I'll See You in My Dreams: An Arthur Beauchamp Novel Read Online Free

committed a double gaffe. She had been enjoying the attentions of Erlander from Estate Planning, Kruger from Corporate, and Bixbee from Personal Injury while I, the only unattached male at the table, sat beside her nervously knocking back whisky sodas. Finally, as Bixbee went off to piss and the other fellows lost themselves in hockey talk (the Leafs were on a roll with Mahovlich, Keon, and Shack), she turned to me mutely, as if daring me to open my mouth.
    I said something like (the words are severely garbled in recall): “It must have taken great courage to enter a male profession. You should be proud of yourself.”
    She looked at me sadly – writing me off, I assumed – then said, “How come you’re the only guy here not trying to get into my pants?”
    The crudity both shocked and thrilled me. “I, ah, really don’t see you in those terms.” That was the second blooper, as well as a lie.
    She nodded. “I get the message.” I took that as a response to what she supposed was a coded communication, that I was, in the current usage, a homo. She seemed to relax and explained her trespass upon the male domain: she’d got “screwed” in divorce court; a law degree would enable her to pursue her well-to-do ex for increased support.
    Unfortunately, on that day in late April as we motored down Boundary Road, she still seemed to think I was not attracted to women, and that we were therefore freed from the games opposite sexes must play. It was warm in the car, and she’d taken off her suit jacket. A cautious side glance took in the outlines of a bra beneath her gossamer blouse. Sheer nylons beneath a skirt that had ridden above her knees.
    â€œSo, Arthur, what do you do for fun,” she asked, “when you’re not defending the dregs of society?”
    â€œI mostly read books.”
    â€œIt’s about the only lonely pleasure left, isn’t it, unless you count self-abuse. Have you read
Tropic of Cancer?”
    A sexually explicit novel banned beyond the borders of France, and particularly in chaste Vancouver, where several months earlier the morality squad had seized copies from a local bookstore. “I can’t say I have.”
    â€œI’ll slip you mine. Please don’t use it as a sexual aid – it gets the pages sticky.”
    I braked hard at a red light that seemed to come out of nowhere. When she raised an arm to brace herself, she exposed a bed of hair in the gully of her armpit, which,
horribile dictu
, caused an arousal reaction, a tugging below. I worried that I was deviant in some way, the armpit outscoring the breast as visual stimulator.
    (Pause here. That vaguely fetishistic interlude is something I feel bound to get off my chest. After all, Mr. Wentworth Chance has already stripped off much of my protective cover, so I may as well go naked. But since I intend this account never to see the light of day anyway – so many secrets, so many privileged truths and lies – it doesn’t matter. It’s merely purgative.)
    We were in the Burnaby hinterland by then, and ahead I could see the spirit-deadening ocherous four-tiered architecture of Oakalla Prison, on Deer Lake, whose beach on the opposite shore was a preferred destination for escapees able to swim.
    â€œDo you have – how do I put it? – a special friend, a companion?”
    â€œI hope I don’t disappoint you if I confess to being heterosexual, Mrs. Moore.”
    Her laughter was melodic and seemed to come from deep in her throat. “It disappoints that you call me Mrs. Moore.” That prompted another glance to my right, earning a glimpse of nyloned knee as I gripped the shift knob, trying to gear down.
    Lady, shall I lie in your lap?
whispered a prince bolder than I to his Ophelia.

    â€œHow’s the sacroiliac, Jethro?” I asked of the moustachioed old boy in charge of admissions.
    â€œHaven’t set down in ten days. This