Sex

by Francine Pascal

  He could hardly feel his legs, but he had to squeeze something out of his arms. The gun was within his reach if he could focus long enough to wrap his fingers around it. He reached out his half-numb arm, trying to latch onto the butt of the gun with his fingers. But the man in black was way ahead of him.

  With no handicaps to impede him, the man swiped up the gun before Ed even had a chance. He jumped back to his feet in one smooth, seamless motion, and quite suddenly he was towering over Ed’s splayed-out body, aiming the gun down at the center of Ed’s forehead.

  “Don’t,” Ed uttered uselessly.

  The man couldn’t have cared less. He looked at Ed as though he were nothing more than a faceless dummy with targets X’d off from head to toe. Ed could see the complete absence of compassion in the man’s black eyes as he stared up at him helplessly in this frozen moment in time. He knew that the sight of this man’s cold and hideous face would probably be his last. So in that last split second, he tried to picture Gaia’s face. Gaia, who would now be left with absolutely no one. Don’t try to understand why this is happening, he told himself. You don’t want that to be the last thought, either. Just picture her, he shouted at himself. Close your eyes and picture her.

  But that stomping … That stomping Ed had heard was getting closer and closer….

  “Freeze!” someone howled from behind. “Put the goddamn gun down! Now!”

  The man in black turned around for a moment. But only for a moment. He turned back to Ed, still expressionless, and thrust the gun even closer to his face.

  That’s when the first pocket of blood erupted from the man’s shoulder. Four more booming gunshots echoed through the narrow street as black hole after black hole erupted in his chest, shaking his entire frame and pushing him farther and farther back on the street until his body collapsed just a few feet from Ed’s, thin, vaporous smoke still rising from his wounds.

  And every noise stopped. More silence than Ed had ever heard on a New York City block. The screaming pedestrians had shut their mouths. The gunfire was over. And no one had taken a single step. The man in black was dead. And Ed Fargo was still very much alive.

  “Are you hit?” the gruff male voice asked from above. Ed stared up and saw the NYPD logo on the man’s hat. A cop. That’s who had saved his ass. Probably one of the same old street cops who’d been messing with Ed for years, back in his skating days. Ed couldn’t for the life him remember how he could have ever had a problem with a cop.

  “I … I don’t know,” Ed replied. “I thought …”

  The cop grabbed Ed’s shoulders and lifted him back to his feet, gathering his crutches and handing them back to him for support. He took a quick look all over Ed’s body, frisking him from his back down to his wobbly legs. “You’re not hit,” he said. “I don’t even see a scratch. Maybe a bump on the head.”

  Ed looked down and examined his body. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t been hit. He’d heard about people not even feeling the shots at first from shock or from all the adrenaline pumping through their veins. He’d assumed that’s why he hadn’t felt any pain. But apparently there wasn’t a single wound. How was that possible? The first shot had seemed no farther than an inch from his face. And all those other shots … How could that coldhearted psycho have missed with every shot?

  The sound of sirens replaced the silence as two police cars turned the corner, trailed by an ambulance from St. Vincent’s. People on the street had just begun to inch closer for a better view of the dead body, but the cop stepped over and quickly began shooing them away.

  “Step back!” he commanded. “Everyone just step back and let the paramedics through!”

  Ed knew he still had to be in some kind of shock. Whether he’d been hit or not, he had still been quite sure he was going to die, and that left his mind spinning overtime. He found himself trying to run back through this totally random and horrific event. Where the hell had this dude come from? What the hell had he wanted? Just to shoot the first kid he saw on the street? Without a word? Without any anger or threats or anything? And then Ed remembered that the first thing he’d heard … had been Gaia.

  Gaia. He’d heard her voice. Screaming at him. Trying to warn him. Where had that voice come from? Was she down here? Had she watched the whole thing? God, how had this perfect morning turned so unfathomably horrible? Where had her voice come from? Unless …

  Ed turned around slowly, back toward his building, and looked up at his window. And there she was. Her stunning face and her morning hair leaning precariously far out the window, looking down at him. He grinned at her, trying to look less shaken than he actually was. “I’m okay,” he shouted, stating the obvious.

  Gaia seemed to smile slightly with relief, but there was something else in her expression. He couldn’t even begin to understand the look on her face. Maybe it was too far to really see. Or more likely, she, too, was in some kind of shock after watching this whole thing go down. But from what he could read at this distance, she didn’t exactly look relieved or happy or even worried. From this distance … she looked sad.

  Ed felt drawn to her as his crutches seemed to involuntarily carry him back toward his building. Heading back home. He needed to get his arms around her as soon as possible and hold her for at least a few days.

  In spite of his own near-death experience, he found himself suddenly feeling guilty. Gaia had put all her trust in him. She’d given herself over to him in spite of the fact that all the men in her life seemed to disappear, and here he’d almost disappeared himself. Not that it was even remotely his fault, but still, he felt an overwhelming need to reassure her. He needed to get to her as soon as he could. He needed to be holding her, and he knew she needed to be holding him. He was drawn another step toward his building.

  “Hold on there, son,” the cop shouted after him. “You’re not going anywhere yet. You’re going to let the paramedics check you out, and you’re going to answer some questions, so you sit tight now.”

  Ed stood still, obeying the cop’s orders. He tried to look into Gaia’s eyes despite the distance. All the noise and the increasing crowd of shameless onlookers seemed to fade into the background as Ed and Gaia locked into their own private frequency. “Don’t worry,” he shouted, moving a few steps farther. “I’m all right. I’ll be right up. I’ll be up in five minutes. Maybe I’ll climb up.” He widened his grin.

  Five more minutes and he’d be upstairs holding her, kissing her, touching her again. Five more minutes and, damn it, whether he’d almost been shot by a psycho or not, they were going to have pancakes.

  A FEW GUNSHOTS. THAT WAS ALL GAIA had needed to remind her of who she was. Not who she’d hoped to be. Not who she thought she was finally becoming. But who she was, and what her life looked like. Her real life. A few shots and her whole ridiculous plan for the future came crumbling back down on her like an avalanche. The same ridiculous plan for the future she’d allowed herself to see with Sam. And Ed had nearly suffered the same fate.

  * * *

  Wake Up

  * * *

  The same mistake, Gaia. Again and again, the same mistake. Will you learn, goddammit? Learn, already.

  It was really a very simple reminder they’d given her: Stop hoping. That was it. That was their message, whoever “they” were today.

  Ed gazed at her from the street with his beautifully optimistic smile, and he told her that he was all right. He said it with his eyes, and he shouted it to her at the window. But Gaia knew the truth. He wasn’t all right. Not as long as he was close to her, he wasn’t. How could she have ever convinced herself otherwise? How could she possibly keep making the mistake of thinking she could get close to anyone? How could she continually ignore the lesson she’d been punished with time and again?

  A few shots had woken her up from one of the best dreams she’d ever had. So it had been a dream after all. But that was all it could be. A dream. Just a perfect dream. And now it was time to wake up.

  Memo

&nb
sp; From: KS

  To: L

  Operation unsuccessful. Target not terminated. One casualty: KL now deceased.

  Memo

  From: L

  To: KS

  On the contrary. Operation should prove one hundred percent successful. Termination was not the goal-only to free the subject of any further distractions. This incident should successfully sway the subject in the appropriate direction. Orders are to take over KL’s station and proceed as planned.

  How exactly could being ornery, cruel, coldhearted, and unshowered make such a favorable impression on intelligent men?

  * * *

  monotone robot

  * * *

  “WELL, I ALMOST DIED,” HEATHER said, gazing into Josh’s gorgeous, attentive eyes. “Gaia wouldn’t have given a crap if that psycho had cut off my head.”

  * * *

  Pig Noise

  * * *

  “I can’t believe that,” Josh groaned, shaking his head. “She let you go bounding into the park, and she didn’t say a word?”

  “Not a word,” Heather said. “Not even a look. And she knew who was in the park. She knew I’d probably end up slashed or raped or whatever … dead.”

  “And now you two are friends?” Josh squeaked.

  “Well …”

  “No way,” Josh announced, slamming his coffee down on the table. “No way I could ever forgive someone for that. This girl sounds like Satan.”

  He turned away, looking totally indignant as he considered the extent of Gaia’s injustice. Heather gawked at his perfectly cut profile as the sun poured through Starbucks’ glass windows, casting all kinds of dramatic shadow patterns across his face.

  Josh Brown was truly remarkable. Heather had been fully prepared for him to reveal himself as a bit of a macho asshole, a trade-off she would have been more than happy to make. It tended to come with the territory of someone so unmistakably manly. But Josh had displayed none of the usual drawbacks of a manly man. How could someone this good-looking be such a good listener? He was so much more sympathetic and attentive than Carrie or Megan. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone had just sat across from her and listened so unselfishly for this long—not just listened, but actually understood. Remarkable. Truly remarkable.

  “Well, what about your boyfriend?” Josh asked, turning back to her and leaning his elbows on the table. “I mean, if some psycho girl let my girlfriend go into the park, knowing she was going to be attacked, I would have gone looking for that girl, you know? I’d be looking for massive payback. Did your boyfriend tell her off, at least?”

  Heather had tried not to give this question too much thought in the past months. Because the answer was so deeply offensive and embarrassing. But she’d been nothing but honest thus far in this conversation, and it had made her feel better than she had in months.

  “Well …,” she began, “it was a different boyfriend then. Sam”

  “Sam, huh?” Josh said, puffing out his chest to play the part of the jealous boyfriend. Heather giggled, thoroughly enjoying any reference, joking or not, to Josh being interested in her that way. It was something she still wasn’t a hundred percent sure of, and any clues he gave her were deeply appreciated. Not to mention unhealthily exciting.

  “Well, go on,” Josh said. “What did Sam do? Did he give her a piece of his mind?”

  Heather hesitated for a moment, letting her eyes drift down to her empty coffee cup. “No,” she muttered. “Sam kind of ended up … going out with her.”

  “What?” Josh bellowed. An entire Starbucks full of East Village hipsters and NYU students turned in his direction. Heather pressed her finger to her lips with an embarrassed giggle.

  “Okay,” she said with a smile. “Calm down.”

  “What?” Josh howled again, still baffled and disgusted by Sam’s behavior.

  “Shhh.” She begged him to lower his voice, but in truth, she had adored every ounce of his blustery volume. He didn’t care how much attention he drew to himself. Sam’s betrayal was worthy of a deep, disgusted shout, and Josh had recognized that instantly.

  He obeyed her request and leaned in much closer with a private murmur. “This Sam guy sounds like a real wimp. I hope he’s long gone.”

  “Oh, he is,” Heather promised quickly. “God, I haven’t seen him in ages.”

  “Well, maybe something horrible happened to him for a change. What goes around … and all that.”

  “Yeah,” Heather semi-agreed, not wanting to wish Sam too horrible a fate. Though she had to admit, she wouldn’t mind so much if maybe he fell on a little bit of bad luck.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Josh said, leaning his muscular frame back in his little chair and crossing his arms. “So let me get this straight. This Sam guy and this Ed guy both left you for this … this … what’s her name? Guy something? Gynecologist?”

  “Gaia.” Heather laughed.

  “Gaia. What is she, Finnish or something? Wasn’t she in ABBA or Ace of Base?”

  “They’re Swedish,” she replied between harder and harder laughs.

  “Yeah, whatever,” he said. “I bet her real name’s Edith and she’s just trying to be exotic.”

  Heather laughed and laughed until … No way. It’s too early.

  She’d been laughing so hard that she’d laughed her way into one of her most guarded secrets. Her snort laugh. She couldn’t believe she’d just revealed her snort laugh to him. She could usually hold that back for months until she was absolutely sure that an extremely rare pig noise wouldn’t cause a guy to reassess her completely. She’d never in her life trusted a man with her snort laugh so soon. But there was just something about Josh. Even though the duration of their relationship could still be described in terms of hours … she somehow already knew she could trust him completely.

  And of course because he was Josh, her pig noise didn’t send him running or even earn her a funny look.

  “Okay, okay,” he went on, “so you honestly expect me to believe that Sam and this Ed guy both left you for her?”

  “Mm-hmm,” Heather confirmed.

  Josh threw up his arms. “Well, that just doesn’t make sense,” he said, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. “She can’t be prettier than you. She can’t be smarter than you.” Heather’s entire body was now gurgling like an ecstatic baby. “She can’t possibly snort as well.”

  “No” Heather agreed.

  “So what is it? What the hell is wrong with these guys?”

  Heather opened her eyes wide and considered his question. If she were to be totally honest with herself (which, thanks to Josh, she was being), then she’d have to admit that she thought it was a damn good question. Because in truth, in spite of all her attempts at turning over her “new leaf” and being less self-involved, Josh was helping to remind her of a very simple fact: Heather really couldn’t fathom how a man could choose Gaia over her. How exactly could being ornery, cruel, coldhearted, and unshowered make such a favorable impression on intelligent men?

  Heather had only one theory. A theory she’d been careful not to share with a soul since it did sound quite ludicrous. But in Josh’s case, maybe she could make an exception. Josh just had this amazing power to make her feel … justified—validated in some way that she’d been sorely lacking ever since … well, ever since Gaia Moore had set foot in the Village School. That’s how long it had been since Heather had felt like herself. She decided to go for broke and share her secret theory. If anyone would stick with her on it, it would be Josh.

  “Well, I think …,” she began carefully, “and I’m totally serious here … I think she hypnotizes them.”

  “Oh, really?” Josh laughed doubtfully.

  “No, really,” Heather insisted. “It’s like she casts some kind of spell on them that convinces them that she’s so special. I swear, it’s like they think she’s superhuman or something.”

  “Well, is she?” Josh asked.

  “No,” Heather replied, not totally sure i
f she believed her own answer. “I mean … whatever, the point is, they obviously didn’t realize that I can be superhuman in my own ways.”

  “Oh, really?” Josh laughed suggestively.

  “No, I didn’t mean that” she squawked. “Or … maybe I did,” she admitted. She dropped her face in her hands to indicate embarrassment when, in fact, some part of her was feeling rather proud. She was back on her flirting game, and she knew it.

  “Wait a minute,” Josh said, straightening his posture as he eyed Heather with mock suspicion. “Is that why I had to see you again this morning? Are you casting some kind of spell on me like your friend Gallagher?”

  “Gaia.” Heather laughed, locking eyes with Josh. “And yes. I just made my Josh voodoo doll last night. I am now controlling your every move with my mind.”

  “Of course,” Josh said. “And that’s why I…” He cast a blank, zombielike stare over his eyes as if he’d been hypnotized. “I must meet you here again tomorrow night.”

  “Exactly.” She grinned, wondering if she might be able to find a private corner where she could literally jump for joy if not engage in a full series of cartwheels. She’d known her theory wouldn’t scare him away. If anything, it seemed to have done just the opposite.

  “And that’s why I must …” He clamped his large hands to the small Starbucks table and began to shake his body as if some unearthly force had taken control of his will.

  “What?” she begged.

  “Can’t stop myself … I must …”

  “What?” she pleaded, widening her eyes with nervous anticipation.

  He finally shot out from his chair, causing Heather to jump slightly in hers. He leaned across the table and kissed Heather on the cheek, letting his warm lips linger on her face before he pulled away. Heather’s body heat must have increased at least twenty degrees. She tried to steady herself as best she could.