Quintic (23 page)

Car Ride in the
Past

“Y
ou looking good,
Pattycake.”

She didn’t like that nickname he had
for her. It made her feel like he wanted to eat her up. Which he
might from the look of him.

“
So do you, Rick,” she complimented
back.

He truly was a good-looking man. Such a
beautiful face! Perfect skin, almost glowing. He was gentle and
tender with her, but she sensed a darker side to him, though. As
bright as the exterior was, as dark the interior she suspected.
Exactly how dark and how deep, she didn’t know yet. His blackness
compelled her to him.

She was so tired of men, but yes, damn
it, she liked him. Too soon to call it love, too soon to call it
friendship even, but she liked where their affair was going. She
was comfortable with him. Talking. Laughing. Teasing. Even if he
seemed sad sometimes, shadows creeping into his eyes.

She waited, intrigued, maybe a bit
aroused by the mystery of him. Unsure exactly what he expected from
her. They had had sex four times so far, but she had yet to feel
him. Come he had, but he had not let go, not even after, remaining
watchful and expecting. She was so very intrigued.

He showed her his car. An old, rusted,
big boat of a car. Long. Wide. Propped on blocks. Not going
anywhere anytime soon.

“
I’m going to bring it back to
life,” he said.

Was it what he was expecting of her,
for her to bring him back to life? Not in her power, she
thought.
Life is something you want, not
something that is handed out.

They sat in the car. Leathery smooth
and cool, the bench was surprisingly comfortable. Sleek and sexy
like the man himself. He sat in the driver seat behind where the
wheel should have been. She sat in the passenger seat in front of
the doorless glove compartment. He turned the radio on.

“
It works!” She laughed in
delight.

They talked and listened to music. He
slid to the centre of the seat, then crept to her half of the seat.
Making fun of teenagers making a move on their girlfriends at the
drive-in, he put his arm around her shoulders.

He made love to her. This time, when
he came, she felt him
be
. He took,
melt, collapsed. It scared her. So big a void to fill. His caresses
did not merely claim her, they implored. With his hands, with his
tongue, with his body, he marked her and gave himself in turn. He
was no ordinary man. No regular,
normal
man. So beautiful.

Excerpt
from
The J-man
, by Trica C. Line

Her
Preparation

“I
need a shower,” was the first
thing out of her mouth when they headed down to Christopher’s car.
She wanted to drown in luxuriously smooth shower gel and hot water
for hours, alone, to wash away the smell of street tar, burned
grass, Mr Parson’s fetid breath, the punk’s sweat. Her knee itched
from the bastard’s paw. She
needed
to wash that knee. And her
left bottom cheek the jerk on the bus had fondled.

Going to the
motel
’s neighbourhood had not been the
best of ideas. She had wanted so much for the car to be there! She
had planned it all out. How she would have called Christopher
straight on his mobile phone, not to gloat but as a present, or,
silly as it was, an apology because she had known Lemieux. If the
car had been there, the trip to and back wouldn’t have taken more
than two hours. If the car had been there, she might have had a
trunk full of evidence to give Christopher, rendering the damn
report useless in comparison.
If
.

“
I need a
drink,” came second. She couldn’t stop babbling during the ride.
About what she had seen at the motel, the houses, the people, the
questions she had asked.

Christopher
drove in silence, not interrupting her once. He knew she was
debriefing. She knew he knew but couldn’t
stop.

He dropped
her off in front of the hotel. “You head up. I’m going to look for
a parking spot.”

Since
Carl was on duty, she suspected the Big guy
wanted to give her a few minutes alone to vent some more. He
probably thought she was going to fall in his arms when he strolled
into the suite. Damn infuriating.

On her way
to the elevator, s
he rerouted through the
bar for some red wine to take to her suite. The bartender opened a
French wine he knew she liked and gave her the bottle, no question
asked. Perfect as always. Damn, she loved this living in a hotel
deal. She rode the elevator alone for apparently parking spots were
hard to come by tonight.

She
gulped a very unladylike mouthful of wine but
what the hell, she was thirsty. Bold and smooth. She just might
take the bottle into the shower.

W
hen Chris
finally got to Patricia’s suite, the shower was running. Since she
hadn’t left a trail of clothes, he figured she did not want
company. He slowly breathed out. Shoes and jacket off, he rested,
half-sitting on the bed, his back against the bed board, arms
crossed behind his head, following by sounds her movements in the
bathroom. The damn woman was softly humming. He closed his eyes and
relaxed for a while. A long while.

She walked
out of the bathroom nearly forty-five minutes later, squeezed into
jeans and a tight tank top. No bra. Her lips were red, her eyes
rimmed with black high-liner and mascara, and her hair was curling
all over. Spectacular.

“
How about I
take you out tonight, Big guy?”

“
Looking
like that?” He had no problem with it, especially if she took him
out to bed afterwards. “OK, Sexy. Where shall we go,
Dollface?”

She smiled
mischievously.
“Let me grab my jacket and
some shoes, and you’ll see. I’m driving.” She put on a pair of red
fuck-me high heels and a curve-hugging leather jacket. Grabbing his
coat, she patted the pockets for his keys.

“
Patricia,
Princess, you seem a bit tired.” Not to mention drunk. “Maybe I
should drive,” he suggested. “Or maybe we could stay in.” Not sure
he wanted her out in public in that outfit. What he intended to do
if they stayed in was, by now, painfully tenting his
pants.

She smiled
as she took his arm. “No, no. I’m taking you out. We’ll call it an
apology of sort. To make up for the car and things. My
treat.”

Her
legs
were unsteady as she sashayed to the
elevator. Maybe she was more tired than she had realised. Those
damn heels were a pain to walk in too. And perhaps the third of the
wine bottle she had drunk in the shower didn’t help. She leaned on
Christopher for the ride down, tucking her face into his
shoulder.

Chris felt
her body heat through his shirtsleeve. Fuck, she smelled delicious.
Soap. Perfume.
Her
. A hint of alcohol
perhaps?

“
Did you
like the wine?” The bartender enquired when they passed in front of
the bar.

“
It was
perfect, exactly what I needed. Thank you,” the damn woman replied
without a blush.

Had she
dru
nk in the shower? Chris looked her
over. She had a firm hold on his arm and held her body close to
his. No way was he letting her drive.

“But you’re a cop, you’ll make
sure I stay between the lines, won’t you?”

They ended
up taking a cab. H
er idea. “This is a
surprise, Big guy,” she teased before whispering their destination
to the cab driver. Better not to tell Christopher beforehand where
they were going. Arguing in cabs was not her forte.

She
leaned her head back on the Big guy’s shoulder
and closed her eyes. Within three blocks, she was asleep. She woke
half an hour later at Christopher’s angry shaking. She looked up,
startled. Ah yes. Showtime. Hum.

The taxi had
bee
n warm; he was tired, and Patricia’s
hair had been tickling his cheek, so he hadn’t paid much attention
to the drive. Until now. Her payback for the restaurant, was it? He
realised it too late, way too late. The cab had already stopped in
the parking lot.

H
e was fucking pissed, so he
shook her none too gently. She was a sound sleeper; he shook
harder. When her eyes popped open, she straightened and glanced
around before looking at him.

“
They have
happy hours until ten now. And they have a buffet. Don’t get too
angry yet, Big guy. You might like the place.”

No way in hell, Princess, I don’t do strip
clubs
. He stormed out. This trip was her
crazy, stupid idea; he let her pay the fucking cab. Sometimes he
didn’t have a fucking inkling of how her brain worked. Not a
fucking clue! He entered the club without waiting to see if she was
following. A day spent around creeps wasn’t enough for the damn
woman, now she wanted an evening around lowlifes.
You’re on,
Pussycat
.

She had
taken him to this
dump; he intended to
stay in this fucking hole and make himself comfortable. If he had
found his earlier visit with the guys depressing, being here at
night with her was infuriating. Only half a dozen tables were
unoccupied. He took a seat at the one closest to the stage. Not
front row but near.
Let’s see
what the fucking Princess does now
.

He knew the
moment she walked into the club. Hard not to, what with the crowd
shifting its attention toward her. She waltzed in with her head up,
her chin defiant but her cheeks flaming. Anger? Embarrassment?
Whatever. Tonight he intended not to give a shit.

He motioned
for the waiter and
ordered two beers. No
way was he letting her drink red wine in a place like this. He paid
for the drinks and stared at the dancer. Patricia wasn’t looking at
him; she wasn’t looking at the stripper either. From the look of
it, she was staring at a point on the wall somewhere behind the
stage over the dancer’s head.

They sat for
fifteen minutes, twenty, thirty,
without
saying a word. Twice, a new dancer took the stage.

Between the
Two

C
hristopher’s anger gave her
second thoughts. She had only wanted to demonstrate she wasn’t
holding out on him. Or, at least, not on anything that could help
the case. Finding herself alone in a strip club parking lot
suddenly made her feel stupid. And alone. And tired. She was
incredibly sick of men. Men, the other species. Or was she the
alien? She sighed, thinking she should have stayed in the shower
longer and finished the bottle. Should have crashed in bed lights
out.

Two
guys
stumbled out of their car and
drunkenly looking her over brought her back to the here and now.
She hurried to the stripper club’s door. Whistles and rude remarks
followed her all the way to Christopher’s table. Of course, the
damn infuriating man hadn’t picked one near the door!

Chris
casually
glanced around, studying the
place. He had taken a quick tour with the guys and briefly talked
to the manager, the bartender and the day staff, but this time of
night, the clientele was different, younger, rowdier. Quite a few
of (underage) college kids. The regulars looked bored. Some day
workers in dirty overalls stood near the bar nursing a beer.
Bickers here and there laughed and ogled.

He
ordered two more beers. She hadn’t finished
hers, but who cared? Not him. He was going to wait her out.
You call it quits when you’ve had
enough, Pussycat. For now, I’m enjoying the fucking
show.

Patricia
didn’t like beer much. And she was hungry.
She should have been too disgusted or scared for anything,
but
nooo
, her damn stomach was growling. She didn’t dare walk to
the buffet. When was the next intermission? Third dancer and not a
minute of pause in between. Surely at some point, the women on
stage mixed with the public, in a parody of a ‘meet the stars’
activity.

If the
crowd’s attention focused up close and personal on the strippers,
she might be able to sneak to the buffet. Who was the idiot who had
set it up along the back wall, near the toilets? All the way to the
end of the world, the damn display of food was taunting her. The
food was probably going to make her sick.

She started
to fidget on the seat. Damn wine. Did strippers clubs have ladies’
room? For the life of her, she couldn’t recall any women’s toilets
on her long-ago visit.

The
infuriating Big guy seemed to be enjoying himself. Infuriatingly
too much so. From the corner of her eye, she caught glimpses of the
girl dancing. Not that she considered what the girl was doing
dancing. Exercising? Twirling? Scissoring? Hard to tell for one
second to the next. Only the girl’s string remained.
String
was
the perfect description for the red cords cutting into the woman’s
fleshy hips and between her thigh. The dancer had a pleasant face,
harsh and unsmiling but pretty, long hair, long, muscular legs,
fleshy thighs, small waist, big breasts, dark oversized nipples.
Typical.