by Lissa Kasey
“That’s okay. I can carry the dress for Sky. If you’re okay with giving it to her? You have a bag we can put this in to protect it? I don’t want to get it all dirty.” I thought about the coat I had on and the heat outside. “I’ll leave the coat here, maybe you’ll let me wear it when it starts to get cold? I don’t want to sweat and cover it in my man stink right now.”
Micah gave me a faint smile and said, “Sure.” We wrapped up the dress and headed out to get something productive done for the day.
Chapter 14
Micah had not been kidding about ground to cover. We walked the entire Quarter and then some before arriving at the shop after five. Skylar waved and grinned at us from behind the register.
“Been busy?” Micah asked.
“A little. Tim and Brad left a half an hour ago. They helped get rid of the reporters. Good news is that we’ve had lots of sign-ups for your tours, and sold a bazillion T-shirts, which we need to restock. The new candles you brought in are gone too. Sorry, they smelled nice, so I put them out. The tomb shapes were a hoot, and everyone had to have one,” Sky chattered away like she had all the energy of a rabbit on a B-shot. “Hi Alex, good to see you back. Your head looks better.”
The glue was still firmly in place from Micah setting it last night. In fact he’d done so well I doubted it would scar at all. “Thanks, sorry it took us so long, we were mapping Micah’s route for tonight.”
“Oh, how exciting,” Sky said. “Did you see anything terrifying?”
I had actually, but didn’t want to share that. And it had been at the LaLaurie Mansion. We hadn’t even gotten close, but from half a block away I could see waves of some sort of black mass pouring from the windows. At first, I thought it was a fire and pointed it out to Micah who had looked confused. Then one of the black masses turned, more like a person than the shifting smoke of a fire, and seemed to stare at me, the darkness that was its writhing face looking like a nightmare of snakes in the bright light of the day. I had no interest in what the place looked like at night and instead begged Micah to skip by it as fast as possible.
“No knife wielding prostitutes,” I affirmed because I hadn’t sensed anything in the French Market other than that there was a lot of food there I had yet to try and wanted to. I held out the wrapped dress for Micah. “Do you want to?”
He flushed and took it. “Maybe later?”
“Um…” I looked at Sky.
She looked between the two of us. “What?”
“It’s something Micah made for you,” I said. Was he worried she wouldn’t like it? I couldn’t imagine not being floored by the skill and beauty of the dress. Even if it had been made for me and I’d never worn a dress in my life.
“Really?” Sky eyed the bag. “What is it?”
I took the bag back from Micah and handed it to Sky. She laid it on the counter and zipped it open. Her squeal of delight nearly broke my eardrums.
“Oh my God!” She untucked the dress from the bag and held it to her chest like she was modeling it. “Is this for real? This is amazing.” She looked at the door to the backroom. “I need to try this on. Is it really for me?”
Micah’s face was red and he wouldn’t meet her gaze. “Yes. I made it for you. It was some experiments in fabrics, design, and color. The bodice is expandable too, like a corset only less restrictive, for after your surgery…”
Sky leapt from behind the counter to wrap her arms around Micah in a tight hug, which he didn’t return. She didn’t seem to care. She took the dress and headed toward the backroom. Then paused.
“Oh and so about the tour,” Sky said looking guilty. “I mean, I didn’t do anything, but Tim did and he said there were no limits. I began putting people on other days when I got here, but the damage was already done. I’m so sorry.”
Micah tilted his head like he was trying to understand what Sky was saying. “Huh?”
“There are twenty-two people scheduled for tonight’s tour,” Sky said in a rush.
“Um…” Wasn’t there a limit? Or was that only for the graveyard tours? “That’s a lot of people.”
Micah sighed. “I’ll have to cut a few stops off the trip. Too many people means too many questions and no time for photographs. I’ve never had a tour with more than fifteen at once.”
“Some of them might be reporters,” Sky added.
“What? Why?” I asked.
“Stupid, nosey…” Micah grumbled as he stalked his way to the backroom. Sky stared at me with wide eyes. I blinked at her wondering if I’d missed something.
“Reporters because of last night?” I finally asked.
“Partially, and partially because some of them remember Micah’s disappearance. There are a few who regularly come by to bother him. Ask him if he remembered something or if he knows some other random person who went missing. Now with last night, it brings them around to start bothering him again.”
“Because he somehow controls the universe? Dictates who dies and goes missing? Seems like a lot for one small Asian dude.”
Sky nodded. “Read your cards earlier,” Sky said. “They said not to go chasing shadows into the darkness.”
I paused and glanced at her before saying, “Thank you. That’s insightful. I’ll keep that in mind this evening as I walk around in a dark haunted city with a paranormally sensitive tour guide. I’m sure there won’t be shadows anywhere. If I do see any, I’ll tiptoe past them instead of running.”
Sky giggled. “Oh, sarcasm, I do like you.” She rushed past me to disappear into the large unisex bathroom and likely change into her dress.
I made my way to check on Micah. In the storeroom, Micah angrily sorted through all the stock he’d had Tim and Brad deliver, and a few other boxes that appeared to have been dropped off by UPS. He picked up boxes, dumped them out and then began dropping stuff into piles. It was a reckless sort of movement I hadn’t seen from him yet, but knew enough about body language to recognize. Anger had to be better than tears, right? I couldn’t make the world leave him alone and stop reminding him of a time he wished had never happened. I knew that better than most, but I could remind him there was more to life than living in the past.
“Are you mad at me for giving her the dress?”
“No,” he said, and it sounded like the truth.
Still his movements were tense and angry. Warning bells went off in my head. He was angry, probably more at himself than anyone else. It was that loss of control that made me mad at myself often. Like somehow, I should be able to lay all the cards right in the universe. Only we didn’t have that sort of power, and I knew how frustrating it was to stand in the middle of the storm.
Reporters who made him feel like things were his fault sort of pissed me off too. He had already been blaming himself. I wondered if I hugged him again if he’d fall apart. Maybe he needed the break. I wasn’t yet sure what he needed, so I thought to maybe try a bit of humor.
“Can I help or do you need a few minutes?” I asked. “I can go stand at the register and look pretty if you’d like, or you can vent and then we can put some of this weird shit out to sell to some quirky tourists. Too bad I didn’t bring the coat. I could have stood out on the sidewalk and proclaimed my nerdiness to the world to draw in more business.” I thought about that a minute. “Okay that might have scared people away…”
A smile cracked the seriousness of Micah’s face. “Jerk. You are a giant nerd.”
“Guilty,” I agreed. “We could move the Holy Fuck out front and see if any Karens clutch their pearls and cry ‘Well, I never…’”
He looked at me, fighting a full grin.
“Of course you never, Karen. That’s why you’re so uptight. Let me show you our collection of vibrators, I’m sure we have something to help you loosen up that tight ass and show you lots of things ‘you never’. Straight people butt fuck too, right? Never mind, gross. Image in my head now. Sorry I asked and commented.”
“Stop,” Micah grumbled, trying hard not to laugh.
“An
yway, back to Karen, I do the bait and switch, showing her some alien impregnators which she’ll have to buy, and then she will write some steamy chick romance that will make the best seller list like Fifty Shades only instead of some rich white dude, the Dom in this story is a giant alien dick. Oh, Narwal Dickmaster, my alien overlord, take me to heaven.”
Micah laughed. “You’re a total jerk,” he remarked.
“For making you laugh? I’ll own that. Better than serious, angry Micah any day, right?” I picked up an unopened box and began to pull away the tape. “Any more alien impregnators in here I should be looking for? Maybe a box of anal probes?”
“I already have a whole selection of those on display. Do you need another tour?” Micah asked with a devious smile.
“Did I miss those? Well, butter my buns and call me a biscuit, I’ll have to do a full inventory on them later so I can recommend them to the tightest of assholes who enter the store. I’m sure there’s plenty of lube to ease their transition to the dark side. We might not have cookies, but we have sex toys and I’ll be damned if that isn’t even better.”
Micah was full out laughing now. “Oh my god, stop. Apparently put beans in you and you become some sort of sarcasm jukebox.” He shook his head. “I need to write some of that down and put it on T-shirts.”
“I’m a thirty-two-ounce refillable fountain glass of sass,” I affirmed.
“You are,” Micah agreed.
“So, no alien impregnators?”
“Tim and Brad bought all three,” Sky called from the bathroom. “I told them it wasn’t fair, but Tim said you’d have to order more.”
I opened my mouth to spit out a reply to that but couldn’t. Alien egg impregnators… Yeah, that was a bit out of my comfort zone. But maybe I had to start slow with small anal probes or cute androgynous boy toys who happened to make my winky stand up and wave.
Micah’s eyes narrowed on me. “Are you thinking sexy thoughts about me again?”
“Um… maybe? I can’t help that certain words in context with the idea of you and my memory of some old videos conjure up physical reactions I haven’t had much of in the past few years.”
“I have some alien dildos at home, fun shapes and all, but I don’t like the egg idea thing,” Micah confided. “I know they sell the idea of them being safe and that your body heat melts them down to liquid, but I don’t want blue goo coming out of my ass.”
Instead of blue goo I pictured my come dripping out of his ass and felt my cock awaken. Fuck. “Alien dildo?”
“There’s a collection in the other room. Colors and unusual heads or even barbs.”
“Barbs?” I could only picture thorns like on a rose bush.
“Some animals have them when they mate. It locks the two together to keep the seed inside. There’s more science than that, but the toys are all about illusion, so it’s simply a really hard-ending nub on a dildo. You’re supposed to sit on it and grind into it to get the barb sensation. They also make a cock ring that your partner can wear with a lot of the same effect.”
The idea of him riding me was all that filled my head in that moment.
He threw his hands up in the air in exasperation. “Seriously? I begin to doubt the excuse that you haven’t been functioning until now.” He pointed to the crotch of my shorts and my very obvious erection.
I tugged the T-shirt down, like it was somehow ever going to be long enough. My face burned with embarrassment and desire. “I promise I’ve not always been this sexually awkward.” Okay that was a lie, and the years serving having nothing but alley meetings and fast fucks between tours with strangers, wasn’t really experience. “Okay, I’m awkward. You sure you even want to take a step in that direction? It’s fun flirting with you, but you know I’m a little messed up, and what if I’m bad in bed?”
He shrugged. “There are two types of lovers. Those you screw because you’re physically attracted to them. They might be good in bed or bad in bed, doesn’t matter so much because the physical attraction is there. Usually you get them out of your system, sometimes it takes a few days, but never lasts. Sort of like a fast spark and then it dies.”
“And the second kind?”
“The kind you train. Those are the ones you want to keep, maybe because you like their personality or their lifestyle fits yours, so you educate each other on what you like, building a relationship through knowledge as well as physical attraction. That one is more than a spark, it’s genuine interest in learning more about a person with a side of the physical desire.”
“How do you know the difference?”
“Physical burns hot and fast, like a lit match, and then after a few seconds you have to put it out or get burned. You sleep with them once and are like eh, okay, and move on. Sometimes they last a few weeks before you realize you really don’t like the person for more than sex. Relationships aren’t really like that. Not for most. You might be attracted to someone, but life gets in the way. Unless you’re cruising for a hookup, it’s unlikely you’re gonna have to screw that person right this second. If you walk away still thinking of them, even pass a few days and they are still on your mind, that’s a training situation. And it either works or becomes the first type of lover. Not every lover wants to be trained. Either way you’ve had a good time.”
It was a very different way of looking at relationships. I guess I’d had a lot of the fast ones in my life. The quick spark that leads to nothing. Never had a training sort of one. Hadn’t met anyone I wanted to keep before, not in real life. I admitted to being curious about Micah. Not only sexually attracted to him, though that was a large enough factor on its own. Did I think we could mesh? Maybe. Was it worth a try? Again, I thought maybe.
Micah unloaded another box of T-shirts. “Choose some shirts to take home with you. So you have stuff for work.” He looked me over and smiled. “Pick a smaller size than your brother does.”
I glanced down. “If I pick a smaller size it will cling.”
“Yep.”
“And show everyone I’m aroused when you walk into a room,” I pointed out.
“We’ll see if we can strike a flame after work and fix that,” Micah said.
“Huh?” Was he saying we’d be having sex after work? My body was like oh fuck yeah, we’re on board. Maybe I was translating that wrong. Was he speaking a language I’d missed somehow while being overseas? Maybe it was an age gap thing. I’d always thought of him as barely legal when I’d watched the videos of him. Now I wondered, hoping he had been of age, or else I’d really feel like shit. “How old are you anyway?”
“Twenty-two.”
Fuck. Ten years. I felt really old in that moment. At least he’d been over eighteen when he made videos.
“But I like older men, if you recall.”
Again, back to the videos. I sighed and hung my head. “I’ve not seen this much action in most of my life,” I confessed. “And we haven’t done anything yet. I’m not sure we should. We work together. What if we are a lust flame or whatever?”
“Then we burn and burn out. It happens. Best to know now and be done right? I’m adult enough to work with you after we have sex. And maybe it will stop you from always getting wood around me.”
Unless it made it worse. “Hmm.”
Micah stepped into my personal space and put an arm around my waist, pulling us close. I had to look down to meet his gaze, and it was intense, a heat flashing between us with little more than a touch and a glance. His lips breezed across mine for a few seconds. A teasing pass of softness and the scent of peppermint on his breath. I had to admit that while his touch revved my body up to lightning horndog speed, his presence also relaxed me. I should have been worried about Sky walking into the room, or getting interrupted by a customer, or a thousand other things. But in his arms, looking down into that intense blue gaze? It didn’t matter. He was my focus right then. Maybe that’s what Lukas had meant about me finding someone to steal my attention?
I held on to him and realized tha
t I was curious. Could we be something? More than a broken soldier interested in a guy he’d once watched in porn? Was it a fantasy? And did it really matter?
“I’m not sure what this is,” I told him a little breathily. “Lust?”
“A spark,” Micah agreed. “Time will tell if we can be more. Let’s get this stock out.” He pulled away and lifted a box of supplies. “Nothing sells from the storeroom.”
I picked up the box of shirts and followed him out, a thousand things on my mind, but most of it centered on him.
When Sky emerged from the bathroom, she looked like an ice queen. She had pulled up her hair, and even done something with her make-up that made her look magical. It was a perfect fit. I took pictures and sent them to Lukas, and Sky danced around the shop, not caring that she was overdressed for working the close shift.
The small smile on Micah’s face at seeing her so thrilled by the outfit made the entire afternoon worth it. Some of the tension in his shoulders eased. The trickle of customers who came in insisted on pictures with Sky, even texting friends to encourage them to stop by. It became a steady stream of people visiting to see Sky in full Queen mode, which increased sales as Micah and I restocked. It made for a busy early evening, and I felt pretty good about handling the register and answering questions. I hoped the tour would go as smoothly later.
Chapter 15
Lukas showed up briefly to bring us food. I was surprised by his arrival, but no one else was. Sky flounced around him in her dress and flirted shamelessly, while Lukas smiled and pretended his interest in her was professional. Either way I enjoyed the giant meal of banana fosters French Toast he’d brought me, with a huge side of that andouille sausage. Micah had some sort of bento box thing, and Sky a plate of beignets that she insisted on eating, but only after she pulled a T-shirt over her dress to protect it from powdered sugar.
“Did you know there was some Mary Voodoo or something in the cemetery too?” I asked him when he sat down in the back room with me while I ate. “Micah and I ran into Jared in the Square today. He seemed pretty distraught.”
