It all began about six months earlier, right around the time Fi left. I first noticed Gym Girl in the weight room, doing chest presses on the bench. There's nothing that makes a man feel more manly, I firmly believe, than lifting weights in close proximity to an attractive woman. It's not just the surges of adrenaline or the sweating or the grunting; it's also (maybe even mainly) that the average guy can lift so much more than the average woman that it makes him feel definitively above average. When a woman is bench-pressing forty-five pounds and sees you bench a wholly unimpressive one-fifteen or so, her perspective is not comparing you to other guys. She's comparing you to herself and is impressed by the unimpressive.
Bench-pressing a buck-fifteen in front of Gym Girl made me feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime.
For a little while there, I simply noticed that she tended to do treadmill/elliptical work on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, and that she appeared in the weight room on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Almost unconsciously, almost without intending to do it, I altered my own workout schedule to match hers. For a few months, we gave each other the occasional nod or polite smile, but then one day -- shortly before I first met Manda, actually -- she left her plates on the bench press bar when she switched over to the hip adduction machine. I knew she was finished with the bench (by this point, I knew her workout routine as well as I knew my own), but I took the opportunity to approach her.
"Excuse me." I waited for her to take out her earbuds. "Are you finished with the bench?"
"Oh!" She grimaced. "Yeah. I'm so sorry. I should have put my plates back. I'll--"
"No, no," said chivalrous I, "I'll get it. It's no big deal." Translation: I am so strong and manly that moving weights is not a problem for me.
"I'm sorry," she said again. "Hey, I have a question."
"Sure."
"That thing you do. That one exercise that's sort of half chin-up, half-upside-down push-up... What's that for?"
"Well," I said, thinking quickly, "that works the back, really. The back and, uh, the shoulders a bit."
I had no idea what that particular exercise did. Tayvon had walked me around the gym one day, showing me how to use the machines and rattling off sets and reps. Since he is built like the love child of Michael Phelps and Taye Diggs, I listened obediently and asked no questions.
"That makes sense," she said thoughtfully. "I'm" and said her name and extended her hand.
I became aware of the fact that we were the only two people in the weight room. I introduced myself and shook her hand and the next thing I knew, we had been talking for at least a half hour. We waved hello in the cardio room the next day and she laughed and said, "Hey, looks like our schedules are in sync!"
Thanks to me, they were, and I did everything in my power to keep them that way. Hence dashing away from Tayvon to go to the gym, where I emerged from the locker room into the cardio room, to find that Gym Girl was on the treadmill today, along with a dozen other huff-and-puffers.
Glorious day -- the only open treadmill was directly behind Gym Girl.
I gave her a wave and a grin, which she returned, and then hopped on the vacant treadmill, which afforded me a distracting view of her rear. I had never really considered myself an ass-man, but Gym Girl's example of assery was enough to make me rethink that position. She peered back at me and I lifted my eyes in plenty of time, pretending to be absorbed in ESPN on the center monitor.
"Smoothies after?" she asked, her face and neck glimmering with a thin sheen of perspiration.
"Sure!" I said. It had become a sort-of ritual for us; once a week, we showered and changed and headed next door to the organic fruit stand, where they made grotesque smoothies that I was happy to pretend to enjoy.
I jogged lightly for a while, reveling in the smooth play of Gym Girl's buttocks in her skin-tight Lycra. It was hypnotic, like the road at night, or a scroll saw. I didn't even realize that the person on the treadmill next to me had been replaced until a familiar voice said, "How have you not closed the deal on this one yet?"
I blinked and shook myself out of my daze. The devil was on the treadmill to my right, walking a lazy one mile per hour, wearing a pair of baggy shorts, a loose-fitting Hawaiian shirt, dark Ray-Bans, and a white fedora with a black band, tilted at a rakish angle. He looked ridiculous and relaxed.
"Excuse me?" I asked, panicked that someone -- especially Gym Girl -- would overhear.
"You're excused. Why haven't you closed the deal on Ms. Ass 2013 over there?" He gestured, as if I hadn't gotten the point.
I swallowed hard and glanced around. So far, no one had noticed. "Ixnay on the--"
"I hate Pig Latin," the devil said, wrinkling his nose. "Don't worry -- I've got it covered. To the rest of them, you're just jogging along at an oh-so-impressive--" he craned his neck to read my treadmill "--wow, four whole miles an hour, and chatting with the guy next to you about ESPN."
"Oh." That was sort of cool, I had to admit. I told him so.
"Yeah, I know. I have tricks. Comes with the job description and the whole exiled-from-paradise vibe I'm working. I'll ask again: Why. Haven't. You. Hit that. Yet?" With a significant eyebrow-jerk in the direction of the Undulating Ass of Gym Girl.
"She's got a boyfriend."
"I find it interesting that you mention her boyfriend, but not your girlfriend."
"I don't -- I hadn't gotten there yet."
"Oh, forgive me," he said mockingly. "It's just that it sounded like a period at the end of that statement, not a comma."
"And Manda and I haven't even brought up the whole boyfriend/girlfriend thing."
"You've been fucking her steadily for a couple of months. I'd say that puts you in boyfriend territory. But what do I know? I only invented relationships."
"Didn't God do that?"
He waved me off. "I don't have time to explain this to you. The fact remains: Why haven't you made the move? She wants you. It's so obvious."
I swallowed hard. My first instinct was to deny it, but the devil had only given voice to what I suspected already. Gym Girl's conversations with me, the eager look on her face when I showed up at the gym... These things had convinced me a while back that she was interested. So petrified was I of making an unwelcome advance, though, that I persuaded myself that I was wrong, that I was imagining things. She had a long-term boyfriend, for God's sake.
"People cheat," the devil said casually, as if he had read my mind. "It happens."
"Because of you, no doubt."
Had he read my mind?
"I can't really read your mind," he offered, in seeming contradiction. "But I can read you."
"I don't get the distinction."
"That's not my problem. Now, I've done my share of tempting," he admitted with a humble air, "but when you folks stray, it's not all me."
"I know, I know," I said, feigning boredom. "We're just petty, pathetic animals, slaves to our baser instincts--"
"Sure, sure. That's true, too. But I wasn't going to say that. Sometimes it's you-know-who. The Old Man." He pointed straight up.
"God makes people cheat?"
"Your precious Almighty One set things up so that there's seven billion people on this mudball," the devil said with both patience and annoyance. "And then he tells you, 'OK, when you find a good one, pair up for life.' Do you know the odds, on a planet of seven billion people -- where you're separated from the rest of the population by thousands of miles, language barriers, and mismatched technology -- of that first or third or even tenth 'good one' being the one? It's like seven billion to one."
"I don't...think that's quite right. If you multiply--"
He waved me off. "Math's not my strong suit. My point remains: He's set you people up to fail. You have to cheat. The odds are against you. You all meet someone you think is perfect for you and then along comes someone who really is. It's not your fault. You didn't know. You couldn't know! You thought you were in love and doing the right thing, but you don't have any sort of baseline in your
DNA that tells you what the fuck is the right thing to do. If you have a problem with cheating," he concluded triumphantly, "blame the Old Man. He's the one who built you people without the necessary emotional and psychic equipment."
It made a horribly disturbing sort of sense, the worst of all the possible kinds of sense.
"So... You're saying I should cheat with her?"
The devil shrugged. "You have free will for a reason, dude. I'm just saying that if you do decide to cheat--" he stared significantly at Gym Girl's ass over his shades "--don't be too hard on yourself or on her." He thought for a moment and then grinned in what I would have thought to be innocent delight if I didn't know who and what he was. "Well, go ahead and be plenty hard on her, if you get my drift."
I looked at her ass again and grinned despite myself. "Hey, by the way, when are you going to make my book a hit?"
But the treadmill next to me was empty.
I shrugged and picked up the pace, running as if I could eventually catch the beguiling ass twitching before me.
Wherein I Have a Smoothie
Gym Girl emerged, hair still slightly damp, from the women's locker room; her face lit up when she saw me, and I thought again of the devil's admonitions and encouragements. He would not be a very good devil, I supposed, if he couldn't read people. Sense their desires. Intuit and divine their wants and urges. Then again, he would also not be a very good devil if he told the truth about such things.
The devil can quote Scripture for his own purposes, went the old saying. Or was it not just an old saying; was the saying itself actually Scripture? I couldn't remember.
Anyway, I suppose sometimes telling the God's honest truth could be the most evil thing one could do. The fact that the devil clearly wanted me to cheat on Manda with Gym Girl and wanted Gym Girl, coincidentally, to cheat on her boyfriend with me meant that I couldn't allow myself to do it. My resolve was firm.
But that didn't mean I couldn't say yes when she asked, "Still have time for a smoothie today?"
Moments later, we were sitting under an umbrella at 2 Your Health, she with a mango/strawberry/guava smoothie, me with banana/coconut. As she reached up to tie back her hair, her white peasant blouse molded to the contours of her breasts for a delicious, indelible moment. Somewhere, I figured, the devil was laughing.
"How are things with Manda?" she asked and then pointedly sucked on her straw.
And here, I have learned, is the difference between men and women. Never mind the Martian/Venusian dichotomy of Gray's conjecture. Never mind the stand-up comics' laments about the asking or not asking of directions. Never mind any of it.
The difference between men and women is this: When a man is in a relationship and considering cheating, he wants to talk about anything in the world but his relationship. When a woman is in a relationship and considering cheating, she will gladly talk about her relationship, his relationship, whatever.
"It's because," the devil said, pulling up a chair to join us, "she wants you to understand that she's in a relationship, but it's not ideal. So she's open to something better, but she's not going to make the first move. Rather, for her, this is the first move. It's about as aggressive as most women get. She's saying, 'I'm desirable, and here's my proof, so why not do something about it?'"
I nearly choked on my smoothie.
"Are you all right?" Gym Girl asked, concerned. She looked right through the devil, at what must have appeared to her as empty air. "Is there a bee or something?"
The devil now whipped off his shades and leaned back in his chair, appraising her openly, his eyes traveling from head to toe and back. "You have good taste; I'll give you that. And, yes, I've made it so she can't see or hear me, and if you keep gaping at me like a redneck seeing his first black guy in a suit, you're going to have her thinking you're prone to seizures. Which is not sexy."
I blinked as though chasing away a sudden daydream and gave Gym Girl my full attention and my biggest smile. "Sorry. I got distracted for a second."
"She asked how things were with Manda," the devil said helpfully.
"So, Manda," I segued smoothly. "Things are fine." Fine was a nice, neutral word. It implied that I was capable of being in a relationship and that I valued my relationship, but not that I was so desperately in love that I wouldn't be interested in trading up, should it become a possibility. "How about you guys?"
She sighed a little more elaborately than necessary, causing shifting shadows along and beneath her peasant blouse. "I don't know. I mean, we sleep together more nights than we don't--"
Something I didn't really need to know.
"--but I'm just not sure we're connecting, you know?"
"Translation:" said the devil, "'I am a woman who likes sex, and I'm looking for better. Feel free to test this.'"
"That's too bad," I said. "You mean, uh, connecting physically or emotionally or--"
"I don't know," she said, while the devil stared at me, gape-mouthed. "We still talk and we have fun together, but there are times when I just don't know."
"Are you insane?" the devil demanded. "Why are you asking her anything other than 'My place or yours?'"
"How long have you guys been together?" I asked.
"About ten months," she said. "So it's serious, I guess, but I don't know if it can get more serious or not, you know what I mean?"
I didn't, but I nodded anyway.
"I'm going to show you what you're missing," the devil said, outraged, and in that instant, Gym Girl's clothes became completely transparent.
Not invisible; transparent. So I could still make out the general outline, including, now, her bra, but I could see right through it all. I swallowed hard and nearly choked again.
"Are you all right?" she asked. I couldn't speak; I must have been the only one who could see through her clothes because she didn't react to the sudden debut of her nipples. "Do you need some water? I'm going to get you some water." And then she stood up and I saw that she trimmed her pubic hair into a slender, decorative strip.
She walked inside to the counter, the devil and me watching as she went.
"Look at that ass!" the devil exclaimed. "That ass is made for fucking and yet you, my friend, are not fucking it. And those tits! Bigger than Manda's, more firm than Fi's... This is a win-win for you."
"I can't," I managed. "I can't cheat on Manda." I lowered my voice and leaned back, careful not to let anyone notice me badgering the empty chair beside me. "It's wrong."
"Oh, it's wrong. I get it. Of course. How silly of me. And in the entire history of the world, no one has ever done anything wrong. And those that have always get caught and punished."
"Stop it."
"Maybe the wrong thing is staying faithful to a woman you're not even sure you love--"
"What are you doing to me?"
"Tempting you, duh. It's in the job description."
"Well, stop it. I'm not going to let you goad me into making a move on her."
"Why not? Why the hell not? What is wrong with you?"
"I have morals," I hissed to him.
"Says the man who sold his soul to the devil."
He had me there. But, I realized, I had him, too. "Exactly! You already have my soul! What else could you possibly want from me?"
"I don't have it yet," the devil said, and then disappeared again before I could say anything more.
Wherein I Double-Check My Contract
I had already taken a shower at the gym, but when I got home from my smoothie-break with Gym Girl (with her clothing having become opaque again once the devil vanished, I found I could speak intelligently again), I took another one.
A cold one.
A very, very cold one.
Manda would probably come over again tonight; my ego and my sanity could not survive another Night of Flaccidity. I needed everything in operating order and I wasn't going to ruin a bout of actual sex with another bout of fantasy sex, no matter how well-stoked my imaginary fires by the image of Gym Girl thro
ugh her clothes.
(I really -- I noted to myself -- needed to figure out her name one of these days. There had to be a way.)
I stepped frigid and sodden from the shower and toweled off. What, I wondered, had the devil meant when he said that he didn't have my soul "yet?" I had signed the contract. So why hadn't he taken my soul? What was holding him back?
After getting dressed, I dug around in the pile of paperwork on my desk until I found my copy of the contract. It hadn't changed at all:
CONTRACT
I, Randall Banner, do hereby sell my soul to the devil in exchange for a hit book.
Underneath, two scrawls: Mine and the devil's.
There wasn't a lot of room for maneuvering. No fine print. Not even any lines to read between. So why didn't the devil own my soul yet? What was I missing?
I flopped down on the bed and held the contract at arm's-length, staring at it more than actually reading it, willing answers to tumble out of the paper and fall into my eyes, but nothing changed.
The devil's signature was totally illegible, but I couldn't imagine that this would invalidate the contract. If that was the case, then no doctor alive could ever be pinned down, contractually. I tried to piece out the scrawl, but could only locate what I thought was an F and something that looked like a B.
Lucifer? Beelzebub? Neither one fit. Both fit. Maybe it was all of his names.
We are Legion.
Ugh.
I put the contract aside and turned on the TV for background noise, but all I could find was a one-hour "docu-special" about the disappearance of Lacey Simonson. It was too depressing to watch, but I felt guilty at the prospect of channel-surfing away to find something to laugh at.