Detained

by Ainslie Paton

  She nodded. “Why did you hit him?”

  “He was jigging school.”

  “Didn’t you say you were too?”

  She had him. “Yeah. But he was bright, a hell of a lot smarter than me. I needed him to do well in school. He didn’t appreciate the sentiment until I beat it into him.”

  “Noble of you.”

  “That’s me, noble. He went on to become a Rhodes scholar. I’d hit him again if I had to, just maybe not that hard.”

  “Geez. Tough neighbourhood.”

  One he didn’t need reminding of. “Is it my turn? Your biggest regret?”

  “I regret... Actually I don’t regret anything. Not sure there’s much point in regret. You?”

  “My brother would say I work too hard.”

  “The scholar? What do you say?”

  “One day I might regret working too hard.”

  She was staring right at him. Her journalist’s probing look. “Favourite movie? Mine is Little Miss Sunshine. I love a quirky comedy.”

  “That’s girly of you.”

  “Hey, I’m not Lois Lane twenty-four-seven.”

  “The Departed.”

  “Yeah I can see that. All that intrigue and cop action. Favourite superhero?”

  “Spiderman.”

  “Why?”

  “What’s not to like about a guy in a leotard fighting crime?”

  “When you put it like that, but why not Batman or Superman?”

  “You really want to talk about Spiderman?”

  “I don’t really want to be detained.”

  “It’s the leotard. He had a better leotard.”

  She shook her head, not buying.

  “Batman was a rich guy and Superman was an alien.”

  She blinked at him.

  “They didn’t have Spidey sense.” Doll eyes, blink, blink, she wanted more. “Spiderman was a kid when he got his powers, he was in school. He didn’t always do the right thing. He was persecuted.” Blink, blink. “He’s a functioning neurotic.”

  Down went those eyelids, the lashes fanning out. Her cheeks went razor edge on the breadth of her smile and her laugh came from somewhere tropical and lush.

  He wasn’t sure he’d ever be cold again.

  4. Strangers

  “What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”— Confucius

  He’d said he was a wimp at heart. But he’d punched his way through his teen years with Spiderman as his idol. And the man from Tara, the foster kid who couldn’t read, admitted to being rich and successful. He might’ve made an interesting interview. He was a genuinely engaging detention companion. This could’ve been so much worse. And if this wasn’t a cold, dull room, and she wasn’t passing through, it could’ve been something more.

  “Is there a Mrs Man from Tara?” It felt like a useful slice of information for her awkwardly fizzing hormones to have.

  “Ah, no.”

  “Why not?”

  “Dive right in there.” He didn’t like the question but he didn’t squirm or break eye contact. “Speaks to the whole I might regret working too hard thing. You?”

  “I might regret working too hard.” She said it quickly, and watched him closely. He stacked the crockery, pushed it to the far edge of the table. He was a poker player and gave nothing away.

  “Must be my turn for a question. Are you in love?” he said.

  “I just told you.” She laughed at him. “You’re not very good at this are you? You wasted another question.” Either that or this was a bluff, a negotiating tactic.

  “Answer the question or take a dare,” he said. It was an order, in a tone that was used to being obeyed. The command coming as easily as his breathing did.

  “You wouldn’t?”

  He folded his arms, and rocked into the back of his chair. He was an immoveable object. He so would.

  “I’ve never been in love or met anyone I wanted to stay with in a forever sense.”

  “Do you believe in forever?”

  “That’s two questions. Some forevers. The bond between some parents and children. Some couples get lucky. But overall, no. I believe in making the best of the moment.”

  He uncrossed his arms, looked less hard-baked. He seemed to like that answer. But she couldn’t have him feeling too comfortable, too in control. “I get two turns. Tell me about your first kiss?”

  He spluttered a laugh, one hand going to his hair and combing through it. “We’re not about to play spin the bottle are we?”

  “We’ll stick with truth or dare.” The thought of playing spin the bottle with Tara was a hot tickle to cold bones, not enough to want to remove her hands from the pockets of his jacket though.

  His eyes went down to the table. He groaned. “Miss Fredrick.”

  “If Miss Fredrick is a family friend or a neighbour, and this is about a kiss on the cheek, you are in serious dare territory.”

  His eyes came up, no hint of embarrassment. He was still in the driver’s seat. “I assume you want the full adults only version. I’m skipping minor skirmishes behind the bike shed. I assume your next question will be about who I first had sex with. I’m giving you the two-part X-rated response.”

  He looked completely serious. He might’ve been about to explain an international export regulation.

  “I was fifteen, she was twenty-four. She was stacked. Long red hair. My year ten history teacher. I liked history, it was all about stories I could memorise. She kissed me in the classroom after she gave me a D for an essay on The Great Depression. Softening the blow. She wasn’t thinking clearly. I was angry. I was lonely. I wasn’t soft. She put her tongue in my mouth. I was in her bed that night and every night for the next six months. She still failed me. Bitch,” he finished on a grunted laugh.

  He was sitting easy, one bent arm resting on the table edge, but there was something in his expression—a hardness, the brawler in him challenging her to recoil. It made him more intriguing. “That answer your question, Lois Lane?”

  “Comprehensively.”

  He broke eye contact. He was looking somewhere inside himself. “I’ve never told anyone that.”

  She wanted to bring him back into the room. “In the spirit of the game, my first kiss was Nathan Tucker, we were both sixteen. We went steady for about six weeks. I was heartbroken when he chose dirt bike racing over me. I had sex with his older brother Ben a year later.”

  “Was it good?”

  “I was being a little shit. I only did it to hurt Nathan.”

  “Not that—the sex, was it good?”

  “God, I don’t remember.”

  “Yes, you do. You’re embarrassed. What does it matter if you tell me?”

  Now he was being a shit. He’d memorised their conversation like a history lesson.

  “It was awful. It was quick. It hurt. Ben didn’t care about me, and he told everyone I cried. It cured me of teenage promiscuity.”

  But it hadn’t cured her of the flush of embarrassment from being called a slut by the boy she’d thought she loved. That still stung like the undeserved flick of a wet tea towel. Darcy was lost to the smells and sounds of that summer. Coconut oil, and fried food eaten too often. Singing Green Day’s Good Riddance while her heart was hearing Celine Dion. Crying in the dark watching Shakespeare in Love with her Jennifer Anniston haircut.

  She shook her head, heard the irritating hum of the over bright fluorescent ceiling panels—interrogation lighting. She’d started this, but she’d let a stranger reach inside her and pull out secrets and confessions.

  He leant across the table, both arms flattened on it. He was close enough for her to study the crinkle in the scar on his chin.

  “What’s your adult promiscuity like?”

  Wow. Her natural reaction was to push away, but that’s exactly what he was aiming for. His version of the game was to unsettle; to try to shock. Why else tell her about his dyslexia, and his tough neighbourhood? Did he want her to dislike him? She met his blue-black eyes
. “Good thing I wasn’t expecting sympathy.”

  “I’m not a sympathetic guy. Answer the question.”

  A quick jerk of his chin. That obey me tone. That expectation she would. “None of your business.”

  The mood shifted again. From the relief of distraction, of not being alone when the rules were unclear; from surprisingly playful to something darker. Darcy felt the beginning of a thread of fear unwind in her belly. She didn’t know this man, and there was no one else near. She needed to take care not to inflame things between them.

  He stood abruptly, his chair scraping, the table barking against the floor. Her thigh muscles clenched. She was ready to move too if she had to. He was looking at his scuffed RMs, his fists clenched at his sides.

  “Right, sorry. I got carried away there. Fuck. I apologise.” He looked up. “I reckon I owe you a dare.”

  He looked genuinely contrite, frowning. For the first time since he’d entered the room he looked uncertain. He waited, fine blond hair stood up on his muscled forearms; he must’ve been cold.

  “No, don’t worry. We don’t have to play anymore.”

  “How else can I make it up to you?”

  “Think warm thoughts. It’s really cold in here. You must be freezing.”

  He rubbed his hands together. “Yeah, I am cold now. No excuse for being a shithead though.” He opened his arms wide. “Come on, free shot.”

  The smart thing would be to start an entirely new conversation, something impersonal and safe, maybe about books or music, or get him to talk about his business. But volunteering for detention in a Chinese airport and playing truth or dare with a rich, attractive man who made you wonder if he kissed with the same authority he used when he wanted information stripped your sense of smart.

  “Dance.”

  He dropped his arms, his head tilting to the side. “Sorry?”

  “My free shot. I dare you to dance.”

  “Dance? What here, by myself, without music?” His voice filled with the audacity of it. He shook his head, a stunted smile of incredulity on his face. “With you watching?”

  It was harder than she’d thought to keep a straight face. “Yes. It will warm you up and make up for your master and commander act.”

  “I’m not going to dance.”

  “You did push-ups, what’s the difference?”

  “Vast,” he laughed. He shifted about. Restless, but amused not intimidated.

  “You’re not reneging are you?” That thread of fear was now a strand of thrill. Darcy liked that she’d surprised him, rattled him.

  He stopped still, immoveable object still, back in control. “I am.”

  “Wimp.”

  “A man should never be frightened of backing down when he’s in too deep.”

  “I thought you were noble. A noble man would keep his promises. He’d honour a dare.”

  “I’m not noble. That was the punchline to a joke.”

  “Is everything you’ve told me a joke, a lie?”

  His stillness deepened. “No.” Definitively said. Miss Fredrick and her French kiss wasn’t a lie, Spiderman, not being able to read, putting the Rhodes scholar in hospital. None of that had been said for entertainment value. She could see it in his eyes. It was her signal to retreat.

  “Well. I have some interview prep to get on with.”

  That was the smart thing to do, though the loss of the game, the withdrawal from him, gave her a twisted pang of regret. The sudden freedom of telling a stranger intimate things about herself, and not caring what he thought, was an unexpected side effect of Chinese immigration practice. She got up from the table and went for her bag. She didn’t feel like reading, but she couldn’t sit there looking at him.

  “Goddamn. All right. I’ll dance.”

  He was scoping the room; for what, a looking glass to fall through, a rabbit hole to disappear down? There was no meal delivery to divert attention this time. If Smiley came back now with validated visas it would be an offense against fair play.

  His eyes came back to hers. “Give me your scarf.” He had a determined look. Like this was a problem customer order he could fix with basic ingenuity. She unfolded the blue pashmina and held it out to him. Was he going to turn it into a skirt and go hula girl? Whatever he did: dead ant, pole dance, strip, shuffle, crump, she knew she’d be transfixed. She pressed her lips together to stop laughing, but he knew he was the focus of her attention.

  “Yuk it up, Lois.”

  He held the pashmina at a fringe edge and shook it out like a beach towel. He closed that end in his fist and held it out to his side, elbow bent. He took the other end and held it in front of him, waist high. Closed position for a waltz. He was Fred Astaire without a broom to dance with, her pashmina his partner. Darcy’s wariness of him dissolved.

  He was on his toes, not graceful, more like a boxer, ready to cut away. He took a step backwards and hit the edge of the table, and his arms came down, the illusion busted. He was right, this was vastly different to push-ups. He’d had mastery over them. He was out on an entirely different limb here, one where humiliation was an obvious outcome.

  A less determined man, a man who worried what people thought about him, might call the whole thing off.

  He glanced behind him, brow creased, annoyed, then stepped away from the table and lifted his arms again, the shawl draped in front of him between his big hands with their wide knuckles and blunt nails. His eyes were down, he was concentrating. Trying to remember or just trying to get through this.

  He stepped back, sideways, forward and sideways again. A basic box step. He was truth, he was daring. He was dancing with cashmere in a stiflingly dull, over lit, freezing cold room in the depths of Pudong airport.

  She let him complete the box step twice more then started clapping. His head came up. His face was flushed. He made her throat dry. And there was no Mrs Man from Tara.

  Darcy stepped forward, stopped in front of him. He gave her a quizzical look. She ducked under his arms so she was between him and the pashmina. That’s all the hint he needed. He flung the shawl on the couch and took her hand, his other coming around her back. They box stepped awkwardly, their bodies wide apart, their eyes on their feet.

  His hands were so warm; she could feel heat radiating off him. How much warmer would he be if he held her against his chest? He tightened his grip bringing her closer. He might’ve been dyslectic but his mind-reader skills were superb.

  “This okay?” he said.

  She smiled up at him. She trusted the question. It was an open door, not a closed command. His eyes were moving over her face. His lips bowed in a soft smile. He tightened his arm around her back again and she came closer still, though their only contact was her hand in his, his arm along her mid back and hers on his shoulder.

  “This okay?”

  They had eye contact now. A glue fixing them more closely than their hands. She wrapped the hand resting on his shoulder around his neck to show him how okay she was. Her fingertips went to the skin under his collar.

  He started, “Shit you’re cold,” clamping her against his chest. She tucked her head onto his neck and he brought his warm prickly cheek down to hers. This close he smelled like aromatic spices. They’d stopped moving, one of her legs was inside both of his, thighs touching, hip touching. The warmth of him was like a luxurious bath. She wished she wasn’t wearing his jacket; she might feel closer, warmer still.

  5. Seduction

  “Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.” — Confucius

  Someone’s daughter was in his arms. That’s how he should be thinking of her; as a daughter, a sister, not as a woman he was irrationally inspired to seduce. She shouldn’t be in his arms so easily anyway. And this stopped being about stupid dares and the cold five minutes after it started. He wished he could feel more of her, but his bloody jacket was all fabric, pockets and zips between them. He didn’t know this would happen, but now it had, he wanted to manipulate an entirely different outcome.
/>
  The woman in his arms was only popsicle on the outside. She was like a banked brush fire inside. Intelligent, passionate, free. And that was a problem. He wanted her, his fellow detainee with her blonde beauty, and her making the best of the moment philosophy.

  She knew what she was doing when she started the game, when she crafted her questions, when she stepped into his arms, and touched his skin with her ice-hot fingers. She knew what she was doing when she dared him to dance. She was testing his limits and now, snuggling against his chest, both arms around his back, and her face tucked into his neck, she was testing them in a different way.

  She was fucking seducing him.

  “Hey, Lois.”

  She murmured a yes. He felt her warm breath, her lips almost on his skin. If she wanted something between them, she’d have the chance. “I think you owe me a dare.”

  She fanned her hands over his shoulders, the promise of warmth, the play of possession. “I don’t think so.”

  “I bloody know so. You’ve been tormenting me since I got here. You owe me.”

  She shifted, lifted her head to look at him. “You rich entrepreneurs think you can make up the rules as you go along. You self-made successes are the worst. Think you can call all the shots. That’s not how it works.”

  “You don’t think? Isn’t that why you’re a journalist, because you believe the media’s role is to keep the money makers honest? Isn’t that why you want to interview bloody Parker? You think because he doesn’t court attention he must be an evil, sneaky bastard who should be called to account, and humbled by the stink of your newsprint.”

  She frowned, her lips compressing, and he immediately regretted flicking a whip at the tiger cub in her. She wasn’t going to kiss him if he alienated her.

  And if he played it right she would kiss him.

  Maybe.

  Shit, he was no good at this. The last time he’d genuinely seduced a woman with just his words and body was nineteen years ago. And Miss Fredrick was a foregone conclusion from the minute she offered him after-school coaching, as pretty much every woman he’d spent time with since had been. If, at first, because he was their bad boy fantasy, later it was all about the money.