by Chris Orcutt
“Hmm, well, where should I start?” she said with a rake of the hair. She was distantly related to the Revolutionary War patriot Nathan Hale; she went to the University of Pennsylvania for undergrad; she received her Ph.D. from Oxford University; and she had been an associate professor of Classics at Harvard for seventeen years. Currently she was working on a new translation of The Odyssey from ancient Greek and wanted to be the first woman to translate the text. I listened to her story as intently as she listened to mine, admittedly feeling humbled by her academic accomplishments, yet also feeling myself more and more attracted to her as she talked. We were both sipping our third drink and studying each other’s faces when the Border Café mariachi band sauntered not so subtly into the bar.
“Helen”—I jutted my chin at the sombrero-wearing quartet loudly approaching our table—“I don’t know about you, but I have an aversion to mariachi bands like other people have to telemarketers.”
Squinting her eyes and smiling, she nodded vigorously. “I concur, Dakota. Entirely.”
I looked her straight in the eyes with complete stillness. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Oh…okay…let’s.” She stared back at me in wonderment. Clearly, being picked up was not a regular occurrence for her. “But…your place or—”
“Yours,” I said. “I’m interested to see your decorating style. Especially in your bedroom.”
She laughed and gave me a knowing wink. After I settled with the bartender, Helen put her book in her purse and I escorted her outside.
During the two hours I’d been in the restaurant, a cool autumn dusk had enveloped Cambridge, cloaking the brick walls and buildings of Harvard Yard in shadow. Strolling silently, the two of us on autopilot, we crossed Mass Ave and walked along the wall of the Yard. Helen was swaying a bit, and the third time she bumped into me, I held her around her waist to steady her.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“You tell me, Odysseus.” She leaned her head on my shoulder. “This is your Odyssey.”
Helen snorted, which turned into a full-blown cackling laugh. A group of passing students seemed to recognize her. They looked shocked. One of them started to say, “Hi, Professor,” when another girl stopped her. We crossed Mass Ave again and started down Garden Street, toward Radcliffe Quad.
“Helen?” I said.
“Yes?”
“How many wines did you drink tonight?”
“Um…before or after you came over?” she said.
“Total.”
“Five or six, I suppose.”
I winced. “Okay. Where do you live?”
She flapped a hand in the direction of a row of warmly lit streetlights that faded into the darkness.
“Up there, near Radcliffe Quad,” she said. “Faculty apartment. Hector and I.”
“Hector?” I said.
“My cat.” She nuzzled my cheek; her breath was piquant with wine. “Made you nervous, didn’t I?”
The farther we walked, the more Helen’s energy flagged and the more I effectively had to drag her. As we were passing Radcliffe Quad, she wrenched out of my arms, scampered into the bushes, and, holding her hair, quietly retched. Not wanting any students to see her like this, I stood guard on the sidewalk and was relieved when she finished. Wiping her mouth with a tissue, she led us across the street and plopped down on the stoop of a brownstone, panting.
“This is your building, Helen?” I said. “You’re sure?”
“Quite sure.” She rummaged through her purse and produced a ring of keys for me. “Three-B, Dakota. I…just need…to catch….my breath.”
Her eyes fluttering closed, she slumped against the steps, which jolted her awake again. I bit my lip in exasperation and shook my head. The visions I had nurtured just half an hour ago—of making love with this woman on a rug in front of a fireplace while she vehemently declared me her hunky Odysseus and shouted cries of ecstasy in ancient Greek—had now sadly evaporated.
Taking her keys, I heaved her to her feet and up the stoop. I opened the door and dragged her inside, the toes of her shoes scraping the threshold, to the foyer. By the way she was wobbling, I could tell that everything was spinning for her. There was no way this woman would be able to climb three flights of stairs, so I told her to close her eyes and keep them closed. I then slung her over my shoulder and began climbing the stairs.
Upon reaching the first floor landing, I nodded at a dignified silver-haired couple on their way downstairs. To break the tension of the situation, I smiled and said hello (just another man carrying a drunk woman up some stairs). In reply, the husband raised a snooty eyebrow, but the wife flashed me a whisper of a smile. Being in great cardiovascular shape has its advantages, one being that I didn’t begin to perspire until halfway up the second flight of stairs. By the third flight, however, I regretted ever meeting Helen and wished I’d instead hooked up with one or two of the vapid 20-somethings.
Now breathing heavily and sweating, I climbed the final steps to the top landing and staggered to Helen’s door, keys at the ready. With the sound of the turning deadbolt, Helen unexpectedly came to on my shoulder, muttering my name into my back.
“Dakota…Dakota, where are we?”
Considering the state she was in, I was impressed she remembered my name.
“Home, Helen.” I opened her door, felt around and switched on a light. “I’ll have you tucked into bed in no time.”
“Don’t leave, Dakota. Please.” Her hands dangling down my back started rubbing my butt. “I’ll rally, I promise.”
I laughed to myself.
Rally. Sure you will.
Once inside with her, I kicked the door shut and tossed the keys on a table. I was in a typical Boston brownstone apartment. In front of me was a living room with a fireplace. A stack of wood on the hearth and a thin bed of ashes behind the screen told me it was a working fireplace, too, damn it.
There were stools lined up against a kitchen peninsula, and although the kitchen itself was tidy, it was outdated with pink Formica countertops, linoleum floors, and an antediluvian refrigerator. Something nudged me in the calf. It was Hector the cat, bunting my legs.
Gently shoving him aside with my foot, I carried Helen into the apartment. Towering bookcases, overflowing with books, formed a scholarly gauntlet down a long hallway. Once I located the bathroom, I switched on the light and finally put her down.
“Helen, can you stand on your own?” I asked.
“Yes, I think so,” she said.
“Good. Brush your teeth and use the bathroom, and I’ll tuck you in, okay?”
She lurched against me and kissed my cheek. “Don’t leave…please…I’ll rally.”
While she attended to her ablutions, I went in the kitchen and poured her a glass of water. I got her some aspirins from the bathroom medicine cabinet, and met her in her bedroom.
She was sitting on a crisply made double bed. A framed print of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring hung over the headboard. I made Helen drink some water and swallow the aspirins, and then, with her swaying in tiny circles, I undressed her to her underwear. I draped her suit carefully over a chair back and tucked Helen under the covers. I was about to turn and leave when her eyes sprang open. She was wide awake and perfectly lucid.
“Don’t leave yet, Dakota. Hold me for a while? Until I fall asleep? Please?”
“Of course,” I said.
I got on the bed and spooned her. She turned on her side and kissed me for a long time.
“You’re so handsome,” she said. “Great Zeus, I wish I weren’t so drunk! I bet you’re something under those clothes—mmm, built—like strong, swift-footed Achilles!”
“Hush, beautiful Helen,” I said. “Go to sleep.”
13
Kissing Around
Once Helen was asleep on her side (in case she got sick aga
in), I went out to her living room, fed the cat, downed a couple scotches, shut off the lights, locked her apartment door, and left.
Back at my hotel, Augusta—the arresting cobalt-eyed blonde who’d helped me with printing during my first morning here—waved excitedly from the front desk.
“Dr. Stevens!” she said.
“Augusta?”
“There’s a message for you.” She plucked an envelope out of a pigeonhole. Handing it to me, she leaned over the counter and lowered her voice. “From a girl about my age—one of your students, maybe? Hm?” She gave me a smile, a furtive and beguiling smile that was not learned at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. “She came by a couple hours ago. When I told her you were out, she wrote this and asked me to—”
“Thanks, Augusta, you’re a doll,” I said. “I can handle it from here.”
The envelope was closed, but not sealed. I opened it and headed for the elevator. The note was written on Charles Hotel letterhead. Sally’s tiny, precise handwriting took up less than half of the page:
Dakota—
Seems I missed you. Guess you’re at dinner.
Sorry I freaked at the tennis courts earlier. Turns out Geoff wasn’t angry at all. He did ask about you, though, and whether I was cheating on him. He won’t say it, but I can tell he’s super jealous.
After tennis, I had him drop me at my dorm, which is why I was able to walk over here. I wanted to see you tonight—so much. I feel really close to you, Dakota. I know it’s only been a few hours, but I miss you already.
God, I loved it when you kissed me today. You’re such a good kisser! I have to see you tomorrow! Maybe I’ll drop by and surprise you!
I want to please you, Dakota. I’ll be thinking of you.
♥ Sally xoxo ♥
When she’d stormed away after tennis, I’d worried she might run back to Dr. Malone, returning me to square one with her. But this was worse. Apparently I’d gotten in her head. Had I been that manipulative with the poor girl? As much as I hated to admit it, I probably had. Tomorrow I was going over to South Boston to do some actual investigating for a change, and on Saturday I’d pick up where I left off with Sally. Hopefully, her passions would cool a bit in the interim.
Folding up the letter and putting it in my jacket, I stepped wearily into the elevator and jabbed the button for my floor. It had been a long day, and I was ready to collapse into that luscious king-sized mattress upstairs. As the elevator doors closed, so did my eyes, but I was jolted awake by the doors clanking and reopening.
A long, slender hand with ruby fingernails had slipped between the doors. A tall brunette stood in the doorway. It was Special Agent Suzuki. I glanced at my watch: eleven fifteen.
“Working late, Agent Suzuki?” I said.
“Yes, forced overtime you might say.”
Her hair was down. Coal-black and obscenely long, it cried out to my fingers to glide through it.
“Can we talk?” she asked.
“I was just going up to bed.”
“Please? It’s important.”
“All right.”
I followed her off the elevator. She had a messenger bag over her shoulder, and her hands were in the pockets of an open trench coat.
“I got a delightful call at home from the Director,” she said. “He’s pissed. Apparently you haven’t submitted a report all week.”
I couldn’t help noticing what Suzuki was wearing: heels, tight jeans, and, underneath the trench coat, a ruby camisole that suspiciously matched her nails.
“Left your place in a hurry, I see.”
“Well, have you written a report?” she asked.
“Nope,” I said. “No computer.”
She sighed and unzipped the messenger bag, revealing a laptop computer.
“I’ve been instructed to assist you in filing one—tonight. There’s a business center in the lobby. Why don’t we—”
“I’ve got a better idea.” I gently laid my hand on the small of her back. “Let’s have a nightcap. I need to talk out the case with somebody, and then we’ll file the report—together. What do you say?”
She unconsciously sucked her cheek for a second, then turned to me with a resolute expression on her face.
“One drink. I mean it, Dakota.”
She gulped when she said this, so I knew there was wiggle room with her one-drink limit. I raised the middle three fingers of my right hand.
“Scout’s honor,” I said. “And that’s coming from an Eagle scout, doll.”
In the hotel bar, we both had scotches to start. Immediately Jen began to unwind, and we leaned against each other in our stools at the bar. We got laughing swapping stories about cases we’d worked, and then we switched to tequila. Finally we switched to Sam Adams beer and shared a piece of Boston cream pie, which we took turns feeding each other. It was a little past one o’clock when Agent Suzuki grabbed my wristwatch to look at the time.
“Ohmigod, we’ve got to do your report, Dakota,” she said. “The Director was adamant!”
“Adamant,” I said. “Screw him. He’s always adamant.”
She grabbed her purse and stood. “Come on. We’ll use the business center.”
Out in the lobby, we discovered the business center was closed—lights off, doors locked.
“Relax, Jen.” I walked us to the elevator and punched the button. “We can work in my room.”
“But we’re just doing the report, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “Scout’s honor.”
Upstairs in the room, I hung up my jacket. Agent Suzuki put her coat and purse on the bureau, sat at the desk, and opened her laptop.
With her elegant ruby fingernails poised over the keys, she glanced at me over her shoulder. “All right, Dakota—report.”
“Okay, here we go,” I said. “Director Reeves—colon—Sir, the first few days of the case were eventful. On Tuesday morning, after a great run along the Charles and—”
“Get to the point, Dakota,” she said, typing away.
“—an excellent full breakfast, I went over to Harvard, where I made contact with Special Agent Suzuki, a sexy, smart, hard-working asset, whom you should—”
She stopped typing and frowned at me over her shoulder. “I can’t say that.”
“Sure you can,” I said. “ ‘Whom’ is the objective case.”
She chuckled. “Go on, Dakota.”
As I dictated what had happened since I got to Cambridge, Agent Suzuki typed with her back to me, never noticing me behind her, removing my shoes and shirt, and quietly hanging up my pants. I omitted the private details about Sally’s sex life from the report, and the fact that I’d kissed her.
“Is that it?” Suzuki asked.
“Yeah, read it back to me.”
While she read, Agent Suzuki fashioned her long hair into a braid and draped it over one shoulder. To read the text on the screen, I had to lean forward and get very close to her neck. She wore a sweet perfume, mixed with some kind of jasmine body powder, and these smells, not to mention her shadowy cleavage in the silk camisole, knocked the wind out of me. It occurred to me that Jen might have used the Director’s demand for my report as an excuse to get hastily dressed and visit me at my hotel. When she finished reading, I started massaging her shoulders. She made a long exhale, slumped into the chair, and then, catching herself, sat up straight again.
“So…what do you think?” she asked.
“Well, I think you’re carrying a lot of stress in your shoulders.” I kept massaging, working my thumbs down along both sides of her spine. “Your rhomboids, too, actually.”
“No, Dakota…the report.”
“Oh, that,” I said. “It’s fine. Send it.”
There was a “whoosh” sound on the computer. She closed the laptop, stood and turned around to face me. By now I was we
aring nothing but my undershorts and a smile. Her eyes devoured my torso. A tiny gasp escaped her lips.
“Where are your clothes?” she said.
“I took them off. It’s bedtime, Agent Suzuki.”
She swallowed and reached for her coat and purse.
“Don’t you want to practice grappling and take downs?” I pressed on the corner of the mattress, bouncing it a few times.
“Dakota…”
“Suppose I came up to you like this.”
Swiveling her around, I spooned her from behind and placed my hands on her ribs, against the smooth silk of her camisole. From her ribs, I slid my hands slowly up over her breasts, which stiffened and tented some of the silk between my fingers. I kissed her neck from her ear down to her collarbone, all the while gently guiding her toward the bed, until our legs touched the edge of the mattress. And then I held us there, precariously close to tipping onto the bed.
“So, Special Agent Suzuki,” I said. “What would you do in this situation?”
In one smooth motion she knocked my hands off her with an upward thrust, grabbed my wrist, pivoted, and slung me over her hip with such force that I bounced across the bed and into the headboard. Pretending I’d hit my head, I groaned loudly.
“Oh, gosh! I’m so sorry, Dakota!” She crawled onto the bed in a panic. “Are you okay?”
When she got closer, I batted her arms out from under her and flipped her on her back.
“Nice one,” she said.
We kissed and undressed each other in a frenzy. Once she was lying nude on her back, consuming me with her bewitching feline eyes, I clambered up the bed and kissed up her long legs from her toes. When I reached her thighs, I rose slowly to my knees, as if I were having second thoughts.
“Mm, I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”
“What?” she said. “Why not?”
“You’re a Suzuki.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ve only ever ridden a Honda,” I said.
A look of delight and disgust flashed across her face. Lunging at me, she clobbered me in the head with a pillow, whereupon I pretended to “die” happy, falling over and landing face-first between her breasts. She laughed so loudly, I was afraid other hotel guests would call the manager.
