She spread ’em. God, her legs are a mile long. She was shaking all over like a racehorse.
“Oh, Chloe. You look so good. You smell good. You taste good. I plunge my tongue all up the inside of your thigh and over your beautiful chocolate pussy.”
She shook harder.
“I lick, lick, lick, long hard strokes into your pussy. Then I put my whole mouth over you, and my mouth is so big, my teeth dig into your belly and your butt, while I shove my tongue inside you, my hard, raspy, chocolaty, slippery tongue, thrusting, thrusting, thrusting—”
She broke then, letting out a yowl that cracked my eardrum. One second later, I was on top of her, filling her with my Greek sledgehammer and grabbing her with my perfectly ordinary hands. She was still coming as I entered. She clenched around me with fast, hot squeezes that completely shattered my self-control.
“Oh, Chloe!” I burst out.
She growled like a beast. The next moment, she did some kind of jujitsu move that flipped me over on my back, and then she straddled me, yowling like a bull rider and biting my shoulder.
After that things got kinda blurry.
After yet another long, athletic interlude, I forced myself to roll away from Archie. My chest heaved. Cool air from the ceiling fan licked over my skin. I wondered idly what it would feel like if he skipped the shave.
A shiver ran over me, but certain overused body parts yelled for a time out.
He was already reaching for me again.
Panicking, I blurted something to hold him off. “How come you call yourself Archimedes now?” He looked really good, lying on his side all naked and sweaty next to me. “If you’re such a devoted slacker, then how come you still use your name?”
He tipped over onto his back and sighed at the ceiling. “I dunno. Because it’s my name?”
“You were willing enough to sell it to your tutor in exchange for hash money, or whatever it was you were toking in the Year One. Why does a slacker cling to his famous name, if he doesn’t kinda like being famous?”
He grunted. “You’re pretty critical, for a girl who spends her day extolling the virtues of a liqueur called French Tickler.”
“Never mind me. I bet you saw what your name earned and you want it back.” I turned over on my stomach so I could frown at him. “Even if nobody will ever know that Archie the bartender in 2012 and Archimedes the famous mathematician are the same guy.”
He shrugged against the sheet. “Maybe I’m trying to blacken his name, not borrow luster from my industrious identity thief.”
“You sold him your identity. For beer money.”
“Beer was expensive in 280 BC.”
I thumped his shoulder. “You know you would rather be you than some—”
“Bar bum? Poondog?”
I flushed. “I didn’t say that.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“By whom?” I said coldly.
“A woman.”
That diverted me. “What woman? Bull. No woman ever calls you anything except forty times on your answering machine. C’mon, buddy, you’re in hiding. What are you afraid of?”
“The goddess of love, if you must know,” he said, sounding annoyed.
Chloe’s eyes got big. “Love? You’re that afraid of love?”
I looked in her face, and the wall I’d built inside me swelled up until my chest creaked. I felt a rant coming on.
“Believe it.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Don’t underestimate her. She’s the enemy of every organized religion there is. She’s the only deity who has never, ever had to shill for customers or placate a priesthood or worry about schisms. Even death has a million priesthoods. Everybody tries to avoid death. There’s thousands of sects of competing skull brothers. But love?” I shook my head. “We just lay low and hope she never casts her eyes on us.”
Chloe made a skeptical face. “She’s done her worst to you already.”
A shiver passed over me. “She has not.” I shook my whole body, trying to shake off the fear. “It can happen to anybody. One minute you’re sailing along, business as usual, and the next, wham, flat on your back with a galloping case of love. You get fever, existential confusion, loss of appetite, loss of sleep, delirium, dizziness, uncontrollable physical cravings, emo fits, the works. Love fucks the biggest of the big guys.”
“That’s lust,” she said dismissively.
“The hell it is. I know from lust. Lust serves love, not the other way around. We never forget that, which is why guys like Baz and me and Veek and Kama and Lido stay off the radar and safe in the cracks. Set yourself up as Mister Big and you’re painting a target on your forehead. She loves to bring down the holdouts.”
“Love isn’t a single person,” she objected.
“Love is one person for everybody,” I said positively. “Sooner or later, she’ll get you. Just pray it’s only the once.”
“So what about your victims’ compensation program?” Chloe said, frowning suddenly. “I thought you were supposed to be hooking me up with, like, my ideal soul mate?”
“Well.” I flushed. “Soul mate is a strong word. Say, somebody nice who won’t prey on you and dump you with a case of chlamydia.”
“Mister screen door, picket fence, thirty years of boring marriage?” she said sarcastically.
“You have an attitude problem, you know that?” I said, thrilled to the pit of my heart that she didn’t want my rain of mister-screen-door decent men. “Love isn’t just some chick in a chiton. It’s the whole raging-hormonal-imbalance thing. People do stupid things because they’re strung out on love. It’s the ultimate drug. Look at you. A guy doesn’t have to slip you a roofie. All he has to do is wait a little bit to phone you after you fuck, and you’re a goner, a willing victim, not a shred of common sense or dignity or self-preservation.”
“I thought it wouldn’t be long before we got to my shortcomings.”
“I prefer to think of them as adorable vulnerabilities. You fucking sap,” I said with resignation.
“You’re afraid of love. Afraid of it, Archie. How can you want it so bad and yet be such an idiot?”
I ignored that crack about wanting love. “If I’m still scared of it, I must not be that big an idiot yet.”
She sent me a look that said: You’re adorable.
I sent her a look: Back off.
I was darned if I’d back off. He’d given me too much to think about.
“What were you making that has chocolate in it?” he said now. The smoky look was in his eyes again.
“Oh God, Archie, I don’t know if I can take the chocolate again. You half killed me.” His eyebrow went up, and oh, I wanted it again after all. I frowned, trying to switch mental gears. “Chocolate mousse.” God, get him onto the real chocolate before he kisses me again, and I might survive. My privates were throbbing like an idling motorcycle. “You’re a good guesser.”
“About?” He wasn’t even breathing hard. Sex demon.
“The ingredients. Chocolate, cream, sugar, Cointreau.”
He rolled closer and ran his nose up my side into my armpit. My head swam. Some body parts wanted to bang him and some wanted to push him off the bed before we could get started again.
He said to my armpit, “I smelled it on you when I arrived. Drove me crazy.”
I giggled and pushed his face away. “Is that why you said, ‘I’m doomed?’”
“I was doomed the night I kissed you,” he said with absolute sincerity, and I felt a twinge of worry. He sounded resigned. “Tell me about this chocolate mousse.”
“I made it for you,” I said.
“Go get it,” he said. “Two spoons.”
I remembered now why I’d made the mousse. I’d meant it to be a love potion. I hadn’t wanted him to walk out with my pubic hairs and no sex. I’d wanted him to fuck me silly.
Now I wanted him to want it—want me—love me—forever.
Half afraid he would hear me thinking “forever,
” I slid out of bed. “Gimme two minutes.”
He got up on one elbow. “One minute. It’s not that far to your refrigerator.”
“One minute to pee, one minute for mousse.”
He collapsed onto his back. “You may have one minute to pee.”
While I went to the bathroom and then to the kitchen and pulled the mousse out of the fridge and stuck a second spoon in it, I thought about my chocolate love potion. It occurred to me that I already had what I’d plotted for. I’d poured all my concentration into the mousse. And bingo, when he arrived, he’d instantly dragged me to the bedroom.
My eyes closed. I hoped I would remember everything he’d done, everything. Forever.
But he’d never even got to taste the mousse. Not counting smelling it on me and licking the odd drop of chocolate off my shoulder.
So why feed it to him now?
The truth was, I couldn’t really imagine forever. I’d just wanted sex with him, lots of sex, as much of him as I could handle. If I were totally honest with myself I’d admit that I’d already had plenty more than I could handle. My heart might slow down sometime tomorrow.
What good could my chocolate mousse love potion do now?
Was that what I wanted?
Kitchen towels.
I’m such a fool.
But I brought him the chocolate mousse and the spoons. It was as if my body had decided everything, and my brain was just wheel spinning, left behind by the hormone express.
The chocolate calmed my heart down.
If Archie felt anything after he ate it, he didn’t show it.
He borrowed a pair of shorts and cab fare, and booked.
He didn’t even stop to take a shower.
Chapter Eleven
HE LEFT ME with lots to think about.
I didn’t waste time being confused that he ran out at the end. So many, many guys have run out on me at the end. Usually after one or two times in bed.
I couldn’t wallow in jubilation either, although my body felt deeply satisfied, exhausted, and at the same time weirdly energized.
I wanted very much to panic.
Okay, I would allow myself five minutes of panic.
For five minutes I ran around my apartment, yelling and stomping, feeling like my hair was on fire. I beat on the kitchen counters with my fists. I kicked things and hurt my toes. I cried.
Ironically, the ghost of dozens of Archie bartender chats came back to talk me down off my window ledge, comfort me, and make me believe in myself. He’s not worthy. You’re ignoring your instincts—you were going to get rid of him anyway. Write him off, move on, you deserve better.
I didn’t want better.
I’d said that to Archie in all those bartender chats, but this time I meant it.
I didn’t feel helpless and rejected and lost this time.
I felt empowered.
“I can do this,” I said aloud in my sex-smelly bedroom.
I felt a surge of confidence, just saying it.
For one thing, I knew more about Archie than about any guy I’ve ever dated. I knew he’d let go tonight. I’d felt it. I’d seen it in his face. I knew he was running away from his feelings for me. In a kooky way, that fed my confidence. He worked no differently from ordinary guys.
This time, I felt like I could work him. In fact, I was already working him. I would never have been able to get Reynolds to come over once he started that “something came up” crap on the phone the way Archie did today. With Archie, I handled it. And he came over after all.
It was as if I’d always had the machinery to go get my man, but I’d never had it, well, working before. All the parts were assembled and the motor was running, but I’d never had it in gear.
Afraid to, I guess.
Or maybe Archie was right all along. I’d never really wanted any of them.
So. How could I work Archie?
I had two pieces of leverage: the victims’ compensation program and his friends, who seemed to like me.
Okay, then.
I waited a whole twelve hours to go after him.
It cost me a certain amount of courage to wander over to Cheaters the next afternoon.
When I got there, the doors were locked. Lido let me in when I knocked. “Closed for construction,” he said briefly, but he led me toward the back, where the pool tables stood.
Archie was in one of his wife-beaters and a pair of cargo shorts hung all over with tools. He had a big steel framework half-constructed, and he was in the process of making noises like shotgun blasts with a power tool on the brick back wall.
I adopted an expression of pathetic eagerness and crept closer.
He must have noticed me behind him. He had a pair of goggles pushed up on his forehead. His eyes looked cold and blank. “What? We’re closed,” he said brusquely.
“Um?” I said, trying to sound like a girl. “Is Ben around?”
A look crossed his face that I wished I could instant replay a few dozen times. Joy, fear, relief, cold disinterest, a bone-deep sadness underneath. “Who?”
“Ben? The bartender?” I let my hands twist together in front of me.
“No Ben working here. Try The Love Boat on Clark Street.” He turned away from me. “Keep her back,” he called out to Lido. “I don’t want a stray shell hitting her.”
He was pretending he didn’t know me.
Well, I was only pretending I didn’t know him.
Lido motioned me over to the restroom corridor. “You’re foxing, right?”
“Of course,” I said.
“We brought the new charm.”
“What do I do with it this time?” I said. “He said he would design it so I couldn’t just smash it.”
“He didn’t design it. I did,” Lido sniffed. “But he was watching me the whole time, so I had to make it somewhat legit.”
“Great,” I said, puzzled. “Lido, I don’t want a rain of nice guys or whatever he has planned.”
“Just get it out of your possession as soon as you can.” Lido’s overalls hung like a sack from his thin, tattooed shoulders. The pockets of his overalls were loaded down with tools.
Wistfully I went back to watch Archie work. I felt a little forlorn at his brush-off, as if I really was one of his whammied one-night-stands, looking for “Ben, that blond bartender.”
At length I said, “It looks like monkey bars.”
“No, but that’s a thought,” Archie said. “Okay, the superstructure is in place. Now we just have to install the screens and hope like hell we don’t drop any. They’re fifteen hundred dollars apiece.” Then he did a double take at me. “Are you still here?”
“April fool,” I said with a brand-bimbo smile. “Your whammy flopped. I came by to get that rain-of-decent-men charm. You did make one, didn’t you?”
That complicated look came again, this time in reverse. He ended up looking happy, and he even forgot to hide it.
I forgave him for trying to make me forget him.
“What are you guys doing?” I said to distract him. Old Chloe would have tried to discuss last night to death. I stuck with my plan.
He gave me one long look. “You’ll see,” he said briefly. “Now.” He turned away toward a stack of boxes on the pool table and started ripping one open. “Make yourself useful.”
I opened boxes. There were twelve forty-inch LCD screens in them. I whistled. “The owner must be feeling pretty flush.”
“He doesn’t know about it,” Archie said. “He’s in Bermuda this week. By the time he gets back, it’ll be done and working, and the customers will love it, and he’ll be stuck with it.”
I carried a screen over to the frame and handed it to Archie. He fitted it into the framework somehow.
He held out his hand. “Connector?”
Lido handed him a wire and he jacked it into the back of the screen.
“Next?” Archie said.
I brought him another.
One by one the screens went up on the fra
me. Archie gestured to Lido. Lido did something behind the lower edge of the structure. Suddenly the whole wall sprang to life. All twelve screens showed the same football game.
Archie picked up the remote. All twelve screens suddenly became one giant screen, showing the football game but enormous, in razor-sharp definition.
I stepped back.
“Chloe, get up there,” Archie said absently.
“Excuse me?”
Lido was shoving a big round wooden platform over toward the wall.
“Cool. Give her the mike.”
Lido handed me a wireless lollypop microphone. Archie twiddled with the remote again. Now the screens showed me my own back, twelve times larger than life.
“Music,” Archie called out.
Lido poked at a laptop. I heard the opening bars of Norah Jones’s “Don’t Know Why I Didn’t Call.”
“Gag me,” Archie said.
“I warned you,” Lido said, but he poked the screen again.
In a moment I heard something else. I couldn’t place it, but then Lido turned the laptop on the pool table to face me, and I saw the karaoke cheat line feeding words across its screen.
Archie made a swooping gesture. “C’mon. Sing it.”
I shrugged. “If you can,” I sang, trying to catch up with the cheat sheet. “Are you strong enough to be my man? I’m warning you, I can’t sing,” I added.
“Now go over to the table over there,” Archie said, pointing. “Keep singing.”
I stepped off the platform and walked toward the empty table in the empty bar. “Lie to me,” I sang. “I promise I’ll believe.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Archie dropping something into my purse where it sat next to the box knife on the pool table.
I caught Lido’s glance. He nodded to me. Then he slid into a chair in front of me and pulled me down on his lap. We sang together for a moment. Then he took the mike away from me and pushed me off his lap. He swayed up onto the platform, doing half a dance step.
While Archie was looking at the screen, I dipped into my purse and found a ballpoint pen I hadn’t put there. I palmed it.
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