“Millions,” the egg corrected. “But he’s never got it in his head before to elevate any of his concubines to god status.”
“Hera isn’t pleased,” Crixus added. “Which is why she sent her delivery boys to grab Goldilocks before Zeus can bestow immortality upon her.”
“The three bears are Hera’s delivery boys?” I scanned my memory for any connection between the fairytale and Greek myth but came up empty.
“Callisto, wasn’t it?” the egg said. “A beautiful nymph whom Hera turned into a bear when she discovered that Zeus was diddling her?”
Crixus nodded. “Only, Callisto was already pregnant with triplets because Zeus shoots like a—”
“I get it,” I interrupted. “Thus the three bears whom Hera has sent after Goldilocks. Where do you come in?” I asked Crixus.
His face took on a steely cast. “That doesn’t concern you.”
“I just had my dinner interrupted by three shapeshifting manbears. I’m going to say it concerns me very much.”
“No use bickering about it.” The egg employed a scrap of silk no bigger than a postage stamp to polish the gold-rimmed monocle he brought to his eye. Having no concave surface to anchor it in, he peered out of it to test the clarity before tucking it back into his vest pocket along with his handkerchief.
The action led me to examine my own glasses, smudged and dusty from the chaos. I breathed on them and wiped them clean with a corner of my sweater.
Crixus loomed in even greater detail when I slid the frames back on my face.
“Gosh.” Rolly took in the wreckage with wide-eyed wonder. “I thought stuff like this only happened in the movies.”
“It’s only supposed to.” Crixus kicked a broken chair, as much of a display of frustration as I had ever seen him engage in.
“So where is Goldilocks now?” I asked.
Crixus picked a spinach leaf from my hair and flicked it away like an insect. “Can’t tell you that.”
“And why not?”
“Because I’m not the only one who can read your thoughts. And with the way you think, that could be a real liability.”
“What do you mean, the way I think?”
“You might as well have a radio tower attached to your head. It’s like a 24-7 network of psychobabble and organic farmer’s market food fluff up there.” He tapped my forehead with the rough pad of his index finger.
I slapped it away in irritation. “I think about other things.”
A wicked grin slid across his lips. “I didn’t think you’d want me to mention those things in our present company.”
“I want to hear the things!” Rolly piped up. “Are any of them about me?”
“No! There are no things.” I glared a warning at Crixus. “We are not having this conversation.”
An awkward silence descended on the heels of my over-passionate interjection.
Rolly cleared his throat and patted his pockets. “Boy, is it a good thing you grabbed my keys when you did, Dr. Schmidt. I might have lost them when that bear attacked me if it wasn’t for you.”
Guilt reached cold fingers into my chest. I glanced down to see Rolly’s sock, stained with blood at the ankle where he had been grabbed. He’d been hurt because of me. And worse, he had only been here in the first place so I could steal from him.
“I’m so sorry about all this, Rolly,” I said, handing over the keys. “You should probably have that ankle looked at.”
“It’s no big deal,” he shrugged. “Mostly he just pinched me. Anyway, I’d get attacked by bears any day if it meant getting to have dinner with you.”
Crixus skewered me with a knowing look that made me want to slide back under a table.
Wailing sirens in the distance reminded us that we were standing the scene of an urban bear attack, or at least, this was likely what had been reported to the police.
Time had taken on a liquid quality that made individual seconds impossible to measure. It might have been minutes since the Brothers Bear had crashed into the restaurant.
It might have been days.
“We’d better leg it, lads,” the egg said, casting a nervous glance around the perimeter. “The mutton shunters are sure to nick us all!”
“You go on ahead,” Crixus urged Rolly. “I’ll make sure she gets home okay.”
“Just be careful,” Rolly admonished. “Because someone’s been…” Here, he paused and tipped his fist—thumb and pinky extended—toward his mouth to mime drinking.
I resisted the urge to knock his own fist into his face. “I’m standing right here, Rolly.”
“Sorry.” Pink crept into his round cheeks. “Just want to make sure you’re safe and all.”
“She will be,” Crixus promised.
“Well, g’night,” Rolly mumbled, scurrying through the debris as fast as his khakis could carry him.
“Shall we?” Crixus extended an arm, an invitation for me to slide into it and be curled against the solid warmth of his body, the contact being a necessary aspect of materializing.
As were the sometimes multiple orgasms it caused in the human body. That part, I didn’t mind so much.
It was the feeling of being blown apart into individual atoms and squeezed back together like play dough through a pinhole that threw me.
Crixus crooked his finger toward me, and I let myself melt into the solid wall of his chest. His arms encircled me in an embrace for the ages, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many women he had held this way through the course of his long years.
Only you.
I couldn’t be sure if it was my thought or his that danced through my mind before the world slid into a sinkhole of spinning black.
*****
“You are not leaving me with this egg for a bodyguard!” My hissed whisper failed to reach the little ovule wandering on spindly legs through the dining room of my one-bedroom apartment in Plattsburgh, New York’s historic district. I felt a rush of relief that I had eaten the last of my cage-free farm-raised eggs that morning and put the cardboard carton out with the recycling.
“This egg?” Crixus repeated. “This egg? I will have you know I fought alongside this egg in the Servile Wars. He single-handedly turned the tide at the Battle of the Bulge, not to mention the American Revolutionary War. He may not look like much, but he’s one of the few…people that I would trust your safety to,” he said, looking down into my eyes with an expression as earnest as I had ever seen him muster.
“He’s dancing the mazurka with the feather duster. In my kitchen.”
We both glanced toward the tile floor as the egg dipped his wood-handled mate. “I say, you are a graceful little minx,” he chuckled as they swung a wide circle around a dining room chair.
“He’s been through a lot,” Crixus said. “He could probably use someone to talk to. Maybe this could work out well for both of you.”
“Wait a minute.” A notion crackled through my mind. “You didn’t bring him to be my bodyguard. You brought him for therapy.”
“I brought him to do both. Multi-tasking,” Crixus angled a disarming grin at me. “Aren’t you all about the multi-tasking?’
“Why can’t you protect me from the bears?” I asked.
“Because I have my hands full at the moment.”
“Of Goldilocks’s triple E knockers, no doubt.”
“Doctor,” Crixus scolded with mock severity. “Did you just use a non-medical term to describe part of the female anatomy? And was that a hint of jealousy I detected in your tone?”
“Yes, and you wish,” I shot back. “I’m simply feeling rather put upon that not only are there three homicidal bears hunting me now, you’ve also brought me a psychotic egg to contend with.”
“Anyone ever tell you you use a lot of adverbs when you’re angry?” A devastating dimple appeared in Crixus’s strong chin.
“I wasn’t aware you even knew what an adverb was,” I tossed out over my shoulder, pretending to concern myself with clearing papers off my des
k.
I felt his heat on my back before his words tickled my ear. “I know all kinds of things, doctor. I’ve been around for a very long time.” The way he caressed the word very with his tongue had me thinking of all the places that tongue could be put to good use.
“We could do that,” he said, picking one of any number of thoughts out of the air. “You’re pretty limber, as I remember.”
“Stop that,” I said, shooing his hands away from my waist. “We have some pretty serious problems here, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
“I noticed,” he said. “But I can have you out of that skirt in no time.”
I turned around and shoved him away from me. “Would you stop? I can’t always control my thoughts, but I can control my actions. And right now, all of them are focused on one thing.”
“The blackmailer, you mean?” His accuracy stunned me much as his abrupt shift in moods.
“Yes,” I admitted. “He still has my mother, and my best hope for getting Rolly’s keys was ruined when three bears came tearing through the restaurant. I have no idea what to do next, and no way to know if she’s okay.”
Voicing these words out loud gave them a gravity that pulled me earthward. Exhaustion settled upon my shoulders like a lead scarf.
“I’m doing what I can,” Crixus promised. “But there are limits to—”
“To what you can do in the human world,” I finished for him. “I know.”
“Hasn’t Whatshisfucker turned up anything on it yet?”
I gave Crixus a stern look. “You know his name.”
“So do a lot of Las Vegas hookers, I would bet.”
“He’s never screwed my assistant,” I pointed out.
“You’re still stuck on that?” Crixus yawned and stretched his arms out behind his head. I stole a sideways glance at the perfect globes of his ass in their casing of faded jeans as he stalked away from me. His black motorcycle boots were scarcely visible beneath the shredded cuffs.
“No,” I lied. “I’m just making the point that perhaps you might want to avoid questions of sexual morality when attacking his character.”
“You’re right,” Crixus agreed. “Maybe I should stick to the fact that he kills people.
“You two are ridiculous,” I grumbled, collapsing onto my overstuffed leather sofa. “You talk about each other even more than you talk about me.”
“Must be terrible to be adored,” Crixus said.
“Please.” I couldn’t resist an eyeroll. “One of my suitors rolls through the world dragging death and destruction in his wake, and the other is a hit man.”
“At least we’re dedicated.”
“So are psychopaths.”
“I hate to interrupt your little tête-à-tête, but I’m simply parched,” the egg said. “Have you anything to tickle one’s innards?”
“I should,” I sighed. “Check under the sink behind the cleaning supplies Hum—” I froze, remembering the egg’s reaction to Bob calling him Humpty. “What should I call him?” I whispered to Crixus.
“Billy,” he whispered back. “Short for Humbilicus.”
“Right behind the cleaning supplies, Billy. I hope you like scotch.”
“So long as it’s older than twelve years,” he replied.
“We’ll get along fine, then,” I told him.
“Will you be joining us, old chum?” Billy asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t.” Crixus glanced at the door in the universal gesture of impending departure. “I have to get back.”
I looked away from him, too afraid he would see in my eyes the thoughts I was already battling in my mind.
“I’ll keep the lady safe,” Billy called over his rummaging in the cabinet. “You needn’t worry.”
“Until next time.” Crixus found the back of my neck with warm fingers. The kiss he pressed onto my lips would flame in time with my heart’s beating long after he was gone.
*****
I awoke to screams.
A low keen ripping me from dark dreams—my mind painting in imagined blood the threats spoken to me by the blackmailer hours earlier. He had called after Crixus left, enraged at being kept waiting. Insisting my mother would pay for his time.
Fighting the tangle of my sheets, I scrambled out of bed, snagged my glasses from the nightstand, and walked down the dark hallway to the living room, where I found Billy rolling on the floor, fighting phantoms in his sleep.
“Falling!” he gasped. “I’m falling!” Moonlight polished the silver of his shell to a pale gleam. His eyelids squeezed tight against the traumatic recollections crowding his mind.
Startling him awake could redouble his symptoms. I quietly flicked on the lamps in the living room and turned on a soothing Chopin nocturne for background music. Locating my essential oil diffuser, I let fall into the warming plate a few drops of soothing lavender. On a hunch, I grabbed a lemon from the fridge and quickly cut a couple wedges. Sight, taste, sound—all senses with the power to anchor him back in the present.
Touch, I provided as I knelt beside him and took a small, clammy hand in mine.
“Billy,” I said.
His eyelids fluttered, opening on glassy eyes with irises gone completely black. He didn’t see me yet.
“I’m right here Billy. Find my face. Look at me.”
His pinwheeling gaze turned smaller and smaller circles until it traced only the outline of my face.
“Good. Now, tell me what you hear.”
“Breaking,” he panted. “Hooves. Swords. Screams.”
“Can you find the music?” I did as I instructed him to do, training my energy on the seductive strains of music painting the air.
“Piano. I hear a piano.”
“Focus on that. Now, open your mouth.”
The black cartoon scribbles of his eyebrows lowered over his eyes, but he did as asked. I slid a wedge of lemon onto his small, red tongue.
His eyes went squinty and he spat it back out.
“Plech!” His protest came as a relief. “You can keep your fruit unless you’ve some gin to go with it.”
“Now we’re getting somewhere.” I took his other hand and rolled him into a sitting position.
“Sorry about all that.” Billy reached for his monocle, a comfortable gesture I guessed might help ease his embarrassment. His waistcoat remained buttoned around his middle, his little legs ending in elven stalking feet. Though he had bedded down on my couch, he hadn’t much relaxed in decorum.
“Would you care for some tea?” I asked, shuffling into the kitchen. The microwave clock read 4:34 a.m. Unlikely that I would be able to sleep again before dawn broke.
“I would kill for a good pot of English char.”
“I have Earl Grey.”
“Perfect.”
I put water on to boil in a copper kettle on the stove and took two cups and saucers down from the cupboard. I set a tea strainer in each and scooped in the fragrant black flakes. Even alone as I found myself most nights, the ritual of waiting for steam’s whistle and watching the leaves infuse the water with amber was soothing beyond measure. “How often do you have flashbacks?” I asked, glancing over the counter.
Billy had risen from the floor and was investigating my collection of records on the bottom shelves of a bookcase in the corner. “Some times are worse than others.”
“Is now one of the worse times?” From the spice cupboard, I withdrew a jar of fireweed honey one of my clients had brought me back from a second honeymoon in Alaska after a year in couples’ counseling.
“It’s all this Goldilocks business, I suppose,” he sighed.
“I thought I heard one of the bears mention earlier that you knew something about Zeus breaking the rules,” I prompted. It was only a desire to help him unburden his troubled mind, I told myself, and not an attempt to extract information about what might be going on between Crixus and Goldilocks.
“He’s always been a willful child.” Billy pulled out my battered copy of Schubert’s waltze
s and turned it over in his hands.
I froze in the middle of slicing more lemon. “Child?”
“Indeed. I’ve often wondered if all of this has been worth it.”
“All of what?”
“Zeus, the Olympians. Vampires, werewolves, unicorns, elves, fairies. Everything non-human. The whole bloody lot.”
“I’m confused,” I said, setting the knife down on the cutting board. “All the non-humans came from you?”
“I’m sorry. You’ve been working with Crixus. I assumed you must know all about our world.”
“Only the parts it occurs to him to tell me,” I replied. Something he and Liam had in common, come to think of it. A flicker of irritation licked at my heart.
“You’ve not read Orpheus? Hymn to the Protogenoi?”
“Not since my undergrad days,” I admitted. “And even then, only what was required in my Greek Classics and Mythology seminar.”
A strange little smile curved the corners of Billy’s mouth. “The Orphic Egg.”
The pronunciation in his clear, clean voice stirred a memory. “Wait. It was a creation myth. Where the universe sprang from…a…silver egg.”
Billy curtsied, having no waist to bow from. “I can’t quite take credit for the whole universe, but it was flattering to be included, I must say.”
“You—” I stuttered. “Humpty Dumpty. Created—” The facts scattered in my brain refused to form a clear picture or concept I could readily comprehend.
“Wretched nursery rhyme,” he grumbled. “At least they got one part right.”
“Which part?”
“I fell,” he said. “I broke. And our world came to be.”
I didn’t know how long the teapot had been whistling while I stood staring at the silver egg in my living room. Coming to myself, I pulled it off the stove and set it on the trivet on the counter. “Humbilicus,” I said, now recognizing the correlation. “The navel. The place that marks the beginning of life. It makes perfect sense.”
Boiling water decanted from the pot curled into our cups. I carried the tray to the coffee table and set it down. Billy perched on the couch beside me and blew the column of steam away from the teacup nearest him.
Of all the otherworldly beings I had met so far, Billy alone gave me the sense of standing on the edge of a precipice. A kind of vertigo in the presence of one as old as the world itself. What could I, with only a few decades on the planet to claim as my own, say or do to ease his suffering?
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