“—a lot, right?”
“Yes.”
It was the first time I’d tried room service since I’d been at the hotel. No risk, as I saw it. A hotshot studio exec like me, who’d look twice at an exotic dinner companion in his room? I ordered as if there were three people eating, and came up only a little short … which I cured when I told Gem I didn’t want my dessert.
She took three chunky white pills with her meal, not making any big deal about it. I didn’t ask, so I was surprised when she said, “Monocal. It’s the only way to get fluoride bonded with calcium.”
“Why would you need that?”
“Osteoporosis,” she said, unsmiling.
“But you’re not old enough to—”
“Malnutrition can induce it very early, especially if there’s any bone-marrow exposure.”
I didn’t say anything. Thinking about Biafra again. All that marrow exposed.
“It’s not a difficult regimen,” Gem said. “Heavy on the calcium, fluoride to bond it home, no brown sodas …”
“Brown sodas?”
“Coke, Pepsi, root beer.…”
“That’s bad for you? If you have …?”
“Osteoporosis? Yes.”
“I didn’t know.”
“It is of no consequence,” she said. “A man like you will never die of osteoporosis.”
We watched the late news together. They replayed part of an interview with the human who’d watched his friend snatch a little girl inside a two-bit casino. Watched him drag the child into a bathroom and start to work on her. When he was done watching, he walked out. Maybe played with the slot machines. His friend came out about twenty minutes later, his work done. The human never said a word. They found the little girl’s body in that bathroom, raped and murdered.
The casino’s videocams had most of it—right up to where the killer chased her into the bathroom. He got nabbed a few days later. His friend was telling the interviewer
“Fucking maggot,” I said, half to myself.
“Most people do what he did,” Gem said.
“What do you mean?”
“Most people, when they observe the worst things that are done, they only watch. Or turn away. Because they fear if they were to do something the evil would turn on them, too.”
She got to her feet and walked into her own room.
I took a shower. Washed my hair. Brushed my teeth. Shaved. I Killing time. I knew I wasn’t going to sleep. It happens sometimes, no point in arguing with it.
The living room was all shadows except for a small, dark-shaded lamp on an end table by the couch. I didn’t want to turn on the TV or the radio, and there was nothing to read but yesterday’s newspaper. I started making charts in my head, putting the players on it like chess pieces.
The shadows shifted. Gem stepped into the faint light. Her hair was free and loose, face calm. She was nude, her slim body catching the shadowy light in her own shadows.
“Yes?” she said, just above a whisper.
I stood up. She turned and walked down the hall, a willow in a gentle breeze.
She sat with her back against the bedboard, hands clasped around her knees, watching me take my clothes off. When I came closer, she made a
The only light was spillover from the living room, but it didn’t matter—I was too close to her for my eye to focus anyway.
Her hands were exploratory. Unpracticed. I took a handful of her lustrous hair, pulled her face toward mine. She moved so that her face was in my neck, made some sound I’d never heard before.
Her skin was velvety, faintly coated with moisturizer. I slowly traced the inside curve of her thigh toward its apex. Halfway up, my hand snagged on a spot of raised, gnarled flesh. I moved past it. As soon as I did, Gem made another noise. I moved my hand back down to the scarred patch of flesh, put my thumb on it lightly, and rubbed it in little circles. She twisted her hips, slid one leg over me.
“Yes?” she said again.
I put my hands on her waist, moved her more upright, so she was straddling me. I could feel her wet heat, and I slipped inside like a fox into a thicket. A fox with the hounds close and coming.
She grunted, thrust her hips against me, opening, taking me in so deep that our pelvic bones hit.
I fell into a gentle rhythm, no urgency. She threw back her head, the cords on her neck standing out.
I reached back to her small, tight bottom and pulled her even closer. It was as smooth and languid as underwater swimming. She …
… was on her knees next to me, bending all the way forward, her lips against my face. “What did you see in your window?” she whispered.
I shook my head. Hard. To clear it. The last thing I remembered, I was inside her. What had—?