"What happened?" Peter Van Husen bolted upright in the queen sized bed in room 117 at the County Line Inn,. Mavis had decided the Hilton was too visible a spot for a rendezvous and Peter had reluctantly agreed. The County Line Inn was a far cry from the Hilton.
Peter squinted into the darkness. The room was as black as midnight. All the small lights associated with various electronics had gone off along with the blinking neon sign outside the window.
Mavis sat up too, holding the sheet modestly over her chest. "The electricity went out," she deduced. "It's no big deal, darling. I'm sure it will be back on in a moment."
Peter looked at her for the first time with an edge of annoyance. Mavis never seemed to get upset about anything and while he was glad that at least one of them was cool and collected, did it always have to be Mavis? He was a police officer; he was supposed to keep his wits about him. Peter sighed deeply. He hadn't had his wits about him since the day he met Mavis. "I should go. If there's a power outage I might get called into work."
"But we just got here!" Mavis protested. "You said you could stay until eleven. It's barely eight o'clock."
That was another annoying thing about Mavis. The woman was five years his senior and she had more stamina than he did. Of course, Mavis didn't really do anything all day long so it made sense that she had a lot of energy. Peter, on the other hand, worked a full shift and when he wasn't working he was at home, making up lies to feed to his wife and then doing a thousand and one household chores in a vain attempt to alleviate some of his guilt. His house looked better than it had in years.
Peter's stomach lurched. He needed to get out of this entanglement with Mavis. Yes, the sex was fantastic and he was even kind of in love with Mavis but where were they going to go? He seriously doubted Mavis would leave Ron and he wasn't sure if he wanted to leave Chelsea. The two of them had been married a long time. It would be extremely rotten of him to dump her at this stage of the game.
Like it isn't rotten to cheat on her every chance you get?
Throwing back the covers, Peter used the light from his cell phone to find his clothes. He'd give this...thing he had with Mavis another week, two tops, and then he was calling it quits. Peter simply wasn't cut out to be a player. As happy as being with Mavis made him, he couldn't handle all the baggage that went along with their affiar.
"I can't believe you're leaving," Mavis said petulantly. "We just got started."
"Mavis, I have a job to do," Peter said as patiently as he could manage. That was a third annoying thing about her. Having never worked at a paying job in her entire life, Mavis didn't seem to be able to comprehend that Peter needed to work and that he wasn't abandoning her when his shift started. Dear God, what was I thinking? How did I get into this mess?
"All right," Mavis said in the pouty voice she used when she didn't get her way, "go and play good cop. I'm going to stay here until the lights come back on."
"Good idea." Peter felt like he couldn't breathe. Kissing Mavis one more time, he escaped from room 117 and practically flew to his car. This had to stop. He might have a heart attack one of these days and how would that look? VETERAN COP FOUND NAKED IN SEEDY MOTEL Peter could almost see the headline in the Schuyler Square Times. He had no illusions that Mavis would hang around to give him CPR. By now he knew her well enough to recognize the fact that loyalty was not one of Mavis Schuyler's stronger qualities.
So what was he doing with her? Good question. Too bad he didn't know the answer.
Peter drove into town. The further he got from room 117, the better he felt. Didn't that tell him something? Like: you're a freaking idiot, Peter Van Husen?
He drove directly to the police station. The power appeared to be out everywhere. As Peter got out of his car, a crack of thunder filled the air. The wind was picking up too. Maybe a tree knocked out a transformer. If that was the case, Peter knew he was about to pull an all-nighter. No power equaled plenty of hysterical calls for the Schuyler Square Police Department. Good. He wanted to keep busy so he could forget for a short while that the next major thing on his To Do list was dump Mavis Schuyler.
Mavis rolled over in the queen sized bed and stared up into the dark. The motel room was very quiet after Peter left but that didn't bother her. It was nice to have some peace and quiet. Heaven knew the house hadn't been quiet since Tiffany had moved in. Really, she was going to have to look into finding a boarding school for her niece. It was bad enough that Brad and Tyler were still living at home but adding Tiffany to the mix was too much. Absently, Mavis scratched her knee. She hoped she hadn't been bitten by a bed bug although it wouldn't have surprised her in the least. Oh, well, if a few bug bites were the trade off for a romp with Pete, she could live with that.
Mavis heard a sound outside the motel room's window. Cocking her head, she listened closely. There it was again. A footstep? It sounded like someone had stopped outside the window. Now it sounded like someone was pulling on the window and trying to get it open.
"Who is it?" Mavis called out, her heart suddenly in her throat. "Who's out there?"
Only silence answered her.
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