The Hinky Bearskin Rug

by Jennifer Stevenson

  Off a five-floor building, she ought to have gone splat by now.

  This must be demonspace. But if so, where’s Randy?

  As she thought this she noticed she wasn’t falling any more. Randy?

  I am here, came his voice in her head.

  Why can’t I see you? She groped around in the absolute blackness. Her hands touched nothing. Where is this? She tried to rub her arms and realized that she couldn’t feel them.

  She couldn’t touch anything.

  Panic paralyzed her.

  I was falling. Ohmigod, am I dead? Did we hit the sidewalk after all?

  We are not dead, Randy said, invisible, intangible.

  Well, where are you? I’m scared! She wanted to thrash, flail her arms, clutch something, anything. Randy!

  Relax. I am here. Let me find you.

  She tried to control her rising hysteria.

  Out of nowhere, his hand gripped hers.

  Where are we? she shrieked.

  He held her hand tightly. This place is familiar. He seemed to be somewhere behind her, not at her side. A moment later he said, somewhere above her head, This reminds me of the brass bed where I lay so long.

  She reached for his hand with her free hand. It seemed to take forever, as if her arms were miles long, as if she were drugged, as if she had forgotten exactly how her body was connected to her hands. Then, finally, she clasped her hands around his.

  Are we in demonspace?

  We must be. And yet — do you feel separated from your body?

  I remember falling. We were falling straight down on top of Clay. The comfort of his hand in hers warmed her, made her almost sleepy.

  His hand tugged both of hers. Don’t fade away! When first I lay trapped in that brass bed—

  In the whorehouse?

  There, yes. I felt nothing. I saw nothing. I knew nothing. I almost faded away, as you are about to do.

  She woke a little. Am I cold?

  You have dissociated from your body. Perhaps from fear of—

  Fear of splat.

  Yes. It would be best if we made love. If you drift off, I won’t know how to find you. This is not sleep!

  Fear froze her thoughts. I don’t know if I can. I’m afraid we’ll come back and still be falling. What if we have sex and I come and we materialize and we’re still five stories up?

  I don’t think we will. I think we are in a bed somewhere.

  You don’t know? Fear grew huge. She felt herself retreat from it. Even the touch of his hand seemed to fade.

  Don’t fall asleep, Jewel! I’ll talk to you. It’s absurd to fear falling. How often have we flown, or fallen, or floated? Stay with me and all’s well. I’m touching your wrist now, Jewel. Do you feel it? Answer me.

  Yes. She felt his hand slide, inch by inch, up her wrist. I feel it.

  Good. Once, when I was a boy, I jumped off a stable roof onto a pile of hay. I didn’t pass out. I stayed awake, enjoying the rush of air. The fall knocked the wind out of me and broke my collarbone, yet I wouldn’t have traded the pain for safety. I had never come so close to flying. His hand caressed her wrist. You must never fear to fall.

  What happened to us? Are we both sex demons now?

  She felt rather than saw his smile. Hardly. But you must return to your body, or we cannot get out.

  I’m scared. What if I can’t? Why can’t I see you? Where are we?

  We have come to the place where desire is everything.

  What does that mean?

  It means you can have anything you want. But you must want it.

  That seemed kinda deep. But she began to calm down.

  I want to see you.

  Again she felt him smile. Let there be light.

  The first thing she saw after the eternal dark was his smiling face, his eyes soft, his hand coming up to touch her temple. Let me make love to you. His voice was gentle inside her head, but his lips didn’t move. Instead he bent and kissed her very slowly.

  It reminded her of something, this moment of tenderness.

  She felt her heart thump faster, louder. Her body was back, clamoring. She tightened her arms around him and kissed back, fear turning sweet inside her.

  When she opened her eyes, the familiar stormy night sky had formed around them.

  I thought we were going to die.

  Shh, be with me here now. Don’t go where the fear is. She lay trembling in his arms, listening to her heart beat, feeling his slow approach, watching his smiling eyes. Brave Jewel. Let me brighten this for you. Behind his head, a star burst into a million golden petals that shot away in all directions.

  She giggled. Why don’t they fall?

  He cupped both hands around her face. Another star burst behind him. His eyes were so serious, she felt small and fast and huge and scared.

  He kissed her again, and the frozen, frightened place inside began to thaw. No one falls, unless they want to fall.

  While she was puzzling that one through, she heard another voice say, Where are we?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It won’t hurt a bit, Wilma said, walking her fingertips up Clay’s chest like some Roaring Twenties floozie. You’ll love it. I know more about sex than any woman alive. We’ll have a ball.

  “But — but—”

  You need me. I know where they are. Only a woman can get them out — and I’m all woman. She blinked her cartoon-long lashes and plastered herself against Clay. Try me, sailor.

  He had to admit, she was persuasive.

  And that little problem with confidence—? she began.

  “What do you mean, problem with confidence!” Clay protested. “Confidence is my middle name!”

  You know. The girl who won’t look at you? The sex demon she likes? Wilma snapped her fingers. Poof! With me on your side, you’ll beat, she said, leaning up to lick Clay’s chin, the pants off him.

  So that was how Clay found himself saying yes.

  A look of wonder and joy came over Wilma’s face. She laced her fingers through his, raising her arms so that he raised his too, and then her lips met his lightly. Cool delight sank into him from her mouth to his, soaking through every inch of skin on the front of his body, a happiness like vanilla ice cream on a summer day, penetrating all the way to the back of him. She was so happy to be inside him. He was happy just because she was happy.

  Now let’s go get her, she said in his head.

  He felt like he was walking on air. They — she — he climbed the handful of stairs from the entrance level to the first floor and pushed open the door to the photo studio. The lights were out, yet he found he could see everything, almost as if he were a blind man who had lived here for decades, aware of every footstep, every scrape of chair-on-floor, every drawer opening or door closing. The studio dais was covered by a white sheet.

  Wilma spoke in his head.

  Feel that? They’re in darkness. We’ll need to call them out of there. A picture of Wilma popped into his head, pointing.

  He looked where she pointed. It was dark. Duh.

  Clay cleared his throat. “Jewel? Are you in here?”

  No answer.

  Somewhere over there he heard a big firework go off, and a million specks of light erupted in a chrysanthemum. Clay moved toward it, following the specks toward their invisible center.

  He raised his voice. “Jewel! Randy! I’ve come for you!” How dumb was this? They were, uh, busy in there. Wherever “there” was.

  But with Wilma inside him he laid one hand on the door — no, it was a bed — that made sense, some faraway part of him thought. He poked his head through the opening and called again.

  No one answered, but the darkness seemed populated now.

  Clay hesitated. Then a surge of pleasure left him weak, and in that moment of weakness Wilma pushed somehow and he — she — they stepped boldly through the opening into — what?

  Where are we? he said.

  Clay? Jewel said.

  o0o

  It was super-wei
rd to meet Clay in demonspace. He stepped through a door from nowhere into their sky. He looked anxious. Poor guy had never walked in the clouds before. He looked down, and his arms started sawing as if he was about to fall off his cloud, and Jewel turned from Randy, catching a look of dark disapproval on his face.

  Hold that thought, she said to him, and held out her hand to Clay.

  Clay took it. In another moment they were kissing, and she noticed, oh, yeah, he was naked. Jewel, he seemed to say, though his mouth was busy, we have to give you an orgasm. Right now. She felt the urgency in his throat as if it were her own.

  Behind her, the sense of Randy’s urgency saturated the night air.

  But I — can we — Lust was churning her brains into tapioca.

  Yes, she heard Randy say behind her, Have an orgasm, Jewel. The mood of the moment changed: fear gone, tenderness gone, leaving a raging lust.

  Clay seemed more assertive than she remembered. More alpha. She swooned back in his arms and let him manhandle her, massaging her breasts, hoisting her by her buns to hang her, as it were, on the hook of his erection, biting her throat and nipples, taking control.

  Whoa. Clay’s been taking vitamins, she thought, and her thought came out loud as a shout.

  At that, Clay seemed to calm down. She had breathing space to look over at Randy and was startled to see Randy locked in a position so tangled that it could only be something from a porn flick, with a blonde she recognized instantly as Wilma, the Artistic mascot. He must have created her out of demonspace to salve his pride.

  She sent him a pleading thought. I want you, too.

  Randy opened his eyes and met Jewel’s look. He reached out a hand and pulled her toward him, and instantly the four of them were locked together, spinning slowly through the night sky, ignoring gravity, doing things she hadn’t done since that frat party. Too bad Onika couldn’t shoot this. She giggled.

  She would have thought she could tell them apart in a situation like this. Randy and Clay were so different, their moves in bed so like their personalities. But the very effort of trying to keep them sorted out confused her, until a tongue was just a tongue, hands were everywhere, too many hands, and no matter how many ways she was penetrated, whenever she reached out, someone was wrapping her fingers around a warm cock.

  Then she realized that Randy’s Wilma had got in the game.

  The men floated away briefly while Wilma took Jewel by the hands and raised her arms, looking at Jewel’s naked body with wide, innocent, delighted eyes. Jewel felt suddenly shy. She hadn’t made love to a woman since that long-ago frat party. Wilma’s improbably spherical breasts seemed to point at her. Jewel reached out to touch one nipple, and a thrilling wave passed through her just as if she’d been touching Randy in demonspace, sharing his physical pleasure. Wilma drove her fingers into Jewel’s hair and kissed her, sweet and cool, long and slow, oh man, that kiss actually felt like Clay for a minute. Randy’s unmistakable number-eleven hands slid around her bottom and up her belly and down between her thighs, and Jewel gave up trying to figure it out.

  Until she realized that Wilma was teasing her nipples, Randy had entered her from behind, and Clay was gently sliding his cock down her throat. The satisfaction of having all their attention made her reel.

  At length she wondered, Hey, how come everybody’s doing me?

  Randy craned his neck in a way that wasn’t humanly possible and whispered in her ear. Because we are all trapped here until you have an orgasm. You are the chosen one.

  She protested, Chosen for what? To save everybody stuck in sex-demonspace? That’s ridic—

  Come for me, Clay murmured.

  Come for me, Wilma said in a silvery voice all her own.

  Come for me, Randy commanded. Come now.

  All of them squeezed her slightly at that moment, so that she felt crowded and crazy, and then they released a little, so she could expand like a squeezed balloon into licking tongues, stroking hands, and strong members filling her. She gasped, feeling her heart race, growing larger, and then they squeezed again, only to release, bite, drive deeper, tease her skin, and squeeze—

  Orgasm finally blinded her.

  Then the three of them were lying on the platform in the photo studio, sweaty, gasping, glowing, and kind of embarrassed. At least, she was embarrassed. Clay seemed as calm as usual, and Randy probably couldn’t be embarrassed with his clothes off.

  “That was fun,” Jewel panted. “Let’s not do it again.”

  “Shhh,” Clay said, cocking his head toward the door.

  Not a sound came from downstairs. La Migra had come and gone.

  She looked at Randy. “You did that on purpose. Zapped us into a bed while we were falling.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “It seemed preferable to crushing our skulls on the pavement.”

  “Oh, totally,” she admitted, still shaken. “But how could you be sure I was, uh, turned on?”

  “Sex and death are close relatives.”

  Clay’s things were in a heap on the floor. Her clothes were piled up on the edge of the platform, mixed with Randy’s. Silently, they dressed as quickly as they could.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Randy said.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  “I forgot my briefcase,” Randy said, and headed upstairs.

  “Since when does he have a briefcase?” she said, looking after his tight jeans and his mane of long black hair.

  But Clay led her out to the car to wait.

  “Jewel.” By streetlight, Clay looked solemn. He picked up her hand. “Jewel, you know Randy’s not quitting this job.”

  She felt her face start to crumple, pulled her hand free, and turned away. Crap, don’t cry in front of Clay!

  “Do you think he’s happy?” she said. “Working here?” Living with Lena.

  “Who knows. I doubt that guy’s ever happy.”

  She faked a short laugh. “He hasn’t come to get his stuff out of my apartment yet. He hasn’t zapped into a bed either. So maybe the curse is over.”

  She felt scooped out and hollow. How could he have made love to her the way he had tonight, in the black void, after they fell off the roof, when she was so afraid, and not care?

  I’m thinking like such a girl! She’d been wishing and praying for this moment ever since she realized how dependent Randy was on her. And now that he was independent, she hated it. She felt like a teenager, all swoony and sore inside.

  “You know, this zapping-into-beds thing seems like something between you two,” Clay said thoughtfully. “Not curse-ish.”

  That made her look. “What do you know about it?”

  “I don’t know anything.” He showed her his palms. “I’m just saying. You’ve suggested it yourself. This seems negotiable somehow.”

  “Like it’s some kind of weapon he uses against me when he can’t get the upper hand any other way,” she said resentfully. “I could believe it. He’s so sure that sex will get him out of trouble — not that he’s wrong, goddammit—”

  “Never mind,” Clay said with an edge in his voice. “I’m sure you two will work it out on your own.”

  She shifted in the driver’s seat so she could see him better. By streetlight his blond hair looked orange. For once, his pouty mouth wasn’t smiling. “How did you know to come and find us up there?”

  He shrugged. “Logic.”

  “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.”