Triptych Read Online Free Page B

electric buzz in his head. He should just turn around right now and let her fix her own board. Shit, Phil had to come home sometime; let him do it.
    Cynthia flashed him a smile as she opened the door. “Howdy, neighbor.”
    “Where’s Phil?”
    “Indianapolis,” she said, cupping her hands around her mouth to hide a yawn. “Selling support hose to the masses so he can keep me in the style to which I’ve become accustomed.”
    “Right.” He glanced over her shoulder. The kitchen was a pigsty. Crusty plates were stacked in the sink, take-out pizza boxes everywhere, cigarettes flowing out of ashtrays. He saw mold growing on a glass of what looked like orange juice.
    He said, “Gina told me you have a loose board.”
    She smiled like a cat. “It needs tightening.”
    Michael put down the hammer. “Why did you call her?”
    “Neighbors help neighbors,” she said, like it was simple. “You told Phil you’d look after me when he was away.”
    Phil hadn’t meant like this.
    She pulled him inside the house by his shirt collar. “You look so tense.”
    “I can’t keep doing this.”
    “What are you doing?” she asked, pulling him closer.
    He thought of Gina, the way she never looked at him anymore, how it felt when she pushed him away. “I just can’t.”
    Her hand pressed hard against the front of his pants. “Feels like you can.
    Michael held his breath, his eyes following the slope of her small breasts to her firm nipples. He felt his tongue slip out between his lips, could almost feel what it would be like to put his mouth on her.
    She unzipped his pants and reached in. “You like this?” she asked, moving her thumb in a circular motion.
    “Jesus,” he hissed between his teeth. “Yes.”

CHAPTER THREE
    Michael felt like shit. Hell, he was shit. The first time with Cynthia had been an accident. Michael knew that was a lame excuse, it wasn’t like you could just trip and the next thing you know, you’re in somebody’s vagina, but he really did think of it along those lines. Phil had called long-distance from California one night, frantic with worry because he couldn’t reach Cynthia. The man traveled all the time, selling women’s hosiery to the big department stores and probably wetting his whistle along the way. Michael didn’t have proof, but he had worked Vice for three years and he knew the type of businessman who availed himself of the local talent whenever he was on the road. The constant phone calls checking on Cynthia were more like guilt calls, Phil’s way of keeping tabs on her when he couldn’t keep tabs on himself.
    Gina had been working nights then, already pulling away from Michael when he reached out to her. Tim’s challenges were becoming more evident and her response had been to throw herself into work, doing double shifts because she couldn’t stand the thought of coming home and dealing with her damaged son. Michael was sick with grief, exhausted from crying himself to sleep at night and just plain damn lonely.
    Cynthia was available, more than willing to take his mind off things. After the first time, he had told himself it wouldn’t happen again, and it hadn’t, not for a year at least. Michael had work and Tim, and that was all he thought about until one day last spring when Cynthia had mentioned to Gina that her sink was leaking.
    “Go fix it for her,” Gina had told Michael. “Phil’s gone all the time. The poor thing doesn’t have anybody to look out for her.”
    He wasn’t in love with Cynthia and Michael wasn’t stupid enough to think she had those kinds of feelings for him. At the ripe old age of forty, he had learned that a woman who was eager to go down on you every time she saw you wasn’t in love-she was looking for something. Maybe Cynthia liked the thrill of banging Michael in Phil’s bed. Maybe she liked the idea of seeing Gina out the kitchen window and knowing she was taking something that belonged to another woman. Michael couldn’t let himself