursery school, and office.
    Pulling a sheepskin jacket over my bathrobe, I scurried down the front path toward the driveway to retrieve the newspaper. The air was warmer than I had expected, the deceptive hint of spring before the end of February and the whole of March dump their final icy insults. Nothing in the index about the murder, I noted, reading as I walked back into the house. But I found a short squib on the third page of the second section, “Dentist Found Slain,” datelined Shorehaven.
    The body of Marvin Bruce Fleckstein, 42, a periodontist, was discovered in his office last evening in this affluent community on Long Island’s North Shore. According to a police spokesman, death was probably caused by a wound in the base of the skull. Investigators in charge of the case refused further comment, although they said a report from the Nassau County Medical Examiner’s office was due in a day or two.
    The Times had failed me. During elections, monetary crises, Congressional scandals, it had always come through. Throughout Watergate, there was always something to wallow in with my second cup of coffee, something enough even for me, a once-promising doctoral candidate in American political history. But today there was nothing to mull over. Not a blonde hair twirled around a button of Fleckstein’s jacket, not even a medicine cabinet tampered with. No mention, of course, that M. Bruce had found other orifices to probe. I sat slumped on a straight-backed kitchen chair, debating who would be the most fascinating person to call and discuss the case with. Nancy would be unavailable; a free-lance writer, she works from nine to one every day and takes her phone off the hook. Well, I thought, I could call...And the doorbell rang.
    I dashed out of the kitchen and