by L. A. Zoe
That was good. Me, hurt him.
“We’re not even sleeping together, if that makes you feel better. Not that it’s any of your business.”
Her head swiveled to look at me like a hawk. “Rhinegold is still my business, no matter what anybody else says.”
“And I’m not about to break his heart, especially when he doesn’t even love me.”
“He loves you,” she said in a fierce whisper. “But that’s not the worst part.”
“All right, I’ll bite. What is that?”
“Rhinegold’s not mentally … balanced. Surely you must have noticed that.”
“He’s strange. He lives in a fantasy world, sort of.”
Keara grabbed my shoulder. “Sort of? He should be in college, not living on the street, acting like he’s one of King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table, only freelance.”
“He’s in my room.” I added, “On the floor.”
“Thank you for getting him out of that condemned house, but it’s not enough. He needs to go back to his therapist. Take his medicine. Get his life back on track.”
“What do you expect me to do? I’m not his mother.”
“Get him back here, so his father can straighten him out. I’m going to college now, so I live on-campus, so there’s no—I mean, he needs his family.”
I looked up, but the stars didn’t answer me. “You’re his half-sister and, I can tell, his friend. You tell him. I’m nobody.”
She hugged her knees to her chest. “You don’t understand.”
“What are you hiding?” A sudden thought hit me. “It’s Helena, isn’t it? She likes him, and all of you want him attached to her. We’re from the same old neighborhood, but her father hit it rich, and now she’s one of you. Not like me. I’m just a street whore he picked up.”
“It’s not like—”
“Are you sleeping with her?”
Keara stared at me with such round, shocked eyes and pursed mouth I immediately realized I guessed wrong. “What?” she exclaimed.
I turned away. “Forget it.”
She grabbed my shoulder again and tried to turn me toward her. “What gave you that idea? What’s that all about?”
“Nothing.”
“In the summer, can you jump into the swimming pool from here?” I asked.
“Just because you’re … “ She paused, pulling back from the edge.
“Just because I’m a dyke, I think all other women are sleeping together?” I said. “Is that what you wanted to say?”
“I’m sorry, but you look like—”
“I know what I look like. Am I wrong for Rhinegold because you think I’m too butch? Or because I’m woman enough you’re scared he loves me instead of Helena?”
Chapter Twenty
Sunday Night
When SeeJai and Keara walked into the living room looking like two gladiators who just fought each other to a draw but still itched to finish the other one off, Rhinegold sighed.
He hoped the two loves of his life would at least like each other, though he figured Keara would have a hard time accepting SeeJai in her old role as Lady Fair.
But he didn’t have time to think much about them.
Sybille sat in an upholstered wing chair, crying and wringing her hands while Father paced back and forth.
“I just don’t get it!” The words nearly exploded out of Father’s mouth. “You’re throwing away your future, everything I’ve worked for.”
“You did it for you, not me,” I told him.
“I’m past thinking you’re going to be a lawyer. Okay, there’re plenty of other worthwhile careers. Just do something with your life, goddamnit!”
“I help people.”
“You’re not even a registered social worker. Maybe they do some good, but you’re just —.”
“The streets aren’t safe, so I guard people. Innocent people.”
“Whores!”
“And people I get paid to protect.”
“And how many times have you been beaten up?”
“I always win the fights.”
He reached the end of the room, pivoted with a whirl. “Bruce Lee, are you? Jackie Chan? I pay for you to take kung fu and karate lessons, now you think you’re the master of that whatever you call it temple.”
Shaolin, but Rhinegold didn’t say anything.
Helena playing Mozart’s Violin Sonata No. 20 came out over the speakers. Such sublime beauty. He applauded Helena for making herself the vehicle by which to bring such awesome melodies into the world. He hoped she achieved her ambition of playing for a professional symphony orchestra. She deserved it.
He grabbed SeeJai’s hand and pulled her toward the front door. “Come on, we’re getting out of here.”
Looking flustered, SeeJai turned, and said, “Thanks for the dinner. It was very nice.”
Seeing Keara again after nearly two years away brought back so many old feelings Rhinegold could barely continue to sit in the green wing chair. He wanted to jump up, pace, run, or fly.
Keara had to make her own way in life, and no doubt did a great job. She found comfort reading the Bible and attending church, and that made him happy.
She looked even more beautiful, even more like an angel than when he first met her after Father and Sybille’s engagement. More serene, at peace. Full of heavenly glory.
Still, his love for her offended the queen, and therefore the king, and so Keara belonged to his past.
His present and—he hoped—his future belonged to SeeJai.
And right now, SeeJai’s face burned with barely suppressed anger. What did Keara say to her?
On the drive back into the city, neither spoke.
Back in their little room, the odor of the leftover ham and potatoes his stepmother sent home with them smelled good.
He placed his hand on her shoulder. “Tell me. I’m not driving now, so if you want to have an argument, let’s do it, not wait until we need to sleep.”
They left the radiator set to the lowest temperature it would go, to save money, so now their breaths smoked and the room felt nearly as cold as the condemned house.
Her voice tired, SeeJai said, “I don’t want to argue.”
“Then we’ll discuss it.”
“What?”
“Whatever’s on your mind. What did Keara say to you?”
SeeJai turned off the lamp and jacked up the thermostat. The surrounding snow turned the yellow street lamp light to pale butter outlining the swirling patterns of hoarfrost on the outside of their windows.
She still smelled flowery. She must have put on some perfume for his family. And like an avocado, from her skin cream.
The radiator clanged, and steam popped out with an ugly hiss. Outside, two cats yowled as they rolled, fighting, across the top of a garbage dumpster. Two drunks yelled at each other. A loud, explosive pop. Backfire or gunshot?
SeeJai took off her boots, then knocked them together so the snow dropped onto the rubber mat. “What do you think?”
“I’m crazy. I need to move back into the castle, go to school. Settle down. Get a real job. Date Helena instead of you.”
They sat side by side on the bed, warm flanks flush against each other. Arm to arm.
“So you’ve heard it all before?”
“Of course.”
“Then why ask me?”
He sighed, leaned back on his palms, making the bedsprings creaked. “I don’t want to be like my father.”
“Could’ve fooled me.”
“It’s just—I don’t expect anybody to feel sorry for me if you grew up without much money, but a lot of times it has a high price. Lots of my friends are the same. Successful fathers—and mothers too—are proud of what they’ve accomplished, and they want the same good life for their children.”
“That’s only right. Why can’t he just let you be something else, not a lawyer?”
“That’s what he says now, but when I was growing up it was lawyer this, lawyer that. The la
w, the law, the law.”
“Is it really so bad?”
He shrugged his shoulders, raising his hands up high. “I can’t say for sure, but just think of all that dry paperwork. Laws and regulations for hours on end.”
“All that courtroom drama.”
“Most of that is just TV. Criminal law. Most lawyers just read, research, and file paperwork. Prosecuting attorneys don’t make much money unless they go into politics and become a governor or senator. Most defense attorneys don’t make a lot of money unless they’re lucky enough to win a high profile case. Father helps big corporations get around the law. Now he has other lawyers to do the donkey work for him, but he still has to crack the whip on them.”
“But if you work for him, you’ll start out a big shot.”
Rhinegold humphed. “He’s told me, he won’t hire me unless I’m so good in school he would hire me if I weren’t related. Then I’ll have to work twice as hard as everybody else, like his associates don’t already put in over a hundred hours a week.”
SeeJai said, “I can’t imagine working over a hundred hours a week. My legs would fall off.”
“I wouldn’t want success handed to me anyway. I’d have to feel I earned it. I just don’t see myself sitting behind a desk my entire life. Or playing tennis or golf just to meet with clients. Going out to eat at fancy restaurants and clubs to meet clients. Everything is work. He rarely gets home before nine or ten.”
“What’s Sybille think of that?”
“She enjoys being a wealthy lawyer’s wife. I don’t mean she doesn’t love him, but she doesn’t need his company much. She has lots of friends at the country club. She knew the deal going into it. It’s why my mother and he divorced. It’s why lots of lawyers get divorced.”
“Where is your mother?”
“Phoenix, Arizona. She married a real estate developer who works the same crazy hours Father does. Anyway, she has a new family, so I only see her once a year or so.”
“Life sucks all around, doesn’t it?”
“Anyway, Father makes a big deal out of my fantasy life, thinks it’s unhealthy, I go too far.”
“Is that why you don’t live with them?”
Energy twisted in Rhinegold’s gut like a frightened snake. “That’s a long story.”
“But, you know … you can’t do this forever. I mean, live on the streets. Protecting people is good, but that’s what the police are for.”
“They can’t be everywhere at once.”
“Neither can you. Don’t you see? Someday somebody’s going to cap you.”
The radiator continued to spit out steam. Now their exhalations no longer formed clouds. The room heated quickly. Soon SeeJai would want to turn the thermostat down for the night.
“It’s possible,” he said.
“No. More than possible. Sooner or later you’ll piss somebody off who’ll decide to get rid of you. Greco or Ami or even me or Georgie won’t be there. What good’s your black belts then?”
Sitting side by side with his damsel true love, the knight in Rhinegold exulted at her touch. He hadn’t talked so much since he and Keara—no, don’t think about her, about those old times.
Pay attention to SeeJai. She now deserved his entire focus.
The two of them, sitting surrounded by darkness. Two small mice, to the stars as tiny as the real mice that scurried across the floor at night.
Her magic banked to coals, simmering slowly under the surface, like Nessie swimming through that bottomless loch leaving no ripples.
Just one small, slim woman beside him in the small, black still room.
“My gun.”
“Won’t help you if you don’t even see them coming. Maybe you should grow up.”
He couldn’t help but smile. “So now you’re on my family’s side.”
“I just mean—hell, I’m on your side, Rhinegold. Aren’t I?”
He pulled away. “I want my own business.”
“What kind of business?”
“I don’t know. I just know I’m not made to work for somebody else.”
SeeJai choked. “Oh, you leave that to people like me. Why don’t you start a real security business?”
“Be a security guard?”
“Be one first, while you’re in college, then hire them.”
“Oh, Father would love that. You should hear him talk about the crazy people who start their own businesses. Though, come to think of it … he started his own law firm.”
SeeJai put her hand on his arm. “So there you go.”
Confusion swirled in his brain. It couldn’t be that simple. Would college business courses teach him to be an entrepreneur, or just indoctrinate him into corporate slavery, so he could be one of the soulless executives Father claimed to despise even as he helped them comply with regulations and win court cases?
The shock of seeing Keara again, the surprise at learning Helena knew SeeJai from years ago, and it was Helena SeeJai dumped the plate of food on, and the mixed pleasure of spending the day with Father, spun around in Rhinegold’s mind, shaking his spirit.
His new lady fair, a magic damsel, not only opened the door to a realm of ethereal pleasures, but pointed the way back to his family. To forgiveness, perhaps, from Father if not Sybille.
Without thinking, Rhinegold put his arms around SeeJai, pulled her close, and kissed her
For a moment, SeeJai didn’t react, and he feared she would pull back and slug him, maybe kick him out.
Then her hot smooth lips trembled, and kissed him back with a fervent passion. Cherry ChapStick on her lips. Ham and cheese cake lingering on her tongue. Wine on her breath.
Hands that crept ever so slowly to his shoulders, then pulled him tightly to her.
Their tongues caressed with delicate thrusts.
SeeJai broke her mouth away, eyes wide with horror.
And pushed herself away. “What’d you do that for?”
“I wanted to. Because we both wanted it.”
She panted as though she just finished running a long race. “You’re crazy. I still owe you from the first night, when you saved me from freezing. Do you want me now?”
Rhinegold felt sick at his stomach. He stood up, grabbed his roll of blankets and pillow, threw them onto the floor. “When you realize you love me like I love you.”
“You are crazy.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Chat Before Work
While I stood in line to clock in, Areetha grabbed my elbow. “Come on, you still got ten minutes.”
The other men and women scheduled for that night’s dinner rush crowded into the kitchen. After the day-shift spent the afternoon prepping, the air smelled delicious, full of spices, fruits, and vegetables.
The ovens kept away the outside cold air. On a small radio, Miley Cyrus sang “Wrecking Ball.” Arkady allowed the day shift some entertainment, but would turn it off soon, as the dinner rush crowd poured in the front doors.
Areetha dragged me to the corner of the stock room. “A man asked me out.”
I rubbed my arm. “He must be some dude.”
She sighed, rolling her eyes to the sky, looking eleven. “He’s a man, not a dude, or a guy, or a boy. A real man.”
“You’re a real woman, Areetha.” Nobody ever told me that.
“He’s Chinese.”
“All right,” I said, not sure why that itself impressed her, unless she just had a thing for Asian men she’d never told me about before. “Where’d you meet him?”
“In yoga class. He’s studied qi gong for, like, a million years, and wanted to compare them. Is that Rhinegold character still living with you?”
I nodded, reluctant to talk about him. Especially after last night.
“You know he’s violent and crazy,” Areetha said. “How long before he sends you to the hospital, or worse?”
I shook my head. “No, not Rhinegold. The problem is, he does love me.”
“You don’t love him, do you?” Areetha asked in an ag
hast voice.
Arkady stepped out of his office and clapped his hands. “Ladies and gents, let’s get a going now. Lots of customers out front. Don’t we love all of them? Feel the love.”
“No!” I shouted in a whisper. “But he kissed me last night.”
“Did you give him permission?” Areetha asked.
“Of course not. He just grabbed me and did it.”
“See what I mean? Next he’ll fuck you without permission. It’s called rape.”
“No way.”
“If he wants to, how’re you going to stop him? You couldn’t fight off a thirteen-year-old boy.”
Rhinegold protected me. A sudden warmth surged through my body, pelvis to heart and back pelvis.
If Rhinegold took me right then and there, it wouldn’t be without my permission.
And that frightened me. How could I hook up with a guy who risked his life to scratch out a living just half a step up from homelessness? Who knew all the pimps, whores, and homey gangsters in Cromwell? Who refused all help from his wealthy father, even fighting with him Sunday evening after such a nice dinner?
I couldn’t let Rhinegold drag me down with him.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Relationship Advice in the Laundromat
Rhinegold sat next to Georgie on the laundromat’s wooden bench, watching their clothes spin around and round in the big drier.
Currents of cold air from people going in and out the front and back doors swirled around with the streams of hot moist air released by the whirring, whining washing machines.
Georgie kept a hand on his shopping cart so nobody would “accidently” mistake it for one of the laundromat’s wire carts and run off with it. Rhinegold kept his cloth duffel bags close at hand.
“Drying is good for undies,” Georgie said. “But I wish I could hang my pants and shirts on hangars, so they’d keep a good crease as they dried.”
“You want to carry hangars around?”
