The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man_ A Norman De Ratour Mystery - Alfred Alcorn [96]
Let me start at the beginning.
Earlier this evening Diantha and I returned from a meeting with the Reverend Lopes and Father O’Gould to make arrangements for Elsbeth’s memorial service at Swift Chapel. Such matters are draining. They take an emotional toll the worse for not being expected. What order of service? What hymns? (For instance, one of Elsbeth’s favorites was Mendelssohn’s “Why Do the Heathens Rage?” But it didn’t seem appropriate to the occasion.) Who speaks? What about the reception?
At any rate, upon returning home, we felt simply too tired to cook anything for ourselves. Indeed, we were too drained even to contemplate going out for a quick bite. Ordinarily I do not enjoy sent-out food, the kind that arrives in white cardboard containers with plastic accoutrements and little pouches of condiments. But to indulge Diantha, whose spirits had ebbed woefully low, I agreed to call the Jade Stalk and order from a veritable laundry list of Chinese food. We ticked off black bean shrimp, some kind of shredded beef, sweet-and-sour something or other, and rice, of course.
I presently poured a glass of chilled white wine for Diantha and made myself a martini of lethal potency with at least three shots of good gin and a fair dollop of vermouth, which I chilled briefly over ice before pouring it into a frosted glass with an unpitted olive. I had just had the barest sip when the bell rang. I opened the door to find a young man of Asian aspect holding a white bag stapled shut with the cash register printout attached. I paid him the requisite amount, gave him a generous tip, thanked him, and closed the door. I took the bag of food and my drink into the television room, where Diantha was arranging plates and silver on the ample coffee table between the couch and massive screen of the television.
“Smells good,” she said, smiling at me. “I’m famished.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “It’s quite appealing when you present it on a dish.” We were each ladling generous amounts onto our plates. Some sort of police drama from the big city was on the television, one of those improbable tales of murder and mayhem with people yelling at one another and exchanging significant glances in between scuffling with criminal types. I never really pay much attention. To me most of what’s on television constitutes a kind of moving wallpaper with noise.
“The black bean shrimp is divine,” I remember Diantha saying. In one of those endearing, almost intimate gestures that occur between two people who are close, she held over a heaping forkful for me to take. We ate in greedy silence for perhaps ten or fifteen minutes. Diantha had switched the channel to what’s called a situation comedy, a low form of humor in which people make wisecracks about their bodily functions, contort themselves like idiots, and mug for the camera, all to the sound of canned laughter. Yet I was glad to see Diantha respond even to this meager fare, because of late she had become withdrawn and moody. I had taken just the merest sip of my martini, saving it for a postprandial. I remember thinking I should have made tea instead when Diantha turned from the television, let out a low moan, put down her plate with a clatter, and turned to me. “Norman, Norman,” she said breathlessly, her eyes going wide, her mouth opening. In one quite amazing gesture, she reached under her skirt and peeled off her panties and nylon tights. She leaned back, opened her legs to me and implored, “Norman, please, Norman, please.”
I might not have resisted even if, a minute or so later in time that had gone out of focus, the most powerful erotic sensation I have ever experienced had not rocked my entire body. I cried out a futile “no” but was already unbuckling myself, had turned into a veritable