Like You (Perfectly Flawed #1)

by Dunning, Rachel

  A gimmick, as the Hunter had said. And she made a big deal about it.

  I never told them how I did it.

  Turns out Axle got some heat for it. But it also turns out he's doing something or other at the Red Light that gives him a bit of sway with the bosses and managers in the area. He never tells me what it is. But I trust him.

  "Well," I say, "the real famous people here are Thomas and Karolin. It was their photo on the article."

  "Only because you refused to have your own taken!" Karolin says.

  "I'm no good on photos."

  "Yes, yes, we know," she continues. "The photographer who hates being photographed."

  Frankie walks in from the kitchen. "For your information, having an article in the New York Times doesn't mean you're famous. The definition of famous means being known as far as the outback. Then you're famous. Now, in my day—"

  "Oh, please!" cries Axle. "Now he's gonna tell us what a great surfer he was and how all the girls loved him and that's why he's serving drunkards every night of his life."

  "And, having said that..." He pops open a bottle of wine. "Would any of you drunkards I'm serving like any more wine?"

  We all stretch out our glasses toward him—except Axle, he's sticking with beer.

  "Crikey, I need to go get another bottle. You guys are such alcoholics."

  "I'll come with you," says Brooke.

  Considering he was really the second friend I made in Germany, I decided to keep Facebook. The cat, not the network. That one is no friend.

  However, typical to his name, he often overstays his welcome when you let him in the house.

  Right now, he sneaks in from the terrace and starts digging his nails into the rug. "Facebook!" I cry. "Stop it!"

  I get up and get him, then put him back outside.

  If only the network were that easy.

  Karolin is confused. "Facebook?"

  I don't comment.

  "By the way," she says, "about being famous, I do have some news. Victoria's Secret contacted me. They want to do a shoot with me for one of their upcoming plus-size lines!"

  We burst into cheers and now Frankie really needs to bring us more wine because all the glasses he served before are empty again!

  I notice Karolin's eyes go a little watery but she fights back the tears.

  I did the photos for her own portfolio after returning from my trip and she's been sending them out. But that article was the clincher for her.

  I move up to Axle on the one-seater and sit on his lap. I pull my legs up next to him. We've made love every day we could since I returned from the photo shoots I did overseas. Often twice a day. A few times even three.

  Every time has been perfect.

  We're so far beyond relationship status now that I'd say we're officially into serious-couple status.

  Life couldn't be more perfect.

  I've finally let go of my past.

  Brooke and Frankie come back in, no less than four wine bottles in tow. They're chit-chatting and she's smiling brightly at him. He fills the remaining empty glasses and also the glasses that are newly empty since he left. "Normally, I get paid for doing this," he says.

  Brooke giggles gleefully at the joke. Her cheeks are quite red. Definitely tipsy.

  She sits again on the carpet, this time leaning against the one-seater on which Frankie is sitting.

  "Gen," she says, "you never said anything about that e-card I sent you."

  "What e-card?"

  "I sent you an e-card yesterday for the holidays."

  "I didn't get it. You sent it to Gen Luvs Photos at Gmail?"

  "No, the other one."

  "What other one?"

  Then I remember.

  My heart starts thumping. I feel a tremble in my hand. No one here knows about the threats. Not even Axle. I haven't looked at that account's mail since seeing the last one.

  "I sent it to the address you gave me when you arrived. You change your address so often I can't keep up."

  "Right."

  "Well, open the mail!"

  "Can't you just send it to the new one?"

  Brooke looks at me suspiciously. I feel Axle's eyes on my back as if they were blades. I get off his lap.

  "No, no, it's cool. I can check it."

  I take out my really cheap tablet PC that I bought recently and I log in. I make sure I'm standing and that no one is looking at the screen.

  Axle says, "You OK, babe?"

  I don't answer. I tap the side of the tablet.

  My inbox loads.

  The first mail on there is not the e-card.

  I start sweating. My hands go cold. The screen shakes from my trembling fingers.

  "Gen?" says Axle.

  There's no sound other than the thundering rush of blood in my eardrums.

  Subject: SEE YOU IN FRANKFURT, BITCH. HOPE YOU OWN A BULLET-PROOF VEST.

  Sent on: December 23, 2013, 09:54 P.M.

  Message: Nice article in the New York Times. I was wondering where you'd run to. Smart, but not smart enough.

  See you soon...

  Could be today. Could be tomorrow. Could be next month.

  "And?" Brooke asks impatiently.

  Axle stands and starts moving toward me. I quickly turn away from him and hide the screen! "Sorry!" I fake a laugh. "Lots of spam is all." Axle stretches out a hand for the tablet but I snap it away from him.

  He just stands there looking at me suspiciously. "It's OK," I tell him. I delete the mail. "I just need to get rid of some of the spam to find— Oh, here it is."

  "Let's see it! Let's see it!" Karolin cries. I move over to the couch where she and Thomas are sitting. Brooke squeezes in. Axle stands behind us. I click the link and Jingle Bells comes on with reindeers and then a male stripper dressed as Santa takes off all his clothes.

  They all laugh, even Axle.

  But I don't laugh.

  I don't laugh at all.

  Because my mind is not on the screen, but on something else.

  SEE YOU IN FRANKFURT, BITCH. HOPE YOU OWN A BULLET-PROOF VEST.

  -2-

  In bed, Axle lies behind me as we spoon. We just finished making love. It took my mind off the threat briefly, but now it only makes me feel the sting more powerfully of what it would be like for him to lose me. For him to lose the second girl he's ever loved.

  Or for me to lose a life that, now, I believe is worth living again.

  Before, I had nothing to lose. Now I've got everything to lose. Funny how that happens.

  "You gonna tell me what was in your inbox?"

  I hold his hand to my chest. "Just spam."

  I feel him tense up. "We're beyond loaded, Gen. You know that."

  "I know that."

  He tries to turn me to face him but I can't do it. I can't look him in the eyes with this hanging over me.

  He sighs deeply but he doesn't let me go.

  "Will you ever tell me?" he asks.

  I struggle to say the words. "Yes, but not tonight. Let's just pretend tonight was perfect and that nothing went wrong."

  "Gen, do I have anything I need to be worried about?"

  I close my eyes, the pain is too much to face. "I don't know."

  I squeeze his hand and press it to my heart. A tear pricks my eye.

  "Merry Christmas," he says.

  I can't say it back. I'll just break down if I do.

  -3-

  In the morning I tell Axle everything.

  I tell him how I flew to Lisbon and then caught train after train out of paranoia that someone might be tracking my passport.

  I tell him how I wanted a fresh start.

  He hands me a plate with stollen, a German Christmas cake filled with fruits and marzipan and icing sugar on top, and a cup of cocoa.

  "What's this?"

  "Breakfast."

  "It looks like dessert."

  "It's Christmas Day. I could give you some plain eggs instead if you really want."

  "No, I'll stick
with the sugar-shock, thanks. But I need coffee."

  "Smell the cocoa."

  I do it. "Caffeinated cocoa?"

  He shrugs. "I'm a genius, what can I say?"

  Already I'm forgetting...

  That's what it does to me, being with Axle. It makes me forget the past, makes me think only of new beginnings. A few minutes with him, an hour of making love, and it's all gone. No pain. No history. Just a future.

  Only problem, is it's not all gone.

  "You need to call the investigator," he says.

  I chew on some leftover cake. "I know."

  "And you need to forward that mail to her."

  "I know."

  "Damn, that was easy. You still drunk?"

  "Nope. But the threats were empty before, now the dude knows where I am. It's different now."

  "The 'dude'? What if it's a woman?"

  I stop chewing. "I don't think it's a woman."

  "Why not?"

  "Because he keeps saying I hurt his friend."

  "Mason had no women friends?"

  I shake my head. The conversation is irritating me. "I don't know! He didn't seem the type to have...female friends, as such."

  "You mean he fucked them. So they weren't friends." Axle leans back against the stove, folds his arms.

  "Yeah, that's exactly what I mean."

  "Either way, the point is moot. You need to call the investigator."

  "Why is it moot?"

  "Because knowing if it's a guy or a chick isn't gonna mean shit if he / she / it comes banging at the door here with a gun."

  -4-

  The investigator is stunned to hear from me and has no idea where I am. She obviously doesn't read the New York Times.

  I give her the scoop and she properly berates me for not telling her after the first mail I received.

  I send her the latest one.

  She stays on it for a few days but finds nothing. The mail was sent from a Yahoo! address and she needs to get a court-order to find the "IP" address or whatever that the mail was created from. Like I know what a frigging "IP" address is. Somehow she thinks this will help us find the perp's location.

  Sounds good to me, IP or no IP.

  The court order takes another few days and finally she gets it but she tells me the perp was working on something called an "onion network via a VPN" and so they successfully "obfuscated their location."

  "Um, sorry, what?"

  She clarifies that it means that the person is very smart and hid his tracks really carefully.

  Why didn't she just say that in the first place?

  For New Year's celebration, Axle and I watch the fireworks across the river, from my apartment. We open up a bottle of champagne and down it, then we down another one. We let Facebook in for today, but only for a few minutes, and only because I haven't gotten him a cat kennel for the terrace yet, and because the fireworks are scaring the shit out of him.

  He, however, quickly overstays his welcome and starts digging his nails into the carpet and then into the couches. "If there weren't fireworks tonight, you'd be outside, dude," I say. He just looks at me and then rolls up into a ball on the couch.

  "Axle, voo lay voo coo share avec mwah?"

  "Are you trying to ask me if I'll sleep with you French?"

  "Was it that bad?"

  "It was perfect. But, baby, you know I'll sleep with you no matter what language you ask me in."

  "Hey, remember when you told me you loved me when you were drunk?" I push him back and straddle him on the carpet. I take off my dress, my bra. I rub against him as we talk.

  He groans. "I might have been drunk, but I knew exactly what I was saying."

  "Tell me again." I push my crotch against his and feel him harden. The carpet grazes my knees but my mind is fully on my center, engorged, wanting him inside.

  "I love you," he says.

  "Again."

  "I fucking love you."

  I'm dreaming, sensing him below. With my eyes closed, I undo his zip, pull his pants down. I slide my drenched labia over his hard-on. "Again," I groan.

  He just groans in return, too turned on to answer now.

  I slip my hand underneath his manhood and pop him inside me. Then I start riding him. "Oh, God, I've waited to feel you like this for so long."

  "Gen, we need a rubber!"

  I smile quietly. "I'm on the pill, baby. I wanted to surprise you."

  "Oh, God, this is incredible."

  Some more fireworks explode outside, and then so do we.

  When we're done, they continue lighting up the sky while I lay myself next to him and graze my fingers over the hairs on his chest.

  My mind drifts.

  To that email.

  To what could be lost if we don't find the person.

  I start dozing off, slowly, drifting...

  The last firework makes me start.

  Axle holds me and says, "Hey, relax, it's just a firework."

  But that wasn't why I jumped. I'd been dreaming again.

  And I was on a pier. And there was a man there. And he had an ax...

  -5-

  A few days later Axle gives me a remote with a button on it. "It's a panic button. It has a GPS receiver. If you press it, some guys I know will have the cops where you are, in no time."

  "Ax..."

  "Please, Gen. For me. Do it for me."

  I put it in my bag.

  CHAPTER 43

  -1-

  G.

  Jan. 25, 2014 — Saturday Evening

  The gallery opening is a hit. The press is all over the place. Axle's in a tux and seeing him in it only makes me want to take it off him. He raises a glass to me from the distance while photographers force me to smile and take shots with The Hunter.

  We're all in evening wear. I'm wearing a long, red dress and a chain that probably costs more than I've ever made in my entire life. But I rented it, not bought it. Even that was expensive, but tonight was special.

  My first show.

  The Hunter whispers in my ear what the sales have reached so far for the night. Over fifty grand. That's over ten G's in my pocket right there! In addition to the expenses paid. And the apartment. And the salary. And the sales we're planning from the gallery itself.

  It's running exactly as she said. She's making a killing from me. And I'm making more than I ever dreamed I could because of her.

  A mutually beneficial relationship.

  I like it that she was straight with me, that I knew what I was getting into when I started working with her. Kind of like it is with Axle.

  It's the lies that can kill you.

  The flashes and photos and interviews continue all night. All of the reporters want to know how I got into the brothel. I tell them I made it happen, and that the shot is the subject, not the photographer.

  They don't seem too excited about the answer, but that's all they're getting.

  I like my privacy. It's enough that I'm all over the papers, I don't want Axle in there as well.

  I mentioned to Axle that I was getting worried because reporters are vultures and maybe they'd go into the Red Light District and interview that fat guy who worked there and he'd tell them how we got in. Then Axle might get in trouble.

  Axle assured me that, with this new business he's running there, no one's gonna give a shit anymore if he ever took a photographer there to take photos.

  I see the two girls I took shots of at the park and they come and hug me and say hi. They ask me to show them where the photo is that I took of them and which was going to be on display. When I show it to them, the taller of the two wipes a tear from her eye. She kisses her partner slowly and her partner tells her she's always so emotional.

  I have to choke down a tear as well. This is why I take photos. For this reaction. The reaction of a human being seeing herself as she really is: Dazzling. Ravishing. Human.

  In this shot, the two of them are touching foreheads. Both have their lips slightly parted, their eyes al
most closed. And they're reaching for a kiss. It was taken with high focal length and a wide aperture so there's nothing in the shot but the two of them. The background is just a series of distorted and blurry shapes. As if each of the girls is the entire the world of the other.

  The tall one asks me what the photo costs and, when I tell her, her eyes go as wide as a telephoto lens. Then I give her the CD I promised her, with all the shots I took of the two them.

  She thanks me and promises they won't violate the release agreements they signed and I tell her not to worry about it.

  The show ends late, two A.M. There's apparently an after-party but that's not my thing. Neither is it Axle's.

  Besides, I'm more interested in having my own after-party with him at home, in bed.

  It's snowing heavily as we walk home. I've got leather gloves on, the inside lined with fleece, so my hands are warm. But the rest of me is freezing. Axle hugs me tight. I almost slip on the ice a few times.

  Outside my apartment we're giggling and laughing and flirting. We both took advantage of the many free drinks on offer. My hair is cold and wet from the snowflakes. I open the door. Axle turns me around and kisses me, pushes me through it backwards. I can't keep my eyes open. I hear the door slam. I hear myself giggle. I hear his moan. I hear Facebook on the couch, digging his nails into it but I don't care.

  Wait.

  "Why did you let Facebook in the house?" I ask.

  "I didn't let Facebook in the house."

  There's a moment of silence in my mind as I wonder...

  Then the silence ends.

  And I hear the sound of a gun being cocked behind me.

  CHAPTER 44

  -1-

  G.

  "Turn the lights on slowly." It's a woman's voice.

  Axle flicks on the switch.

  The woman on the couch has leathery skin. The kind you get when you drink too much whiskey. In fact, she holds and swirls a glass of it right now. She's dirty blonde and probably in her forties. She's dressed in a red gown, not unlike the one I'm wearing, only on her it looks a little tacky.