Davie was a gracious hostess. Once the blood had been sponged up, she opened her kitchen and invited the horde of police to make themselves at home. She laughed and smiled, and even danced a little once the DJ was done setting up. But it was as though she was steering herself through the party on autopilot; she wasn’t really there.
I kept my distance and watched. Sometime after midnight, Davie broke away from the group and insisted on making cookies. She had a chunk of refrigerated dough ready to go and she rolled it flat on the floured granite countertop, then used a wine glass and her fingers to twist strands of dough into braids.
I worked my way through the crowd to her. Davie was alone, playfully chasing off the drunks sneaking raw dough from the scrap pile beside her. With the dough in her hands, she finally seemed to have come back to life.
I pretended to snag a scrap and got a slap on the hand in thanks.
“Hey now,” I protested, rubbing my twice-bruised knuckles under the Band-Aids.
“Salmonella,” she said. “There’s egg in it.”
“I’ll risk it,” I said as I made a second grab. “Maybe it’ll fight the hep-C that I got from the Russian.”
“Ah,” Davie frowned, remembering. “Here,” she said as she cut off a larger scrap of dough and pushed it towards me with the lip of the wine glass.
It was sweet and cold. I couldn’t remember the last time I had raw dough. College, probably. We never had the money to spend on things like cookies when I was a kid. “Peace offering?”
“Or murder weapon,” she grinned.
“That reminds me. When you stabbed him, was that instinct or training?”
Davie glanced at me. “Hm?”
“Ponytail,” I nodded towards the floor where Davie and I had dropped the Russian. “There’s a right way and a wrong way to fight with a knife. You got it right.”
“Oh.” She shrugged as she laid out circles of dough on a silicon baking sheet. “My last job was with Doctors Without Borders. They’d send me all over the world to do audits. I had a security guard who decided I needed to know more than an emergency phone number.
“This wasn’t the first time I’ve had a knife at my throat,” she added.
“But it doesn’t get easier.”
“No,” she said, glancing away from me. “No, it doesn’t.”
She was silent for a few moments, then dusted more flour onto her hands and began to knead the pile of scraps into a new whole. “But baking helps.”
“Hobby?”
“No.” Davie dug her hands into the dough. “Family trait. We’re farm people, very hands-on with what we eat. When we don’t know what else to do, we cook.”
A cop staggered by on his way to the bathroom and accidentally fell asleep on the way. I felt the need to apologize to Davie for the spontaneous party as I rolled him out of the traffic pattern.
“Don’t apologize,” she told me. “I’m glad you’re all here. Like I said, this wasn’t the first time I’ve been attacked. The night after? It’s terrible. You can just…” she shuddered and squeezed her eyes tight. “You can still feel the knife against your skin. I really didn’t want to be alone tonight.”
Ah. My little internal alarm stopped clanging. Fear is a hell of a motivator; loneliness more so—this I know well.
“Do you have any friends who can stay with you?” I asked.
She shook her head. “I went over this with the police,” she said as she swapped the new batch of cookies with the two trays in the oven. “I moved here right before you did. I’ve got work friends in town, but I don’t know them well enough to drag them into this.”
“You might want to reconsider the safehouse,” I said as I took one tray from her and started sliding the braided cookies onto a plate.
“Dust those with sugar,” Davie said as she handed me a shaker. “And thanks, but no thanks. I told the police everything I know. They said they’d take care of it. It’s probably already over.”
I opened my mouth to nag, then went back to sprinkling hard pink crystals on the cookies. We’ve all got our own coping techniques. If hers was to stay holed up in her apartment and pretend everything was okay, it was better than some of the alternatives.
“What?” she asked.
“Hm?”
“You were about to say something.”
“Just that you noticed when I moved in,” I said, smiling at her.
“Don’t play games,” she said, flicking flour at me. “You’re Time’s Man of the Year. Of course I noticed.”
“Men of the Year,” I corrected her. “I have to split that title with Patrick Mulcahy.”
“Right. Sharing the cover with your boss changes everything. Who are you again?”
I laughed. “Josh Glassman, with the Office of Adaptive and Complementary Technologies.”
Davie extended a flour-covered hand. “Davie Costello, Friction Commodities, LLC. Which reminds me…” she continued, “How’d you know my name?”
I shook her hand, then dusted the flour off on my sweatpants. “What I said after the fight? I might admit to a little crush,” I confessed.
“Oh,” she said as she raised an eyebrow at me. “Do I have to worry about why you were hanging out in my hallway?”
I winced. I had almost forgotten about the squirrel.
“Is that a yes?”
“No.” I shook my head. “That’s a ‘You’re not going to believe me, but…’”
“Try me,” she said. “It’s been an unbelievable night.”
“Okay, so…” I looked up at the cathedral ceilings. Davie’s soffits were a good fourteen feet above us and buried under foam insulation. She probably never heard the pitter-patter of scrabbling feet within them. “Did the police say they found a pair of boxer shorts outside of your condo?”
“Yes.” She stopped sliding dough onto the sheets. “Is this going somewhere awful?”
“It’s definitely not going anywhere sanitary. The short version is that I found a squirrel in my underwear and was taking it outside.”
Davie put down the tray. “A squirrel.”
“Yes.”
“In your underwear.”
“For the record, I would like to point out I was not wearing them at the time.”
“The squirrel or the underwear?”
“Both. Neither.”
“Where is the squirrel now?”
“The last time I saw it, it was bouncing up and down on the face of the mobster standing guard in the hall.”
“So this means…”
“Yes. The police are currently checking the local ERs for a man with an accent who looks as though he fell face-first into a furry ball of razors.”
She leaned forward and started laughing, first because of the squirrel, then because she needed to laugh. When she finally stopped, she pushed the cookies aside and poured us some red wine. We stood side by side, arms touching, resting our butts against her kitchen counter as we watched the party.
“Were you kidding?” Davie asked. “About the squirrel.”
“No. My condo’s infested. I can take you up there and prove it, if you don’t mind crawling around the air ducts.”
“I do, actually,” she said. “So let’s say I believe you. For now.”
“Good,” I said. “Those fuzzy buggers hate it when I wake them up.”
She was quiet for a moment, then said: “Is it a cyborg thing? Did you… did you call them or something?”
“What, the squirrels? No! Why would you think that?”
“I’ve never heard of a squirrel infestation, not in a high-rise in the middle of a city!”
“So instead of realizing that we’re living in a very serious fire hazard, you start wondering if I summoned them here, like some sort of technological Pied Piper?”
“I don’t know what you can do,” Davie said. “I’ve heard rumors, of course, but it’s a little different when you’re here in my kitchen.”
“That’s fair,” I shrugged. “The simpl
est explanation is that I can control machines. Anything more and it gets complicated, unless one of us has a degree in quantum organic computing.”
“Do you?”
“Nope. Law.”
“Well, mine’s in finance, so let’s leave it at that.”
She poured us some more wine. We made small talk; Davie made it clear she did not want to be left alone, and that was fine by me. Halfway through the second glass, she asked me why she had caught my eye.
“I know I’m fairly good-looking,” she added. “But I’ve seen you with supermodels.”
“You’re prettier than they are,” I grinned.
She bumped me with her elbow. “I’m not fishing for compliments,” she said. “You’ve got a type, and I’m not it.”
I took a large drink of wine and decided to be honest. “You smile at me.”
“Everybody smiles at you.”
“Yeah, but you mean it,” I said. “I don’t see an agenda in your smile. That’s rare.”
“Oh.” She paused as she mulled that over. “You guys don’t have it easy, do you?”
“No, we don’t.” I shrugged. “But it’ll be better once people get used to us. Nobody likes change, and we’re a big one.”
Davie nodded. “We’re always talking about OACET at work. It’s… strange. Machines have been able to do what you can do for decades, so it shouldn’t be such an issue.”
“It’s the uncertainty,” I said. “Machines do as they’re told, but we’re human beings, and human beings are fallible. Hell, according to today’s TMZ, I’m a sex-crazed lunatic who will destroy the world with his dick.”
“Impressive.” Davie arched an eyebrow. “Did they say how?”
“An orgy at the Grammy Awards was implied.”
“I was unaware of the geopolitical significance of the Grammys.”
“I know, right? Learn something new every day.”
The oven timer went off. Davie put down her wine to take the last of the cookies out. She jiggled them onto the cooling racks with a practiced hand. “Speaking of exciting nights, I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” she said. “I’m sure you had plans.”
“No,” I said. “I was serious when I said this was my laundry night. I was planning on household chores and early to bed.”
“Really?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Mmm.” She blew on one of the cookies and took a test bite instead of answering.
“Honestly, I’d rather be here than out partying.”
Davie glanced at the drunken wreck that was once her tidy condo, then back at me.
“You know what I mean,” I said. “This is more fun than a club.”
“Even without the supermodels?”
“Absolutely. The thing about being an unrepentant playboy is that I never feel the need to prioritize sex. This,” I said as I gestured to the room, “means more to me than falling into bed. I can always get laid. I can’t always find people who are happy to be where they are.”
Davie chuckled. “You’re trying too hard to be Zen.”
“Think about your average date. You spend all of your time waiting for the next event. Over drinks, you’re thinking about dinner; during dinner, you’re thinking about the club; at the club, you’re thinking about sex. You’re never enjoying that person. You’re enjoying the idea of the person an hour in the future.”
“Unless it’s a bad date,” Davie said, “and then you’re enjoying a future without him.”
“See? In either case, you’re not there with that person. And that’s what I love, when people are happy to be when and where they are.”
“You think I’m happy to be here?” Davie looked at me with a hard edge to her eyes. “This is not how I wanted to spend my evening.”
“When are any of us exactly where we thought we’d be?” I replied. “I didn’t plan to be here tonight, either, but now that I’m here, talking with you, I’m enjoying it.”
She paused for a few heartbeats, and her eyes softened as she smiled. “You said ‘with’ again.”
“Hm?”
“You said talking with, not talking to. That’s a pet peeve of mine, when people talk to others. That’s when you know it’s not a conversation, it’s a lecture.”
I took a step away from her, and put the bend of the counter between us to give her space.
“What? Did I say something wrong?”
“No. That’s one of my pet peeves, too, and this is usually when I’d start trying to pick you up. So I’ll be over here while we talk, drinking wine and eating cookies like a good boy.”
Davie blinked and looked down, as though she was making a decision. I held my breath. Usually I don’t mind if I have to walk away; tonight, I hoped Davie wouldn’t crush me.
She didn’t.
SIX
Animal sex is overrated. Sorry, it needed to be said. I’m probably the only man on earth who can’t stand pornography. Those poor people, grunting and pounding away… Hey, they’re naked. Hey, they’re fucking. Hey, they’re done.
What a waste of my time.
On the other hand, romance doesn’t get nearly enough credit.
Romance is what happens when people are sharing a moment in time. I hate those novels, and you know the ones I’m talking about, where “all thought ceases” when the genitals clash together. That’s not sex; that’s copulation. Anyone who thinks that logic and reason have no place in sex—real sex, the kind where emotion is as important as the act—is as graceless as an animal in rut.
Still, whatever perfume Davie was wearing was driving me absolutely wild.
I carried her to her bedroom. I’m not sure anyone noticed; the party had reached a fever pitch. I buried my face in Davie’s hair as we navigated the hallway. Shampoo, not perfume, I realized. Citrus, more orange than lemon, with a hint of vanilla and spice.
She kicked the door closed behind us and I pressed her against it. I swept her hair aside to find her neck. I kissed it, then dragged my teeth along the soft line of her throat. She shivered and grabbed the back of my head as she pulled me to her.
“I want my shirt back,” she whispered.
Davie slipped her hands under her shirt and placed them flat against my stomach. She curled her fingers so the tips of her nails touched my skin. She pressed in, hard, and scraped her nails down my stomach, stopping just at the waistband of my sweatpants. Her nails left my skin but kept traveling down, raking the fabric over my erection.
I grabbed her hands in mine and pulled them apart, pushing them against the door. I came closer, slowly, pressing against her body with my own. We’re all different, we’ve each got our own needs, especially in the bedroom. So I always ask. It’s just polite. I tipped her chin up to me and said: “What do you like?”
She gave me a devilish smile. “When it’s rough.”
Right.
I used my lower body to hold her against the door as I pulled off the borrowed shirt. Her fingernails found my stomach again but this time they moved up, straight up the line of my body and then fanning out across my chest. At the moment the shirt was over my head, I felt her stroke my shoulders with her nails, then felt the flats of her hands as she pushed against me. I walked backwards, Davie guiding me with her touch. I couldn’t see anything but her outline through threadbare Carolina blue.
Then Davie said: “Fall.”
I fell. Her bed was there to catch me.
She started kissing my neck and worked her way down. My arms were still tangled in her shirt, the shirt still pulled over my head. Sometimes she kissed, other times she bit, and she kept a constant feather’s pressure of fingernails against my skin. She was a quiet lioness, and I felt like roaring beneath her when she slowly, so slowly, moved her hands down the sides of my chest, my abdomen, my thighs…
“Lift,” she told me, and I obliged.
Davie slowly removed my pants, careful not to touch anything but cloth. I felt her as she leaned over me, then the softness of her cheek as
she caressed the skin she had just scratched. Her breath was hot and sweet, and she kept moving low, lower, lower still, teasing arcs that came so close to my cock but never quite meeting.
And then her lips found me, and I let myself be blown away.
She had to use both hands, circling the shaft and working me up and down. She used her teeth, dragging them over the skin, rolling the head between them and her tongue. There was no biting, but I was aware—so aware!—there could be, and I shook with each twist of her mouth.
She brought me right to the edge. I was there, ready, almost shaking from the need for release, and then she took her hands and her mouth away. Her weight shifted as she left me.
“Now you can move,” Davie said.
I ripped the shirt from my face and rolled up on my knees. Davie was leaning back against the pillows, still fully-dressed and smiling, arms crossed behind her head.
“This is what you do?” I asked. “You whip a man up, then turn him loose on you?”
She nodded. “I know how to get what I want.”
“Oh, honey,” I grinned. “You already told me.”
I grabbed the cuffs of her jeans and yanked her towards me. Davie gave a delighted cry as she was pulled down the bed, but I didn’t let her go. Instead, I looped an arm under her back and lifted her off of the bed, then set her down on the carpet. After the attack from the Russians, she had changed from work attire into a casual shirt and jeans. I grabbed the neckline of the cheap polo shirt with both hands and tore it straight down the center. I snapped the straps on her bra, and she laughed when I seized her belt and used it to drag her a dozen feet down the bedroom floor. When I stopped, her shirt and bra had come off in a tangled pile.
I stared at her naked upper body in the thin band of light coming from under the door. Her breasts were small but heavy. The two white dots of long-healed piercings dimpled the centers of her nipples. I knelt over her, then took her left breast in my mouth and sucked, twisting the other nipple with two fingers.
“God, Josh!” Davie groaned, slipping one hand down her own pants while she grasped my cock with the other.
Russians Came Knocking Page 3
