HIS BABY’S KEEPER

by Evelyn Glass

  But I’m jumping to conclusions. He may well know nothing. He might be less involved than that and still know a little. He might be completely involved. I wring my hands, trail my finger over the back of my hand, caressing my knuckles, waiting, itching, restless. I find myself wishing that a fight would break out, just so there would be something to do.

  Then the bell above the door rings, and a man who could’ve walked straight from the twenties Jazz Age enters. He wears a suit with a waistcoat beneath the jacket, pale blue, with a handkerchief stuffed in the front pocket, a shirt of white silk and a blue bowtie, pleated trousers, shiny black shoes. His mustache is combed, impressive, and his eyes are wide and seem angry with everything and everybody they come to rest on.

  He paces toward me, turning as he walks to shout at the barman: “Whisky!”

  I don’t stand up. I sit there, looking at him, and intentionally stay seated. I know that Ian Hill is used to people—his employees—standing up when he enters a room. I know that he has let his minor mafia contacts go to his head. And I know that he thinks of himself as a very dangerous man, a man not to be messed with.

  When he reaches the table, he scowls down at me, and I can see the rebuke in his face, angry I don’t stand up.

  I smile up at him. “Howdy, Ian,” I say. Not Mr. Hill, but Ian. “How’re things?”

  “Howdy?” he grunts. He drops into the seat opposite me and strokes his mustache. When his whisky arrives, he takes it with a low snarl, drains it, and barks, “Another!”

  ###

  After four whiskeys, Ian interlocks his fingers and rests his chin on his knuckles, leaning forward. He is a large man, fat around the middle, but the kind of fat which clings to a man’s body and makes him look muscular. Hard-packed fat, round, strong fat. His gestures and his demeanor remind me of a silverback gorilla.

  “So, Samson, what is it you want?”

  “To talk,” I say. Then I purposefully turn away from him, look to the barman, and call over, “I’ll have a coke, please.”

  The barman nods and picks up a glass.

  When I turn back to Ian, his scowl is darker, nastier than ever. He despises me, I see, despises me because I’m younger than him, rich, and don’t have to stoop and bow to him. He’s used to men of my age kissing his ass, yessir and nossir and all that shit. I think it kills him a little every time I look away from him. Insolent! I imagine him roaring. Insolent little bastard!

  “To talk about what?” he says. “About where my daughter is? I think that’s the most important order of business, don’t you? I need to know where she is, to know that she is safe.”

  “She’s safe,” I say.

  “You expect me to believe you!” he snaps. “How am I meant to do that? Take the word of a killer—”

  “Keep your voice down.”

  My words are soft, untroubled, but a flicker of fear passes across his face. He swallows, nods.

  “Take the word of a killer,” he whispers. “Is that what you expect me to do?”

  “I don’t kill women. I don’t hurt women. I hate men who hurt women. So don’t think of it as taking a killer’s word. Think of it as taking the word of a man who has never once laid a finger on a woman.”

  The barman waddles over and places my coke on the table, along with a napkin. He nods shortly, and then waddles away. Ian and I are silent until he is out of earshot, back behind the bar, and then Ian speaks as I take a sip of coke.

  “You have no right to keep my daughter from me. You have no right to—”

  “I haven’t kidnapped her,” I sigh. “She isn’t bound and gagged in some dim dark dungeon somewhere, Ian. I’m keeping her safe.” I lean forward, watch his eyes, his eyes which seem small and searching above that bushy mustache. “I’m keeping her safe from a woman named River Mendoza.”

  His face is stone. Nothing touches his expression: not fear, recognition, confusion, anger, nothing. Just a slate of stone unmarked with emotion. I search his eyes, deeply, but he has turned inward. He’s concealing something from me. His poker face is too good. He’s an emotional man, a boisterous man, an angry man. For him to go cold and expressionless tells me that he’s purposefully going cold and expressionless, as though he’s willing his face blank. Uncle Richard once told me that you can tell as much from a man who’s suppressing his emotions as a man who’s openly displaying them.

  But it’s not definitive, and I can’t be sure. I wait for him to speak.

  Sipping my coke, half a minute passes, Ian watching me.

  Then he shakes his head. “I don’t like the way you’re looking at me, boy.”

  “Is that so?” I mutter, and continue looking at him in precisely the same way.

  He slams the table with his fist. My coke lurches up, spills over the rim of the glass, and then settles with a clatter. “Don’t play games with me!” he roars. The barman and the two old men turn toward the sound, squinting. Ian lets out a long shaky breath and leans back in his chair.

  “Is there something you need to tell me, Ian?” I say. “Is there some secret you’re keeping from me?”

  “Of course not!” he snaps. “I just want to know that my daughter’s safe—”

  “She is.”

  “I want her back.”

  “She’s an adult, Ian. I think she can make that choice for herself. You’re changing the subject. I’m going to ask you a question now, and I want you to think long and hard about your answer. Do you know a woman called River Mendoza, or any woman who works in the business? Failing that, do you know who put Eric’s body in the trunk of Anna’s car?”

  “This is absurd,” he mutters. “I don’t know a thing except I want my daughter back.”

  I click my neck from side to side. He’s not going to give me anything. I can tell that now, without probing further. In my business, you get good at knowing when a man will and will not give you what you want. Perhaps with some violence, he might give it up, but committing violence against Ian Hill isn’t a good idea. He does know people, people who’d be furious with me. Plus, even if their relationship is strained, he’s still Anna’s father.

  I stand up. “Fine,” I say. “I’ll let you know when the problem’s dealt with. Maybe you’ll be more honest then, eh?” I nod to the coke. “Thanks for the drink.”

  I feel his eyes burning into my back as I walk from the bar, but what, exactly, can he do?

  I climb into the car, start the engine, and turn the heating on.

  Then I take out my phone and go to the text message I received from River. I compose a text back, short and to the point:

  I want to meet.

  I wait for more than half an hour, sitting, watching the bar. Ian doesn’t emerge. Either he left by the back entrance or he’s in there now, getting drunk. Then my phone beeps. It’s River, with a time and an address. Tomorrow afternoon. Okay, good, I think. I can make that work.

  Then it beeps again, and an emoji comes through. A skull and crossbones, and a heart.

  I shake my head. River, I think. Give it up.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Anna

  I wake up after an hour and a half, my head groggy. The lights are turned off and for a moment I just lay there, the room feeling huge around me. I feel as though I’ve just woken in a cave. Which is true, isn’t it? I am lying in a cave, the secret hideout of a hitman. I mutter this under my breath half a dozen times, trying to make it seem real, but it’s difficult to believe even though it’s happening right now. In a cave, in a secret base . . . me, Anna, cheerleader and veterinary student. Strange indeed.

  I think of Samson, out there somewhere meeting with Dad, letting him know I’m safe. I don’t care about Dad, at least, not as much as a daughter is supposed to care about her father. When I think of him worrying about me, it’s not with sadness; anger overrides sadness. I think of him pretending to be worried, maybe even pleading with Samson, and a cold rage grips me. I sit up in bed and gaze into the cavernous darkness. He didn’t care when he was berating
me, wearing me down, making me feel small and useless, making me feel like a waste of space. He didn’t care when his words cut into me like knives and chipped away my self-esteem. He didn’t care when he told me Mom’s death was my fault. But he’ll pretend to care now, pretend that he’s the most caring man who’s ever lived, pretend that he’s always loved me and only has my best interests at heart.

  I suppress the urge to snarl and climb to my feet. I reach blindly along the wall until I come to the light switch. When I press it, the sconces in the room spill out their orange light. The room—a house compressed into a single massive floor—is lit up before me. I ache for Samson to return; the vault door stands closed, intimidating. I know that nothing can get through there, and yet I am close to terrified.

  I go to the shower, strip naked, and wash myself. I think of Samson as I wash, think of last night, of the sex we had—the hungry, animal sex. I think of the sex earlier this evening. I think of the passion, and the release, and the closeness. The closeness most of all. As though we have been having sex for years, as though we know each other’s beats so well we don’t even have to discuss them. As I think of him—his muscular body, writhing, thrusting—the warm water dripping from my nipples and between my legs, I get hot, far hotter than the water should make me. I get so hot that I reach up and grip the showerhead and pull it down. I guide it between my legs and the water blasts against my pussy, my clit. I move the water up and down and in small circles, massaging my pussy with it, and thinking of Samson, of how strong he is, how capable.

  When I come, one image is predominant in my mind: Samson, completely naked, hard, arms at his sides like he’s ready for a fight, fists clenched. He’s glaring down at me with a mix of lust and rage, as though we’re in the wild and he’s just fought off competitors to get to me. He just stares at me, and I can see in his stark blue eyes all the things he’s going to do to me, all the dark, pleasuring things.

  Then the orgasm passes and I am left panting in the shower. I clean myself again, and then step from the shower, shivering. I walk to the thermostat on the wall and turn it on. Within the stone walls, I hear pipes hum into life. This really is like a secret agent’s hideout, I think.

  Then I take a towel from the railing, wrap myself in it, and walk around the cavern, waiting. I’m still horny, hornier than I’ve been in a long, long time, maybe ever. I want him here, now. I want him, I need him. I’m gripped with a sort of madness, a lustful madness, which I can’t understand or repress.

  It’s been less than two days, but my mind drifts over the possibilities. What would it be like to be with Samson, really be with him, as his girlfriend, his partner? What would it be like to be with a man who has money, lots and lots of money, a man who knows exactly what he’s doing in every aspect of his life and is never intimidated? I can’t help but compare Samson with Eric, how in control Samson is compared with how ultimately helpless and pathetic Eric was.

  I remember when we were in a restaurant, Eric and I. Months after he had started to hit me, and the only reason he had agreed to go to a restaurant was because I had asked and asked, pestered, really, even after he hit me. I had asked with bleeding lips, and finally he had relented, mostly to shut me up. I had ordered fish, he had ordered steak. When they brought his steak and he bit into it, he declared that it was overcooked. I told him to go and ask for a replacement. But he sat there, mouth twisted in distaste, munching on his overcooked steak. Grumbling the entire time. Finally, I called over the waitress and began explaining it to her. Eric’s face was gripped with a terror as though I had just pulled a gun out.

  “No, no,” he said, voice whining. “It’s fine. It’s great. Thank you.” He was scared; he couldn’t take what he wanted. He was a small man.

  Half the man Samson is, I think. Half the man my hitman is. If Samson wants something, he takes it.

  The entire situation is fun, though it’s scary. It’s exhilarating, though I know it can’t last. Terror should grip me, but the excitement and the pleasure override it. It’s still there, but quieter than it should be.

  Then the vault door begins to creak. I tense, wondering how long I’ve been pacing, thinking, showering. Is it long enough for that to be Samson? I guess it’s been about two and a half hours since I fell asleep.

  The door swings open.

  Samson steps through. He’s wearing a hoodie and jeans, and yet he still looks impossibly strong. I can’t look at him without thinking about the muscles beneath the fabric of his clothes, the huge, heaving muscles, the massive strength of them. I can’t look at him without getting horny, hungry. He walks into the room and closes the vault door behind him, and then without thinking, I spring forward. The towel wrapped around me falls away. I jump at him naked, and when he sees me, breasts bouncing, alive with lust for him, he rushes to meet me.

  “I need you,” I say, my voice breathless. I hardly recognize myself but that doesn’t matter. What I say is true. I need him. “I need you now, Samson.”

  I reach down and grab the front of his jeans. His cock presses against the denim, a hard urgency. I rub it up and down and he reaches down and grabs my pussy, his middle finger pressed hard against my clit. I moan, and he moans with me. Then, without warning, he lifts me under the armpits and carries me toward the bed.

  “Ah!” I squeal, giggling. “You’re an animal!”

  He tosses me onto the bed. I land on my back, and then Samson slides to his knees, grips my thighs, and pries my legs apart. He stares at my pussy for a long minute. I look down into his face. It’s as though he’s captivated by my pussy, can’t help but stare at it, can’t look away. It’s as though he’s been thinking of it for a long time and now can’t believe that he can finally touch it. I’ve never been looked at like that before, with such absorption. Nothing else exists for us right now but each other. The fear and the madness of events drift away.

  “I want you to come on my tongue,” he says, voice calm.

  In control, I think, shivering. He’s so fucking in control.

  “Yes,” I breathe.

  “I want you to come on it, hard.”

  “Yes, yes,” I sigh.

  He thrusts his entire face into my pussy, his mouth kissing it like a mouth; and then his tongue slips inside of me, erect, probing. No man has ever slid his tongue into me like that, and for a moment I don’t know what to make of it. Then he reaches even deeper, his face slammed against me, and his tongue tickles my sweet spot.

  “F—f—f—f—”

  But I can’t finish the word. His hands firm on my thighs, his tongue deep within me, he begins to fuck my pussy with his tongue, sliding in and out, the tip of his tongue brushing my sweet spot every time. I reach down and grab his head, my fingers sweaty and making his hair damp. He digs his fingers into the flesh of my thigh, and he fucks my pussy with his tongue for a long time, until the heat begins to build around me almost to boiling point. My cheeks are flushed and my chest aches and my nipples tingle and most of all my pussy burns. White-hot, burning, his tongue no longer a tongue but a flickering flame inside of me, burning into my sweet spot, branding it.

  Come on my tongue, he said. It’s the dirtiest thing a man has ever asked me to do, the most intimate pleasure. He wants me to come onto his tongue, his tongue which is fucking me, his tongue which is inflaming me.

  Suddenly, my pussy becomes tighter, and Samson has to force his tongue inside of me. He doesn’t withdraw it now, but leaves it on my sweet spot, and then moves it in small circles around it. Tighter, hotter—and then it releases, squirting over his face.

  I look down as I come, focusing on his face buried in my pussy, his body arched over, muscular shoulders tensed and visible even beneath the material of his hoodie. I dig my fingernails into his head, but he doesn’t flinch away. Then it passes, and he removes his tongue from me; it’s white with my come. Somehow, that isn’t awkward, or weird. Already, there are few boundaries between us, and even fewer causes for embarrassment.

  He stands up
and offers me his hand. “I want you against the wall,” he growls.

  I don’t hesitate. I’m a creature of lust now, lost to it, lost within it. The world has honed down to this moment, this act, and nothing else.

  Samson leads me to the wall of the cavern and presses me back. I lean forward, resting my hands on the cool stone, arching my back and displaying my pussy for him.