by Penny Reid
He shrugged, not looking at me, “Mostly self-taught. I went to college in Boston for two years. My major was computer science but dropped out when business started to pick up.”
“Why did you stop? Why did you stop reverse-hacking for criminals?”
He lifted his eyes to mine, his expression blank; “How do you know I stopped?”
“I guess I don’t. Did you stop?”
“I did.”
“Why? If it was so profitable.”
“Because…” his eyes moved between mine, his brow pulled low as though he were trying very hard to decipher a mystery. His attention moved to my hair cascading over my shoulder. With an absentminded expression he picked up a curl and rubbed it between his thumb and forefinger. His voice was distant, distracted when he responded, “Because I was the reason my brother died.”
I didn’t know what to say so I just watched him.
Quinn’s eyes moved back to mine; he seemed to be attempting to gauge my reaction. He half smiled but it was tinged with bitterness. “How the first program worked was that when any attempt was made to access data in the absence of an RFID transmitter, a background script would run which wiped the hard drive clean rendering it inoperable. Later, as my customer base grew and for larger data systems, I built a degausser. I had to add on a battery backup, just in case the system was powered down. As you can imagine, the battery backup had a nasty habit of catching on fire.”
I cleared my throat and swallowed, wanting to add that the risk of fire could have been tempered by insulating and cooling the degauseer. Instead I asked, “Why do you think you were the reason your brother died?”
His mouth curved into a frown and he sighed, “Because one of the guys, one of your ‘bad guys’, who I worked for, shot my brother.”
I blinked, “I don’t- I don’t understand.”
“Months before Des- my brother- was killed, the police had a search warrant and took all of this guy’s computers, backups, everything. The program I built worked perfectly and the police came up empty. If I hadn’t put the program on his computer, if I hadn’t helped him keep his information safe from the police then he would have been in jail instead of-”
I closed my hand around his not wanting him to finish the sentence. It was a horrible story. I wanted to say that it wasn’t his fault but I felt like that statement would come across as pandering and patronizing.
Instead I said, “I understand why you blame yourself.”
He blinked at me then narrowed his gaze a fraction as though trying to see me better. This time both his eyes and his smile were sad, “Do you blame me?”
“I blame the bad guy who actually killed him, who pulled the trigger. In this situation you sound like a person who has recognized the error of his ways and made an attempt to change. If you recall, that is the difference between a good guy and a bad guy.”
He released a breath I didn’t know he was holding. His eyes were still sad but his troubled expression seemed to clear. He gazed at me with something that felt like wonder and said, his voice a quiet rumble, “I don’t think I’ll keep score with you.”
~*~
We fought over the bill when it came. By fought I mean: I insisted loudly on paying half and he responded with beleaguered silence.
Instead of discussing it or attempting to engage in my one-sided conversation, he wordlessly put his credit card in the holder; he kept it carefully out of my reach as I continued to list all the reasons we should split the check, not the least of which was that we’d agreed earlier that this was not a date, then handed it stealthily to the waiter as he passed. I was still oblivious, making my case, when Quinn signed the receipt.
“Wait- what are you doing?” I looked from him to the paper slip.
Silence. Scribble. Silence.
“Did you just sign that? Was that the check?” My voiced hitched, my eyes wide with pseudo-outrage.
He glanced up at me, something like mock innocence lighting his features, and said, “I’m sorry. Did you want to split that?”
I scowled at him but couldn’t hold onto my feeling of annoyance when he started to smile. I had memories attached to his smile now and all of them served to increase my warm-fuzzies. I was drunk on good wine, delicious food, and fantastic conversation.
We talked. We talked and we laughed and we had an amazing time. Conversation flowed like a beautiful waterfall, my senses were saturated. Food came and went. Wine was poured and appeared out of nowhere. Time passed and I had no recollection or consciousness of anyone but Quinn being in that restaurant. And, at some point, the butterflies in my stomach truly ceased being at all about Handsome McHotpants and started being all about Quinn Sullivan.
He told me stories about his family. He was the youngest and spent his youth raising hell. His sister, Shelly, was three years older and something of a reclusive free spirit who preferred to fix up classic cars and create welded metal sculptures than interact with society. His brother- Desmond, Des for short- was the oldest and very responsible.
My favorite story detailed how, at the ages of thirteen and sixteen, Quinn and Shelly welded the doors shut on twenty year-old Des’s car, all but the passenger side back seat. Des was forced to enter and exit the car via the back seat for two weeks and never told their parents. At some point Quinn’s father asked to use the car and Des tried to convince their dad that the doors had rusted shut rather than rat out his siblings.
He spoke with such affection for his brother, sister, and his parents it made me like Quinn even more. His eyes would glaze over with memory and he would begin to laugh before he reached the punch line of his story- which made me laugh, which made him laugh.
However, every so often, he would pause and a cloud of sadness or regret, I couldn’t decipher which, would darken his features. I found myself wanting to know the specific causes for each of those episodes. I also found myself wanting to be a source of support and comfort to him.
These were not thoughts to which I was accustomed and they would have been disconcerting if I’d spent any time allowing myself to debate them. Instead, I let the thoughts wash over me and I owned the sentiments, held them close.
And then there was the touching.
Oh. God. The. Touching.
He appeared to find any and every reason to touch me. It was maddeningly marvelous. From time to time he would lean close and whisper something in my ear; his cheek would brush against the smooth skin of my face and neck; my toes would curl in my shoes. During most of the meal his leg rested against mine. He touched my arm or my knee when I said something he thought was funny or interesting or just because I hadn’t tried the wine yet.
All of these simple touches seemed harmless, if not meaningless, on their own; nevertheless, the reaction they solicited from my stomach was akin to descending the steepest plunging drop of a rollercoaster.
Then, when we ate dessert, he absentmindedly licked whip cream off my finger; for several seconds afterward I forgot my name and place of birth.
My level of interest in Quinn, wanting to be with Quinn, wanting to touch and be touched by Quinn, wanting to prolong our conversation and, therefore, our time together took me by surprise. I thought about having to say goodnight at some point and it left me feeling sad, anxious, and mournful.
I did dwell on these feeling and they were unsettling. The strength of my preference, of wanting to be with Quinn rather than solitude, was a sensation I’d never experienced. In the past, I generally preferred solitude to company but recognized the importance of relationships and human contact.
When we finished dinner I felt uninhibited. Between the before dinner cocktail and the during dinner wine I felt a buzzing warmth of cozy comfortableness. I knew it was caused by that elusive, just the right amount of alcohol window, where you’ve had just a little too much in terms of pushing the limits of your inhibitions but not enough to make you feel ill or groggy.
He shifted his attention to his wallet; a small, secretive smile was still
dancing over his lips as he put his credit card away. My glower dissolved and I indulged myself by staring at him, unabashedly. I really looked at him.
He wasn’t actually physically perfect but he came close. He had a scar cutting through the center of his right eyebrow; I made a mental note to ask him about the story behind that. One of his ears was slightly larger than the other and his nose bent, just a whisper, to the left. His hairline wasn’t even and his hair was too thick; it needed to be cut and thinned. His bottom teeth were slightly crooked but you didn’t notice or see them unless he really smiled, like a one-thousand watt smile.
I loved that, when I looked at him, I didn’t see the blinding McHotpants façade of perfection any more. I saw a frustratingly bossy, hilariously funny, irritatingly teasing, captivatingly intelligent, seriously sexy good guy.
“What’s that smile for?”
I blinked at him, shook my head just slightly to clear it, his voice pulling me from my musings. I realized that I’d been staring but, in my cozy comfortable uninhibited state, I didn’t feel particularly embarrassed. I responded, “I was just thinking about my first impressions of you and how you’re actually a real person.”
“As opposed to…?” He lifted his eyebrows.
“As opposed to a handsome robot.”
He dipped his chin and narrowed his eyes at me, “You think I’m handsome?”
“Come on. You know you’re handsome.” I rolled my eyes and poked him in his rib, behaving uncharacteristically touchy-feely.
“I’m just surprised that you do. When we went to Giavani’s I thought you were going to make me put a paper bag over my head.”
“What? Why? What are you talking about?” I sputtered, poking him again.
“When Viki asked if we were there together you-”
“That’s because she looked at me like I was the love child between Cerberus and a Cyclops when you said I was there with you.” I went to poke him a third time but he grabbed my wrist and laced his fingers through mine. Our hands settled on his knee.
He shrugged and glanced at our hands, frowning a little, “I suppose she was surprised.”
I asked my next question uncertain if I wanted an answer, “Because I’m not your type?”
His eyes abruptly lifted to mine, his features losing some of their earlier unguarded ease, “You could say that.”
I couldn’t help my own frown and the sinking feeling in my chest. In that moment I felt like a real girl. Like a girl who wants to hear that she is beautiful from the boy she likes. It felt adolescent and bizarrely painful and exasperating because I knew it was adolescent; “So, what is your type? Beautiful? Blonde hair? Model thin?”
His mouth hooked to the side, “That’s not what I meant.”
“Well… what did you mean?”
His expression hardened slightly, “Shelly, my sister, and I go to Giavani’s almost every Saturday. Viki isn’t used to seeing me with anyone else.”
“You mean a girlfriend? A date?”
“I don’t date-” his expression slipped into the mask of guarded detachment I’d grown somewhat used to over the last week. He then added, “-Haven’t dated.”
Wendell. He’s a Wendell.
Elizabeth’s words from that morning started parading through my head. I tried to cover the disappointed flop of my stomach falling to my feet with a brave smile and pushed him on the subject, asking another question I wasn’t sure I wanted the answer to, “So why don’t you date?”
“It’s not a big mystery. I haven’t needed to.” His tone was matter-of-fact.
“What does that mean? ‘Needed to’?” I felt like each time he spoke he was reluctantly giving me a puzzle piece; the finished object was looking more and more like a Wendell. Reluctantly, I was starting to accept that Elizabeth’s earlier assessment had been correct.
“You know what it means.” His voice was hesitant, as if he weren’t convinced of the statement.
I shook my head, watching him with wide eyes, “No. I really don’t. You’re going to have to spell it out for me.”
He seemed to consider me for a moment, his gaze hawkish and searching. He then asked, “What about you? Why’d you and Jon break up?”
“First I want to know what ‘I haven’t needed to’ means. Are you-” I searched for an explanation that was a Wendell alternate and could only come up with one thing, glad for my wine fueled audacity, “are you celibate?”
“No.” A rueful smile passed over his lips, it didn’t quite reach his eyes, “Fine. It means: I never needed to date someone in order to have a good time. I have-” he cleared his throat, scratched the back of his neck, and glanced to the side as though to avoid my gaze, “I had a few girls who I partied with from time to time but we weren’t exclusive.”
I blinked, absorbing this information. “You mean- you mean you have girls that you call to have sex with them? Slamps?”
Even under the intimately dim candlelight I could see that his neck and cheeks were red-tinged. He didn’t respond but he did sigh. He let go of my hand, began to stand, and grabbed my coat, holding it up to help me shrug it on. I eyeballed him, taking his silence as confirmation. Wordlessly he placed his hand on the small of my back and steered me toward the door.
I thought, at some point, the sinking feeling would stop. It didn’t. Quinn was a Wendell. Even worse, he was a multiple-slamp Wendell manwhore. I felt sad but resigned and- strangely- a little angry with Elizabeth for being right.
When we stepped outside the chilly Chicago air felt good as it whipped past me, helped me clear my head. I glanced over at Quinn and allowed myself to dwell on the ridiculousness of my situation. I was with a really great guy who, according to Elizabeth, wanted to give me mind-blowing sex but only mind-blowing sex which I would be turning down as, among other reasons, he was already giving the sex to other girls. Before I could stop myself, I stepped away and I asked, “Is it all at the same time or one at a time?”
He stopped, started; Quinn met my gaze, his own betraying stunned surprise.
“What?” I pushed.
He shook his head, a reluctant smile pulling at his lips. His hand found mine and started pulling me until my feet moved. “Your turn.”
“Not yet. I want to more about the logistics of this.” I couldn’t help myself. The whole concept seemed suddenly both absurd yet strangely efficient, “How many are we talking about? What percentage of females in Chicago are ready to have sex with you right now? What happens if one of them needs to travel? Do they have a phone tree? Is there a coverage plan or a backup plan for emergencies?”
Quinn covered the bottom half of his mouth with his free hand, too late to mask the smile, his shoulders started shaking with silent laughter.
I continued, feeling a little better knowing that he was able to laugh at himself, “Is there entry criteria? An established search committee? An interview process? Skills test? What kind of radius do you require? Do you have one circling the block now? Do you always keep one nearby? Was there one at the restaurant? At the bar maybe?”
“Janie. Seriously. Your turn.” His tone was authoritative but I could see his eyes were still lighted with amusement and he was trying very hard to keep a straight face.
“My turn?” My eyebrows lifted in confusion; despite my attempts at making fun of his ‘arrangement’ I was still feeling lingering dejection from confirming Quinn’s somewhat sordid sexual history; well, it was sordid compared to my history which, relatively, made it sordid. “You already know everything. I’m a one-slamp kind of girl.”
“Why did you and Jon break up?”
I thought about the question; however, the reality of Quinn’s confession kept distracting me. Quinn never dated.
Never needed to.
Was I ok with that? What was a manwhore really? Was it such a bad thing if all the practice with slamps meant he was good in bed? If we ever slept together did I need to cover myself in cling wrap and Lysol to protect against his plethora of contracted STD’
s? Did he have any STD’s? Were we going to sleep together? If he had unlimited access to veteran slamps, was he even interested in sleeping with me, novice that I was? Did I want to sleep with a Wendell especially after finding out about the multiple-slamps-in-waiting? Was I going to become one of his slamps?
I was pretty sure I didn’t want to become one of Quinn Sullivan’s many slamps.
As an aside, I noted that ‘One of Many Slamps’ would make a good band name or, at the very least, album name.
“Janie?”
My eyelashes fluttered and I looked around the sidewalk unseeingly, “Uh, yeah?”
“You and Jon… why did you split?” I noted his voice was quieter, almost coaxing. We started up the staircase for the el.
I responded without thinking, “I’m not really sure what the real reason was for our split but I’m pretty sure the catalyst was him cheating on me.”
“He-” Quinn stopped on the stairs and pulled on my hand until I met his gaze, “He cheated on you?”
I nodded, “Yes. But, to be fair, he said he was drunk and it only happened once.”
Quinn’s eyes were wide with what looked like disbelief, “I can’t believe he cheated on you.”
“Yes, well… I think I have some insight as to why but I’m still processing the possibilities.” I pulled my hand from his and tucked my hair behind my ears; I started up the stairs again so I wouldn’t have to look directly at him when I spoke, “But there were already other issues before that. For one, he is wealthy.” We reached the landing and passed our transit cards through the gate.
Quinn’s eyebrows shot up at my statement; he asked, “What does that have to do it?”
“For one thing, our priorities never seemed to align. He could, and did, spend money on whatever he wanted. I was- and am- always careful with all my purchases. Second, I always felt like I had a handicap: like I was perpetually taking advantage of him or like I owed him if I accepted whatever it was: money, gifts, help. If I didn’t accept his help it would lead to bad feelings and uncomfortable discussions where I always felt like I was the problem.” My mind began to focus on our current conversation rather than the conversation of two minutes ago. I decided I would work through my slamp issues at some point later. “I’m determined to stay within one standard deviation upward of my own socioeconomic sphere.”