The Hinky Bearskin Rug (24 page)

“And the part
about — about having sex with me to get us both free?” A thought occurred to
her. “That
was
you in demonspace with
us, wasn’t it?”

“Well, duh.”
He had his con artist face on now.

She eyed him,
feeling unsettled. “I just didn’t have you figured for a group grope type of
guy.”

“There’s a lot
about me you ought to know.”

Well, duh. “And
how
did you get into demonspace with
us? That was seriously strange, with the Wilma thing and the foursome.”

“Maybe Randy’s
rubbing off on you.”

“Rubbing —
off?”
She sucked in a horrified breath. “Oh.
My. God.”

What if she
was, like, catching hinkyness? What if Randy’s hinkyness was contageous? Her
skin prickled.

“Don’t panic.
I’m on your side.” Clay took her hand again. “Take a chance on me, Jewel,” he
said softly. “I know I’m not Randy. I like to think that’s in my favor,
actually.”

Somewhere on a
nearby street, someone set off a firework. There was a squeal, a
pop!
and, behind Clay’s head, she saw
sparks trickle down in a slice of sky between skyscrapers.

She relived
the moment when she saw Randy teetering on the parapet of the Artistic
Building.

“You want to
know what Randy has that you don’t have?” she blurted.

He pulled his
hand away. “I have a pretty good idea. I did read his diary.”

“I’m not
criticizing you. I’m explaining. Only now I’ve opened my big mouth I don’t know
how to say this.”

“Officer, if
this is you being tactful, I’m scared.”

Great, now
she’d offended him, too. She stared through the windshield at the darkened door
of the Artistic Building.

“You don’t
like hearing about Randy. But I’ll tell you one thing he does that you could
learn. He takes chances. Not stupid break-the-law chances, but emotional
chances. You want me to take a chance on you, but what are you risking? Mr.
Master Con Artist.”

“I guess I’m
risking what you’re risking,” he said, but his tongue touched his lips.

She thought,
He’s chicken. Heck, it’s getting so I can
almost read this guy.
It was sheer meanness to keep rubbing his nose in
Randy.
This is why I don’t do
relationships.

But she had a
point to make.

“Randy’s not
afraid to throw himself off a building to get what he wants. He once let a taxi
run him over, to protect me. That obnoxious trick of his, zapping into beds all
over the place? He risks getting trapped forever, every time. I hate it, but at
least he’s not afraid to put up or shut up.”

“Well, you’re
liable to run me over, but you don’t see me running away,” Clay said
reasonably.

She frowned. “That’s
doubletalk.”

“Not. Every
man you’ve ever had, you dumped. I think Randy and I are going for a record,
with no other competitors in sight. I can’t speak for Lord Randolph’s feelings,
but if I fall off it’s gonna leave bruises.”

She hadn’t
thought about Clay having feelings. He was always so careful not to show any.
Am I so selfish that I think he doesn’t feel
anything?
Why didn’t she feel anything herself? Besides bruised and ashamed
and upset and doomed.

At that
moment, Randy came out of the Artistic Building with a tan briefcase, and her
guts twisted into a tight knot up under her heart. He got in the back seat.
Jewel started the car.

“All okay?”
Clay said.

Randy slapped
the roof of the car twice. “Let’s go.”

She peeled
away from the curb to the sound of exploding cherry bombs.

Clay watched her face as Randy walked up to the car.
Waiting, she’d been tired, depressed, relaxed. Now, as Lord Almighty arrived,
she came alive.

She doesn’t do that for me.

What do you do for her?
came Wilma’s voice in his head.

“Shut up,” he
muttered quietly. He was still reeling from his visit to what Jewel called “demonspace”
and a foursome with Randy and this oversexed teen Venus in his head. Body.
Wherever.

Have you tried slathering ice cream all
over her?

This isn’t an ice cream kind of
problem,
Clay thought
back at her. It was hard to remember to keep his thoughts in his head and not
just blurt them out. He could feel Wilma poking around inside his body like a
puppy sniffing out its new house, and it made him tingle all over.

And, scarily,
it felt good.

She seems like she’d respond well to
bondage,
Wilma said.

“They resumed
printing,” Randy said. “With half a crew.”

The mere sound
of Randy’s voice made Clay’s hackles rise.
I
don’t know why, but all of a sudden I hate this guy.

Maybe it was watching him have sex with
your girl.

If you don’t have anything constructive
to contribute—

Wilma
interrupted him.
If you could share,
you’d have it made. Or don’t you do guys?

Never mind who I do,
Clay snapped in his head.

You’re too independent. How can I help
you if you’re rude?
Wilma said huffily.

Clay leaned
over and turned on the radio.

Jewel turned
it off.

“You missed
the turn for the Corncob Building,” he said as the car zipped across Dearborn.

Jewel swore. “I’ll
have to go to Michigan and double back.”

“Where are we
leaving you off, Randy?” Clay said, raising his voice.

You could invite him back for a
threesome,
Wilma said.

Will you shut up?
Clay snarled silently. He felt his
body going rigid with the effort of keeping his face neutral. Wilma-in-his-head
unplugged all his training. He felt exposed, as if a con had gone horribly
wrong. Maybe this was how Jewel felt in bed with Randy, having a sex demon in
her head all night.

Sex goddess,
Wilma corrected.

Clay noticed
suddenly how the silence had stretched.

Jewel turned
left onto Michigan and then, in the strained silence, left again onto Wacker
going west.

“Wait,” Randy
said. “Stop.”

Jewel
screeched the Tercel to a halt, bumping the left wheels up over the curb on the
triangular plaza at Wacker and South Water Street, where a fountain played.

Randy put a
hand on her shoulder. “Jewel.”

She stared
straight ahead. “What.” Clay hated the hurting look on her face.

Randy said to
Clay, “May we speak privately a moment?”

Clay figured
he’d done his best. He got out.

You haven’t even tried,
Wilma scolded.

You’re gonna make me a head case.
He walked to the fountain, his back to
the car, clenching his fists against his chest as if he could silence Wilma by
force.

Randy’s voice
came, low but distinct, behind him. “I have to do this.”

“I know,”
Jewel’s voice said tightly. “I read your diary.”

“They’re human
beings,” Randy pleaded. “That was what Lady Juliana meant for me to learn. I
think.”

“I think she
was just being a bitch.”

“It took me so
long to learn it. This is my chance to pay for my mistakes. They—they’re
teaching me something.”

“I’ll just
bet,” Jewel said bitterly, and Clay gloated.

Randy said, “What
they teach me is not about having sex, but about — about
being
a sex demon.”

Randy’s voice
got faint, and Clay strained to hear.
Hang
on a second,
Wilma said in his head, and then she did something.

Suddenly Clay
could hear Randy’s soft voice loud and clear, over the splashing fountain and
the traffic on distant Lake Shore Drive.

“We are alike,
Velvita and I,” Randy was saying. “She is two people, a respectable secretary—”

“For a
pornographer.”

“—And a woman
without reputation. These two selves rub against one another. And the world is
not kind to women like her, Jewel. Nor to men like me.”

That was cool,
Clay admitted grudgingly.
What did you do?

Just tuned up your ears a little,
Wilma said.

Randy said, “Velvita
reconciles some of that by donning her paint like a mask. Yet with her
reputation she has lost her mother, her old life and friends — as I have lost
everything. Paint cannot cover that loss.”

“Would you
mind not telling me her sob story?” Jewel grated.

Don’t like being on the receiving end,
huh,
Clay thought.

“I apologize,”
Randy said stiffly. “It is easier for me to describe her suffering than my own.”

Now there’s an adventurous guy,
Wilma said.
You could stand to loosen up, you know.

“Will you shut
up?” Clay muttered. He stared blindly at the curve of the Seventeenth Church of
Christ, Scientist across the street and flapped his suddenly super-sharpened
ears.

“Look.” Jewel
lowered her voice, but Clay still heard her clearly. “I’m not trying to, like,
nail you down here. I’m the last person to do that. It’s just, I guess I’m
trying to figure out if I — I mean, for three months now we’ve been joined at
the hip, trying to keep you on two feet. Are we done?” Her voice cracked. “Am I
free to get back to my regularly scheduled slutting?”

“Oh, Jewel,
how can I criticize your lewdness when I—”

“Argh!” The
car door slammed. Clay turned to look. She stood beside the car, hands on hips,
glaring in the rear passenger window at Randy.

“You have done
nothing but criticize my
lewdness,
as
you call it, since we met. Now all of a sudden you’re taking
money
for it, screwing
porn stars,
and you’re Mr. Liberal! I’d
like to paste you one, you hypocritical bastard!”

She stomped to
the edge of the plaza to glare across the river, possibly at her own apartment
on the twenty-third floor of the Corncob Building.

Randy got out
of the car. Clay stood watching, leaning his hip against the edge of the
fountain. Their eyes met, and it occurred to Clay that Randy had been screwing
women at the Artistic. With a sex goddess on the premises. Plus, Wilma had
materialized in demonspace tonight. Randy must have seen Wilma. Heck, Wilma had
been doing Randy, doing Clay, even doing Jewel before Jewel had her orgasm and
popped them all free.

So he knows. About you.
Clay froze, staring disaster in the
face.

Of course he knows,
Wilma said.

If Randy told
Jewel about Wilma before Clay was ready, Clay was screwed. Jewel could dish it
out, slutwise, but look how she was reacting to Randy’s job. She would not take
Wilma well. It would take serious finessing on Clay’s part to reconcile her to
sharing a bed with the ultimate porn star.

And
Randy knows all that.

As if Randy
had heard this thought, he gave Clay a tiny nod. He walked over to Jewel, who
stood with her back to them, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

And in that
moment Clay realized he was going to win. Randy might be a skilled sex demon,
and he might be readier to make grand, stupid gestures to get Jewel’s
attention, but he was no better than Clay at showing his feelings.

All I
have to do is sit tight and let him blow it.

In the back of
his mind, Wilma tut-tutted. He ignored her.

Randy was
saying in a low voice, “I have great regard for you.”

Jewel didn’t
turn around. “Same here.”

Boy, all you people have a serious
spitting-it-out problem,
Wilma said.

Clay growled
in his throat.

“The thing is,”
Jewel said, her voice lower and softer, “how do we know that what you feel
isn’t just Stockholm syndrome? Stuck with your rescuer for three solid months,
twenty-four-seven, you could hardly help feeling something about me. Admit it,
you have no idea how you’re going to feel without the curse hanging over your
head all the time.”

Randy
hesitated. “I thank you again for your unremitting care and hospitality.”

“Oh, can it.
The point is, is it just the spell talking? If it weren’t for the curse, you
wouldn’t even want to know me. You’ve admitted that, in normal lord life, a
lord like you would never even say howdy to a lowborn wench like me.”

“I was a fool
to say that. A fool and a boor. It doesn’t matter.”

“Never mind.
Is it right or honorable for me to be with someone who has no choice but to be
with me?”

“You’re angry
because of my work at the Artistic,” he said, ducking the honorable question,
Clay noted.

“Well, who
wouldn’t be?” she exploded.

“Jewel,
please,” Randy said, and Clay could tell it was killing him to say
please.
“I need this. In bed or standing
on two feet, I am half a man. If Velvita can show me how to bring those halves
together—”

“I do not care
who you screw,” she said flatly.