by Jess Bentley
I walk around toward her, trying to get a bead on her attitude. This poor thing, who dressed her up for this occasion? She's wearing this pink, stretchy top that crisscrosses her rib cage, barely covering her chest. Her arms hang limply at her sides, swaying as she moves her weight back and forth. As I watch, she picks up one ankle and then the other in a curiously athletic gesture, like a gymnast stretching before a floor routine.
She breathes out slowly, too slowly for the situation she's actually in, as though she doesn't even really know what's going on. I see the column of her abdominal muscles flexing with each breath and the pulse in her throat. Subconsciously, I count it: 54. So she is an athlete, with a resting heart rate of 54 beats a minute. Not bad, considering somebody's trying to sell her ass for money.
Her short, bobbed hair curls underneath the curve of her jaw, just brushing that downy, smooth skin. She looks like a doll, one of those porcelain Russian dolls. From the languid grace of her long fingers, I can easily imagine her as a gymnast, one of those magically gifted young people who seem totally unaffected by gravity like the rest of us. She so dainty, so unaware what's going on, I want to pick her up, to fold her inside my jacket and carry her away from here. She doesn't deserve this.
“So, you guys ready to get going again? You ready for round two?” Lizzie hollers, whipping up the crowd. They yell and whoop back in her, waving their round paddles in the air.
At the sound, the young one in front of me suddenly looks down, making eye contact with me. Her lips part as though she gasps, and she blinks slowly, too slowly. She almost seems like she's not going open her eyes again.
“No fair trying to cut in, Daniel!” Lizzie announces over the PA. “You guys don’t want to see Daniel cheat, do you? Let him know!”
The air fills with a round of boos. I can feel the tension ratcheting up, slowly climbing into the yellow zone. This is not good.
“Or… is this your daddy, Kita? Did your daddy come to save you?”
Kita? Is that her name? After a short delay, she looks toward Lizzie and I'm fairly certain that must be her name. She's responding, but far too slowly.
“Mike? Doug? Are you guys gonna let Daniel just step in front of you on the bidding?”
Shit. Lizzie is seriously trying to get me into a fight. If there are men here who've already been bidding on Kita, I don’t want to think about what they'll do if they don't get what they think they paid for.
“Kita? That’s your name?” I hear myself say, stepping toward her. I still don't even have a plan. I don't know what to do.
She blinks those big green eyes again, so slowly I can almost see her eyelashes waving in the small breeze they make. She's breathing through her mouth and tips forward, almost too far. It would only take a moment. It would only take just a simple nudge this way and…
Before I even have time to iterate the steps of my plan in my mind, I catch her behind the knees and dump her into my arms. She curls up like a kitten against my chest, automatically folding her forearms behind my neck, nuzzling her forehead into my coat. She weighs nothing, absolutely nothing.
But this might not have been complete genius. The crowd erupts into a roar of disapproval and by my calculations I’ve got about twelve seconds to get the hell out of here. I walk around to the other two podiums, whistling between my teeth to get their attention. The girls both flinch, scowling at me immediately, but at least they have the sense to listen.
“You ladies need to get out of here immediately! Come with me, and you won't be here when the cops arrive!”
Without even waiting to see what they do, I turn around, still carrying Kita's feather-light body in my arms as I stride back toward the door. I hear yells behind me and can only hope that a few more seconds of confusion will work in my favor.
“Get back here, Daniel!”
“What the fuck is that guy doing?”
“Hey! Don't take her!”
“Give me my money back!”
Big Boy is smart enough to get the hell out of my way as I rush back to the entrance and into the open door of the Mercedes. To my absolute delight, the minute I’m in the back seat, the other two sorority pledges tumble in after me. Freddie slams the door closed and gets us back into traffic.
“What the hell happened in there?” pouts the one with the long blonde hair.
The other one crosses her arms over her see-through blouse and wedges her knees together. She glares at me darkly.
“Thanks,” she says meaningfully. It shuts the blonde one up, and for that I'm grateful. At least this one has the sense to know that I saved her ass.
Freddie drops them off at the sorority house, when I realize I've still got Kita in my lap. Somehow, during the whole ride I've been holding her to me, cradling her weight as though it's always been there. As though it's completely natural to have her pressed against me like this. And it's not natural, not at all. But every time I look down at her, her half-lidded eyes bring a wave of something that crashes through me. I don't even know what it is, but I can't let her go yet.
I think she's been drugged. She doesn't smell like alcohol, so that's the only thing that makes sense. Every few minutes my thumb just wanders to the inside of her wrist and I find myself counting her pulse again. Still 54, sometimes 58. She's fine, she’ll sleep it off.
So why can't I let her go?
But I can’t answer the question yet. I'm just going to see this mission through, and then debrief myself tomorrow. I will think more clearly about it tomorrow, when I know everything is taken care of here.
Freddie doesn't say anything, to his credit. He just gets me back home, parks the car in the rear garage and then silently makes his way out to his quarters. The overhead lights bang on in the garage all at once and I leave the car, still holding her fairy weight body to mine. Every once in a while she makes a small, kitten like sound, but she doesn't seem to mind.
I walk past the cars to the back entrance, opening the door quietly so as not to disturb her. As we move across the silent great room and then through the marble hallway to the loft stairs, I keep counting her breaths. In this space, where I'm so used to everything being completely silent except for mechanical whir of appliances and computer equipment, having an extra sound is sort of strange. Sort of nice, really. It fills out the space.
I’m not entirely sure where to put her. After standing at the bottom of the loft stairs for a moment, I consider how utterly inappropriate it is to bring a college student up to the bedroom level of a grown-ass man. A strange man. A man she doesn't even know… I realize it's also the safest choice. If she wakes up in the night, it's the best way I can hear her. If she gets sick. If she’s afraid.
That makes sense, or at least that's what I'm telling myself.
But I can feel it in my heart as I try to lay her on the simple, charcoal cotton bedspread in the guest bedroom. A tugging... a feeling like pushing her away from me means pulling on a connection I don't want to pull on. It's like she's already been knitted into my fabric, and the only way to get rid of her is to cut her away.
God, you are so stupid sometimes, I tell myself. Put her down.
And I do put her down. She is so small in this big bed, curled into a C shape. As soon as her head hits the smooth cotton pillow, her tiny hand slides up next to her face in a sweet gesture that is so trusting, so completely at ease, I’m flooded with gratitude.
Then she says something. I lean down to hear. “What?”
“Save me, Daddy,” she murmurs indistinctly. Something inside me jumps.
She's not afraid of me.
Though maybe she should be.
But I did give her a much better night than Lizzie had planned for her, certainly.
And hopefully she never knows that.
Chapter 28
Kita
It feels like somebody's wrung me out, like a wet towel. I feel depleted. Except for my head, which is filled with a nest of caterpillar cocoons or something, trying to burrow their way out throug
h my ears.
Oh my God. What happened last night?
Slowly, I open my eyes just a crack, just the barest sliver that lets in a sharp slice of burning light. No way. I roll over and bury my face in the pillow, blocking out the rest of the light.
Wait a second.
This is not my pillow. It's filled with something else, like gel or something. And the pillowcase is so thick it's almost denim. But soft, really soft. Without opening my eyes, I push my finger along the pillowcase fabric until it ends, and then another pillow begins.
I'm not in a twin bed? So… I'm not in my own bed, definitely.
Some brilliant part of me just wants to go back to sleep and reboot this entire day. I've been awake for all of twenty seconds, and I know I need a do-over. Maybe if I could just fall back to sleep…
But I can't stay on my stomach. I'm going to have to move, because I can feel the cocoons in my head sloshing threateningly back and forth.
I’m going to be sick.
No. I'm definitely not going to be sick.
Slowly I roll over onto my back again, dropping my forearm over my eyes so I can maybe peek out just a little without getting the full spectrum laser light show on my burning eyeballs. What I can see is just glare and white, and I blink over and over again, trying to get everything to work correctly.
After a few minutes of watching the seam between the wall and the ceiling to make sure that it isn't teeter-tottering too dramatically, I convince myself that I might be able to sit up. I mean, if it doesn't work out I can always lay back down.
I roll onto my side and push myself to sitting, still hunched over and gripping the side of the mattress. From under the fringe of my hair, the light is not too intense. I can kind of make out the dove gray sheets, the charcoal gray comforter. Far below my feet, the gunmetal gray plush carpeting, which looks so dense and luxurious I'm rather tempted to go ahead and plunge my toes into it. Just go for it. Just throw caution to the wind.
And when I do, it is everything I hoped. The carpet is so thick and wonderfully springy, part of me is tempted to do a cartwheel right here, just to get a real feel for it. I know that is stupid, but I still want to.
Deliberately, I stand up straight, centering myself and raising my arms over my head in a quick, abbreviated yoga routine known as a sun salutation. It will get my blood pumping, I know. It might even convince my body to just wake up and stop feeling so thoroughly crummy.
But as the fog begins to clear, I only become more curious. Where am I? And why is everything in his room so gray?
The sheets are gray, the blanket is gray, the carpeting… Everything. The simple dresser appears to be weathered beechwood. The walls are a muted silver. Even the doorknobs are basically pewter.
Whoever this owns this house must really love gray.
Or maybe they're colorblind? Yeah. I shouldn't assume.
On shaky legs, I walk carefully over to the first door and tug on the doorknob. It's a closet, and behind the door is a full-length mirror. My reflection startles me. Actually it kind of horrifies me. I stand there for a few minutes and just look at myself. I went out like this? This is barely even a top. It's like tissue paper. How on earth did I let Lizzie talk me into this?
Even the skirt is ridiculous. In the bright light of morning, if it is still morning because who knows how long I slept, this skirt just seems ridiculously inappropriate. I wish I had a bathrobe. I wish I had a caftan or a muumuu or something.
Out of the corner of my eye, though, I see a neat array of dress shirts. Men's dress shirts. Unconsciously, I drag my finger along them, fanning them out on their hangers like I’m strumming a harp.
Oh, wait.
Oh my God, did I go home with a man?
I squish my thighs together, and they feel just the same. If I had “been with” a man, I would know, wouldn’t I? Wouldn’t I feel different or something?
What do I remember? Lights and a huge speaker pumping out bass rhythms. Lizzie’s flame-red hair. A crowd of men pushing through the door.
Do I remember a man? Anything?
My mind gropes around like a blind person searching for a lost contact on the floor. Nothing. I have no details about this person stored in my memory at all.
Well, it's definitely a man who likes gray. That’s something to know, I guess. His wardrobe is all in muted shades: white shirts with gray pinstripes, gray shirts with white pinstripes, and the whole rainbow from very light gray to do very dark gray. Honestly.
Before I overthink it, I've unbuttoned the top button on a beautiful pewter shirt and slid it off its hanger, then around myself. It's so supple and luxurious, it envelops me like a coat. Instantly, I feel better. Safer. Not quite as exposed and shaky.
You're being ridiculous, Kita. It's just a shirt for Pete’s sake.
But as I see myself in the mirror, I kind of like the way it looks. The sleeves are far too long so I fold them up. The tail comes down almost to the backs of my knees.
If I had a belt, I bet I could make this work, I tell myself wryly.
Now, I feel a little bolder. I pad over to the next doorknob and turn it slowly, peeking out through the crack before entering the hallway. It's so quiet here, just a long hallway with a few doors. I head toward the one across the hall, hoping for a bathroom and stop.
There is a photograph on the wall, a framed portrait of three men standing in front of an American flag. They're all buttoned into their dress-up uniforms — what are they called? Not the camouflage ones or fatigues or whatever, but the nice ones — with their chests puffed out and white caps low on their foreheads. Jaws clenched, all three sort of stare at the camera as though daring it to try something funny.
They all look vaguely familiar, as though I've seen them on TV. Actually, only the two on the right look familiar. Now that I think of it, I really have seen them on TV, on one of those political talk shows, going into as little detail as possible about some military activity in Afghanistan or Russia or something. I don't really remember.
But the one on the left, he's familiar for a different reason. As I squint at him, another image swims to the surface of my mind, coming into focus like the shapes in a magic eight ball. I remember this face, kind of. I saw him last night, at the bar.
But as I try to latch onto the memory, it keeps slipping away from me. He was talking to me. I remember. Except, I don't remember at all. I kind of remember his lips moving. I remember the low grumble of his voice and how close he seemed, how he seemed to have a sort of gravity that pulled me in and I was falling, falling, falling into his arms…
But then it is gone. The memory just dissolves like smoke, running away from me the more I try to focus on it. With a sigh, I reach for the next doorknob and twist, extremely grateful to find a bathroom.
I don't know why, but I close the door super quietly behind me. I don't know if I'm trying to hide my movements, or what. Obviously if there's anybody home, they know I'm here. It’s not a secret or anything. But something about the subdued interior of this house makes me feel like I'm supposed to be quiet.
Under the cylindrical sconces in the bathroom, I look a fright. My eyes are ringed with flakes and smears of mascara. One of my eyebrows is all pushed the wrong way as though I spent a lot of time sleeping on my face.
Swearing under my breath, I just turn on the cold water full blast to fill my hands with it. The second before I splash it onto my face, I know it's going to feel fantastic. This is just what I need: a cold, bracing slap to wake me up. Get clean. Get scrubbed.
The block of soap is rough and earthy. Though it leaves my skin way too dry, I like knowing that it's about as clean as I can get. After thinking on it for just a second, I pull open the drawer under the sink. It's perfectly neat with three extra bars of soap, five toothbrushes laid neatly next to each other, and two travel size tubes of toothpaste, still in their original boxes.
I smile to myself. Whoever’s house this is, I wonder if this is just like his personality: everything has
a place, everything in its place. Everything neat and tidy, with nothing loud or rambunctious. He's probably not even colorblind, after all. All that gray just sort of goes together.
And for some reason, I kind of like it. After the last five years, bouncing from place to place, finally ending up in the Technicolor chaos of the Chi Rho Pi sorority house, all of this order and neatness really appeals to me. This is the kind of house I would like to have, when I have my own house. Well, maybe with a bright blue throw pillow here and there, anyway. Or cantaloupe. I love that color.
Teeth brushed and face scrubbed, I stare at myself in the mirror and give myself a good glare.
All right, Kita. You've dilly-dallied long enough. Time to get your butt back into the real world.
After I wipe the water droplets from the sink, I creep back out of the bathroom. It’s still quiet and still. Maybe I’m alone? But when I hit the top stair, I can hear some noises downstairs. What am I supposed to do, thank my host? Disappear without a trace?
Accuse him of kidnapping?
Maybe sneak out the back door? That actually seems like a pretty good idea.
Walking lightly on the balls of my feet across the slate tiles, I head for the source of the noise. A wide archway leads into a kitchen. I can just make out the corner of a granite topped island when I stop.
There he is.
And he’s making pancakes?
My mouth kind of falls open a little bit. It's the man from the photograph, certainly. He looks different. His hair is thick and close-cropped, dusted with silver at his temples. He scowls at a sauté pan as he jerks it in his hand and flips the pancake, landing it precisely in the middle of the pan. Steam wafts dramatically upward. His muscles clench and unclench with every motion under the gray tank top. I can see the ridges of his abdominal muscles rustling under that fabric as he moves back and forth.
Something about his animal strength being displayed for the homely task of making pancakes makes me tremble through my core. I jam my thighs together again, trying to keep myself still. Something twinges inside me, like a rubberband snapping that I didn’t even know was there.
