by Ryan Schow
“Don’t try to butter me up,” she said. “Where’s Titan?”
“Upstairs with this blonde named Breezy. She’s been hanging around. I think they’re still asleep, though.”
When she blew out of the house like someone’s pissed-off wife, that gaping hole inside him stretched open wide and a bit painfully. The way he sort of sagged against the void of her, it was him realizing yet again how much he missed her. He turned on his phone, punched in a text.
He text her saying how he really did miss her. He also said he was now eighteen so if she wanted to do something about it legally she could. He sat there, reading what he sent, disappointed because he knew it wouldn’t be enough to bring her back to him.
When it came to Aniela, he wasn’t playing games. He wasn’t trying to get laid. Aniela was more than a warm bosom to snuggle into. She was his friend. The woman had opened her heart to him. Trusted him. He was someone she gave that which she’d given no one else in years: her body and her love. This was not lost on him.
Not forgotten.
Her text came minutes later. She said if she’d shit out a kid at the start of her first marriage, it would be the same age as Brayden. It. Her text finished by saying this creeped her out.
His fingers had little anxious brains of their own. They tapped out: GET OVER IT, COME BACK.
Ten minutes later delicate knuckles were rapping on the front door. If a disembodied vagina came flopping out of the sky and slapped down wet beside his feet, he wouldn’t have been more surprised. He opened the door, just looked at her.
“Invite me in already, butthole,” she said, like the very act of seeing him fatigued her. As if she needed an invitation. This was practically her place, too, that’s how tight she was with Titan and Romeo. He stepped out of the way.
“Please come in,” he said.
She sauntered in; he shut the door. When he turned and looked at her, their eyes were intense, each refusing to back down from the other. Finally he broke their stare, moved gently but purposefully into her arms.
“I didn’t think you’d come back,” he mumbled into her hair, which smelled of promise, or perhaps future heartbreak.
“Did you just shower?” he asked.
“I can shower again, if you have time,” she replied, letting her guard down faster than he ever thought possible. Man, he thought, she’s full of surprises.
“Actually, and please don’t be mad at me—just remember I didn’t expect you to come back—but I have to go to work right now.”
“Work?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I work for the FBI now.”
When she pulled back, the look on her face was disbelief, maybe even confusion. Guys like him who hang out with guys like Titan and Romeo, and girls like her, they aren’t FBI. They’ve got way too much personality to be that freaking stiff.
“Are you kidding?”
“It’s not my ideal situation, but it was either that or Burger King and I figure I’ll get more pussy being a fed than a meat slinger.”
She pushed off him and said, “You are a meat slinger. No matter the occupation you choose.” The way she said it, all snarky and wise, maybe she was okay with him again, or maybe she’d leave and swear never to come back.
He just didn’t know.
6
The digital document Agent Whitney Clark sent over, Brayden read it again to make sure it was iron clad. She then sent him a follow up text telling him the original document would arrive in the morning. She said she needed him down there to fix their network and right fucking now. She said now that he had his deal, he couldn’t hold her hostage anymore without facing felony charges.
Whatever.
Brayden took a long shower, took his time doing his hair, then got in his car and drove to the field office at a leisurely pace where he picked up his credentials and prepared to take care of the problem he created.
The whole thing was uncomfortable and time consuming, and no one there really seemed to like him, especially that butt plug Agent Bartholomew Charles. Agent Bart. Yeah, he was going to be a problem.
Around five thirty he got home and found Aniela out back with Titan, Romeo and some girl who was there simply for the heated pool and the male company. She wasn’t Breezy. She wasn’t anyone he recognized from the day before. And unlike the girls before her, she was in a sexy black one piece, with everything essential covered.
Brayden opened the slider, strolled out back, kicked off his shoes, then flopped down on a sun chair and said, “So it’s official. I’ve got a job and I’ll be here at least six months.”
Aniela went from super relaxed to piano-wire tense. Her mouth fell open, and her eyes said it all. Guys who’ve had girlfriends, they’ll know the look. The one that says, “You have got to be kidding me!” Aniela stood and left.
Brayden thought they were past all that.
Apparently not.
Titan and Romeo were looking at me like, WTF? Brayden had never seen those looks before, but there they were.
“Unfreakingbelievable,” Romeo said dropping his fake English accent completely. His scornful eyes razor-bladed everything about Brayden, then he shook his head in disgust. “You hooked up with her, didn’t you?”
“She’s probably on her period,” Brayden said with a dismissive wave of the hand, but it was pretty obvious he was going to be a terrible liar.
“Don’t be a stooge,” Romeo said.
“Fine.”
Romeo stood and said, “Sugar, come,” in his English accent.
The girl opened her eyes, shielded them from the sun and made a face. “But the sun feels amazing,” she said.
“It’s not the sun, doll, it’s the heat lamp and it’s going to give you brown spots.”
The girl sounded drugged, but not from narcotics as much as from the glorious warmth and sun. The heat on Brayden’s skin felt good enough for him to understand her point. Plus he didn’t want her to go. She was so much fun to look at.
Groaning, but moving, she did as she was told. Romeo still threw her a look. She stood, swung a towel around her waist and said, “What are we going to do?”
“Bad things,” he replied with an attitude, and she followed with a shrug.
When they were gone, Titan said, “Romeo’s been in love with her for like, forever.”
Ladies and gentleman, meet Brayden the Schmuck. His bright red face wasn’t from the four heat lamps, or any exertion, and it wasn’t a carryover from his escapades with the FBI.
“Jesus,” Brayden muttered, running his hands over his scalp. “I didn’t know.”
“He’s not an open book about his emotions with us guys,” Titan said. “Guys like us, they don’t fall in love. It’s a game changer. Like castration. Or AIDS.”
“So now I know,” Brayden said.
“Now you know.”
“Well that’s just a bowl of friggin’ cherries, isn’t it?”
“Indeed it is,” Titan said as he laid back, laced his fingers behind his head and closed his eyes. “We need some naked girls out here.”
“Your lips to God’s ears,” Brayden said.
“If you grab me a Dr. Pepper and the phone, I’ll take care of the women.”
Brayden was up and off the seat like it caught fire. Within minutes, Brayden was drinking a Mountain Dew, Titan was working on his Dr. Pepper and two HB7’s were on their way over.
“You got condoms?” Titan said.
“I’m not Jonesing for STD’s if that’s what you’re asking,” Brayden joked. Then again, the kind of shit going around those days, especially in a city as morally depraved and as reckless as Vegas, STD’s were no joke at all.
7
Brayden was pretty sure Aniela was somewhere putting a voodoo hex on him. This would explain her not texting him back. Titan told him to ditch the phone. He said, “If she’s not responding, and you keep at her the way you are, you’re going to awaken the dragon, bro.”
“Seriously?”
“Yeah ma
n, you’re being a registered text offender right now,” he said with traces of humor in his voice. “Go back to the girl I got you and get your dick wet. Trust me, it’ll take your mind off her. It’s my version of ‘take two aspirin and don’t call me in the morning.’”
He took Titan’s advice, and in the morning, around six, the girl he was with the night before, she got up to pee or something, then came back in bed and slid in next to him, cuddling.
He moved a way a bit, groggy from sleep.
The thing about being a player is you have to get over the idea that sex equals love, that sex implies commitment, that sex is something special.
The girl snuggled even closer, but then he felt it. No, he felt her. The warmth of her arms wrapping around him, fingertips brushing his face, large breasts pressed warm against his back. The girl he took to bed last night, she had small tits with stiff eraser nipples and her arms were too thin, not like this girl’s arms whose were perfect. He rolled over and she was there: Aniela.
The need presenting itself in her expression, the sexual energy blazing bright in those gorgeous Polish eyes of hers electrified him. He fell into her, then the toilet flushed and both their eyes flashed.
She swung her head around to the closed bathroom door as Brayden’s girl was fumbling with the lock. The lock she turned so Brayden wouldn’t come in while she was honkin’ out a dirt snake.
Aniela jumped naked out of bed, mumbling the word “unbelievable.” She grabbed her clothes, raced into the hallway.
The bedroom door shut right about the same time the blonde girl whose name he’d already forgotten was trying to sneak her way back into the bedroom. She closed the door, maybe to hide the whirring sound of the lavatory fan, or perhaps to enclose the rancid fecal mist so it didn’t spoil what she thought might be a perfectly decent morning.
“Did you flush twice?” Brayden asked, bothered but trying not showing it. “That’s one of those water saver toilets that’s supposed to keep Vegas from going into a drought, but if you dump and don’t flush twice, the next person will have to suffer a bowl of muddy water.”
Without a word, she got up, flushed the toilet again and left. Twenty minutes later he got in the shower, and two minutes after that Aniela pulled open the shower door and was like, “What the hell?”
He had shampoo in his hair and eyes. He rinsed off and said, “Titan hooked me up with her so he could get laid. I basically took one for the team.”
“How noble of you,” she quipped.
“I kept trying to text you and call you, but he basically told me to stop harassing you.”
“Did you have sex with her?” she asked, looking down at Brayden’s business.
He shook his head, no. It was easier to lie if you just keep your mouth shut. Then: “You getting in?”
“As soon as you wash her vagina off yourself, I’ll get in.” He rinsed his head, then started washing lower; she started watching. When he was done, as she was trying not to bite her lip, she said, “Rinse and start over, slower this time.”
Who was he to argue? The very fact that she’d come back, that she was doing what she was doing, felt like them creating pathways back to each other.
When he finished, he said, “Clean enough?” She nodded. “Good, then come in or shut the door, I’m freezing.”
“Doesn’t look like it,” she said. He just stared at her. She stared back, dropped her eyes again—let her gaze linger a second too long—then walked her eyes back up to his and said, “What time do you have to leave for work?”
“Half an hour.”
“I’ll be downstairs making you breakfast.” As in she wasn’t getting in the shower with him.
“You suck,” he said.
“You suck more.”
When he was ready, he hurried downstairs with five minutes allotted for breakfast. Aniela made him a bowl of cream of wheat with a swirl of brown sugar. Next to it was a small bowl of blueberries, six almonds and a to-go cup of iced cold brew. If he drove ten miles an hour faster to work, he could get two extra minutes with her.
“I’m leaving,” she said, satisfied with what she’d done, but not ready to sit around and endure his gratitude. She was still pissed off at him for…everything, it seemed. “If tonight you’re not with some thoughtless, brainless piece of ass, text me. But if you choose another girl over me again, seriously…lose my number. Permanently.”
“I’ll call you,” he said.
On the way out, cool as a cucumber, she said, “See you later masturbator,” to which he replied, “In awhile pedophile.”
Aniela left, then Brayden left minutes behind her, not realizing his first official day of “work” was going to be a whirlwind of bullshittedness the likes of which he’d never encountered before.
The Vanderbilt Literary Group
1
If you looked at me, you would probably see a well adjusted late teen/early twentysomething girl. Most of the time I’m smiling. Or laughing. And I feel pretty good about life overall. But the truth is, I’m eighty-nine years old and I haven’t been with a man in entirely too long.
Basically, it’s been forever since I’ve had sex. By choice, of course. But still…
Not becoming Raven has been priority number one. Then meeting my alive past-self and sending her backwards in time is me hitting a different trajectory in life.
Me and future (now dead) Raven still have plenty in common. We’re both a bit nomadic. We’re both obsessed with not staying too long in one place. Call it wanderlust if you want. I call it preserving my sanity, or becoming worldly.
After squishing backwards through the colon of time and getting shat out on a battlefield in the middle of Germany’s last stand against Russian forces, after surviving with only a few significant deaths and having my way with Hitler, I spent four decades wandering the globe. Occasionally I settled down. You know, a decade here, a decade there.
For long parts of those forty years, I went everywhere.
Europe was amazing, as were parts of the Middle East, and I spent years working with victims of war torn countries, lost my life twice in the middle of a genocide—once by a frag grenade and once by the bullet of an African warlord responsible for the mass extermination of dozens of villages. After taking his bullet through the center of my heart, sometime later—I don’t know if it was hours, days or weeks—I woke in a pit full of wet, dead bodies.
Nothing can prepare you for that.
As I pushed and wiggled my way through flopped over limbs and headless bodies and hoards of blow flies and maggots and bloody, shit-in clothes, I realized I felt rested. Renewed, really. That didn’t mean everything was as it was supposed to be. In that heap of bodies, I puked several times, pawed tears from my eyes with filthy hands, growled and spit with rage at the indecency, the inhumanity, the absolute insanity of what happened.
Naturally, I went after the warlord with blood-thirsty vengeance.
The day I punched that motherfucker’s clock, seeing me again—alive rather than shot to death—his ugly eyes flashed so harsh with disbelief, he uttered a quick prayer. Even now I wonder who he was praying to. Who does a man like that call God? He had entire villages raped, hacked apart and burned, and then he prayed, for what? Salvation? Safety? His life?
Seeing someone like him praying sparked homicidal things in me.
My hysterical, almost maniacal fits of laughter turned to enraged sobbing and blood-curdling cursing as I dismembered his guards and beat him to death one punch at a time.
That wasn’t one of my finer moments, but the thing they say about revenge is it’s a dish best served cold. Cold lunacy roared through my veins that day. I felt like Raven. My body was different, and Raven was a product of the future not the past, but in that moment, I was Raven. I was her need for justice. Her thirst for revenge. That murderous tyrant slaughtered tens of thousands of unarmed women and children, so really, I never looked back and thought there was another outcome more appropriate than the one I precipitate
d.
After that, I went home. Back to the United States where, for the most part, I moved to New York and lived that storied life of a happy New Yorker.
I was there on 9/11 and I still couldn’t do anything to stop the attack on the World Trade Center. On America. That was an event too catastrophic to adjust, so sadly, it had to play out.
With a new name (Elizabeth Vanderbilt) and a tremendous investment portfolio—a portfolio I grew from many small investments in the fifties to tens of millions of dollars by the turn of the century—I bought myself a gorgeous condo in Manhattan on 15th and Union Square West overlooking the park.
I still own the place, this luscious abode I refuse to part with. Yes, it’s that beautiful. Back then my new home set me back two million. It’s now worth three point six million.
The sixteen hundred square foot condo is located in the building that was once Tiffany & Company’s 19th century headquarters. My quaint little residence has sixteen foot ceilings with the original Tiffany cast iron arches, floor to ceiling windows overlooking Union Park, top of the line everything with designer finishes and fixtures, dark hardwood floors, stainless steel appliances and barstools that look retro-chic from the fifties.
The entire home was designed for that just-right touch of modern elegance. My open, two story home is all creams, silvers and heavy woods and it has been my pride and joy for years.
After returning to the states, I luxuriated in my NY palace reading books, watching movies, eating take out, learning to cook, and staying fresh on all the languages I learned traveling the other side of the globe.
In the mid two-thousands, I met a woman at a coffee house who said I was so beautiful it hurt her eyes not to look at me. She was a fashion designer who knew an editor at Warner books who then asked me to come work for her. Susan Frank. A lipstick lesbian who never hit on me but desperately wanted to. Susan told me my job was to discover new talent. I didn’t need the work or the money, but I wanted the culture, so I played poor and agreed to the job and a menial salary that I donated in full to various humanitarian organizations inside the city.
