Spiders in a Dark Web

by Emily Senecal

  “On the run?”

  I nodded. “I left LA in a hurry. My cousin—anyway, it’s a long story. But that’s why I’m here. I’m hiding out.”

  “You’re—hiding out from who, exactly?”

  “I’m not sure. Someone dangerous. The police can’t help.”

  The breeze off the ocean blew stiff and cold, flinging itself against us even sheltered as we were behind the building, but I didn’t feel it. We stood together in the near-darkness, breathing and holding hands.

  “You trust me,” Peter said slowly.

  “I really do,” I assured him.

  “We don’t know each other.”

  “I know. But it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like we… like we’re old friends.”

  “Friends,” he repeated.

  “For lack of a better word.”

  “Lola,” he said, drawing me closer. “I believe that you’re in trouble. I want to hear about it. I want to help. But I’m not… I don’t know if you should get involved with me. There’s some truth to the rumors, you know. It isn’t what people think, but it isn’t good.”

  “Have you killed anyone?” I asked, my pulse rocketing at his nearness.

  “No,” he smiled. “Have you?”

  “No.”

  “Then I guess we’re OK.”

  We moved toward each other—our breaths quickening—he dropped my hands to slip his arms around my waist—and a voice called out loudly from the doorway, startling us apart.

  “Pete? Phil’s at it again, I think Tom might arrest him pretty soon.” The woman speaking couldn’t see me. “Maybe we should let him. He’s being a real asshole.” She sounded tired and annoyed.

  “Be right there,” he called back.

  We waited.

  “Yeah. Anytime now,” she called impatiently.

  “Later?” he murmured. “If you want to…”

  “Later,” I agreed.

  He turned and walked inside, and I went quickly to my car, passing no one in the dark parking lot. I heard belligerent yelling over the low sounds of voices and music before I closed the door and started the engine.

  Later.

  ■ ■ ■

  Later turned out to be nearly one in the morning. I’d fallen asleep on the couch, reading and waiting for him. I was in my pajamas and had brushed my teeth. Pajamas, not a negligee.

  Whatever this was between Peter and me, this strong sweet intense connection, it didn’t seem to require any effort. I didn’t have lingerie with me, but even if I had I wouldn’t have been wearing it. I felt no need to impress him, to be sexy or coiffed. I wasn’t nervous that he’d expect to sleep with me—or that he wouldn’t. It didn’t feel like a date in any way. I was just impatient for him to get here, because I missed him.

  I’d spent all of about five minutes in his company during the course of one afternoon and evening, and I missed him.

  I didn’t even think—much—about whether or not we’d have sex. It seemed like we would at some point, given the way he made me feel and the fact that I apparently had the same effect on him. I didn’t question our attraction or where it would lead. If it happened tonight, it would mean that the timing was right tonight. If not, it would happen tomorrow, or the next day, or the next.

  Only a few hours earlier my future had seemed blank… full of unknowns… even impossible. Now there was one big known that quieted all my other fears and questions. Peter would be in it. My old and dear friend who I’d never met before today. He’d be there, one way or another. I didn’t imagine, that night as I waited for him, how we’d fit into each other lives, or what roles we’d play to each other. Lover, spouse, partner, friend, ex, family. I wasn’t daydreaming about the possibilities.

  I just rested, quietly happy and content, even as my body tingled with electrified anticipation. After a while, I dozed off, feeling more peaceful than I had for a long time. Not just since Marianne sent me into hiding, but years before that. Maybe since childhood, when life was so much less complicated and my parents were my world.

  The sound of a vehicle pulling up by the gate had me halfway to the door before I’d fully regained consciousness. Not for a second did I think that it was anyone but Peter. How could it be? He’d said he would come later, and it was later. I opened the door in time to see him jump back into his truck, which he’d left idling while he opened the gate. He pulled up next to my car, turned off the engine, got out and went to close the gate.

  As he turned, I ran up to him, and this time nobody interrupted.

  Peter’s mouth on mine—his nose against my cheek, breaths mingled, bodies crushed together. It was heady stuff. An infinitely exhilarating and yet infinitely natural experience at the same time. I’d kissed plenty of men in more than a decade of dating and short-term relationships. Kissing had never been like this.

  After a few minutes, he came to his senses enough to suggest, breathlessly, that we go inside. Now that I thought about it, it was cold out. My feet were bare, and my thin cotton top and pants weren’t appropriate eveningwear by the central Pacific Coast.

  Keeping our arms tightly around each other, we hurried to the camper and stepped inside. Peter took a moment to look around, though my eyes were fixed on him.

  “I never saw the interior before,” he said appreciatively. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  “I love it,” I agreed.

  We sat down close beside each other on the couch, as if we’d sat that way a hundred times before. Our faces were toward each other, his arm around my back, my knees resting on his thigh, holding hands.

  “How long are you planning to stay?”

  “My plans are kind of up in the air,” I said. “I don’t know what’s next for me, or how long I can stay here. I don’t want to leave, though.”

  “Why is that?” he asked, smiling.

  I smiled back.

  “Two guesses.”

  “Trivia night?”

  “Of course.”

  We laughed together, though the joke was inane at best.

  “I kept thinking about you—after the beach,” he said. “It was strange…”

  “I felt the same. I felt like I knew you.”

  “Knew you and wanted you.”

  “That, too.”

  “Are we delusional?” he asked.

  “I have no idea. I kept asking myself the same thing. I guess it doesn’t matter as long as we’re delusional together, right?”

  “It would be awkward if one of us didn’t feel the same… the same pull.”

  “Extremely awkward,” I agreed. “Unthinkable, actually.”

  “Did you come to the bar tonight to look for me?”

  “Not… consciously. I wanted to see you, of course, more than anything, and I felt like if I just followed my instincts it would work out somehow. But I didn’t know you owned the bar. Deputy Tom came out here earlier in the week to make sure I was legit, and he mentioned trivia night. I followed an impulse and accepted the invitation.”

  “He looked annoyed to see us together,” Peter recalled, seeming to find some satisfaction in the thought. “Nice guy, for the most part.”

  “He seems nice enough. He said he was obligated to warn me about you—not you specifically, I mean, but the Hideout people, since I didn’t know anybody around here.”

  “Considerate of him, I suppose.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of officious and presumptive.”

  He leaned back slightly, looking intently into my eyes.

  “You don’t even know the whole story yet, but… Is that how you really feel about it?”

  I reached up to touch his face. It wasn’t the kind of thing I’d ever done before, I wasn’t especially a toucher. But like everything else with Peter, it felt like the right thing to do. He had a few days’ growth of beard, a sprinkling of gray in the brown, though I didn’t think he was much above thirty-five, if that. Funny to think that I didn’t know his age, or his birthday, or his hometown, but still
believed that I knew him. Knew his essential makeup, if not the facts, figures and histories that each person collects over a lifetime.

  Instead of answering him, I posed my own question.

  “How do you feel about my situation—what you know about it?”

  He considered, still looking somewhat searchingly into my face. His hand came up to capture mine, and he kissed it lightly.

  “Like I want to help. That it couldn’t be anything so bad we can’t face it. Like I trust you.”

  I nodded to show I felt the same, and he leaned in with a kind of hungry sweetness to continue where we’d left off outside. His lips moved with warm strength against mine, the pressure increasing as our passion—as mutual as everything else had been—quickly sparked into a blazing hot burn. More sweet hunger. More intensity. More overwhelming, comforting, thrilling intimacy.

  Making out wasn’t the lead-up to anything. It was more like we were exploring each other, tasting, enjoying, validating our feelings with every deepening kiss and slow movement of our bodies, heat rising wherever we touched.

  We kissed a while longer, finally pulling reluctantly apart so Peter could use the bathroom. No one ever goes to the bathroom in romance novels, I thought, finding the paperback I’d been reading on the couch and tossing it aside. I opened the bed, because it seemed like the appropriate thing to do. Peter wasn’t leaving tonight, I was sure of that.

  He came out of the bathroom after a short interval, kicked off his shoes, slid out of his jacket and jeans and joined me on the bed. He didn’t comment, but put his arms around me, kissed me in a lingering way, then laughed into my hair as I failed to stifle a yawn.

  “We’ve got a lot to catch up on,” he said, and I could tell he was smiling. “But it can wait until tomorrow. I need to go home for Oss in the morning. Want to have breakfast with us?”

  “It’s a date,” I said sleepily.

  “Night, Lola,” he said.

  “Night, Peter,” I echoed, slipping softly into sleep.

  ■ ■ ■

  I dreamed about Marianne. She and I were at an amusement park, sort of like the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, being chased by faceless shadows that kept coming and coming no matter how fast we ran or where we hid. Unpleasantly grim. At some point it morphed into being chased here, on the beach—chased by three big dogs. One of them got Marianne, and then Peter was there, laughing and helping us to escape. The dream changed again, and I didn’t remember any more after that.

  I woke up early, stretching and feeling Peter’s shape next to me, thinking about what I remembered of my dreams. He was still asleep, so I spent a few minutes watching him. His breathing came slow and even. I reached out to his chest and felt his heart, beating under his black cotton t-shirt. It was just after sunrise, with just the faintest blue light coming in through the shaded windows, the familiar chorus of birds cheerfully greeting the new day in the oak trees above.

  If I hadn’t needed to get up, I would have happily stayed there forever, but now that I was fully awake my bladder became more and more insistent. I climbed carefully over Peter’s sleeping form and quietly shut the bathroom door behind me, taking as little time as possible before coming back out. He was awake, already pulling on his jeans.

  “Sleep well?” he asked.

  “Very well,” I said, coming over to kiss him. Again, not something I’d ever done before—casually show affection after spending the night with a guy I’d just met. But this wasn’t an ordinary first night with someone, much less an ordinary someone. “You?”

  “I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, but I actually did. I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.”

  “I can relate to that.”

  It explained something I’d noticed without really noticing: the dark circles under his eyes, the tense set of his mouth. Together we folded the bed away, then he sat at the table to put on his shoes while I slipped into the jeans and shirt I’d worn the night before. I didn’t turn modestly away to change, and he didn’t ogle me or make any remarks. I was hyper-aware of him sitting just a few feet away while I slipped off my sleeping tee and slipped on my not-very-impressive bra, and swapped my pajama pants for the jeans, and I could tell he was hyper-aware that I was changing.

  Even as I felt a shiver of excitement, this also felt completely normal. Not boring, just… expected. Sooner or later, we’d see each other naked. It would be a familiar sight—stimulating and arousing at times, routine at others.

  I put on my shoes and swept my tousled hair into a bun before quickly grabbing my jacket, knowing Peter was anxious to get back to Osiris. We were in his truck—a tan Tacoma, well used and well cared for—headed down the lane within five minutes of getting up. A soft mist had gathered in the sky between the ocean and mountains, but I could tell it was going to be a beautiful day.

  He turned right once we reached Highway 1, driving north through Half Moon Bay and several miles farther along the coast road, turning off in Linda Mar, a southern neighborhood of Pacifica, tucked into a small valley rising from ocean up into green, tree-covered hills. We didn’t say much on the drive, but it was a peaceful silence. I was never at my best until I’d had some caffeine, and Peter, I was coming to realize, had a calm sort of presence that moved easily between volubility and quiet, depending on his mood and the situation.

  His apartment was a short drive into the gently rising suburb, taking us through mostly residential streets with single-family homes. We turned down a wide avenue and passed a mini-mall full of shops and businesses, turning again at the corner where the mall ended. After about a block, he parallel parked on the street in front of a two-story apartment building.

  It was bland but not unattractive, the kind of place built in the 70s or 80s and continually remodeled over the years. Peter had a lower apartment with a small patio—not much room for a large brown dog to run around. I could see why he didn’t want to leave Osiris too long.

  Osiris, who really should have been named Bear or Rocky to match his exuberant personality, greeted us with unabashed delight, rearing up to lick my face and leaping around the room, tail wagging wildly. Peter had left the sliding door open about a foot so the dog could use the patio for any emergency business—nobody would break in after seeing him—but he was undoubtedly ready to get out and stretch his long legs.

  There wasn’t much time to look around. I saw a pleasantly lived-in space, not dirty but not freshly clean, either. It had a cramped slip of a kitchen looking over a narrow living room with couch, coffee table and TV. On the far end of the room, the glass door gave access to the patio. A hallway opened to the right.

  A single person kind of apartment. I was reminded of mine in LA; this was actually quite a bit nicer and in a much better location, but even so had the same feel. One plate and glass in the sink for each day dishes weren’t done. One set of keys on the counter. One towel on the bathroom rack.

  I didn’t think there was anything wrong with being single. I’d enjoyed many aspects of it, more in the Bay Area than in LA, which had a fairly brutal dating scene. I didn’t look at singlehood like a punishment or something to be endured, as so many of my dates and friends seemed to, until someone moderately bearable showed up to set us free from purgatory.

  All the same, I liked the idea of spending my time with someone—the right someone, of course. That was the whole point behind all my dating. Finding someone to share experiences and troubles and expenses, developing a life partnership. It always made sense to pair up eventually, I just hadn’t ever met anyone I wanted to pair up with.

  Until now, of course, when I seemed to find myself part of a pre-existing pair with a man I hadn’t known existed until yesterday.

  While I looked around, Peter was pouring out food for Osiris, who ate at record speed, and collecting poop bags and leash onto the counter. Once breakfast had been disposed of, Osiris was, to put it mildly, very excited about the prospect of a walk.

  “I don’t spend much time here,” Peter said, seeing my inquiri
ng glances. “It’s too small for Oss, but there aren’t a lot of affordable options in the area. He can come to work with me some nights and hang out in the office or run around outside, so that makes it easier.”

  “My place down south was worse,” I told him.

  “If that’s true, it must have been really crappy. Ready?”

  Osiris sat on the seat between us, leaning heavily over me in order to put his head out the window, one large paw on my leg.

  “He’s not used to anyone else riding with me,” Peter said, laughing as he scratched the big furry back. If I’d needed proof of this, Osiris would have confirmed it.

  “What kind of dog is he?”

  “He’s half Lab, the other half is anybody’s guess. I adopted him from the shelter when I moved here a couple of years ago.”

  “Where from?”

  “Tucson. I’m originally from Denver, but I’ve been slowly moving westward for the past fifteen years or so.”

  “You don’t have much further west to go, unless you count Hawaii.”

  “I wouldn’t mind it, but I like it here, too. Do you miss living in Northern California?”

  “I think I did, more than I realized. Honestly, I hated LA. I just moved down there to try something new, but the experiment or whatever it was failed.”

  “You never know until you try. I felt the same about Tucson by the time I left. What made you choose LA?”

  “A girlfriend was moving down, so I joined her and roomed with her for the first year I lived there. My mom had just passed—of cancer—and I’d given up my apartment and job to help take care of her.” I patted the big furry body on my lap. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

  Peter nodded without saying anything, glancing at me before returning his eyes to the road.

  “Where are we going for breakfast?” I asked, not quite ready for the conversation to get too serious.

  “There’s a little café I like near the harbor at Pillar Point. It’s quiet in the morning and has a nice patio for dogs. Sound OK?”

  “Sounds perfect.”

  I assumed that the harbor parking lot would fill up as the day went on, but there were only a few cars in it at seven when we arrived. We first walked Osiris down around the harbor mouth, allowing him to work out some of his energy before we sat down to eat. Peter told me how he bought the bar with his sister and brother-in-law three years ago, at their suggestion. They moved out from Texas and provided half of the capital, while Peter sold his house in Tucson, took out a business loan and put in the final half. He didn’t add any editorial commentary about the situation, just filled me in on the background.