by F P Adriani
Now he said, “If god existed, he would damn me. But he doesn’t exist.”
“Who says it’d be a he?” I snapped.
And he laughed.
“Goddamn you,” I said a third time. “You could have screwed this up for me.”
“But I didn’t. I saved you instead.” He flashed the side of his gun at me, then he bent over and shoved it back into his ankle holster.
“Oh please! I saved myself. I was already off and running before you showed up.”
“All right, we both saved you. If I hadn’t come charging down the ramp, they might have kept chasing you.”
“So what? I had my gun.” I pulled it out of my jacket and waved it, just as he’d done with his at me.
His mouth dropped open and he stared at me a long moment before responding. “Pia, then why the hell didn’t you use it?”
I shoved it back into my jacket. “Because I didn’t wanna draw attention to myself here.”
“So you’d rather stand there getting your ass beat up?”
“I didn’t have it THEN. I dropped it. The guy got sloppy and I kneed him, grabbed my gun and took off…why the hell am I explaining this? I don’t owe you a goddamn explanation. You’ve been violating my privacy.”
Now, he laughed again, but this time much harder and much longer. I thought I saw tears in his eyes.
“Oh my…god. Oh my. Now that is funny coming from you.”
“Ha ha, I’m glad you’ve had a good laugh.” I walked away in the direction of where I’d parked my car.
“Where to next?” came his voice from behind me.
“Back to my hotel for me.”
“For me too,” he said.
I really didn’t want him along, but he followed me in his car anyway. When we got to my hotel and I finally opened the door to my room, he rushed inside before I could slam the door on him. I pulled a sour face at him, then went into the bathroom to clean myself up.
My clothes were smeared with grime, and when I peeled off my top, in the over-the-sink mirror I saw a nice bruise growing on my left arm.
I took a quick shower and yanked on the long complimentary robe hanging on the door.
When I shot back out into the main room, Tan had turned on the TV, and he was sitting back in one of the armchairs against the opposite wall. His head turned to me.
“Well. Haven’t you made yourself comfortable,” I said coldly. “I wish you’d leave.”
“I will,” he said. “When I’ve made sure you’re all right.”
“Don’t I look all right?” I walked further into the room for a bottle of water I’d put near the bed earlier.
“Not exactly. I think you’re limping a little.”
I took a long slow drink from my bottle, then I said, “I got hurt once years ago on a job. All the running and then the damp tonight—my knee’s a bit sore. He slammed into me there too.”
Tan got up from the chair. “Let me take a look at it.”
“No,” I snapped.
“Don’t be an ass.”
I sighed, locking my angry eyes up to the ceiling. …But I knew he was right.
I sat down on the bed, and he crouched in front of me and took my leg in his hands. Their flat warmth slid over my knee and then rested both above and below it, gauging it.
“It doesn’t look or feel swollen,” he said.
“I told you it’s just sore,” I replied.
Pulling my foot more into his lap, he stared up at me, straight-faced, open-faced, seemingly waiting for something, he and his dark heavy eyes.
Jesus. No way. Not tonight.
I jerked my leg back from his touch.
He sighed, loudly, and when he spoke, his voice sounded almost as angry as that day outside the mine. “You’re like a fucking volcano. I never know when you’re going to erupt.”
“Then stop bothering with me,” I said, yanking my robe back over my knee.
Standing up, he said quickly now, as if my statement had really annoyed him so he was running away from it: “What are your plans for tomorrow here?”
I laughed a little. “My plans? This isn’t a vacation.”
“Isn’t it?” he asked. And I looked up at him. He was too shrewd; I couldn’t decide whether I liked this about him, or hated it.
“I don’t think I’m doing anything but staying around here and, well, recovering,” I said now, automatically giving my knee a little rub over my robe. “I don’t have to be back there till Saturday.”
“Me either,” Tan said.
And I thought, How convenient.
*
He left a few minutes later, and when we met up again down in the hotel restaurant for lunch the next day, I said, “You’re manipulative, Tan.”
We’d just been sitting down at a table together, and now he looked up at me as he was bent forward with his black-panted ass poised over his seat. “How?” he asked, his eyebrows crossing.
I spread my hands. “All of this, from Day One. The looks you’ve been giving me, coming onto me, yet fighting me, then following me, tracking me! You act like you’re just this simple guy doing a job, but it’s B.S. You want control here. Look at you and your beautiful house. Have you seen the way some of the Sanders live around here? They probably hate you too.”
“I can’t fix everybody’s problems. I’ve got my own,” he said. And just then a waiter walked up to the table.
I ordered a roasted vegetable sandwich and purple tree juice. It was one of my favorite drinks; it was also birth control because it interfered with conception for days afterward.
Tan’s eyes were on me. He told the waiter, “I’ll have the same.” When the waiter left, Tan continued eyeing me, only this time with a half-smile, one of his more suggestive ones. “Got hot plans for today?”
“No. I’ve always liked the purple juice.”
“Mm hmm,” he said then, still looking at me.
“So what problems do you have?” I asked him, but with my eyes roaming around the room as if I were being polite in asking but really didn’t care about his problems.
He didn’t respond till I looked at him again. Then he said, “Nothing I’m prepared to discuss in a restaurant.”
I twitched in my seat. “Well, excuse me for asking.” What was I doing here eating lunch with him and trying to have a normal conversation? I felt like screaming, at him, at the room, at the planet. Once again I realized I’d achieved nothing coming to Diamond, especially since yesterday. Except maybe a confirmation that Hu’s crowd hung at the bar. So they probably remained nearby, or at least visited there….
It seemed Tan had yet another facet I’d known nothing about: mind-reading. “So, Pia, what happened before I showed up last night?”
“Not much,” I said. I lowered my voice now and told him about my first visit, about how the bartender had probably alerted Hu’s blue crowd that I’d been asking questions. I still hadn’t found out much, but at least now I knew her people were probably based around here.
Tan shook his head then, saying, “Don’t count on it.”
Just then, the waiter came back with our juices on a tray. He gave Tan his juice first, saying, “The sandwiches will be out in a minute. Enjoy your juice.” He put mine in front of me, and he half-leered at me then. I only glared at him, stony-faced. The half-leer faded, and then he walked away.
I turned back to Tan. “Why shouldn’t I count on it? You know something I don’t?”
“The thing is,” Tan said slowly now, picking up his juice, “they don’t stay in one place, especially the smart ones. They leave, then come back, they switch around, replace one for the other, to different areas. That way if one is wanted somewhere, they never go back there for a long time, and then another is wanted somewhere else, then moves into where the other is wanted. One police hand doesn’t always talk to the other here. It’s a big planet,” he finished, taking a long gulp of his juice now.
“So what do you suggest I do?”
He put his glass back down onto the
table, turned serious eyes on me. “I’m not suggesting anything. You’ve got your work cut out for you, no matter what I could say. That paper…the one you threw at me, you’re supposed to…deliver by The Festival? That’ll take a miracle.”
“Or a lucky break,” I said.
“Lucky for you, you mean.” We glared at each other.
Then his eyes backed away, and he said, “Our lunch is coming.”
We ate the food pretty fast and in silence, only briefly eyeing each other. After we’d paid and walked out into the lobby, Tan said, “That paper—I brought it with me, if you need it back. I meant to thank you for, um, showing it to me. I’m not always let it on things here, and my association with…them seems loose. Sometimes I feel like I don’t have much importance in the scheme of things, you know? At least you trusted me with the information. But I know you wanted to prove something.”
“So did it work?” I lowered my voice. “Or do you still think I’m a killer?”
“I know you’ve killed,” he said. “But, really, it’s not my business.” His face softened, his brown eyes turned away a bit, almost shyly. “And I’ve been wondering…you want to spend the day with me today? Actually, I’ve never been here before. I want to see the art museum and there’s a huge beautiful park. What do you say? You think we can spend one day together without arguing?”
*
We went to the museum, and my surprised eyes spent the next few hours watching Tan’s enrapt face: his brown eyes seemed hypnotized by all the paintings and sculptures around us; his eyes swayed back and forth from one artwork to the next, as if only he and they existed, while his excited voice talked on and on. He clearly knew a lot about art.
At one point we were alone in one of the rooms, and, mid-speech about the color choices in a landscape we stood before, he turned to me and finally noticed my surprised staring.
“You all right, Pia?” he asked me, frowning.
“Yes. I just can’t believe how much you know. I had no idea you liked art so much.”
His frown faded, and so did all his previous animation. His face looked flat now. His eyes fell on the landscape painting again as he spoke. “You think I grew up wanting to do the job I do? I wanted to be an artist. I’m not very educated. I joined the security Academy right out of school. Where I lived it was either that or working in retail or being a miner or leaving Diamond. I was lucky in one way: for some reason, rebellions never reached where we were. It was a small town; no one wanted to be involved with the larger issues.
“I guess my ‘heart lies in art’, but now my job is my whole life. And I just love knowing the risk of getting my head blown off is high. My life didn’t turn out the way I planned. At all.”
My face must have shown my thoughts because he said now, “You look surprised.”
“I am. You often surprise me.”
“I hope that’s a good thing,” he said.
We stayed in the museum for another hour, some of the animation coming back into his face; then we went to the park and sat on a bench near the lake for a while.
Palellas and pines surrounded the area; grass had been planted beneath. I slid off my shoes, pushing my bare toes through the cool green blades.
We didn’t talk much; Tan watched the water, and I watched the people there. The Sun shone strong that day, and everyone and everything looked kind of faded. Including Tan.
I turned to his serious profile: he no longer seemed aware I was sitting there. The moment seemed dream-like; here I was sitting peacefully with him, yet separate, as if we weren’t occupying the same reality and never would. For some reason, this suddenly bothered me.
“Tan, why didn’t you go for art if that’s what you really wanted?”
He looked at me. “You seen a lot of artists around here? Most of the art in the museum—it isn’t from Sanders.”
“So what? Why couldn’t you do something different?”
His eyes slid back to the lake. “My dad owned a store, and when I was five he was knifed coming home one night. For his money. It was senseless. My mom had to take care of me all alone. She’s always been frail. She was then. It was hard. No money, not much family help. I worked odd jobs during school, then went to The Academy right away because we needed the money I’d get after a year there.
“My mom remarried ten years ago. He’s got two grown kids, so I’ve got step-siblings sort of. But I hardly ever see them because of work, my mom either, when I should because I never know when she won’t be around anymore.
“I was alone a lot when I was a kid, usually had to figure things out myself. And I was too young to be good at that, got into situations I couldn’t handle that wound up being mistakes.” He looked at me now, his eyes heavy.
And I said, “Well, Tan, you’re not poor anymore, and you’ve got your beautiful house. You’ve done well.”
He sighed fast and shook his head “no.”
“You have!” I insisted, flushing and feeling my heart start beating harder.
“I keep meaning to ask you,” he said now, “what Earth is like. Is it crazy like here, with all the threats and people miscommunicating?”
“Oh—no. No, it’s much more organized. We were there the longest. Have more experience there. But that also means there’s been more environmental damage.”
His head turned back to the superblue lake, which as far as I could tell, seemed pretty pristine. “Well,” Tan said, “it looks like we’ll be running a close second here someday if this sabotage insanity keeps up. They think they’re saving here by doing this. I mean, mining does some damage. But humans’ll use the environment somehow. Isn’t it better if it’s done more organized? I may not be educated, but I think this is common sense.”
“Maybe they feel like if they can’t have the place the way they want, why should anyone else have it.”
“People do that in relationships too,” he said, and I looked at him. “They want things to go their way, and when they inevitably don’t because it’s got to be fifty-fifty, they take it out on the other person, tearing it all down.”
“So do you have a lot of experience with relationships?”
“Some,” he said, his dark eyes turning back to me. “And you?”
Now, I turned my head away. “Not…particularly. I mean, short-term, yeah. I’m an expert on that kind,” I finished dryly. Then I stood up, looking down at his face, which turned up toward me now.
“I want to go back to the hotel,” I said.
*
A little later in the lobby, he turned to me and said with a small smile, “Well, I had a good time. I guess the day’s over though.”
“Is it?” I asked. “The day-day almost is, but then there’s the night. And maybe dinner later. Walk me up to my room?” My eyes were on his, and now his shifted to his right a bit, that shy motion again like earlier in the day. He suddenly looked very young, very unsure.
We walked up the stairs to the second floor and finally stood in front of my room. Somehow, the brief walk had changed him. His eyes were heavy again, older, when he turned to me and said, “Pia, that day in the mine…when I kissed you—I’m sorry for that. It shouldn’t have happened. I took advantage of you when your guard was down. That was wrong. A lot of things between me and you, I keep making mistakes.” His mouth turned downward at the corners, looking the exact opposite of his lewd one. And I didn’t like this opposite.
“Well,” I said, grinning now, “if that kiss was wrong, then I guess this one is too!” My hands latched onto both sides of his head as my mouth quickly covered his.
*
A moment later on the other side of the door, his hands were grabbing at the ass of my pants as I pulled him by his pant belt-loops toward the bed.
“You sure changed your mind fast about what was wrong,” I said when I reached the bed’s short end.
He grinned, his hands now trying to slip inside the waistband of my pants. “That was the professional me. This is the personal me.”
“I like the personal you better.”
“Mm,” he said, and I pushed his hands off my pants, put my own there, pulled down my zipper. His open mouth jerked toward me, his tongue probing mine as we both slid down my pants.
“Your clothes!” I said against his mouth, and then we quickly stripped both ourselves and each other down to our underwear only. I could barely tell whose hands were doing what, they worked so fast.
Finally, we lay back on the bed. Then I said, “Oh shit, I forgot a towel.” I jumped up, got a big one from the bathroom and spread it out over the sheets.
His right hand pulled at my left, and I lay beside him while he worked at opening my bra top’s front then sliding that off while I slid off my underwear.
I stared down at his slim perfectly shaped hairy legs; they were even more gorgeous naked. I wanted to rub myself against him. Somehow, I’d said that out loud. My cheeks suddenly felt hotter.
“Sure, go ahead,” Tan said in a softer voice, and I slowly slid over him, doing just that, rubbing my crotch against his beautiful thigh. I felt the hair and the heat there, and my fingers began sliding down his underwear, finally saw his beautiful straight and proud penis pop out. I grabbed it and he moaned, pulling me up more by the waist.
“Let me touch you here,” he said, sliding his warm hands up my body.
I looked down at myself, said, “You mean my ribcage with those little nipple things on top?”
He half-laughed, his fingers gently touching my nipples. “Don’t talk about yourself like that. You look great.” His head came closer and he kissed me there, his tongue spreading fire across my chest.
I grabbed onto his head with both my arms, hugging him to me. Then I said bluntly and honestly, “I wanna hump you and not stop humping you.”
Pulling back, he looked up at me with serious dark eyes and said, “Well then, we’d better get to it.”
So we did, with me on my back and my legs wrapped tight around his waist. As he pounded into me, I pounded both my palms against the mattress. His dick moved inside me pretty tightly, I could really feel his skin’s heat there….
