NO…?

A late spring afternoon. The weather had finally taken a turn for the better after an endless, dreary winter. Karson had just mailed a package at the Jackson Street post office and was thinking about a late lunch at McAffrey’s as he went out the front door. That would change the second he found himself face to face with Elizabeth Darcy.

Karson couldn’t recall the last time he’d set eyes on her. It had been many years — a couple of decades, at least. During all that time he’d sometimes wondered what had become of her, and his assumption was that like all the other women he’d known she’d gotten married and changed her name, then moved away, to someplace like Connecticut, or California, or Florida and became impossible to find — not that he was looking.

Apparently he was wrong.

Karson was ambivalent about coming face to face with Liz Darcy. To his astonishment, she looked quite the same as she did back then, when they were involved in a torrid, clandestine intra-office affair. Today she was in a light nylon jacket, suede boots, black pants. When she recognized him, her jaw dropped open with what he could only interpret as some kind of disappointment.

A split-second decision was called for. Should he cop to recognizing her, or pretend he didn’t even see her? Later he would think that whatever he decided would probably be a mistake.

Hey. I thought it was you. It is you — isn’t it?

He tried to inject something bouncy into his words.

It’s me, said Liz Darcy.

I thought so. Wow — you look great….

Karson was surprised. Even if Liz Darcy seemed underwhelmed at this confrontation, she’d stopped there on the sidewalk, made no attempt to run off. He knew he should probably break away, but he had a morbid curiosity about Liz Darcy.

You live nearby?

Not far, she said.

Really? After all this time, I sort of figured you might have moved.

Why?

Just…I don’t know. People move. They move around a lot….

The scene was growing more awkward by the second, but for some reason Karson didn’t excuse himself.

Sometimes they do. I haven’t.

Yeah. Anyway, I’m shocked to run into you after all this time.

Me too, said Liza Darcy. She brightened suddenly, throwing Karson off balance. His old desire even flared briefly into life.

So…I don’t suppose you still work for United.

United was where they met. Karson had been out of there for a long, long time, having moved on to a different working life in a small firm.

Why do you want to know?

Just asking. I mean, since you and I happened to run into each other.

I’d rather not.

Got it. I mean, I was just curious….I know it’s a little awkward, talking about ancient history.

I would say.

It did get a little…intense there at the end.

To say the least. But that wasn’t my fault.

Karson shook his head with shame.

I know that — now.

Well, he thought, maybe it was worth talking about this after all. He wasn’t necessarily the type who liked prying the lid off the past, but he’d always been plagued by what had gone down between himself and Liz Darcy.

You remember what happened, don’t you, she asked, as if reading his mind.

Of course I remember. Like it was yesterday, pretty much.

Interesting, said Liz Darcy.

Don’t you remember?

Oh, yes. Yes, I remember.

When I think about it now, I chalk it up to one of those youthful experiences you wince at later — not that it’s something I’m embarrassed by, Karson lied. And not that I’m sorry it happened or anything. Because we did have a good time for a while there, didn’t we?

The lines in Liz Darcy’s face hardened. Suddenly Karson had the queasy feeling that he’d been led straight into some kind of trap.

At least I thought we did, he persisted weakly.

I don’t know that I would say that, exactly.

No?

Not exactly, no.

Maybe I remember it a little differently, then. I remember it as crazy. But we were young — relatively, right?

Karson laughed a little. Was she with him on this? He didn’t know how else to gauge it.

For a time there I actually thought that we were in love.

Again, he tossed it off almost as a joke, a tease intended to provoke a certain reaction. When she said nothing, he added: Well — that I was in love with you.

I wasn’t in love with you, said Liz Darcy.

There it was. Simple. Hard. Karson felt himself going red in the face.

Okay….But we were combustible in bed, weren’t we? We can say that now, after all these years, can’t we? And so at the beginning I thought maybe we were going somewhere together. That maybe it could happen.

You were confusing your lust with something else.

I guess I was….But seriously, weren’t you into it the beginning?

Maybe. A little. Until you got boring.

Sorry about that.

Then you got worse. Boring, boring, boring.

That’s not what you said when we met at your little summer soiree….

Karson could still see it in his mind’s eye: the late June sunshine glancing off the crystal blue water in the garden apartment swimming pool. A long table littered with one of those six-foot-long submarine sandwiches, wine and beer bottles, plastic cutlery. Elizabeth Darcy, like a dark butterfly, darting here and there in her one-piece swimsuit. And how there was something about her body that made his mouth water….

You hadn’t had enough time to become boring yet.

Karson didn’t know what he was still doing there. He had to get back to the office.

Then I prefer to remember the beginning. When it was all good between us. When we spent twenty-four hours in bed without once coming up for air. That’s what I’d rather remember.

I knew early on that I wasn’t really interested in you.

After all these years it was crazy, but Karson’s heart sank a little upon hearing those words.

But what about –-

Women can separate sex from all the other stuff. You didn’t understand that.

I thought it was supposed to be the other way around, he chuffed.

Which proves my point. You still don’t get it.

They weren’t arguing, he thought. They were rather like a pair of old attorneys making points in an empty courtroom.

You didn’t understand the difference between a good time for a night or two and something heavy. Anyway, I was really interested in someone else at the time.

One of the vice-presidents of that company we worked for. Forgot his name.

Desmond was very attractive.

And very married, if I remember correctly.

It was a power thing, Karson had always thought. Liz Darcy was a climber. At the time, and for some mysterious reason, it had made him crave her even more.

I found out he was poking his secretary, she scoffed. Can you believe it? When he had me? He made me very angry, said Liz Darcy with clinical coldness.

And I was your revenge.

Call it whatever you want.

But you kept me firmly under wraps, didn’t you?

What I did with my life was nobody’s business but mine.

My problem was that I didn’t fit into your social circle, right?

True, nodded Liz Darcy without flinching.

It drove me crazy, what you did to me. Screwing my lights out all night long and in the morning at the office pretending you didn’t know me. It was very, very cruel….

The recollection hurt, even now.

Did you expect me to drape myself all over you? I wasn’t about to make myself look like a slut.

A forgotten anger roared up inside of Karson. He didn’t even realize it was still there. You were very good at making me feel —

I didn’t make you feel any way.

I really began to lose it when you forced me to book a date with you weeks in advance. It’s kind of funny now, but back then it was enough to….

I was trying to tell you I wasn’t interested in you anymore. How else was I supposed to make you get it? There’s no good way to do these things.

Okay, so I was an idiot….But what I could never figure out was why you would crawl into bed with me time and again, even after you supposedly lost interest in me. Didn’t you know what you were doing to me?

It wasn’t my responsibility. At the time I just wanted sex.

Karson shook his head. Finally he’d come close to the truth. Well, if your goal was to make me insane, you succeeded.

I wasn’t trying to do anything to you. You lost control of yourself. You were the one who showed up unannounced at my place in the middle of the night…

Karson winced at the memory. Whenever it clanged in his brain, he cringed. It was perhaps the most painful of all, the lowest point of his life as a male. His sexual desire for Liz Darcy had reduced him to a dolt.

…with the excuse that your car had run out of gas when you just happened to be in my neighborhood and needed someplace to crash. My God, was that lame!

Yes. He couldn’t deny it — it was lame. Incredibly, unforgivably lame, and something he never wanted to think about again but couldn’t seem to completely forget.

Everyone makes a fool of himself at least once in his life, said Karson. Afterwards I was humiliated… embarrassed…ashamed. And that’s why I’m happy that my youth has passed.

He barked out a self-deprecatory laugh. All right, enough -– he had to go. Liz Darcy had made him lose his self-control all over again.

Just as he was about to walk away, she uttered three horrifying words: You raped me.

Karson blinked, as if he’d been slapped in the face.

He must have heard wrong.

What? What did you say…?

That night you surprised me at my apartment.

Yeah?

You raped me.

No. He hadn’t misheard.

That is such an ugly word.

There is no other word, said Liz Darcy, her black, once-sultry eyes boring straight into his.

I don’t know what in the world you’re talking about.

I was already sleeping when you showed up. Like a fool, I let you in because I believed you genuinely needed help. Then you started coming on to me. You put your hands on me. You pushed me towards the bed….

Karson’s head shook in a rapid arc.

Whoa. Hold it right there. You were into it that night. You were totally and completely into it.

What happened that night wasn’t just sex.

That’s all I remember, said Karson. We had sex, and it was great, like it always was.

I didn’t want it. You pressured me into it.

Karson’s heart did a sickening lurch.

My God — what the hell are you talking about?

It wasn’t what you think it was that night. It was an assault. You assaulted me.

Karson was suddenly frightened, but indignant.

This is — it’s ridiculous. It’s fucking crazy. Unless I’ve completely lost my mind, you wanted it too. You were moving with me. I mean, you never gave me any indication that–

The volume of Karson’s voice had risen — while Liz Darcy’s hadn’t.

I wasn’t into it. What existed in your mind wasn’t my reality.

Now they were arguing, but no one on the street stopped to watch them.

I don’t understand what’s happening here, protested Karson. Anyway, it’s been so many years that–

It doesn’t matter how long it’s been. I never forgot it. I never forgot what you did to me.

Karson was nearly paralyzed, but something was beginning to sink in.

I’m speechless. I had no idea that -–

Maybe it’s good we ran into each other, Liz Darcy nodded. Maybe now you’ll have some idea of what I’ve been living with all these years.

But wait a minute, wait a minute here. That night I never heard the word “no” from you. Not once did it ever come out of your lips. If I’d heard it, I would have stopped whatever I was -– No. No. This is madness. Complete madness.

Maybe to you. But not to me.

He was dazed. He was in the throes of an attack of vertigo. All at once, nothing seemed real, not the sidewalk beneath his feet, not Liz Darcy, not Karson himself. That was the most awful thing: that he’d come to doubt his own reality. Was it possible that he’d committed a crime and not even realized it? How could it be possible that he raped someone and didn’t know it? The thought caused him to break out in a cold sweat.

But you never went to the police — did you?

I thought about it. Long and hard.

He shook his head again, as if he’d been punched in the face.

No one’s ever accused me, never, not once, of —

It’s not just an empty accusation.

Karson anxiously wiped his forehead with the sleeve of his jacket. He looked around, as if he were desperate for some way out.

What are you going to do, he asked meekly. You’re not going to do something now, are you?

He could hardly believe it. He could hardly believe that a simple, innocent trip to the post office had turned into this.

I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m going to do.

There was such a thing as the statute of limitations, Karson knew, but he was too upset and confused to figure out what was involved, and when had he ever had to think about the statute of limitations before?

He crumbled. There was no point in fighting, and escalating what had already turned into a very ugly situation.

I really wish you wouldn’t. I have a wife and kids…a house…a position. If this gets out somehow, or hits the social media, or….

I have a husband and kids and a position. What does it have to do with anything?

I’m just saying….If you make an issue out of this, you’ll fuck me up. You’ll really fuck me up.

He was furious now, an instinctive, defensive reaction to the feeling of being under siege for something he was convinced he hadn’t done.

What makes you think you didn’t already do it to me?

Nonsense. Fucking nonsense. You’re still screwing with my head, you’re -–

I have to go, said Liz Darcy suddenly.

In order to stop her, Karson made a swipe for her arm, then thought better of it and pulled his own away.

What are you going to do, he persisted.

Whatever I decide. I don’t owe you an explanation.

A nasty vision of police and lawyers and courtrooms flashed through Karson’s brain.

Am I supposed to beg you now? Is that what I’m supposed to do?

Whether or not you beg me is beside the point. I don’t care what you do.

All right — I’m begging you. I’m begging you to let it go. Just let it go. What’s the point of making a federal case out of this now, after so many years?

You still don’t get it.

I didn’t do what you’re saying I did. And if I admitted to something now, you would think that I —

We have nothing else to discuss, sniffed Liz Darcy.

But I’m throwing myself at your mercy. What more do you want from me?

I don’t want anything from you. I’ve already told you that.

Karson was beyond irked. He was livid. He was petrified.

For Christ’s sake….You know, there’s something wrong with you. You’re sick. Sadistic. You’re —

I’m the one who’s sick? I’m the one who’s sadistic?

Karson stared at his accuser, his eyes bugging out of his skull. It was hopeless. He realized he was fatally hemmed in, and prolonging this skirmish was a dead end.

Okay, then. We’re right back where we started, aren’t we?

No. This is where it ends.

Liz Darcy swiveled on her heel and headed into the post office, leaving Karson aghast on the sidewalk.

Can you believe this shit, he said out loud. Can you fucking believe it?

After a while he seemed to snap out of it. He felt the sudden urge to phone his wife from the comfort of his desk.

He started to walk. Then he stopped and reversed himself when he remembered that his car was parked in the opposite direction, around the corner on Worthington Avenue. Rather than pass in front of the post office and risk seeing Liz Darcy one more time, he crossed the street instead.