by R. C. Murphy
Deryck scooped up the vegetables and added them in on top of the fish and onion floating in the stock. “It hurts, but yes.”
Wolfrik set the lid on the pot of soup. “Good. Go back and observe couples out on a date. It will save you from embarrassing yourself.”
“Can’t you just tell me what to do, Wolfrik?” It’d be a lot easier if he could learn everything then and there, instead of playing stalker in another realm in hopes of figuring out how not to fail the human dating test.
How hard could it be? He’d seen some downright internally ugly men walking hand in hand with gorgeous women during his last few trips.
Wolfrik laughed and shook his head. “I have never been on a date. I’m in the same boat as you. Asking me for advice would be like asking a virgin to explain what it feels like to be inside a woman. In theory, he knows what it should feel like, but the gods know he is a long way off in his description.”
Deryck groaned. He dreaded the prospect of educating himself in so short a time span. He didn’t want to learn how to woo Shayla. He wanted to skip to the end of their story for the happily ever after. And the sex. Gods, he wanted to lose himself in Shayla, but the risk was too great for her. Deryck didn’t want Shayla to be another conquest, another nameless bed partner who used him and went back to her life.
For once in his life, Deryck wanted to lay with a female because he chose to.
Wolfrik cleared his throat. “Why are you still here, Deryck? You have nearly three thousand years of dating experience to make up for in two days. That is, if you do not wish to embarrass yourself.”
“You’d love to see that, old man.”
“Then you know nothing about me. I live for the day when none of us are enslaved to the whims of the gods.” Wolfrik motioned toward the door. “Go. If you are needed in the Inbetween, you will be transported from the human realm, same as you would here. No one will know where you are.”
Deryck nodded to his old friend and left the kitchen. He walked through the large dining hall. A handful of incubi sat clustered around a table sharing a large platter of fruit and cheese. His stomach grumbled, but he ignored it.
Wolfrik’s parting words stuck with him. So long as he bore the tattoos on his wrist, he could never belong to Shayla alone. Unwittingly, she was forced to share him with a world of women. The idea of betraying her in any way made him sick.
He left the dining hall and took a shortcut through the garden at the center of their compound to the koi pond. Luckily the bench beside the pond was clear. Deryck sat, glad the fruit trees at his back gave him some semblance of privacy.
Closing his eyes, Deryck tapped into his power. Stinging pain radiated from his incubi tattoos. The pain expanded, ran up his arms and covered his entire body until he swore he’d been covered in fire ants. When he thought his powers to transport to the human realm would fail, the bottom fell out of reality. Deryck’s stomach dropped. The world tilted and he was greeted with the sound of cars driving by.
“Thank the gods for small favors.”
The park outside the zoo was the perfect place to sit and relax. Huge oak trees provided shade throughout the grounds. A pond covered a quarter of the park, tucked in the western corner. Hundreds of ducks and geese called it home. Loudly. Their honking and quacking grew exponentially louder any time a child walked up with a loaf of bread in hand.
Grass soft enough to sink one’s toes into tickled the bottom of Shayla’s foot as she swung it back and forth over the edge of the bench she sat on. Kelly lay on a blanket nearby. Her likewise bare feet brushed the grass in circles, creating a series of tiny green whirlpools at the edge of the blanket.
An elephant from the zoo let loose a loud call. Sparrows, pigeons, and finches scattered into the air. A number of them landed in the tree shading Shayla and Kelly.
“If one of those flying rodents shits on my head, I’m going to be pissed,” Kelly said, glaring up into the tree branches.
Shayla laughed. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
Kelly rolled over onto her stomach and propped her chin on her hand. “So, are you ready for the date?”
“I am now, thanks to you. You’re a miracle worker, Kelly. How did you manage to find the one dress in this godforsaken city that doesn’t make me look like a cow?”
Her friend swatted at her leg hard enough to leave a red welt on her calf. “Shut up, Shayla. There’s nothing wrong with your body. You just needed a little guidance.”
Shayla pulled her knee to her chest and rubbed the growing welt under the hem of her crop pants. “Abusive much? Geez.”
“Suck it up. You needed a reality check. I could talk until I’m blue in the face, but you’re so determined to see these flaws in yourself no one else does. It doesn’t make sense. Why punish yourself like this?”
Shaking her head, Shayla couldn’t bring herself to explain it to Kelly. Snippets of the nightmare she’d had three times in the last week flashed through her head. The whole ordeal with Cyrus happened before she went to work at the PR firm. She fought hard not to bring the darkest part of her life with her. The new job, new house, new everything had been her attempt to wash Cyrus out of her life. It worked for a while. Until Deryck’s strange attempts to ask her out on a date triggered memories she’d buried.
A red and blue kite swooped into the stretch of sky she’d been staring at absently. Shayla watched its mesmerizing dance in the wind and smiled at the child manning the kite’s string when he laughed without a care in the world. How she wished she could be so free.
The kite jerked violently to the left. Panicked, he released the string and the kite slammed into a tree. Branches pierced the bright red half of the kite. The boy ran off sobbing.
“That’s life,” Shayla whispered.
“What was that?” Kelly’s eyebrows arched over the frame of her sunglasses.
“Nothing. Thinking too much.”
Kelly sat up on the blanket, legs stretched out in front of her. “Be honest, are you ready for tomorrow?”
“If by ready you mean on the verge of wetting myself if someone so much as mentions his name or the date? Oh yeah, I’m totally ready for tomorrow night.” Shayla grabbed the bench to steady herself. “Why is the world all wobbly?”
“Because you’re hyperventilating. Calm down, Shayla. Take a couple deep breaths. Everything will be okay.”
She shook her head. “I can’t. I haven’t gone out on a date with a guy since . . . never mind.”
“Since when?” Kelly crawled over and climbed onto the bench beside her. “What’s going on?”
“Ancient history.” Shayla offered a weak smile. “It isn’t worth the emotional baggage.”
Bells chimed softly to their left. Kelly leaned forward to look around her. “Just what you need.” She bounced off of the bench and grabbed Shayla’s hand. “Come on.”
“Where are we going?” Reluctantly, she let Kelly pull her to her feet.
“Ice cream stand at nine o’clock. Don’t look, the Rocky Road might catch our scent and run off.”
Shayla couldn’t help but laugh at her friend. They walked across the grass to the small ice cream cart stationed beside the entrance to the zoo. Families crowded around, taking advantage of the chance to cool off after playing in the sun. They stayed at the back of the group, letting all the kids grab what they wanted first before finally stepping up to the cart. Shayla ordered a double scoop of mint chip. Kelly ordered orange cream, with a cherry. Somehow the cost of the ice cream dropped two dollars when Kelly plucked the cherry off the top of her ice cream and ate it.
Men.
Laughing, Kelly paid for their snack. Shayla picked up the cups and they walked back to the bench. Kelly sat on her blanket again, twirling the cherry stem between her teeth.
“I can’t believe you flirted to save money on ice cream.”
The cherry stem flew Shayla’s direction and bounced off of her breast. “I didn’t flirt. He only thought I was. I would have used a lot more to
ngue action if I were flirting.”
Shayla rolled her eyes and threw the cherry stem into the trashcan beside the bench. “I don’t know how you do it so easily.”
Kelly shrugged and crossed her legs. She looked like a kid at school waiting for the teacher to read a book before recess. “Nothing I do is intentional. Guys like what they like. I have breasts. They’re going to stare and think I’m flirting.”
“That isn’t exactly encouraging.” Shayla dug into her ice cream, hoping it’d salvage her mood a little. So far the only positive thing that’d happened was locating a dress she could stand to be seen in public wearing. Since then, all she’d done was second-guess her decision to follow Faye’s heavy-handed advice and agree to the date with Deryck.
“Fine, we’ll talk about something else.” Kelly’s spoon waved in the air as she spoke. “How’s your mother doing?”
Oh yeah, like that subject is any better. Shayla smiled sadly and swirled the melting ice cream around in the cardboard cup. “She’s okay. She finally settled into the nursing home after they let her bring Petey.” The parrot went everywhere with her mother and was practically Shayla’s brother.
“That bird.” Kelly laughed. “Has he learned to say anything other than slogans from infomercials?”
“I wish. Last time I called to check in, he was toting the effectiveness of some steam cleaner.”
“Have you been out to see her?”
She shook her head. “It’s too hard. One day I walk in and she remembers everything, down to the color of ribbons she put in my hair on the first day of school. The rest of the time I’m a complete stranger to her. On those days she doesn’t trust me to be in her room alone with her. She won’t let me help. Seeing her like that . . . I can’t believe I have to go through it again.”
Kelly patted her knee. “I’m sorry, Shayla. I suck at cheering you up today.”
“It’s okay.”
Shayla was the first person to understand almost every aspect of her existence was screwed up. She couldn’t even tell people about her life prior to five years before. The shame of the relationship she’d been in, paired with the soul-draining task of caring for her father at the end of his life . . . nothing she’d done in her past made for pleasant conversation. Unfortunately, more and more of the bad leaked back into her life. Her mother’s dementia was diagnosed six months ago and since then, she’d been on a downhill slide, landing her in a nursing home.
If Cyrus found a way to come back from the dead to make her life miserable all over again, Shayla knew she wouldn’t survive it.
She looked down in the completely melted cup of ice cream and sighed. Shayla pitched the cup into the trash.
“I’ve got to get going.” Kelly stood and grabbed her blanket. “Will you be okay?”
Shayla tried for a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine. See you Monday.”
Kelly hugged her tight. “Good luck tomorrow.”
“I’m going to need more than that to keep from passing out if he actually shows up.”
“He will. Don’t worry.”
They hugged each other again and walked in opposite directions to the cars. Shayla slid behind the wheel and dropped her head against the headrest. The afternoon out with Kelly had been a decent attempt to keep her mind off everything, but it didn’t help.
The car’s engine kicked over. Shayla drove out of the park. At the stop sign, she sat, debating if she should go left, toward her house, or right. She flipped on the turn signal. When traffic cleared, she turned right.
Maybe there was a movie playing that’d pull her from reality for a couple hours.
It was official; human beings were far, far stranger than the gods.
Gods, no matter their pantheon, were prone to unbelievable cruelty, petty jealousy, sudden bursts of anger, and retribution. And one could not forget the rampant incest going on in the God’s Lands during the height of each pantheon’s power—some of which continued on to this day and age. They may not possess the power they once did from their vast amount of followers, but it did not stop them from feeling entitled to be complete pricks, weirdos, and spoiled brats.
Deryck looked around the small restaurant he’d been sitting in for the last two hours. No matter how much he hated the gods, at least they weren’t as flat-out weird as the humans he’d encountered thus far on his mission to learn the dating rules necessary to win Shayla’s favor.
He’d found the place by simply asking people on the street where they’d take someone on a first date. To be honest, the restaurant wasn’t bad. The food was delicious, moderately priced. The wait staff traversed the busy room like ducks floating through reeds on a riverbank, and each of them smiled despite what was said to them.
It was the couples Deryck came to watch who made him regret his decision to schedule his date with Shayla for the next day. He had a feeling he’d need at least two weeks of studying to figure out anything useful, given the slice of humanity surrounding him.
In the booth across the narrow aisle from his, a couple sat, their heads bowed toward each other. To a casual observer, it looked as though they were sharing sweet comments over a fine dinner. Deryck wasn’t a casual observer. His exceptional hearing picked up every single piece of the vehement conversation the couple hissed back and forth.
“Purple. Panties. No, they weren’t even regular panties. It was a thong, Steve. How the hell do you explain a purple thong magically ending up on the floor in our closet? You know I don’t wear the God damned things.”
The man rubbed the back of his neck and cast a glance around to make sure their waiter didn’t approach. “Maybe they got stuck in your dry cleaning, Teresa.”
“Don’t try to make this my fault that you can’t keep it in your pants and our bed. Who is she?”
“I’m not sleeping with anyone else.”
The woman stood, “You’re not sleeping with anyone at all, then.”
He grabbed her wrist and gently tugged her back into her seat. “God damn it, Teresa. God damn it. They’re mine. I’ve been doing shows down at Logan’s for weeks now.”
“Why are you going to a gay bar?” Deryck could damn near see the cogs fall into place within the woman’s mind. “Oh my God, you’ve been doing drag shows this whole time?”
Shame colored the man’s cheeks. Deryck felt bad for him. It was obviously something he enjoyed doing, but knew his wife would not approve of. Was this what relationships were destined to be? Sacrificing wants and desires to keep peace in one’s home?
Pure, cold dread crept down his spine. He had a hell of a secret hiding in his closet, and it wasn’t a purple thong.
A pleasured sigh pricked Deryck’s attention. He slid a glance left toward the couple sitting in the booth beside his. The young man and his female companion shared the same bench at the table. They sat so close together, it was difficult to see where one ended and the other began.
The girl’s cheeks flushed pink under her makeup. She bit her bottom lip and scooted away from her date. “Not here, Greg.”
The man closed the distance. His arm slid under the table and she gasped again. “I’m just keeping you ready for dessert.”
“Someone will see us.”
“All right, baby. But you’re mine as soon as we get out of here.”
Their waiter stopped by the table with a plate of chocolate cake and two forks. Like a switch had been flipped, the couple put a little space between them and dug into the dessert.
Deryck shook his head. Human behavior in this realm directly contradicted the fantasies of the women who summoned him. In the Inbetween, the woman would have subtly insisted he finish her off at the table before the waiter interrupted. Then he’d likely take her out to the car and ravish her in the back seat or against the wall of the restaurant.
“Can I get you anything else, sir?”
He smiled at his waitress, who’d been extra vigilant since the second he sat down in her section. “No, thank you.”
“I’ll br
ing your check.” She put an extra sway into her step on her way to the back. Deryck caught her leaning over to whisper to another waitress. “It’s a shame, a guy that edible sitting by himself all night.”
Deryck couldn’t understand human fascination with attractive people. In their minds, if you were handsome or beautiful, it was your duty to be seen with other gorgeous people, settle down with a super model wife, and produce children. No wonder women ran to the Inbetween for a night with him. There was too much pressure on them in this realm to be beautiful and have beautiful lives.
He knew better than most, life was inherently ugly once you scratched the surface.
A few couples remained tucked into the booths in the restaurant. Their emotions ranged from obviously happy and content to downright spiteful. One man let out an agitated sigh when his partner left for the restroom. He pulled out his cell phone and poked around at it. For the first time since Deryck watched him walk in, the man smiled. It wasn’t for the man he’d been holding hands with, but for some electronic device. What on earth was wrong with people if they smiled at material goods and shunned their lovers?
Deryck’s head hurt.
The waitress brought the bill. Deryck reached into his pocket and summoned enough money to cover it and a decent tip for her. He left both on the table. Any longer inside watching the strange mating rituals of humans, and he’d start yanking out his hair.
Deryck stepped outside into the cool night air. He took a deep breath and cringed at the taint of pollution. That, he’d never get used to—the smell of machinery leeching into his lungs.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t prepared to go home yet. Deryck looked down the street and found a row of small canopies. He walked down the sidewalk; eager to do something that wouldn’t melt his brain or force him to return to the compound.
The small art faire was in full swing. Young artists beamed at passers-by. Hope gleamed in their eyes. Deryck perused the offerings, impressed by the pottery one woman had displayed at her table. He purchased a vase he thought Shayla would enjoy and continued on his way, stopping occasionally to admire some of the most beautiful things he’d seen since first setting eyes on his Shayla.
