by L. A. Zoe
“They don’t shoot straight?”
“Don’t you ever watch the news? Gangs pile into a car for a drive-by shooting, but just hit the little kids next door. Safest place to be is where they’re aiming at.”
SeeJai looked stunned.
“They’re all crackheads,” Rhinegold continued, amping up the voltage through his nerves. “Brain-wiped cretins.”
“You don’t like drugs, do you?”
“What’s to like?” Rhinegold spread his arms out. “Look around you. The cities’re imploding, sliding into the Abyss, just like Detroit. People say it’s poverty. It’s not poverty, it’s escapism. It’s irresponsibility. People can work and save and get ahead. Or they can blow everything they own this minute, and wind up on the street.”
SeeJai grinned. “So why don’t you tell me how you really feel?”
“Anyway, I guard people against the small-time crooks—muggers and rapists. I’ve studied kung fu and karate.”
“Tonight you saved me from the police, didn’t you?”
“Maybe. Maybe they would have busted you, or maybe only threatened you.”
She nodded, tore open a bag of the potato chips, and placed them into her mouth one at a time, chewing thoughtfully, prolonging how long it took to eat each one. With the courtly delicacy of a true lady.
With the fire blazing, she finally removed her winter parka, spreading it out on the floor behind her, so the warm air circulating from the fireplace could dry the ice coating the outside.
A narrow, slim figure, with round though smooth and subtle curves. Her presence honored his rough house. Just her breathing the same atmosphere somehow charged the stuffy, musty gases with energizing ions. The darkness beyond the fire’s uncertain glow shifted, so it emanated comfort and rest, not hidden menace.
As though the Lady Galadriel and Princess Ozma graced him with their presence.
Or a Divine Angel of Light.
Quit tripping, she was just a woman. Attractive, but not overwhelming.
“Why’d you ask about my business?” he asked.
“You have all this food, costs money. I want to work, I don’t want to walk the Red Line—a real job. But I don’t think I could protect anybody. My only black belt’s in running away.”
He had to grin. “You’d need a gun bigger than you.”
“So that’s out. How about you? Why’re you here? You don’t talk like you belong in a condemned house.”
He looked down at the rough wood floor. “I’m in exile. Let’s just put it like that.”
“You don’t sound like you belong here, but you sound American. Just suburban American.”
“In another land, I’m a prince. But I had to leave.”
“Like the Lion King, right? Your uncle killed your father, and stole the crown from you.”
Her sarcastic tone of voice wrenched his heart. Rhinegold pulled out his sleeping bag and extra blankets. He tossed them to her. “Here. Wrap up good. If you get too cold, just throw more wood on the fire.”
“I’m sorry. You look so glum, it must be a woman problem.”
He tossed her one of the pillows. “And what’s your story? You don’t act like someone belongs in a condemned house either, let alone walking the Red Line. Why tonight?”
She cocked her head to the side, stared away from him, at the fire. “I used to live in my mother’s apartment, but we got thrown out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Maybe it’s just as well. I’ve got a social worker getting her lined up for a studio apartment in a nice Section 8 building close to the Circle, when she gets out of the hospital.”
“They won’t let you stay there, will they?”
“That’s why I need to make some money, so I can rent my own place.”
“You don’t make money walking the Red Line.”
“I just needed a place to stay for tonight. And food.”
“Greco might give you work.”
“The pimp? No way.”
“Or Ami.”
“Who’s that?”
“Another pimp. A lesbian so tough Greco doesn’t even try to take her out. They just stay away from each other. There’s enough business on the streets for both of them.”
“I couldn’t handle it,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’ve never even had a real job, and so I’m nervous enough about that, but everybody else seems able to, so it must not be as hard as I’m scared of.”
The fire had again dwindled down to just a few flames. In the reddening light SeeJai’s face looked demonic, like crude pictures of the devil in small comic book-style pamphlets passed out by Holy Rollers.
A warning not to trust her, though she seemed like a nice person?
Or, maybe, an evil warlock trying to steer him away from an ally.
At least, a magically beautiful woman who needed his help.
Upstairs, the wood floors or joists squeaked in sequence, sounding like footsteps. Used to it, Rhinegold barely noticed.
SeeJai jerked her head up, and reached for her coat. “Somebody’s up there,” she said in a loud whisper.
Rhinegold didn’t move, just smiled. “Relax. It’s just this house.”
SeeJai let her shoulders drop. “I’ve lived in a lot of old buildings, so I’ve heard lots of noises, but that really sounded like somebody walking around.”
“I know. I call it Mortimer the ghost.”
“Mortimer?”
“Just a funny name.”
“Maybe somebody really died up there.”
“Somebody’s probably died in all these old houses,” Rhinegold said. “And as for ghosts, who knows? This is Cromwell, you know.”
“You believe in ghosts?”
“I believe in lots of things. And even more things, I don’t disbelieve in them. Like ghosts. I’ve never seen one, but you can’t prove they don’t exist.”
She munched more potato chips, and the loud crunchy sound drowned out the building’s background creaks.
“You disagree?” he asked.
The crunchy sound grew louder, signaling her discomfort with the topic. “I don’t know. Don’t never think about it.”
“Like love.”
Chapter Three
On Love
“Love? Love and ghosts together?” I asked, feeling stupid, but also thinking Rhinegold was the one must really be stupid.
“I mean, they’re like acts of God. Love’s a blessing, drops down on you from Heaven like a shooting star out of the sky. Ghosts, I don’t know. I guess, if it’s a scary ghost, it’s evil.”
I put my arms around my knees pressed to my chest. My stomach twisted. The fire must have been hotter than it looked, because sweat broke out on my forehead. “You sure you’ve been in love?”
Not that I’ve ever been in love. I had a crush on a few boys, but nothing serious.
Helena was just a friend, no matter what Helena said or anybody else thought.
He turned his face away, stared into the darkness. “I’m sure.” Quiet, voice serious and relentless as AIDS.
Uh oh, I just stepped in it. “I’m sorry.”
He turned and looked back at me. “For what?”
“For whatever bad memory I just made you think about.”
He shrugged. Tough guy.
Of course.
I kept trying to figure out why Areetha warned me against this guy.
Obviously, he could discorporate my soul from my body with one blow, but with me small as some eleven-year-old boys, that wasn’t headline news.
Still, with a stout, husky frame and muscles bulging out of his winter underwear, he was much bigger and stronger than most guys who didn’t play professional football or enter bodybuilding contests. Wild, long blonde hair cut in a Mohawk.
Despite the sparse yellow whiskers on his cheeks and throat, he face looked young, not more than a few years older than her.
“You want to be a knight, couldn’t you?” I said. “Or a Viking.”
“Give me a hat w
ith two horns,” he said. “Seriously, I’ve never sailed in my life, and my heart’s not into reaving.”
“All right, but my point is, now it’s the twenty-first century, not a long time ago. Love is just a feeling, not some fantasy story.”
He seemed to be thinking that over. Blue eyes sparkling like two gleaming sapphires. “Just a feeling?”
“Yeah, a bunch of hormones shooting through your body, making your glands overreact.”
“Like adrenaline?” he asked.
“Exactly.”
“Only that goes away fast,” he said. “I get pumped up when I fight, then it’s over, and I just feel tired. Love doesn’t go away, not true love.”
“It lasts longer,” I said. “That’s all.”
Or descends into grief. I thought of Mom. Grief’s a feeling can last for many years, but it sure wasn’t magic. Not good magic.
Rhinegold again stared away from me, seeing something sad in the darkness. Who broke his heart?
I despised her, because something about him—His unruly tumble of hair? The unconsciously ironic twist of his smile? Maybe the simple strength in how he held himself straight and erect (a result of martial arts training?) even while sitting on the floor—appealed to me.
As shocking as that sounded.
Certainly it surprised me. A man was nice to me, even seemed to think I’m not 100% sexually beneath his notice, and I fall for him. If that wasn’t stupid and embarrassing, tell me what was, I’d like to know.
So feelings can shock you against your will. Not history in the making.
Besides, I didn’t plan on doing anything about those feelings. I didn’t need a boyfriend. I needed a job. I needed my own apartment. I needed a new plan for my life.
One weirdo dude, no matter how attractive, couldn’t stop me.
“No,” Rhinegold said at last. “Love is magic, or who cares? Not all fantasy, but partly divine, or we wouldn’t spend so much time reading about it, or listening to songs about it, or watching movies about it, or talking about it. Or looking for it when we don’t have it. Or crying over it when we lose it.”
“Not everybody acts and thinks like a sixteen-year-old girl head over Justin Bieber. Even when I was a sixteen-year-old girl, I wasn’t that stupid. True love isn’t a fluffy cloud in the sky.”
“Yeah, it’s only hormones. We should all just take cold showers.”
“I didn’t say don’t have sex. I didn’t even say don’t like other people. Fall in love. Just don’t think it’s some kind of cosmic force at work.”
“Just hormones.”
“Something like that. There’s warmth. And comfort. And companionship. And pleasure. Sure. Just not any mystical nonsense.”
Rhinegold forced out a laugh. “No place for a white knight then, right?”
That made me feel weird. I didn’t mean to hurt him, not after he saved my life, got me in out of the cold weather, and shared his food. But did his fantasies and illusions help him in real life? Wouldn’t he be better off without them?
And, truth to tell, something in his large bone structure and massive muscles made my hormones hiss and pop, and flow freely through pipes rusted from years of disuse.
I made up my mind. Right there, right then. Finally. I went to the Red Line early that evening, with no money, determined to trade sex for a warm bed, a hot meal, and a steaming shower.
Even knowing it would be my first time.
I didn’t expect or want flowers and fancy words. A man wanting permanent love from me scared me more than the sex part. I couldn’t handle the responsibility for someone else’s heart. My own felt too weak for my own life.
I would have spread my legs for the first time for a strange man I didn’t care about, who I assumed I would find ugly or at least unappealing, so I might as well for Rhinegold. He was a stranger too, but a nice one, and at least he sparked my biochemistry in ways I hadn’t allow myself to feel since … too long ago.
The blankets and sleeping bag could cushion my back from the hardwood floor beneath. The fire held the cold air at bay. The pizza smell covered up the smell of stale wood, the must of rotting paper, and the stink of rat droppings. When the flames crackled I could ignore the spectral footsteps of the ghost of Mortimer upstairs.
But I couldn’t let him know it was my first time. I didn’t want tenderness or consideration. He just met me. No romance. No poetry. No walks in the rain.
I didn’t want the shame and embarrassment of anyone knowing I was a nineteen year old virgin. All these years, nobody wanted me.
I’d let him take his pleasure from me, and see how much I enjoyed it too.
An experiment I longed to get over and done with.
All right, act casual. Just another night, just another man, just another hookup.
When he turned to add more wood to the fire, I slipped my locket off, and jammed it into an inner coat pocket. I didn’t want anybody to see that. Not their damned business.
I took a deep breath, then straightened my back, grabbed the bottom of my t-shirt, and pulled it off.
“Come on,” I said, suppressing the quiver in my voice. “Let’s get started.”
Rhinegold glanced at me, nodded. He threw another handful of wood strips into the fire. He put his heavy coat back on, and lay down, using a bunched up blanket as a pillow. “I’m tired too.”
The hormones surging through my veins no longer felt like love or lust. The red fire burned inside my eyes. I stood up and kicked him in the stomach. “Bastard!”
He grabbed my foot before I could kick him again, and held it, forcing me to remain still, trying to keep my balance with only one foot on the floor.
“What’s that for?” he asked.
“You picked me up from the Red Line. What the hell do you think?”
He twisted my foot, so I fell to the side. He pulled me close. I kicked with my other foot, but he grabbed and held that too.
“I didn’t go there looking for sex. You really are nuts, you know that?”
“Me? You! You say I’m beautiful, then lie down to sleep like my brother.”
“Look, we just met, and—”
“You gave me food.”
“You were hungry.”
“But I’m supposed to screw you.”
“Where’s the warm bed, huh?” Rhinegold let go of me and spread his arms. “Some bed, right? And shower? I don’t have running water. All that’s Red Line rules.”
“But—”
“And breakfast? In the morning I’ll take you to McDonald’s and buy you everything you want to eat. All right?”
“Screw McDonald’s. Then I’d be even more obligated to you. If you don’t want sex, what do you want?”
Rhinegold grabbed my shoulders and pulled my face close to his. I could feel his hot breath. “Nothing. I’m a knight. Don’t believe in me, I don’t care. But I wouldn’t have left an evil wizard out there in that storm tonight. You don’t owe me anything.”
Cold and darkness swirled in my mind. Knight or no knight, I wanted to smack him. To kick him in right in his manhood. See how he liked it.
I broke loose, and stood up. I pulled the shirt back on, then my boots.
Ugly, ugly, ugly. On a night cold enough to freeze polar bears, I couldn’t give myself away.
I thought of letting go, calming down, and just lying down there on the floor so I could sleep. Needed rest. I made my point. And suddenly spending the night close to him seemed wonderful. A blessing. In the morning, hot cakes and syrup at the Golden Arches. So stop now. I expressed my hurt.
But not enough.
I pulled on my winter coat. With the outside only mildly damp with melted ice and the inner layer roasted by lying close to the fireplace, it felt good. Powerful armor against the Siberian glacier winds still sweeping through Cromwell, tilting Rhinegold’s little house to the south, rattling it to the foundation.
Warm to the core, stomach full, cheeks flushed, blood flowing through the furthest capillaries, rested—
I felt invincible.
Rhinegold tossed his ski mask into my hands. “Here, at least put this on.”
I threw it back at him.
One part of me realized I was being stupid, proud, and too stubborn for my own good. The rest of me didn’t care. I could walk to the hospital. Miles away, but I had the rest of the night. Might arrive by the time they opened for visitors.
Then check with Areetha about a job.
One man turning down my virtue shouldn’t have felt so bad, shouldn’t have burned my heart like a blow torch. I barely knew him, and bath salts must have eaten away his brain cells.
Knight! I snorted. Join the real world. Whacko in orbit around Mars, more like.
He leaned back on one elbow, watching me. Amusement in his eyes.
“It’s still cold outside,” he said.
“Spring’s coming,” I said as I pulled on my gloves.
“You are beautiful,” he said.
“What? You don’t put out on a first date? Or is it because I’m a lesbian?”
“How can I know what’s inside your heart? What’s it matter? You’d be half-frozen now if you stayed out there. I don’t want you in my bed thinking I believe you’re just some ordinary slut. You’re not.”
“Sorry I don’t meet your high standards,” I said.
I flipped my hood up, then pushed against the back door with my shoulder.
He suddenly stood right next to me, close though not touching. “Stay here, SeeJai. Where it’s safe. Whatever you want to do, it can wait until the morning.”
“Too safe,” I muttered, and stepped outside.
The wind slapped me with a thick sheet of ice. I stumbled, caught my balance before I toppled over, then slid several steps. By the time I reached the wire fence, I regained the knack of walking on ice, and headed for the nearest main street.
Thick winter clouds again covered the starless sky with mushy gray smoke.
Chapter Four
Her Guardian
Did the knights of the Round Table ever have to put up with such ornery damsels fair?
As Rhinegold watched SeeJai turn into the alley, slim black legs so enticing against the white, icy snow, he realized yet again how special she was.
