by Nick Keller
“Ooh,” she said, cooing like a dove. “Now I’m impressed.” They shared a moment, each grinning awkwardly. She said, “Maybe I can help.”
“How?” he asked.
“I’m the lab supervisor. If it has to do with semen, it generally has to do with me. How about dinner?” She gave him a smile.
He jerked at her, this time showing his shock. “Is that how you normally ask for a date?”
More laughter. “Actually, no. Just you.”
“Sounds great, then,” he said.
She stood up flashing her contact card at him. “Here’s my card. Call me tonight at seven. Something simple.”
“Simple. Alright.”
23
DATE NIGHT
William suggested they meet at Fusion. He didn’t know how simple the restaurant was, as she’d requested, but he’d been curious about it since it landed in the L.A. Look—a peekaboo mag for the discerning night-lifer—as an appealing mixture of Louisiana’s Bayou gourmet with the open grill of a Japanese Hibachi dine-in. They even served Katsu Kare and Sando, Cajun-style.
He wore a dark, stretched-cotton blazer over a pressed, light-blue V-neck tee shirt. He parted his hair in the center finishing off his look with a boyish, but classical quality. He had stared at himself in the mirror for several minutes not really seeing the genuine him. Was this a date, or just a meet up? He had never been good with dating, in fact he’d spent the last years avoiding dates altogether, and he was remarkably successful, failing only a handful of times. It wasn’t because he wasn’t interested in women—he was as willing as the next guy. But he knew his family’s history. It left skeletons in his closet—skeletons with sinister glowing eyes and blood-sucking appetites. He figured the effort involved in cultivating a romantic relationship only to have it end in terrified silence once she found out he was Oscar Erter’s son was more than he could bear. He stared at those skeletons everyday. He expected them to be there, always. They were no surprise to him. But expecting a woman—especially one he might have fallen for—to glimpse those dark, little secrets and not feel her stomach turn, not give him a look of resigned fear as her eyes glistened with the idea of a horrible, final mistake, was too naïve to hope for.
Why begin a thing likely to end poorly?
But Ruthi seemed different. God, he hoped. She seemed aloof to the world, knowing there was no standard on normal, no walking plank to the ocean of average. It was a sense. In her, he glimpsed a woman who could say masturbate and mean it with literal configuration, no innuendo, no sticky pretense. She didn’t care what the world saw her as. She was Ruthi. Nothing more.
At least, it was his first impression.
He sighed. Maybe that virtue would give her perspective on William. Maybe she would accept the same in him. Maybe he’d discovered the one woman on Earth who could date the son of a killer, and count it as a mere side note in the relationship.
God, he hoped.
He hoped this was a date.
When she strode into Fusion, his hopes were kindled. This was a date. She wore a pure white linen V-neck Maxi dress that fell down to her ankles and rode high to her throat concealing any cleavage. It had a beachy motion to it, both loose and hugging, and, much to his pleasure, she wore flats. No awkward heels. This was a woman who could speak without faking her way through a conversation any more than she stork-legged through the restaurant. Comfortable. It put him at ease, immediately.
They shook hands. “I’m glad you came,” he said.
I’m glad you came? Gah!
She grinned at him like she was looking at a riddle. “I’m glad you called.” They sat down at his table as she looked around. Fusion had a modern motif, very L.A. chic, but it humbled itself with wood beams instead of the fab aluminum. The place was energetic, but just under noisy. Placed incrementally throughout the restaurant were the Hibachi style, open grills. She made an impressed sound.
“Not exactly simple, but…” he said as if an admittance.
“Well, it’ll do,” she said and they both laughed.
“I didn’t know if you liked wine, so I haven’t ordered yet.”
“Wine—how about a Pinot?” she said. His eyebrows went up. She was seasoned enough to point out a favorite. He ordered a Pinot from the valley not knowing the differences in wines, and not fully caring. Their pleasantries went on with ease—how was your day, did you get caught in traffic, how many ejaculates did you process today—until the bottle came. The waiter poured them both a glass and left. They clinked their drinks together and sipped, both making a curious face at the wine, then nodding with delight.
When the waiter returned, they ordered. Ruthi got the half-order shrimp and avocado, gumbo-seasoned crunchy rolls and the six-ounce chateaubriand. When she said, “Make mine rare.” It raised William’s eyebrows again. A sperm bank lab supervisor that liked blood—quite a fusion, herself.
“I’ll take the Teriyaki steak and blackened jumbo shrimp, please. Make mine well.”
“Of course, sir,” the waiter said, and left. Moments later, the floor chef appeared firing up the grill and sluicing his stainless-steel tools together. The sound was icy, and they both looked on, anxious to watch their food cook. William’s steak went on first and began to sizzle, searing heat into the flesh. They watched the chef chop and slice the ingredients, a dazzling, blinding display of speed and accuracy which made them give each other an impressed high eyebrow look.
Ruthi made her affected, little sound again. William caught himself grinning at her.
Her steak was next. They sipped their wines making congenial, small talk, feeling themselves settle into their company. The exploding aromas of peppers and prawns, onion and mushrooms cooking filled the air until there was an almost dizzying, savory world spinning them around. Then the marinades splashed across the grill with a nearly-reckless effect, oils and sauces popping and exploding until the food was slid onto their plates, cloves and garlic sprinkled on with a spritz of pepper and placed on their dining tables. William and Ruthi applauded their chef, who bowed and stepped back toward the kitchen.
For William, the first bite was always the best, but he paused watching her slip a sliver of fireplug red steak into her mouth. Her eyes rolled—Mmmm. He smiled. Perhaps Fusion was a good choice after all. He dabbled some gumbo sauce onto his entrée from an assortment of tiny, ceramic sauce thimbles and took a bite. Ruthi’s reaction was underplayed. The food was delectable.
Conversation could now commence.
“So, you’re an L.A.P.D. guy?” Ruthi put another sliver of meat into her mouth.
“I teach, actually,” he said sawing into his steak. “I’m a professor at the junior college.”
Her head tilted. “Oh, you teach junior college, too?”
It made him grin. “Yeah, well, I try to get them while they’re fresh.”
Her laugh was slightly piggish and weirdly cute. “So, what would bring a college professor to stand outside my sperm bank, today? Is this, like—a seed of knowledge thing?” She giggled again dripping white, cream sauce onto her crunchy roll and taking a delicate bite.
“Heh—no, I’m helping on a—a thing. I’m a consultant of sorts.”
“Uh-huh, sounds interesting,” she said. William could tell she was slightly nervous, despite the level of comfort they had established with each other. Perhaps, being with men outside the sperm bank was as rare for her as dating women was for him. The truth was, he felt the same.
In an attempt to keep the conversation rolling, he said, “Okay. I’m trying to find alternative ways to tie together a series of murders—hypothetical murders, that is—by connecting deteriorated sperm samples together.” He had to whisper the word sperm—public restaurants and all. Somehow, he got the impression Ruthi was unaffected by conversations over sperm, ejaculate and semen. He hoped it would put her in her element.
“So,” she said, “this is some sort of new training discipline, or something?”
“Yes, exactly.” William shrugged. It wasn’t ex
actly a lie. More like stretching the truth.
“Well, I hate to tell you, matching seminal fluid samples that are, shall we say, defunct spunk, isn’t really possible.” She put more food in her mouth.
“Genetically, maybe, but aren’t there other ways?”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know,” he said resting his fork on the plate. “You’re the semen expert.”
She nodded. “Are you consulting me?”
William grinned, caught. “Yes, I’m consulting you.”
“Alright, I’ll consult the consultant,” she said. This was her element, her world. “There are other properties that are unique to each sample—each man, you could say.” She waved her fork at him, highlighting her point. “Each little, you know—squirt—has over fifty compounds in it, all highly conducive to good living. It’s actually quite a complex little, uh—goo.”
“Good living?” He thought that was an odd choice of words to describe the elixir of life.
“Seriously.” She dabbled more of the white sauce out of its cambro, then she noticed it on her plate and dabbed her finger in it bringing it up. It beaded on the tip of her finger. “It has all kinds of little, nutritional values—estrone, prolactin, oxytocin. Even serotonin. That’s the big one. That’s why it’s so good for women, too—women who ingest it, either vaginally or, you know, in other ways.” The sauce pulled away in a dollop and dripped back to her plate. The display made William both cringe and look at her with a wild fascination.
“What other ways?” he asked.
She looked at him ridiculously and said, “I would assume, you know—” She looked at him severely.
Oh, yes—giving head, of course. He blurted embarrassed laughter. “Ah that, right.”
“I guess you could say semen is nature’s most self-serving aphrodisiac. And you men are such semen hogs.” She made her piggish laugh again. “It’s important to share, you know. It makes people want to have more sex.” Again, with her playful quality, waiving the fork at him.
“I didn’t know that.”
“Because you’re one of those man-pigs.” She grinned and took another bite.
“I am, I really am,” he admitted. “Maybe that’s why I don’t eat pork.” As punctuation to his point, he stuffed the last bite of Teriyaki, Cajun-blackened steak into his mouth.
She made an expression with her ginger red eyebrows. “See, proof is in the—uhem—pudding.” She slathered up a bead of the white sauce with her crunchy roll and chewed. “So, as far as your little dilemma goes, all you have to do is determine if the levels are the same in each pig—I mean man.” Oink, oink.
He caught the joke and grinned sardonically. “And if they are—can it prove they’re from the same, uh—contributor?”
“Mmm—possibly. But it’s problematic.” She took another bite.
“How’s that?” he asked.
“Semen is like anything else,” she said, waving her fork with her wrist again. “Each man’s seminal levels fluctuate based on diet, health, et cetera. Just because his squirts are high in one hormone one day, doesn’t mean they won’t be low the next.”
William nodded understanding.
Ruthi continued, “So, who’s to say two guys can’t have similar seminal levels? That could confuse things, right?”
She was right. William felt deflated. Even calculating a man’s seminal values after decomposition of the sperm wouldn’t give them proof in court. He made a thoughtful hum.
“And there’s something else.” She took a final bite of her steak. She leaned forward as if revealing a secret. “Just because you can read a man’s cum, doesn’t mean you can read him.”
He squinted at her, trying to follow.
“Look, it’s like a thumbprint. You can take the print, but that doesn’t mean you’ll know who it belongs to. Am I right?”
He wiped his hands on the table towel and sat back looking discerned. “So basically, what you’re telling me is, if you can’t determine the DNA from sperm, there’s no way to identify a killer from his semen.”
“Not with any certainty.” Her eyes drifted away in thought. They came back to him and she quipped, “Maybe there’s another way, though.”
He leaned forward. “Okay.”
She grinned defensively, “Look, I’m not a cop—believe me, they wouldn’t even let me be a cop,” she giggled and said, “but it seems to me that certain qualities of the semen might tell you a few things about the—what’s the word…”
“Suspect?” he said.
“Yes—the suspect.”
William swished his glass of wine and sipped. “Okay,” he invited her to continue.
Done with her meal, she pushed her plate to the side and leaned in with her elbows. “At the sperm bank, my job is to determine whether the sample is healthy. Does the guy do drugs, does he have a healthy diet, that kind of thing. If the cum has a lot of, say, endorphins in it, I know the donor might be a Ginseng tea drinker, or eat from a bakery which uses a lot of vanilla extract. If it’s high in immunosuppressant, then he might have a deficiency a doctor prescribed Cyclosporine for, or something similar.”
William thought-frowned. If they couldn’t I.D. the culprit through his defunct spunk, as she put it, maybe they could at least narrow their field of search. But… “There’s a thousand different avenues.”
She sipped her wine nodding. “Yeah—but it can help you discover his routines. Learn about his day to day. Help you track whoever’s ejaculating guilty spooge everywhere.”
“You mean… track his patterns.”
She grinned victoriously. “That’s right. Track his patterns.”
He shook his head at her mesmerized. “You’re a genius,” he said, suddenly wanting to kiss her.
She took a breath and smiled, now content, “I told you, William, if it has to do with semen, it generally has to do with me.”
He cheersed her with his glass and they both sipped, eyes locked onto the other, both grinning, both starting to swoon.
THE DATE ENDED with William closing in for the kiss and noticing her eyes shut, chin up. He went for the mouth. Ah, a rare connection. It was short but sweet, offering the most luscious little click sound, like a kiss should. Her eyes went down, then back up. She was grinning. He quickly said, “I want to meet again. You want to meet again?”
She looked up brimming with excitement. But she settled back on, “Sure.”
“Good, I’ll call you.” He stepped away from her car as she started it, but he called, “Hey, Ruthi!”
She lowered the window looking at him.
“Thank you.”
She smiled showing teeth. “Okay.” She pulled away leaving him standing there watching her leave.
There was a lot to consider. Ruthi had been full of information—good information, too. Except one thing. They needed a semen sample, and that meant a fresh body.
He looked out at the city looming only blocks away like a geometric paint stroke from God twittering its million lights against the black night.
Who was out there? he thought. Where was he?
“I’ll find you,” he whispered. “Sooner or later, I’ll find you.” He watched until her lights were gone in the distance.
24
MESSAGE FROM THE PAST
There was an envelope on William’s doorstep when he returned home. It was slipped up under the weather stripping along the toe board. He noticed it immediately and took a startled step back. He looked left, then right. There was nothing immediately out of place. One of his neighbor’s cars had moved a spot over, but nothing unusual. He looked back down at the letter, considering it.
With the apartment key strategically gripped in his left hand, like always, he unlocked the door and swung it open. Unwilling to bend over and pick up the envelope, which was now free from the doorjamb, he kicked it into the entrance hall to his apartment building and closed the door behind him. There, the envelope would have to wait while he went and unlocked the door int
o his unit. He came back and sat down on the three reception steps staring at the envelope, contemplating.
Whoever discarded it at his door had meant for him to see it. It wasn’t a standard, white #10. It was an eggshell color and looked textured—the way an invitation card might be packaged. It was lying face-down. When he kicked it, it had flipped over. He sighed nervously. This was usually where people got into some kind of trouble, accepting mystery mail. Anthrax. Death threats. Practical jokes. All these possibilities went through his mind.
Grimacing, he leaned over and flicked it face-up. There was a word on it.
PROF
William’s eyes bugged. Holy shit! Only one person ever called him PROF.
Jacky Lee Hobar.
He snatched it up almost violently and retreated back into the safety of his unit. Once at his downstairs work desk, he sliced it open with a letter opener and fingered it open, looking in. There was a piece of paper from a “From the desk of” pad, folded in half. He sifted it out still not sure what to expect and let it fold open. The text was hand-written. Jacky didn’t want to leave a trail.
Yo, Prof, wassup?
Hope all is well. Sorry about vanishing. Sometimes you gots to do what you gots to do, know what I’m saying?
Thanks for the passing grade last semester. I broke into the school’s database. Had to know. Tell Flunkin’ Duncan he’s an asshole for giving me an F in MacroEco. Seriously? What a douche.
Do me a favor; don’t tell the school to hire an outside security source for their server mainframes. I like the one they got. Getting through it is child’s play. Besides, it wouldn’t be that big of an inconvenience. They’d just be wasting their money. LOL!
But that’s not why I’m contacting you. I need you to tell Officer Bernie a few things for me. Actually, I need you NOT to tell him a few things, okay?
1. Don’t tell him I said hi. He doesn’t need to know. The fewer people the better.
