by A. E. Grace
He sucked on his lower lip. “I actually thought he finished ahead, you know.” He patted the side of his car. “But this baby is the best for straight-line speed. Saved my ass.”
“Maybe give some credit to Hamilton, and accept that even you’re only human.”
Miles wished he could reveal how humorous and ironic a turn of phrase that was. Instead, he settled for, “Perhaps.”
“Why don’t you do the podium thing, Miles? I mean, like, really why, not the bullshit you fed my boss.”
Again, Miles wished he could tell her the truth. The more he revealed his face, the more likely it would be somebody would recognize him. He had been racing professionally since the sport became popular, since race cars were nearly impossible to control, and death by crash was frequent.
In the pit garages, he was safe. He could walk around, and not worry about journalists. But when he left, he had to put on sunglasses and a cap.
In keeping with how many firsts he had experienced since meeting Circe, he was going through another one right now. It was the first time he had ever truly wanted to tell somebody what he really was.
How… inhuman he was.
“I just don’t like the spotlight. Have dinner with me tonight.”
Circe nodded, and he noticed it was without hesitation. “Is that when we’ll do our interview?”
Disappointment made its gloomy presence felt. “No, we can do that now, if you like.”
“Oh,” Circe replied. He could tell she was feeling a bit awkward.
“You don’t have to.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I’d like to. After all, I’ve got a job to do.”
“You do,” he agreed, grinning at her. He looked forward to having dinner with her more than he did the next race, more than he did his next shift.
That realization shocked him.
More than he did his next shift!
*
A hurricane of confusion and conflict was raging in Circe’s mind. She didn’t want to have to guess anymore. It had been two weeks of this. She knew that Miles and she shared a spark, a connection. She knew he knew it, too.
It was time to call him out.
“Miles, what’s going on?”
He swept his perpetually messy hair to one side, and shook his head at her. “I don’t know. What’s going on?”
“What are we doing?”
“Eating delicious hamburgers,” he said, licking his fingers. “God, just look at that.” He pointed at the deep pink of his medium-rare burger. “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
Circe sighed. “I mean this.” She gestured between them with a finger. “And this.” She waved her finger around, signaling the boutique gourmet burger restaurant in the upscale Mont Kiara district of Kuala Lumpur.
He leaned back in his chair, wiping his hands on his napkin. “Something on your mind, Circe?”
“Yes,” she said, nodding dramatically. “Are we on a date?”
Miles blinked at her. “Of course we are.”
Circe couldn’t help herself from laughing in disbelief. “What do you mean of course we are, Miles?”
“Well,” he said, looking around the restaurant. “It’s you, and me, in the evening, eating a delicious, though admittedly unhealthy dinner, so don’t tell Richard because he’d give me a lecture on keeping fit, and we’ve each got a drink, and-”
“Stop it, please,” she said, cutting him off. “Just, be straight with me, would you? Stop being so guarded and deflecting all the time.”
“I like you, Circe. A lot. The truth is, I think about you all the time.”
“Really?” Circe asked sarcastically.
“Honest to heaven, I’m not lying. I thought it wouldn’t interfere, though, you know? I thought I could keep our relationship professional.”
Circe snorted. “Professional? That’s stretching the term.”
“Well, professional Cheat Cohen-style, then. But… I think I’ve lost control of it all. Now, I find myself wanting to spend every waking minute with you. I’m distracted… as you saw at the race. Things have… changed. So, yes, we’re on a date. It’s obvious, isn’t it? There’s no need to play dumb, you’re here of your own accord, too. You want to be here as well!”
Circe wanted to say ‘no I don’t’, but knew that would be useless. And a lie. She nodded.
“So, go along with it. See what happens. Don’t be so afraid.”
“I’m not afraid.”
“Good.”
“I just don’t like people thinking they can take advantage of me. Personally, or professionally.”
“Quite right.”
He put his hand out then, laying it flat across the table. She looked at it, and her heart quickened, and dizziness disoriented her. She let out a slow breath, remembering Ms. Jennings’ words: ‘You’re an actress now. Figure out what he wants, and give it to him.’
Was she acting? Or was this what she really wanted? The need, the pressure, to get something good, to get more than just a profile piece on Miles weighed heavily on her thoughts at all times. But she enjoyed spending time with him, and God knows she was attracted to him, even if she tried to hide it all the damn time.
He just watched her and waited, unphased with being left hanging as long as he was. She reached out and took his hand, and in that moment felt the combined thump of all the thoughts she’d had about him hit her right in the chest.
Somehow, it was cathartic. She didn’t understand it – or didn’t want to. Her fingers curled around his, and she grinned at him, playing with his digits, their touch a conversation too subtle for words. The look in his eyes told her the moment was having as much of an impact on him as it was on her. She wondered if his heart was racing, too. If he was nervous as hell, too. If he was drawn to her like she was to him. More than just the physical urges. Circe knew her body well enough to know it wasn’t that simple.
The emotional intensity became too much to bear, and she pulled her fingers from his, watched as his fist clasped around empty air, and then fiddled with a strand of hair that had escaped from behind the hook of her ear.
Circe cleared her throat. “So tell me about yourself, since we’re on a date,” she said. “And I mean something that nobody else knows.”
“You’re the journalist. You ask the questions.”
“Fine,” Circe said. She straightened her back, and took her beer bottle by the neck and swigged from it. “Where exactly did you grow up? Don’t think I haven’t noticed that you’ve been kind of vague with me about that!”
He laughed. “You noticed, did you?”
“Of course. It’s my job to notice.”
“Namibia,” he said. “South-Western Africa.”
“I know where it is.”
“No, I meant that’s where I grew up. Namibia was where I was born, but my parents moved around the area a lot, which was South-Western Africa. We went from village to village. Namibia, Angola, Botswana, that whole area.”
“Why? What did they do?”
“They were missionaries,” he said. “But that was a long time ago. My father was medically trained, and my mother was his nurse. They went around villages providing healthcare where they could, and helping to build rudimentary hospitals, training others in first aid, that kind of thing. Eventually I was born, and they just took me with them. After a short stint back home, of course.”
“Wow,” Circe said. She would never have guessed. He seemed to ooze privilege. “So where’s home?”
“For me, that was my home. For my parents? My father was English, mother German. But they made their home wherever they went.”
“I meant where was this home you went back to for the short stint?”
“Oh. England. Bristol, to be precise.”
“That’s funny,” Circe said, pointing at him. “Because you don’t have a particularly strong accent. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it a little, and you seem to have a little bit of every kind of accent in your speech.”<
br />
He shrugged. “I’ve lived in many places.”
“So, how long ago was this?”
“Oh,” he replied, waving his hand vaguely. “Long time ago.”
“Where are you parents now?”
“Dead.”
Circe blinked. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”
“Don’t worry.” He smiled at her. “It was a long time ago. I don’t bother with euphemisms.”
Circe wanted to ask ‘how long?’ since Miles looked, at most, to be in his mid-thirties, but decided to change the topic to a less depressing one.
“What was your greatest memory growing up, then?”
His eyes lit up. “Oh, that one’s easy,” he said, falling back in time. “I was just a young boy, maybe nine or ten, playing football with some of the local kids. We were kicking around this crappy ball that was half flat, but it was heaps of fun. Anyway, one of the boys booted it over the top of a small ridge that dipped into a kind of valley. It was very shallow. A lazy slope.”
He showed her the angle of the valley with his hand to Circe. She nodded, and said, “And?”
“Well, I was the closest to the edge, and so I ran to go and get the ball. But once I got to the ridge, I froze.” He smiled broadly, the memory obviously quite an emotional one for him. “You see, it’s not all plains of yellow grass like you see in the documentaries or whatever. Most of the landscape has this kind of shrubbery that looks a bit like the fake grass you can stick to model landscapes. It’s a dull, drab green. Anyway, out there, on this massive plain that had these cotton-ball green bits sticking out everywhere, was a coalition of cheetahs.”
“A coalition?”
“That’s when young males group together after they’ve left their mother. They do it for a bit until they fully mature. As adults, cheetahs lead a solitary existence.”
“Oh,” Circe sounded.
“I watch a lot of documentaries,” he explained. “Anyway, where was I?” The way he smiled when talking about this particular memory, it was cute. There was a childish energy to his retelling.
“Oh, yeah, the cheetahs. They all looked at me. I mean, like, five of these beautiful cats, so long and slim, looked directly at me. I wasn’t far away, they could reach me in seconds if they wanted to at full sprint. But we just looked at each other. It was a sort of… transformative experience for me. I’ll never forget it. They were simply amazing, though I was too young to really appreciate it at the time.”
“They weren’t aggressive?”
“No,” he said, shaking his head. “Probably didn’t consider me any kind of threat.”
“What happened after?”
“Well, the boys started asking why I wasn’t moving and they all ran up to the ridge. When the cheetahs saw them, they set off, sprinting in these wide curved arcs across the land, just blazing fast, kicking up dust. It was like they were putting on a show for us. We all cheered. Thinking back, it was really quite odd.”
Circe knew she could use this in her article. “Would you say that experience influenced you becoming a Formula One driver?”
Miles smiled knowingly at her, and Circe almost felt like she was at a disadvantage, as though she were missing a joke. “Yes,” he said. “It did, but not how you think. Anyway, no work tonight, okay?”
Circe put down her mental pad and pen. “Okay,” she said.
The two chatted, finished dinner, walked back to the hotel, and in a moment of carelessness, she slipped her arm into his.
“Sorry,” she said hurriedly, pulling it out, but he caught hold of her hand, pulled it back inside his arm. The two walked in silence after that.
“Night cap?”
Circe laughed. “You going to ask that every time we get back to the hotel?”
“Maybe I don’t want the night to end.”
“Oh? Why?”
He shrugged. “I just don’t. Do you?”
She let down her guard. “No. I could use another drink, anyway. Help beat the jetlag.” They went to his hotel room, and there she gawked. “Oh my God, this has to be like, three thousand square feet!”
“Something like that,” Miles said, shrugging. He opened a dark mahogany cabinet, in which was a full-sized refrigerator and freezer. “Um, I’ve got… everything, I think.”
“What are you having?” Circe asked.
“I was actually going to have a gin and tonic.”
“Now? Too late for that, isn’t it?”
“Okay, I’ll have whatever you have.”
“Can you mix a drink?”
“What do you mean can I mix a drink?” Miles asked, though it was obvious he was just feigning indignation. “What self-respecting person can’t?”
“So, what can you mix?”
“Name it.”
“Um,” Circe hummed, falling down into one of the sofas a little too clumsily for her own liking. “Martini?” she asked.
“And I thought you were going to challenge me.”
She watched as he rummaged around the kitchen, looking for a shaker. “Don’t they have one?”
“I’m pretty sure they do,” Miles said, ducking down. “Even though this is officially an Islamic country.” He opened drawers and cabinets left and right, before finally saying, “Aha!” He held up a shiny metal cocktail shaker.
He poured two cap-fulls of vermouth, then ice, then gave the mixture a short shake, before adding in gin. He swirled it for a moment, making faces at her all the while.
“Ever tend bar?”
“I thought you weren’t working tonight.”
“I was asking out of personal interest,” she said, sitting forward and leaning her elbows on her knees. A quick ripple of insecurity washed over her. It didn’t escape her that this was exactly the sort of setting that preceded a night in the bedroom.
“There we go,” he said, maybe five minutes later, bringing over two glasses. “Sorry, no olives in the fridge.”
“Hate them, anyway.”
She sipped from her martini, and tasted the cold-muted bite of gin. “Mm, not bad.”
“You drink many martinis?”
Circe laughed. “No. Cheapish white wine or a light beer here. Just wanted to see if you could do it.”
“Well, to tell you the truth,” Miles countered through a grin. “I didn’t really know what I was doing.”
“Bullshit, Miles. It’s all an act with you, isn’t it? So, have you tended bar before?”
“In my younger years, yes. But that was a-”
“Long time ago,” Circe interrupted, nodding. She set the glass down, already feeling the buzz from the potent cocktail, and leaned back into the sofa. “Miles, why do I always get the impression that you’re hiding something from me, but don’t want to?”
“Do you get that impression?”
“Yes,” she said seriously. “I don’t mean to dull the mood, but-”
“No, you’re right.” He sighed. “Actually, that’s why I invited you in tonight.”
“Oh? So no less-than-gentlemanly intentions?”
“Well…” He looked vaguely upward. “I can’t promise you that.”
“So, is it off the record or on?”
He turned to her, a grave look in his eye, then. “I’m tempted to say off.”
“But…?”
“But I think I’ll need a second opinion.”
“Okay,” Circe said, raising an eyebrow. She hadn’t the faintest clue what he was on about. “Tell me.”
“I was thinking I’d show you.”
Circe nodded. “Okay. Show me.” She narrowed her eyes at him when he stood up and began to undo the buttons on his shirt.
She recoiled. “Wait a minute.” He wasn’t going to get it that easily!
“Just watch,” he said. He walked around to behind the kitchen counter, his lower half obscured, and there he was obviously removing his trousers.
Circe got up, half-shaded her eyes like the sun was burning bright, and wasn’t sure if she should just leave or w
hat. This was crazy!
Off came his shirt, and the low light only accentuated the carved lines of his body. He looked at her. “Ready?”
“Miles, this is-”
Circe was silenced. Miles ‘Cheat’ Cohen was shrinking! She backed away instinctively, knocking over her martini. The glass thudded quietly on the carpeted floor.
His body seemed to grow inward on itself, like he was being sucked into a vortex. For a horrifying moment, not longer than a second but enough to make Circe’s hairs stand on end, he was a single mass of undefined flesh, a lump of pinkish meat, before a new form started to emerge. One pair of legs sprouted, and then another, and then she saw the curve of a backbone, the pointy ears of a… cat?
“What the hell?”
Frozen to the spot, she became aware, like seeing through two parting corridors of mist, that she was looking at a shapeshifter. An honest to God, real-fucking-life shapeshifter.
“Fuck, you guys actually exist?” she blurted, before covering her mouth. Color ran generously into Miles’ new form, a big cat standing higher than her waist. She saw the brown and orange-tinted spots, saw the deep yellow of the luscious coat fill in. She saw two black lines running down from each of the cat’s eyes, as though it were crying tears of black ink.
Miles had become a cheetah. The nickname made sense. She shook her head, grinned, and then laughed. His cheetah, lithe, slim, and had a body that just smacked of efficiency. It was also far longer than she was tall, and with bits of meaty muscle obvious despite the fur.
“Wow.”
His cheetah seemed to acknowledge her words. He ducked his head for a moment, and then approached her. She stepped back instinctively, and came up against the wall. But still the cheetah advanced, and when it was within reach, he nuzzled his head against her leg, rubbing it up and down the inside of her thigh.
No wonder he was a race car driver!
“Miles, can I…?” She gingerly extended a hand. The cheetah did not retreat or pull back like she had expected his to, and when she touched the fur on his head, she was astounded at how soft it was. She stroked the cheetah’s head, trying her best not to itch it like she would a pet cat. Something told her Miles wouldn’t much like that.