by I. T. Lucas
Poor Nick. He’d been on his own since a very young age. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Nah, it’s all good. Eva found me and offered me a job and a home.”
Ruth looked out the window. Nick didn’t have his own place, and she hadn’t invited him to hers yet. They’d been meeting in the café and going out to movies or walks on the beach, and on Sundays, they surfed if the weather was good. Inviting Nick to her house would have suggested things she hadn’t been ready for.
They’d been dating like a couple of teenagers who still lived with their parents, not like the adults they were. Well, Nick was living with his boss, but Eva was treating him more like a son than an employee.
Perhaps it was time Ruth invited Nick for dinner at her place and cooked him some of her specialties, spoilt him the only way she knew how.
Except, suddenly she felt impatient, or rather resolute. Yes, definitely resolute.
“Are you tired?” she asked.
“Not really, but you must be beat. It’s after midnight, and you’ve been awake since what? Five in the morning?”
“Seven. Jackson opened up today. And I’m not tired at all.”
He cast her a sidelong glance. “What do you have in mind?”
Ruth rearranged her purse in her lap, clutching it with the fingers of both hands. “I was thinking that maybe instead of dropping me off at home, you could come in and we could watch that stuff you suggested. I have Netflix.”
Turning toward her with a shocked expression on his face, Nick also turned the steering wheel in her direction, getting the car into the oncoming traffic lane.
“Watch out!” she cried out as headlights rushed toward them.
“Oh, shit!” Nick yanked the wheel the other way, getting the car back into its lane.
A hand over her racing heart, Ruth slumped in her seat. “That was a close call.”
“Yeah, it was.” He exhaled a long breath through his mouth. “You can’t spring stuff like that on me while I’m driving.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m glad you’re taking me up on my offer. I just didn’t expect you to do it so soon.”
Ruth chuckled. “I guess the two of us march to a different beat. Everyone else thinks we are nuts.”
He put his hand on her knee. “Screw them. I don’t care what everyone thinks. It’s me and you, babe, and what works for us. We write our own rules.”
“And those rules are?”
“Simple. Ruthie gets what Ruthie wants, when and how she wants it.”
“What about what Nicki wants?”
“Nicki wants to make Ruthie happy. And whatever makes his Ruthie happy, makes him happy.”
He was so sweet that it was hard to believe he was for real. Was it because he was still a virgin? But he wasn’t naive, not if he watched porn.
“Nicki must be frustrated by now.”
“Why are we talking about ourselves in the third person?”
“You started it.”
“I did, didn’t I? I guess it’s easier to talk about difficult subjects that way.”
Ruth nodded. “It was hard for me to ask, but I’m glad I did.”
“Me too.”
“I can’t promise anything, though. I just want to watch.”
“That’s okay.”
It couldn’t be. Despite her attempts to pretend as if she hadn’t noticed, it was impossible not to see that her poor Nicki was sporting a perpetual hard-on. “How are you managing to be so patient? You’re a young guy in your prime. You must be going out of your mind.”
Nick smirked. “As long as we are having a frank conversation, I guess it’s okay to tell you how I manage. I jerk off about five times a day.”
Ruth blushed. She’d suspected as much. There was no other reason for a guy to watch porn. But five times a day? Nick was a human, not an immortal.
According to Sylvia, immortal males, meaning her Roni, had incredible stamina and needed practically no recovery time.
“Isn’t it a bit much?”
He shrugged. “I have a sexy girlfriend who wants to take her time. What else am I going to do?”
“And you’re sure that you’re not mad at said girlfriend for dragging things out like that?”
“I’m sure.”
“How come?”
He squeezed her knee. “Because I love her, silly.”
22
Wonder
“You should go home,” Natasha said. “You look like you’re coming down with something.”
Wonder rubbed her temples, pretending a headache. “I’ll ask Tony if it’s okay with him. If not, I’ll take those brown pills you gave me the last time I had a headache and stay.”
“You mean Advil?”
“Yeah, those.” She’d never taken them, just pretended she had to stop Natasha’s nagging.
Pulling out the key to her locker from her back pocket, Natasha patted her arm. “Why not take them now? I’ll go get them for you.”
“Thank you.”
Wonder wasn’t a good actress, not even passable. Every emotion she felt was displayed on her face for everyone to see. When she’d returned to the club after dumping her fourth prisoner at the facility, people had kept asking her what was wrong and if she was feeling all right.
Since she couldn’t hide what was clearly written on her face, the only thing she could do was give them a different explanation for it, one that sounded reasonable to humans—like a headache, or a stomach ache.
By now, she should’ve been more experienced, and her fourth rescue operation shouldn’t have left her as shaken as her first one, and yet it had disturbed her more than the others.
Maybe the reason for that was the guilt eating at her.
The rescued woman, Rosalie, was still hanging around the club, looking drunk although she hadn’t been drinking much.
Her dazed expression and uncoordinated body movements were no doubt the result of Wonder’s hatchet job of removing her memories. The chunk she had taken from the woman’s head was too big. What if Rosalie never recovered? What if the damage was permanent?
Had she done the same to the other women she’d rescued?
Probably not.
The others had still been euphoric from the bite when Wonder had Tasered their partners, so they hadn’t screamed, and she’d had time to do a decent job with their memories.
However, they had also gone home immediately after the incident, so she had no way of knowing how they had been affected and how long it had lasted.
“Hey, Wonder.” Tony walked out of his office at the back of the club. “Natasha told me you have a headache. It’s okay if you want to go home.”
What she wanted was to head to the facility and interrogate her latest captured immortal.
“Are you sure? I can take Advil and stay until closing.”
He waved a hand. “Go home, Wonder. It’s quiet here tonight.”
“Thank you. I think sleep would do me good.”
He clapped her on the back. “It’s the best medicine. I wish I could sleep more than six hours a night. But I can’t. I wake up to take a piss and that’s it. I’m awake.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.” Was that the right response? She hoped so.
Wonder’s go-to phrases were either that she was glad to hear that, or conversely that she was sorry to hear that, depending on whether someone told her a good thing or bad. Listening to the conversations in the club, she was learning new phrases every day, but she still wasn’t confident enough to use them. What if she said the wrong thing?
Tony waved a hand. “I’m getting old, that’s all. Good night, Wonder.”
“You too.”
As she headed for the back door, Natasha intercepted her. “Here, take two.” She shook the pills out of the container into her palm.
“Thanks. I’m going home to sleep.”
“Take those now. You’ll sleep better.”
“I’ll take them at home.” Wonder did
n’t know if she was supposed to chew the pills or swallow them. Better not to do it in front of Natasha.
“Good night. I hope you feel better tomorrow.”
“Yeah, me too. Good night, Natasha. And thanks for the pills.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“I won’t.”
By the amused look on Natasha’s face, that hadn’t been the right response.
Oh, well. She was doing her best.
Wonder sighed in relief as she stepped out into the parking lot. She hated lying, especially to good people like Tony and Natasha.
Pushing the two small pills into her pocket, she walked over to the dumpster and pulled out the redhead’s clothes and shoes. Tucking the bundle under her arm, she got in her car and put it on the passenger seat next to her. Before she headed to the facility, she needed to dispose of everything next to a different club. If there were any tracking devices hidden inside the items, or if his comrades used dogs to sniff him out, this would throw them off her trail.
Unlike what she had told her boss, Wonder had a long night ahead of her, and it would be long hours before she went to sleep.
After she disposed of the clothes, she still needed to interrogate her newest prisoner.
On a gut level, she knew that he just couldn’t be like the other three. The vibe she’d gotten from him was completely different. It was clean, for lack of a better word.
It wasn’t about his actual cleanliness, although he’d smelled good, it was more about who he was inside. Or maybe she just wanted him to be different than the others because she was attracted to him, which was a weird response in itself.
Since waking up from her coma, Wonder hadn’t felt that for any particular male, and if she had before, she didn’t remember it. There was no shortage of good-looking guys in the club, and on occasion, their eyes lingered on her face or on her body or both.
Usually, they lingered on her breasts.
But their appreciative looks had done nothing for her. She’d sometimes found herself aroused by a sexually charged scene in a movie or a book, and a few times when watching couples on the dance floor—especially those who seemed to be completely absorbed in each other to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. But it was never the guy himself who’d produced that reaction in her, just the situation and imagining herself doing something similar with her future boyfriend if she ever had one.
And yet, one smile from a male who had taken another woman to the back alley had gotten Wonder all hot and bothered.
Maybe she had a thing for redheads.
Or maybe she liked very tall, heavily-muscled guys. Or men with great smiles. Or those who smelled really good.
Ugh. She liked everything about that guy except for who and what he was, which she wasn’t exactly clear on either.
Why would immortal males kill human females? How could they do it? Was it about the sex?
She could understand one guy going crazy, but several?
After spending enough time with Grud, Mordan, and Shaveh, she knew they weren’t insane. They were simple men, soldiers who did what they were ordered to. But she doubted anyone had ordered them to kill random women. Who could benefit from that?
Not that any of them had admitted to murderous intentions. They were still claiming it had been just sex, and that she’d misunderstood the situation.
Right. She might have been born practically yesterday, but she wasn’t stupid. Their intent had been clear.
Maybe they were suffering from group insanity?
Perhaps there was a mental disease that affected immortal males and was contagious like the human flu?
It was just as crazy of an idea as the one of an organization wishing to create panic and ordering the killings.
Did it matter, though?
What kind of males followed unconscionable orders?
Wonder would’ve rather died herself than murder an innocent victim.
Some orders were meant to be disobeyed.
Perhaps she should curb her curiosity and wait until morning before questioning her new prisoner. As agitated, anxious, and confused as she still was, Wonder was in no shape to conduct an interrogation. For it to be effective, a clear head and a calm attitude were required, and at the moment she had neither.
Maybe Tony was right about sleep being the best medicine.
After a restful night, she would be in a better mental state to deal with the redhead and his charming smile.
23
Ruth
While Nick surfed the net on Ruth’s laptop, searching for the movie he had in mind, she popped a bag of microwave popcorn, grabbed two cans of beer, and returned to the living room.
“Isn’t it illegal to watch porn?” She put the beers on the coffee table and sat on the couch with the popcorn bowl in her lap. “Can I get arrested for that? You know that everything you do on the internet has a record no matter how hard you try to hide it.”
Nick waved a hand. “Nah, regular porn is fine. Unless you want to run for office one day, that is. Then they will dig out every potentially embarrassing thing you’ve ever done. I bet you that devices like Alexa and Siri and Google Assistant that are sitting around people’s homes looking all innocent, secretly record their farts.”
Ruth giggled. The idea was ridiculous, but there was no doubt that people’s lives were becoming less and less private. Technology was a double-edged sword, especially for immortals. They were the ones who’d been pushing it forward for centuries, but they were also the ones who required the most privacy. No immortal would let any of the devices Nick had mentioned into their homes, and their phones were clan issue to ensure private communication.
Still, there were laptops and tablets, and not everyone was as careful as her and hooked them up to the clan’s private servers. Ruth for one was diligent about it, even though her surfing was limited to searching for new recipes and online shopping.
Pretty innocent activity.
Until now.
If anyone other than bots monitored clan members’ activity on the net, and that person saw her searching for porn, she was going to die from embarrassment.
“Found it. It’s an old one, so ignore the sideburns and the less than perfect bodies and faces. This was done before the era of plastic surgery fixing every little imperfection. On the plus side, the boobs are mostly real.” Nick snorted. “Meaning that not all of them are plus sized.”
He hadn’t been kidding. By the clothes and hairstyles, the movie was from the late eighties or early nineties. “Is that why you’re watching movies that are probably older than you?”
He sat next to her on the couch and wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I watch them because back then they were done well, with high production values and good lighting and editing. There was no free stuff on the internet yet, so people could make money selling those movies. But the main reason I like them is that there is a love story in addition to the sex. Sex on its own is boring. Nowadays every idiot with a cellphone camera can make a porn flick.”
She nestled closer to him. “I wouldn’t know. I’ve never watched any of it.”
“Girls watch too, you know. It’s not only us guys.”
Yeah, but not women her age who grew up when it was not as prevalent. Maybe Sylvia watched, but Ruth was not going to ask her if she did. To this date, she still hid her racy romance novels from her daughter. Some of the covers were scandalous.
“What are you smiling about?” Nick asked. “Do you like the movie so far?”
The actor playing the professor was far from handsome, but he had a sexy voice. It was deep and had an almost musical quality to it, soothing and titillating at the same time. The naughty student was pretty, not gorgeous, but she had long toned legs, which she was crossing and uncrossing, flashing the professor glimpses of her pink panties.
Evidently, the thong hadn’t been a thing yet.
So far so good, at least they were not getting right to it, and there was some buildup. But
that was not why she was smiling. Should she tell Nick about her novels?
He was brave, admitting to watching porn, she shouldn’t pretend to be a prude who’d never done anything of the sort.
“I read romance novels.”
“That’s nice.”
Obviously, he didn’t know those came in a wide variety of hotness level. “Some of them are very racy.”
The woman on the small computer screen got up and sauntered toward the professor, who was leaning against his desk with his arms crossed over his chest and a very visible bulge in his pants.
“Oh yeah?” Nick looked at her instead of watching the screen. “Define very racy.”
The woman walked in between the professor’s spread thighs, loosened his tie, and started unbuttoning his shirt. At the same time, he put his hands under her tiny miniskirt and pushed it up, exposing her panty-covered bottom to the camera.
“Take this scene, for example.” Ruth pointed at the screen. “And imagine it described in words.”
As the professor squeezed the student’s bottom, she put her hands on his very hairy chest and kissed him. Apparently waxing for men hadn’t been a thing either.
“Wow, I bet it’s hot. Can I read one?”
Over her dead body. Which would be never since she was an immortal.
“No.”
The couple on the screen was still kissing when the professor pushed the girl’s panties down her thighs, and the camera zoomed in on her shapely bottom. The actor’s hands were big, even though he wasn’t a tall guy, and one of his hands was enough to cover both of the girl’s butt cheeks.
When he pushed a finger inside her wetness, the camera zoomed in even closer, proving that the girl’s moans and gyrating hips were not just an act. The actress was turned on. Perhaps the two were a couple in real life?
However, even if that was the case, Ruth couldn’t understand how the actress could get aroused in front of a camera crew and all the other people on the set. Maybe she was an exhibitionist? That must’ve been it.
