Southern Spirits (12 page)

No, no, she seemed clear-headed enough, if distracted. He could hardly blame her for that, being onboard a train where one could witness all manner of acts – or participate in them . . .

He was fingering through the back pages of the notebook when he heard a key in the office door. Quickly he set down the book, retrieved his stick and put his feet up on the desk, folding his hands onto his waist. He took a heartbeat to whisper a calming mantra, to establish the placid, easy-going demeanour that he so rarely felt inside these days.

The door opened, and Faye Scott entered – with Donnie Kolchak. The woman's laughter died away on seeing Nathan, but then her smile quickly returned. ‘Now this is what I call room service.'

Nathan smiled and tipped an imaginary hat to her. ‘I hope I haven't intruded.'

Donnie stepped around from behind Faye. ‘As a matter of fact you have, so why don't you fuck off outta here?'

Nathan rose to his feet, glad the man reacted in this way, giving Nathan an excuse to leave quickly. ‘Sure, we've no problem here.'

He started out, until Donnie couldn't resist the urge to add, ‘Go teach that smart-mouthed bitch of yours some manners.'

Nathan paused, ignored the voice that told him this dick wasn't worth the effort, and drew closer to him. ‘Oh,
now
we've got a problem, kid.'

Donnie's lip twitched, as if realising that he was provoking someone physically stronger than himself. ‘Ah, hey, pal, I was just joking.'

‘Really? Make me laugh some more: insult my woman again.'

And then Faye took a symbolic step between them, still smiling, one hand on Donnie's chest as she purred, ‘Boys, boys, don't waste that testosterone on each other. Save it.' She reached out with her other hand and closed the office door, before stepping over to a cabinet, which she opened to reveal racks of bottles and glasses. She retrieved a whiskey bottle and some shot glasses and started pouring. ‘I stopped here with Mr Kolchak on our way to my suite for a drink. Instead, I find you. I'm not complaining, but why are you here?'

He smiled, never taking his eyes off Donnie as he replied to her. ‘I liked playing your knight errant earlier this evening. And I thought you might need me to escort you back to your castle. But as you already have someone –'

‘Don't go, Mr Ames.' Faye handed them each a shot glass, then retrieved her own, regarding them both with obvious interest. ‘And I'm telling you that you don't have to fight over me. Not when I can have you both.'

‘What?' Donnie exclaimed. ‘No fucking way.'

Nathan smiled again. ‘What's wrong, kid, afraid it might make you gay if we accidentally touch?' For his part, Nathan's arousal grew. Not that he'd go through with it. But Faye had a dynamic quality to her, a heady, exotic lust – and it had been a long time since his last lover.

‘Hey, fuck you! I mean . . .' Donnie turned to Faye now. ‘I don't share my women with any man. Ever.'

‘Fair enough.' Faye approached him, retrieving the glass. ‘Go.'

‘What?'

‘Do I whisper, Donnie? I said go. I'm not your woman. I'm not anybody's woman.' She downed his shot in one, then her own. Then she looked at him again, indicating the door. ‘Well?'

Donnie stared in sheer disbelief, his mouth opening once, then again. He glared at Nathan, but cursed under his breath as he stormed out, slamming the door.

Nathan cursed as well, inside. He'd hoped to make his escape, but now he found himself sliding deeper into a situation he didn't want. ‘Ms Scott, I apologise, I didn't mean –'

‘Didn't mean what? Didn't mean to leave me earlier, force me to find a poor substitute for a more experienced man like yourself? You're forgiven.' She drew closer, her perfume something attractive if unidentifiable; strands of dark hair framed her cheekbones and her hazel eyes gleamed. She reminded Nathan of paintings of Morgana Le Fay from the Arthur stories: the powerful, predatory woman of magic. ‘Donnie has his charms, but you remain a definite improvement.'

‘Thanks.' Nathan swallowed as Faye drew even closer, casually slipping an arm around him. ‘But to be honest, I don't think I should be here.'

‘No?' She feigned shock, though her expression was more amused, as her free hand rested on his chest, played with the top button on his shirt, tugging it open. ‘Don't you find me attractive, Nathan?'

He felt his face flush. ‘That's hardly the issue, Ms Scott.'

‘Call me Faye. And I think it's entirely the issue.' Her eyes meeting his, her hand drifted down over his shirt, then suddenly ripped it open. ‘Because we've only got a weekend onboard, and we've already brushed over the small talk earlier. I've expressed an attraction to you.' Her hand reached his belt, then the bulge in his trousers. ‘And you obviously have one for me.'

Nathan should have been extricating himself from her growing presence, her influence. Yes, definitely. Instead, he relished the warmth and fullness of her breasts on his bare chest as she pressed herself against him. ‘Oh?'

‘Well, you
did
talk about being honest. And since we're being honest, what I would like is for you to bury that hard shaft inside me in this room, and then again back in my suite.' She stepped away, still watching him as she shrugged off her dress, leaving her pale fit figure clad in royal-blue lace: a very revealing bra and stockings, and nothing else. Her bush was a dark, trimmed arrowhead that Nathan missed as she moved to the bed. She reclined on the mattress and looked up at him. ‘Well? Get over here.'

Nathan found himself following. ‘I don't know about this. What about Cat?'

Faye smiled, one knee raised, the foot flat on the mattress, lost in her own hunger. ‘Don't worry, stud. She doesn't have to know.' She reached up to wrap her hands around his neck, then pulled him close to kiss him.

He stared for a moment at the woman, then glanced up over her, saw the metal frame of the headboard, the leather wrist cuffs attached there. He reached up, took her wrists gently but firmly in his hands.

Faye's eyes followed. She let him bind her wrists to the leather, grinning. ‘Hey, you should wait, I've got better restraints in my suite.'

‘I was ready to hit Donnie for insulting Cat.' He rose to his feet. ‘I won't hit a woman. But I won't tolerate insults from one, either.'

‘Excuse me?'

‘Suggesting Cat should be deceived is disrespectful. She deserves better.'

It took a moment for the penny to drop, and for her hunger
to give way to shock, and then a quickly growing anger. She tugged uselessly at her bonds, her serene faux-European accent gone. ‘Hey! Hey! Get me out of these fucking things, you asshole!'

‘I'll see if I can find someone else to do that, Ms Scott.'

Her curse-suffused voice rose as he departed, but he found that her voice hardly carried out once he closed the door and walked down the corridor.

Good. But his words – about Cat deserving honesty – followed him . . .

. . . Sharon was alone upstairs, and she was taking advantage of it. Not the scenery, though with the roof and upper sides of the observation deck almost entirely made of glass, it afforded a magnificent view of lush foliage surrounding the mighty Mississippi, bright with the midday sun. No, it was the isolation, and the chance to test out her new cellphone's reception.

Which was clear, to judge from the caller's next demand. ‘Open your trousers now.'

A wave of thrilling excitement made her shiver, and her hands almost fumbled with the thin black leather belt, then the large round button, her waist breathing a sigh of relief.

‘Have you done it?' he asked eagerly.

‘Almost,' she whispered. Looking behind her once more at the spiral staircase, she worked the tiny strip of clenched metal of her zipper, locked together as if in an elaborate embrace. Her fingers moved to it, lowered the zipper and peeled the front of her trousers open, revealing a delta of brocaded blue lace obscuring the trimmed thatch of crimson hair. After a moment, she lifted her ass off the seat to slide her trousers further down, until they were almost at her knees. She'd not gone this far before. ‘Oh God.'

‘Are you all right?'

‘Yes.' She felt the air on her thighs as she pushed her ass to the edge of the seat and parted her knees. ‘This feels so rude.' Without thinking, her own flattened palm snaked down and over her thong, pressing down against her mound.

‘Are you touching yourself?'

Her hand caressed her sex, the middle finger running along the indent in the lace made by the furrow of her pussy, feeling moistness in the fabric. ‘Yes, outside my panties.'

‘Are you wet?'

She felt her face burn, in an incredibly delicious way. ‘Yes. I can feel it inside me, seeping out my slit.'

He moaned, and she smiled, enjoying pushing him further and further, enjoying his surprise that she would say that now, when he was ready to keep talking. But this was not monologue, this was dialogue, there were two people here. The hand at her crotch drew back, enough to slip under the waistband of her panties, touching her pubic hair. She combed through it with her fingers before reaching her hot puffy flesh, the tip of her thumb brushing over . . . ‘Oh fuck . . . my clit . . .'

With her thumb working at her clitoris, her middle finger curved downwards until it slipped between her folds, found the entrance to her sex, stroked the brim, thrust sharply, shallowly, repeatedly.

Her caller's voice had taken on an urgent monotone, punctuated with gasps and grunts. ‘My fingers are keeping you open, as my tongue dives in and out of you, lapping at you . . . my thumb is stroking you further down.'

Sharon cursed as she suddenly leant forwards, her legs parted as much as she was able, and the waistband of her panties ripped as she continued to masturbate furiously, her ass still on the edge of her seat. ‘I'm taking . . . I'm taking your come . . . in me.'

‘I . . . feel . . . I feel you coming . . . Oh God, Sharon, I'm losing it . . .'

So was she. She listened to him listening to her listening to him, listened and touched, their words devolving into primal sounds. She called out without shame as her whole body shuddered and spasmed and, in vain, she squeezed her eyes shut to the white light that permeated her . . .

. . . Cat opened her eyes wide, blinking in the darkness of the observation deck, suddenly aware of the sky full of stars on all sides, aware of the couples in the seats behind her, in various stages of fucking. Aware of her pussy, crying out for attendance, and her hand, nearly fully up her skirt to minister to it. She removed her hand, embarrassed.

Wheeler still sat beside her, his voice low, his eyes stayed fixed on her, though seemingly not out of prurient interest. ‘Belle likes you. You slipped into that easily.'

‘Slipped into what?' Cat slid away from him, embarrassed at falling asleep like that – again – and she thought her voice was too low over the background sounds of the train. ‘A hypnotic trance?'

‘You weren't hypnotised. You're sitting in what I call a hotspot, one of many places on Belle where, under the right conditions, one can make contact with the ghosts of those who've ridden onboard. You, for instance, were in communion with a young woman named Sharon, from about fifteen years ago, who apparently made a habit of masturbating in public with her boyfriend on the phone.'

Cat felt her jaw drop; whatever she'd expected from him, this wasn't it. ‘What the fuck are you talking about?'

‘I said Belle was special. This is how: she carries the dead as well as the living. And certain people, under the right conditions, can channel them. You see what they saw, feel what
they felt. As you did just now. And as you did, during the séance.'

Cat's face tightened. ‘Nothing happened to me.'

‘Oh, so you weren't at the séance table, bent forwards, talking to someone named Mickey?'

The memories – no, dreams – about Valentina came back to her, as vivid as her own thoughts, but Cat pushed them aside, glaring at him. ‘
Besame el culo
' She rose to unsteady feet, pushing down the arousal that had grown within her, and stormed away, nearly falling at the top of the spiral staircase. It was insane, the idea of possession, of being other people.

She stopped, remembering Richard Newholme's reaction during the séance. Who did he think Cat was?

‘My Cher.'

The old man was sitting alone in the downstairs, nursing a brandy. ‘She died in an accident onboard this train, years ago. The way you spoke at the table . . . reminded me of her.'

Cat sat opposite him, studying, trying to remain sympathetic. ‘Did Jack Wheeler tell you that her spirit was onboard?' She frowned; if Wheeler had tricked this poor old man into paying to ride this train based on that notion, she'd personally hand him his
cojones
for breakfast.

Newholme's gaze dropped to the table, as if distracted by the swirled patterns in the dark polished wood. ‘He didn't have to. I
felt
her, heard her, when I first boarded, a year ago, while supplying Wheeler with authentic train memorabilia. I've come back as often as I could. You're young. You don't know what it's like to miss someone for longer than most people around you have been alive.' Then he added with a self-deprecating smile, ‘And yes, I
have
been tested for dementia. I remain sadly rational, in an utterly irrational world.'

She couldn't help but smile back sympathetically. ‘I know the feeling.'

‘Hey, JLo!'

Cat glanced behind her, grunted at the approach of Donnie Kolchak. ‘What do you want,
idiota
?'

The man marched in like he owned the place. ‘I want to know where your boyfriend gets off stealing my woman!'

‘Your . . . woman?' Then she made the connection, though she found herself strangely disquieted at the thought of Nathan with Faye, even though she had ordered him to see her. ‘You mean Faye?
Muy malo, cabrón.
Why are you bothering me?'