His eyes are bugged out. "They're like, legends."
"Legends of what?"
He shakes his head. "Never mind; you'll think I'm a perv."
I laugh. "Now you have to tell me or I'll think something that's sooo much worse than what you can imagine."
Qasim shrugs. "Internet porn."
"Huh." I say. "Well that's not very interesting."
"They're local and they have a web cam... I mean not that I've ever watched or anything."
"Of course not." He looks embarrassed. I reach over and squeeze his shoulder. This surprises him and he jumps a bit. I guess I've gotten used to Schuyler who I can touch casually without it meaning anything. "Sorry."
"No, no; that's cool. Just wasn't expecting it."
I lean back and roll my head to the left to stare at him while he drives. He's wearing a jeans and a white button down shirt with little tan stripes under a navy colored winter coat. Even with the bulk of the coat I notice his frame. Damn he's skinny, but look at that hair.
"How much farther?" I ask like a kid.
He grins a little. "Just two more blocks to my house."
"Does Ralph live near you? Is that how you got here so quickly?"
Qasim nods. "Yeah Ralph and Francis live in the basement of my building. I have the first floor and some dude has the second, but I don't really know him yet. He just moved in."
"That's cool. Is that how you guys met?"
Qasim shakes his head. "No. Ralph was my supervisor when I was in school, and doing work study at the Bursar’s office."
Huh. "You know, I don't know shit about you. I guess you'd better tell me the basics. Where do you work, go to school, all that stuff?"
Qasim keeps his eyes on the road. "I'm not that interesting. I work as a chemical engineer for Milltech, which is really just an impressive way of saying I pour hydraulic acid and other things into beakers and vials full of hydraulic acid and other things while taking copious notes about it all day long."
"Wow, actually. That's so much better than retail."
He laughs. "Is it?"
"Its gotta pay better."
He nods and looks sheepish. "It does."
"So you're out of school."
"At the moment. I might get a doctorate someday, but I have to save up for it. The bank of Mom and Dad stopped at a Masters."
"Still, nice bank."
"I guess so, yeah."
I smile. "So Qasim, who engineers chemicals with his masters’ degree, and sings, and plays guitar for a band called Condition, What's your last name?"
He pulls into a shallow driveway and turns to me. "Landry."
My eyes go wide and I blink several times. "Are you joking?" Oh shit, that is so un-PC, but I would have bet money he'd have a more complicated surname.
He laughs. "My dad's half white."
"Oh, Qasim Landry. I wonder if I'll remember that."
"You'll remember."
Ha! How little he knows me. I look out the window. I have only the vaguest drunken recollection of this place. It looks respectable. Qasim hops out of the car and strides around to open my door. That's nice. "So how old are you?" I ask as I stand up.
"Twenty eight." He replies. "Too old for you?"
I shrug. "Hell if I know." This makes him smile which is also nice. "You smoke? I don't remember."
He makes a noncommittal face and places his left hand on my back. "Sometimes." We climb the steps and he lets me in. We enter the kitchen. This I remember. Its good sized with dated cabinets and large chunky appliances. I set the shoebox on the white Formica table. Qasim's hand is still on my back. I look up at him. I like his face. His skin is so pretty with that stark white shirt. It feels like one of those moments, the kind that either pass unmarked or dissolve into face sucking. After a beat he breaks eye contact. I smile a little, pass unmarked.
"What?" Ha asks.
"Nothing." I unzip my jacket. "Are we going out now, or after a while?"
"After a while. The opening starts at eight."
I remove my jacket. Under it I'm wearing a loose green V-neck sweater. I check my phone, 7:25. "How far away is it?"
He shrugs. "Five minute walk."
"Hmm, thought you said cab." I jest. Qasim removes his hand from my back and looks affronted, like I'm being unreasonable. I just smirk at him until he realizes I was joking. It takes about ten seconds. He blows out some air and smiles at the floor. I brush some hair behind my ear. Silence grows. He takes off his coat and I stare at his hands. "Wanna read?" I ask. I can't wait to get to these letters.
He grins. "You'll let me?"
"Oh yeah. Just keep in mind that I don't know what's in these letters at all, so I'm not responsible."
"Okay."
"And if you can, it would help for you to jot down pertinent information that I could use to research these girls."
Qasim gestures for me to wait and speeds off into the house. He returns momentarily with a legal pad and a pen. "You want to read here, or in the living room?"
"Be more comfortable on a couch I think."
"Yeah." Qasim picks up the box and leads me down the hall. The bedroom I remember is on our left and after we pass that, we enter a large living room on the back side of the house. The walls are white. The furniture is blue. There's a couch, a loveseat and a recliner, obviously a set. It looks like a bachelor pad: sparse, plenty of electronics, huge TV, almost no decorative style. There's a poster of some chemical formula on the wall that's probably a joke I wouldn't get. It’s cleanish in here. By that I mean that there's no trash lying around, and no spoiled food, but the floors need to be swept, and may never have been mopped.
We settle in on the couch. I'm sitting cross legged facing him. The box is between us. "I have no idea what's in these." I reiterate.
"How do you want to do this?" His voice has gone a little horse. "Do we just dig in, read in order or what?"
I take a deep breath. I don't like the idea of him reading letters I haven't read yet. "I want to read them first."
"Let's read at the same time. I'll read over your shoulder and you can tell me what details to write down."
I nod slowly. "Sounds reasonable." I lift the box and scoot over next to him. My heart rate is increasing. I'll just pretend he's not here. That's the only way to do this. I lift the lid and pick out the top paper. It's to Madeline from Kelly... "Holy shit. They jut start right in don't they?" We read silently for a minute. I'm intently aware of Qasim's breathing. Wow. I have to agree with the roommates, Kelly really knows how to say things. When I've read it, I turn without making eye contact. "You done?"
"Yeah." He says softly.
"So... We learned Kelly lived in South Florida."
"We did?"
I nod. "We did. Write it down."
Qasim shakes himself and writes Kelly - South Florida on the legal pad. "Okay."
"Also it sounded like she had a boyfriend that she..."
"That he doesn't..." Qasim offers.
"Yeah, just keep that in mind while we're reading in case either of them mentions a name."
"Okay."
"Ready?"
"Ready." Qasim wraps his left arm around me. It's all warm and comfortable. I smile and carefully set the read letter face down to one side, while picking up the next one from the box. This one is from Madeline to Kelly. What can I say? More graphic, but less juicy if that makes any sense. The writer of this pair is definitely Kelly, while it seems the entrepreneur is Madeline. There's nothing to learn in this letter except maybe which lube to avoid during oral.
"People actually do that?" Qasim asks. His voice startles me. I'd forgotten he was here.
"Sounds like it." I murmur. "I bet that hurts."
He laughs and squeezes my waist. "Did you learn anything?"
I laugh now too, and meet his eyes. "Nope. Next?"
"Fuckin' ay." He says. I giggle. Oh man we're not going to get through all of these I can tell. I should've waited to read them alone. We make it through a f
ew more without comment. We're on another Kelly letter when I glance at the box. There are probably over a hundred in there. I check the date on the e-mail, 2006.
"You've got to be shitting me." I say.
"What?"
"Look at the date. I bet this correspondence goes all the way up to three years ago." I check to the bottom of the box and look at the date on the last letter. Sure enough, 2008. Qasim just stares at me. He doesn't see why I'm irritated. "Any really useful information is probably going to be near the end, but just in case I'm going to have to comb through all of them. It's gonna take forever."
Qasim grins. "No it won't, we've read like ten of them already."
I look at the read pile. "Did we learn anything?"
He laughs. "Kelly, South Florida, Daddy issues (obviously), ambidextrous, likes it in public places." I’m blushing, Qasim goes on. "Madeline, Chicago, law school, likes older men, likes getting paid for it, likes women."
"Fuck, stop. Not that. Was there a boyfriend's name? Family name? I think Kelly might be an alias. Where did Kelly go to school? Who was Madeline seeing? Anyone steady? Anyone possessive?"
Qasim shrugs. "Not yet. Better keep reading."
I laugh. "What time is it?"
He checks his phone. "8:15."
I lean into him. "We going to the art show?"
Qasim grabs my chin with his right hand and moves in to kiss me. Just like that, no segue, no nothing. I kiss him back, of course. It’s a lot like the first time but better, no beer taste. I let the letter fall back into the box, so I can get hand into his hair. After a few beats of this Qasim pulls back. "You want to go to the show?"
I look at his lips and then his eyes. I shrug. "I have this research to do. Maybe we could order a pizza?"
He grins. "This is the best date ever."
"Whatever." I say. "It doesn't mean you're getting lucky. I'm gonna switch to reading from the back of the pile. You keep reading from the front. Remember to read for clues, not just sex." I move off the couch and sit cross legged on the floor. Qasim reaches over and strokes my hair. I look up at him. I know what he's thinking. "Order a pizza."
"What do you want on it?"
"Sausage." I hear his breath whoosh out. I think he's trying not to laugh. "What? I like sausage." Not meeting his eyes, gingerly I lift the stack of letters from the box and place them on the coffee table. I divide it in half and turn the back half upside down. "There." I say pointing. "You read from those. I'll read from these and take notes."
He makes a whip sound and says "Yes Ma'am."
I smile and squeeze his calf casually. He goes all tense for a second. I look up, meeting his eyes. Qasim smiles, visibly trying to relax. Geeze, I like his eyes. Okay, back to work. The last letter in the stack is from Kelly. It references that she's coming up to see Mads. I check the date, February 3rd 2008. Holy cow, that's right before I materialized. "I need the notebook." Qasim hands it to me and I write down the info. I do a quick scan and set the letter down reaching for the next one. It’s from Madeline. "Pay dirt... I think."
"What?"
"Madeline references someone named Harley. It's the first name she's used." I look up at Qasim.
"Actually, it’s the last name she's used."
I roll my eyes. "You know what I mean, at least its something." I notice his hands are empty. "You're not reading." I say. "And you haven't ordered pizza."
Qasim shrugs.
"Hey, if you don't want to help me with this, it's cool. We can do something else."
He gives a self conscious smile. "Reading them together is one thing, but if I read that pile and you read the other then it's not really doing something together, you know? It’s actually really, fucking weird to spend our first date quietly reading porn."
I laugh. "You have a point."
He shrugs. "So what'd the letter say about Harley?"
I nod eagerly. "That he can't wait to meet Kelly."
"Okay."
"Yeah I know it's not much. They were probably just planning to bang him together. Doesn't really mean anything yet. But hey, now we know when Kelly came to Chicago."
"We do?"
"Oh yeah, I didn't tell you. It was the last letter. Kelly said she looked forward to seeing Mads on spring break, February 2008."
Qasim shakes his head. "See? It'd be better to read together, you're no good at sharing information."
"Okay, fine. Order a pizza and then we'll read together but from the back of the pile."
He reaches out to touch my head again. He's awkward at it, like he's not used to giving affection, but he's trying to figure out how. I grab his hand off my head and kiss his palm casually. "Pizza. Before we get too involved in the letters."
He nods and digs out his phone. While he's doing that, I stand up and rearrange the letter piles again. Now they're all in one stack, face down with a discard pile in the shoebox lid. I turned the twenty or so we've already gone through from 2006 sideways. I'm in the process of obsessively tamping the edges of the stacks to make then as uniform as possible, when I feel Qasim's fingers running lightly up the back of my thigh. I bite my lip. He's learning kind of fast.
"Twenty or thirty minutes." Qasim says. "Give me a sec to read the two you read without me." And he reaches around me for the letter, in such a way that he's hugging my legs.
"Cool." I'm totally used to his voice now. It’s only a little higher than Chris Angel's. If I think of it that way it’s almost hot. I run my finger lightly through his soft curly hair while he's reading, and Qasim presses his cheek against my hip. I'm so glad I wore some of my new jeans. They're a little looser than the pair I wore last night but they still make my ass look good. Thinking of last night brings Schuyler to mind... And now I feel guilty. Guilt, as per usual, makes me angry. Why should I feel bad about being here with Qasim? It's not like Schuyler's actually into me that way. I huff in irritation.
Qasim looks up. "Something wrong?"
I smile. "No." And to prove it, I grab the next letter, push Qasim back into the couch, and sit on his lap facing him. It’s like the first night we met, except my legs are folded under me straddling his. I scooch up a little and hold the letter to my right turning my attention to the vivid details of Kelly's sexual exploits. I tilt the page so Qasim can read too. He wanted to read together right? Qasim swallows loud enough for me to hear. I glance at him. He’s reading. It’s only about five paragraphs long but it takes Qasim a few minutes and while he’s reading he tentatively places his hands on my thighs. I rest my left hand on his neck. Damn he looks good in white.
When he’s finished he looks up at me. “Learn anything?”
I shrug and smile. “Next?”
He nods, squeezing my legs. “Next.” Without getting up I twist around, stretching to place the read letter in the read letter pile and pick up the next one. Qasim’s hands migrate to my back. We go on like this for a few letters. Madeline uses the name Harley several times. He seems to have been sort of a steady boyfriend who was aware of and in on most of her sex life. The way she uses it, I’m almost positive that ‘Harley’ is either a nickname or an alias. The read pile is about twenty letters thick. I turn to get another one, this one from Kelly. When I turn back Qasim grabs my head and gently pulls me down to him. He places a soft kiss on my lips and repositions for another one. I wrap my arms around him obligingly and settle in to make out. He’s rubbing my back and my left hand is tangled in his hair. He makes a soft little noise. I realign my hips. My legs are beginning to cramp which distracts me. Also the letter in my right hand is getting in the way.
Qasim moves down to kiss my neck and my eyes stray to the printout. I’m sort of skimming it, sort of enjoying the man underneath me when the sentence ‘Kevin called it off’ jumps off the page. I read with some focus now. “Holy shit.” I whisper. Kelly was engaged to a guy named Kevin and he called it off. Qasim must think I’m exclaiming over him because he thrusts his hips forward and I feel his hard on against my thigh. Dilemma: Do I tell Qasim wh
at I read in the letter? This may insult him because I was reading while he was kissing me. Do I pretend I didn’t read it and wait 'til later? This will irritate him if he comes to believe I didn’t share information with him. Qasim slides his hands under my sweater and begins massaging my breasts... Yeah I can tell him later.
Gingerly I set the letter to one side before reaching down and removing my sweater. I know I’m very fast to get topless. I don‘t know why, I’ve always been that way. It’s never been a problem. Qasim slides my right boob up out of the bra, the blue push up one Lupa made me wear yesterday, and sticks my nipple in his mouth. He’s sucking on it and using some teeth. Fuck. I moan involuntarily and reach my left hand down to feel his hard on through the denim. When I make contact with it, Qasim crushes me to him. Oh this is nice, but I don’t know how he’s breathing with my boob pressed to his face like that. He opens his mouth wider and now appears to be trying to eat it. A good part of my C cup is all warm and wet in his mouth. I really like the pressure his tongue is making, oh fuck. But the rest of me is getting cold. I shiver, not sure if I want to interrupt him to say I need a blanket. You know, I believe I’m much better at this drunk. Sober I’m just not really keeping my head in the game.
The doorbell rings and I sigh. Good, now I don’t have to be rude. The pizza’s here. Qasim acts like he didn’t hear the bell so I grab his hair behind his ears and gently remove his face form my breast.
“Pizza.” I whisper. He gives me this wonderful, desperate look. I lean down and kiss him, hard, lots of tongue. “Go on.” I say when I release his mouth. “Get the food.” I kiss his neck for a second and then get off him. “Ow! My legs.” Shit they’ve fallen asleep. I laugh. Qasim looks concerned. I wave him away, still laughing, as I shake out my legs. “Sat like that for too long.” I say. Man, my right boob is freezing where the cold air hits the saliva. I cover the poor thing with my hand. Damn, nipples’ like a rock. The bell rings again. “Get the pizza.” I say with mock desperation. He stands and looks down. Well hell, you could see that bad boy from across the street. Qasim looks panicked. I giggle, adjusting my boob back into the bra. “Hand me my sweater and I’ll get the pizza.”
“I’m paying for it.” He says passing me my top.
Chasing Shadows Page 16