“Why fucking Syracuse?” I muttered. “It’s probably not even on a trade route any more.”
She snapped her fingers in front of my nose. “Focus! Upstate New York? Headquarters of Boshy Beverages? C’mon, buddy, don’t let me down. I need a great idea, fast.”
It was like a wet dream turning into a nightmare. I finally knew what they mean by “flashback trauma.”
“Fucking Syracuse,” I muttered. “All right, all right! Sheesh. Here.” I grabbed a beer coaster and flipped it over. “How big are we talking about?”
“How big what?” Her pretty mouth hung open in a plump, kissable O.
“This temple of Venus. Are we going for three stories and a sculpture garden with moon pools for nude bathing, or is it low budget?”
She just stared at me. Her neat black hair curved around her face on each side until she was all eyes and mouth. It seemed to me that the world had shrunk to two things, her face, and this fucking temple blocking my path at every turn.
“C’mon, c’mon. How much money will they spend?”
“I guess Boshy will cheap out like he always does,” she said slowly. “Temple? What temple?”
I rolled my eyes. “This is why I’m the ideas guy.” I plucked the pen out of her fingers. “Here.” I studied the blank back of the beer coaster for a moment. “Small, simple, cheap, but distinctive. Classic proportions.” I doodled ferociously for a moment, resenting every pen stroke that kept me from looking down her shirt again. “Nothing tacky.” I studied it for a moment. “Looks the same from either end. That ought to be cheap enough.” I flipped the coaster across the bar. “There.”
She picked it up. “That’s adorable! Archie, I always knew you were talented, but—”
I grabbed her under the armpits and hauled her across the bar. I said huskily, “You’re adorable.”
And I let her have it.
For the first time ever, I got a dim idea of what it must be like for the girls I kiss.
My heart felt like it might explode. Buzzing filled my ears and sizzled up my bones. I felt faint. On their own, my thumbs reached across her chest and pressed into her breasts through her jacket, and just the tips of my thumbs touched her bare flesh. When I realized that, I almost did pass out.
Plus, the boner of the century.
Clapping and hooting brought me back to planet Earth.
“Nice one, Arch! How about another screwdriver over here?” one of my regulars hollered.
Chloe pushed against my chest, and reluctantly, I let her slide back across the bar.
“Your lipstick’s a mess,” I mumbled.
“Yeah. It’s all over your face.” Her eyes were shining. She scooped up all the crumpled papers on the bar, shoved them into her bag, and pranced off backward to the little girls’ room, breaking eye contact only when she rounded the corner.
My regular shoved a cell phone in my face. “Smile.”
“What?” I batted it away.
“Dude. You are so Facebooked. Make my screwdriver.”
I touched my mouth. My hand came away scarlet. My regular haw-hawed and threw a napkin at me, and I made him his screwdriver. About thirty more regulars poured through the door in a sudden wave, my ears stopped buzzing, and I wondered what in heaven just happened.
I leaned against the stall door and hyperventilated. Holy horny flying monkey on a pogo stick! That was crazy! I flopped around the ladies room trying to get my breath back.
I repaired my smeared lipstick and headed back to the bar. Halfway there, a familiar voice spoke behind me.
“You’ve made a lot of progress since last night.”
I dimly remembered kicking some guy with a voice like this. In the course of my work I need to step on guys a lot—hence the spike heels. Having eight brothers kind of releases a person from the usual girlie inhibitions against violence.
On the other hand, I can’t afford to snarl at men in bars. It’s my job to smile and look perky.
I turned, smiling perkily.
A skinny white guy about my age was looking me up and down. He had a glued-up Mohawk and about a million tattoos crawling up his neck, down his arms, and out from under his Cincinnati Bowties rocker tee. Also like a rocker, he was scrawny, and his big doe eyes and sweet smile contrasted appealingly with his big, curved blade of a nose. Something else about him rang a bell.
“You must be Chloe,” he said.
Thanks to my job, every man in every bar in the city knows my name. “Still not remembering you,” I said as nicely as I could.
“Lido. Our repressed Archie’s fourth roommate.” He put out a tattooed hand.
Looking at the hand, I remembered. Archie had got mail from this guy last night. Mail that scared him.
Then it hit me. “Roommate.” I put my hand out slowly, ready for anything.
We shook. No tingle. Unthinking, I looked down at the button-fly of his ragged 501 jeans and saw no giant sparkling phantom cock. That added another data point from my brand-bimbo radar, but I had other things to think about.
Lido said, “The guys said you came by last night. That’s a first. And today he’s playing tonsil hockey with you in public.” He twinkled at me, looking suddenly about four times more adorable in a skinny, beaky, horny way. Sex demon, yup. “Archie has mentioned you a few times in the past couple of years.”
“Really?” I squeaked. I was thrilled. Guys do not mention women by name to their friends unless they’re interested. I beamed. Lido let go of my hand, another data point, and I leaned closer. “Do you know why that wedding invitation spooked him?”
Lido squinted. “Wedding invitation?”
“You brought it to him last night. Some woman gave it to you outside the bar.”
“Oh, right.” He nodded. Something behind me distracted him for an instant. “Uh-oh, gotta go. But let’s talk sometime.”
I liked him already. “Fair warning. I’m only interested in Archie.”
Lido shrugged. He raised his voice. “So, meet me about eight? I have to be warming up by nine thirty.”
“What the fuck?” A hand gripped my shoulder. I knew it was Archie’s because I got a full-body rush. “What are you doing here two days in a row?” Archie said hotly to Lido.
So Archie was jealous of his roommates talking to me. Excellent!
“Where’s this gig again?” I said.
“The Lucky Number. Tomorrow night,” Lido said.
Archie reached past my shoulder and put his hand on Lido’s T-shirt and shoved. “Beat it, cockroach.”
Lido pointed both forefingers at me. “Meet you there at eight.” Then he looked past me at Archie and smiled even sweeter than before. “See ya.” He winked, backed away, turned, and sashayed out.
And bing, data point three.
“Randy little cockroach,” Archie muttered. “Come and eat. I ordered you a hamburger from the kitchen.”
“But—”
“I’ve caught him poaching before, and I made it totally clear at the time—”
“But he’s—”
“You’d think after I deviated his Hungarian septum for him, he’d get the message.”
But he’s gay, I almost said. I looked up in Archie’s face. He looked thunderous. It occurred to me that if Archie really didn’t know his roommate was gay, I could leverage Lido’s playfulness to my advantage.
Plus, Lido would tell me stuff. If ever I saw a “girlfriend” wink!
Archie led me back to the bar, grumbling, and watched me eat the hamburger. He thinks I don’t eat. It’s just my metabolism.
The lunch crowd started pouring in. Archie moved back behind the bar. I thought about that white wedding invitation, and my fingers twitched. I chewed fries and thought about kissing him, about how much his roommates reminded me of my brothers, and I wondered what secrets Lido would dish, and I couldn’t believe Archie didn’t realize that his sex demon roommate, Lido, was sweet on him.
The Piddlies, Lido’s band, were already set up, for a miracle, w
hen I arrived at The Lucky Number the next night. Lido was there, drinking gin or vodka and lime with Marc, the owner. I demo’ed in this club all the time.
I got my own Bombay and Pernod and walked over to them.
Marc is flaming gay, but he showed no sign of being annoyed at my interrupting them. “How’s my favorite shiksa?” He gave me a big cheek-mwah.
“Nice to see you, too, Marc.”
Lido put his arm around my waist without looking at me and bumped hips. “C’mon and meet the band.”
He introduced me around, babbling too fast like a tenth-grader who has talked one of the junior cheerleaders into a date and is making the most of it before she can act on her regrets. The band members didn’t seem impressed. When they trickled off to their dressing room, I disengaged from his arm.
“Who are we trying to impress again?” I said.
Lido put his tattooed hands on my shoulders and looked deep into my eyes. “I got some intense fans.” I almost turned my head to look around the bar, but he used his thumbs to hold my face pointed toward him. “Don’t look, please.”
“Oh.” I kind of got it.
“You know, if you pretend to be my girl, it’ll send Archie up the pole.” He grinned, and I caught a faint gleam of the sex demon in his eye.
“How’s that going to work?” I said. “Archie’s uptown at Cheaters.”
Lido smooched me on the lips. “People talk. Front row, ’kay?” He loped off toward the dressing room.
Either he wasn’t using any sex demon mojo or my original guess was correct. I’d felt absolutely nothing in that kiss. I found me a front table and sat down.
By the end of the first set, I was hugely impressed. Lido could play the shit out of that guitar. His band was decent—the bass player didn’t try to outdo Lido’s fingering, the drummer had learned that less is more, and the songs left some space between the notes so you could hear the music.
By the end of the second set, I was ready to concede that Lido might need a bird dog.
The front tables were crammed with club girls of all ages. They screamed, they threw underwear, and one jumped on stage and tried to write her name in lipstick on Lido’s skinny chest.
She was delayed because she had to find an un-inked patch of his skin, and Marc’s bouncer was able to remove her without violence.
So I obliged. I flirted noisily with Lido for the last set. At the last song, he came down off the stage to serenade me at my teensy table. For their last bow, I let him throw his sweaty arms around me and flourish me at the crowd. Flashes went off in our faces.
Lido said he had planned to leave in the band van.
“I drove,” I said. I hadn’t given up hope for Archie dish.
“Excellent,” he said. “We’ll take your car instead. The van’s always full of groupies.” He dumped his ax in the van. Then we sprinted down the alley past a gaggle of fans to my car.
“Whoa,” he said when he saw it.
“Boshy likes to give us brand ambassadors every chance to pimp his products,” I said. A huge vinyl magnetic picture of Boshy’s slut-of-the-month was stuck to the car door: a blonde in a red bikini, sucking banana vodka out of a banana-shaped glass.
“Sex-ay,” Lido said. “When I’m famous, I want my limo to look like this.”
“Shut up, it’s free.”
We sloped off for drinks down Clark Street at the L&L Tavern. I’ve never worked the L&L, so I love it there. No band, low light levels, low-rent neighborhood clientele, ice in the longnecks.
“Thanks for playing the game tonight,” Lido said as we sat down in the dark of the L&L. “The thing is, I’m not in the market for a groupie fuck or a steady girl.”
“Or even for a girl,” I said. “Uh, sorry. If that’s a secret.”
Lido watched his own fingers pick at the label of his Bud. Was it my imagination, or had his ears actually swiveled in my direction?
I said, “That’s the only reason why I played along tonight.” I might as well get that out there. “You need a beard.”
“You’re not as dumb as you look,” Lido said, a little too grudgingly to be funny.
That irritated me. “Does Archie know how you feel about him?”
His eyes came up to me, too big for his face, the whites showing. His bony shoulders hunched. After a quick glance around the room, he leaned toward me. “Look. I’d love to entertain you with the story of my life. But we have a problem here.”
The back of my neck prickled. “Archie.”
“Yup.” He sucked Bud, pointing his big, sharp-bladed nose at me. “Archie is ten times my age. I have my music to burn off excess energy, but Archie—well, Archie likes to think he’s a hard-hearted bastard, but he’s really a cream puff. We all know it. We worry when he gets serious about some woman. He’s a great guy, but when he breaks his heart, he spreads the hurt around.”
My chest got hot. “You think he’s getting serious.” I got short of breath.
“About every forty-fifty years.” That made me blink. Lido lifted a hand. “I’m not trying to cut you down to size. It’s a compliment.”
“Just how old are you?” The thump in my chest got louder. Archie wants me. My brain gonged with the fact. “How old is he?”
“He’ll tell you, if he feels like it, if he lets himself feel like it. That guy doesn’t crack. He explodes.”
“Dangerous.”
“Job for the bomb squad,” Lido agreed.
“My mission, should I choose to accept it.” I wiggled my eyebrows.
“Thing is, he won’t let you. He’s too scared.”
I scoffed. “Scared of me?”
“The truth about sex magic is the truth about all magic, that it’s not hard at all. It’s dead easy. The reason it is shrouded in mystery and boogeyman stories is that the people who get good at it are the ones who survive. Every person alive practices sex magic once or twice in their lives. Usually it’s when they’ve fallen in love, tapped into the greatest power they’ll ever have. Sometimes they’re lucky. They get the right mate, or at least a good one. Sometimes, most of the time actually, they choose randomly and they screw up.”
“You’re scared of love, too.”
Lido said, “No shit, I’m scared of it. It’s why I take care to want the unattainable.”
I was about to interrupt at that, but he rushed on.
“Look at what’s happened to Archie. I hate to think what his last twenty-two centuries were like, before we met. Hopefully he was better at handling it before. The guys say he’s breaking down lately, been breaking down for about a hundred years now.”
“Breaking down?”
“He’s coming apart. He’s a good example of someone who’s played with fire too much.”
“Fire.”
I thought about hellfire, and wondered why Archie feared it. “But he doesn’t believe hell can get at him.”
“Not hell. Love,” Lido said seriously.
My tummy hurt. I felt confused. “Love scares all men.”
“Precisely. Because the most important thing a magician has to understand is that you handle power with a pair of tongs. You don’t let it touch your skin. It’s like cooking with habanero peppers. A little goes a long way, and you don’t forget to wear gloves when slicing ’em.”
“I don’t understand at all,” I complained.
“That’s why he never does a woman more than once,” Lido said, his eyes kind but his voice hard. “It’s not safe. Really not safe, not for you, not for him.”
“Because of the sex magic inside him.”
“Because of the sex magic inside you.”
“Inside me?” I tried to sound incredulous, but I knew too much now. I knew perfectly well what he was talking about. Those incredible feelings that happened while I was kissing Archie were real. “So if you feel all those feelings with someone who isn’t the right one,” I said slowly, “you’re playing with fire.”
“You are,” Lido said seriously, “fucked. The magic of s
ex turns into the magic of love, and that binds you to the person you’re fucking, for better or for worse. And what if you feel bound, but they don’t?”
“How can he not feel it?” I said, tears stinging my eyes. “How can he not feel like I do?”
“Honey, that’s what people have been asking since the dawn of time. Love doesn’t care who it strikes or whether it gets both of you or just one. That’s why Archie is so damn scared of it. And rightly.”
He was depressingly right. “That’s so mean.”
“Yup.”
I eyed Lido with embarrassment. “I guess you guys aren’t so bad after all, huh. I mean, you just want to score. You’re not trying to tie someone up for life.”
“Sometimes it’s for longer than life,” Lido said grimly. “Sometimes, thank goodness, it’s for a few years, and then it burns itself out. Weeks. Hours.”
“That’s just lust.” I tried to dismiss that, but I wasn’t so sure. “Sheesh, how do you even dare mess with this stuff?”
“With a pair of tongs. And wear gloves.”
Too late, I thought, yearning for Archie. Too late, too late.
Suddenly I realized who I was talking to, all over again.
A sex demon. Who wanted the same guy I wanted.
“I don’t know much about sex demons, but I think he’s probably straight,” I ventured.
“Of course he is,” Lido said calmly.
“Does he know how you feel about him?” I said, bringing the conversation back where I’d started.
Lido ignored that too. “The thing is, if things go badly between you, the fallout will hit all of us. Veek is relaxed. Kama’s not. Kama tried being toasted to a cinder once, and he didn’t like it. Baz has been around longer than any of us, and he’d like us to think that his heart is a stone.”
“Baz is worried,” I said positively. “I saw it myself.”
“You see too much,” Lido said with more respect in his tone.
“I have eight brothers,” I said. “Two of them are gay. Does Archie know how you feel—”
“Whoa. That’s way above the statistical average.”
“Does he?”
“God, you’re a pest.”
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