“Do you have a problem with nudity?” Suzume asked, her voice coming just beside my left ear. A shiver made its way down my spine, but I kept me eyes shut until the car started up and I heard it pull out into the street.
“No, no problem at all.” I said. “That’s the problem.”
Suzume laughed again, a warm, throaty chuckle that rubbed across my skin like fur.
I dropped my hand and glared at her. “Are you doing something?”
There was nothing innocent about her smile. “What would I be doing?” She stepped closer to me, and now we were nearly touching. She radiated heat. This close, she had to tilt her head up to look at me. I could feel sweat start to trickle down my spine. Her hair looked incredibly soft, and her full lower lip looked slightly moist. Everything about her said that she wanted a kiss.
I stepped back quickly, and the moment broke. “Fox tricks.”
“Maybe a little.” One step and she’d again bridged the distance between us, this time so close that her breasts just brushed against my chest, and I could feel the temperature rising again. “But aren’t you enjoying it?” Her eyes were as dark and velvety as the night sky, dancing with amusement.
“No, so cut it out,” I said, shoving her duffel into her hands and heading toward the building. I could hear her following me, and her eyes were practically boring holes in my back, but I refused to look back at her as I went inside. I was the master of my own body, I told myself. Then I told it to myself again, hoping that this time my body would actually listen. I also reminded myself that I had a girlfriend (admittedly one who had been cheating on me for the better part of two months), and that it would be wrong to let another woman toy with me. Fidelity required that I reserve the right to toy with me to Beth. Though it was somewhat disturbing that Suzume seemed able to accomplish with a single look what Beth only managed with knee-weakening kisses and a conversational style that skewed toward monologues.
My body didn’t find that a very convincing argument, but I did manage to return to a presentable state as we marched silently up two flights of stairs and into the apartment.
Thankfully the door to Larry’s room was closed and for once there were no sounds indicating the presence of company. Suzume roamed around, opening every cabinet, surveying my DVD collection, testing out each of the drums still clustered around my sofa, even riffling through the pile of junk mail that was on what ostensibly my eat-in kitchen table, and really just served as a catchall for stuff. Everything seemed interesting to her, but when she lifted up the trash lid to look inside, I smacked it shut.
“Does a bodyguard really need to know what I’ve thrown out lately?”
She looked surprised. “Of course not.”
“Then why are you looking?”
“Because I’m nosy.”
I stared at her, and she gave me that bright smile again that flashed very white teeth. “Bathroom that way?”
I nodded. She scooted in, and a minute later I could hear her riffling through the medicine cabinet, then each of the drawers in the sink. Resigning myself to her search, I pulled a bag of peas out of the freezer and pressed it against my ribs. With the adrenaline from my mugging and the sight of female nakedness faded, all of my aching spots from the night’s misadventures were making themselves known. With Suzume out of sight, but not out of mind, since from the sound of it she had now moved on to ransacking my bedroom, I took the opportunity to stuff a bag of frozen corn down the back of my pants. My ass was strongly protesting where I’d hit it on the sidewalk, and I sighed in relief as the cold started numbing it.
“Feeling better?” Suzume’s voice was right in my ear. I jumped about a foot, losing my grip on the corn, which dropped completely into my loosened pants. I struggled, much to Suzume’s bright-eyed interest, to retrieve it without resorting to shoving a hand down there, but all I did was get it farther wedged down toward areas that really didn’t need icing.
“Need a hand?” she asked.
“No, everything’s fine. Go back to cataloging all my stuff.” I managed to shift the bag into one of my pants legs, and now I could start shaking it out.
“This is more interesting than checking to see if your milk has passed its expiration date. FYI, it has.”
The corn was wedged behind one of my knees now, and I had the choice of dropping my pants completely or snaking a hand up from below. By now the condensation on the bag was moistening my pants.
I looked at Suzume. She looked back at me.
“Can I have a little privacy?” I asked.
She considered that for a moment, then shook her head. “No, this is fun. I want to see what you do next.”
I headed for the bathroom and shut the door in her face, flipping the old-fashioned lock on the doorknob. The mirror showed that I’d ended the night pretty worse for the wear. I was dirty, the collar of my shirt had been half ripped off and now hung drunkenly down my back, and my pants were more than ready for another round of OxiClean. I felt embarrassed for just long enough to remember that I wasn’t trying to impress Suzume, and that from the rattling of the doorknob I had pretty limited time to retain a modicum of dignity. The lock held her off just long enough for me to free the corn and have my pants halfway zipped.
“Usually locks indicate that people want to be left alone,” I told her.
“Usually do,” she agreed. “But since I’ve been employed to guard you, normal social protocols don’t apply.”
“How long is this guarding going to last?”
“Until Madeline calls me off or her money runs out. Given how loaded she is, you should probably hope that the first happens.” Suzume started yanking at the bottom of my shirt. Surprised, I smacked her hand. She smacked back, and hard enough that I gave up and let her get the shirt off. We both stared down at my torso. Normally I think I’d be more impressed at the bruises along my sides, but at the moment I was wishing that I’d spent more time at the gym.
“They got some good ones in, considering that they were only wearing sneakers,” Suzume said. She poked one of the more impressive marks and frowned when I yelped. “I thought vampires were tougher than this.”
“I haven’t transitioned yet,” I snapped, really irritated, and stormed out and into my bedroom. This had definitely been a night of people pointing out my frailties. My dramatic exit was completely ruined when Suzume simply followed me in.
While I pulled a clean undershirt out of my hamper, Suzume tossed herself onto the bed and rolled around a little. She pawed the navy blue sheets, then hung her head over the side and stuck an arm under my bed, emerging with a pair of Beth’s underpants.
“Huh,” she said, holding them out and studying them with an air of scientific inquiry. “Boy shorts, Hello Kitty design, size small.”
I longed for death in that moment. When she leaned forward, sniffing, I gave up all pretence and lunged for her, grabbing for the underpants. There was some rolling and another brief smack exchange. I ended up stretched out with her straddling me, holding the underpants above my head as I panted. There was a definite undertone of neener, neener to her expression.
“Now, important question time,” she said. “Ex?”
“Current,” I grumbled.
Suzume’s dark, perfectly arched eyebrows climbed up her forehead. “Long-distance?”
“No.”
“Is she traveling?”
“No.”
Suzume leaned down so that we were nose-to-nose, and became very solemn. “It’s dead, Jim. Time to make it official and break up.”
“Thank you, Dr. McCoy,” I said sarcastically.
Her face lit up again with that smile. “This is more like it, Fort. If we’re going to be spending time together, it’s very important that you be fun.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now can you please get off me? This is not helping my bruises.”
In an instant, Suzume’s whole attitude changed. She crouched down closer, with slinking movements. While a moment ago it hadn’t
seemed to matter, now I was extremely aware of where we were, and how close we were. Suzume slid her hands slowly up my arms to wrap around my wrists. Her thumbs stroked against my pulse points in a way that set my whole body on fire. I was breathing hard, but it wasn’t from exertion anymore.
Suzume dropped down farther, and I could feel the heat of her body stretched above me, a feather’s distance from touching. There was nothing playful in her face now, just rawly sensual. The tip of her tongue ran over her bottom lip, and my mouth went dry.
“I bet I could get your mind off your bruises,” she murmured in my ear, each breath a teasing puff of air that sent a shiver down my spine.
I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to three, then opened them again. No, this wasn’t a hallucination.
“Are you planning on actually following through on this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice as steady and casually inquisitive as possible.
That now very familiar smile stretched across her face again.
“Nope.”
“You’re just toying with me again?”
“Yep.”
“Fine. New house rule: no fox tricks.”
She laughed in my ear, low, throaty, and with all sorts of promises. “That’s the best part, Fort,” she crooned. “I’m not even having to use them on you.”
Well, shit.
* * *
I woke up the next morning feeling every bump and scrape from my misadventure with the Providence nightlife, plus a few extra bodily protests as a result of sleeping on my futon, which had the distinction of being the cheapest that IKEA could offer. Suzume had gotten the bed. This hadn’t been from any chivalrous offer on my part—she had claimed it with the same subtlety she had shown in every other aspect of her behavior as a houseguest—namely, none. When I’d put up a protest at being kicked out of my bed, pointing out that as my bodyguard she really ought to be putting herself between me and any threat that might come through the front door, she had conceded my point and then offered to share the bed. Then she’d started stripping down, at which point I had made a tactical retreat to the futon.
As I staggered to the bathroom to dry-swallow some desperately needed painkillers, Suzume bounced out of my room. She was already dressed in the same black boots and tight pants as yesterday, but now topped off with a loosely fit lime green T-shirt that hit her around midthigh. The sight of her had me shaking an extra Tylenol out into my palm. I had a feeling I’d need it soon.
“Your alarm went off about five minutes ago,” she said, sitting on the edge of the tub.
“Did you consider waking me up?” I asked. I’d assumed that I’d gotten up early. Now I was going to have to hurry.
“You’re up now anyway.” She shrugged. “Didn’t seem important.” She kicked her feet lazily. “Are we doing anything fun today?”
I was starting to see why her ancestor had left Japan. If she was anything like Suzume, she’d probably been encouraged to leave with torches and pitchforks.
“We’re not doing anything, Suzume. I’m going to work.”
“As your bodyguard, I go everywhere that you go. Even the shittiest and most boring places. I hope you understand the sacrifice I’m making for you. You can make me an omelet to make up for it.”
I stared at her. “You expect me to cook for you?”
“Aren’t I your guest? I know that Americans have different standards of hospitality than the Japanese, but I was raised with the understanding that a host was supposed to prepare meals for his guests.”
“You aren’t my guest!” I yelled. “My mother hired you to protect me! Which so far you’ve been shitty at!”
She stared at me for a long moment. I’d startled myself with my volume, and as I looked at her, with that beautiful face and eyes like a kicked puppy, I immediately regretted it.
“So…no breakfast?” she asked.
I closed my eyes, told myself I was an idiot, and looked at her again. “I’ll get something for you on the way to work.”
Like a flipped switch, she was gleeful and excited again. “Excellent. You don’t have eggs anyway.” She sashayed out of the bathroom while I stared after her. Then her head popped back in through the open doorway. “You’ll need to hit the grocery store today. It wasn’t polite to mention last night, but you really are not prepared to entertain.”
Then she was gone again. I closed my eyes and banged my head against the mirror.
Twenty-five minutes and two breakfast sandwiches later, we were finally on the bus to work. Naturally this was when she decided to interrogate me about Beth, much to the delight of two elderly women, who turned up their hearing aids and listened raptly as Suzume browbeat me into discussing highly personal relationship details and then insisted on analyzing them.
“No, I’m really sure that if you’re going to have an open relationship, it has to be preagreed upon by both parties beforehand. Otherwise that’s just postsanctioned cheating, which is still cheating.” Suzume was sprawled across three bus seats. One of her booted feet tapped against my leg, and the other one hung down to sway back and forth with the motion of the bus. Since I’ve gotten evil looks for just resting a bag of groceries on adjacent bus seats, it was really frustrating to see everyone just give Suzume indulgent smiles, even though there were actually a few guys in business suits standing for lack of open spaces.
“If you’re this curious about her reasoning, why don’t you just ask Beth?” I said, trying to withdraw farther into my own seat.
“Already did,” Suzume said. “I find her line of reasoning to be extremely defensive and ex post facto.” She gave me a sly smile. “That last part means ‘ass-covering.’ Which she didn’t seem to appreciate me pointing out, by the way.”
“What? How? How did you ask her?” I sputtered. Across from us, a trio of adolescent boys in soccer uniforms leaned closer, fascinated.
“Facebook. Your settings don’t log out when you close your browser.”
“My computer is password-protected!”
“Which might have slowed me down if you didn’t keep your passwords listed on an index card in your desk drawer.”
Horror filled me. “You have my passwords?” I asked.
“Don’t worry, I changed all of them for you.”
Nothing was coming out of my mouth except strangled moans. Two seats down from me, a tall woman who looked like Pam Grier circa Foxy Brown, albeit in a linen business suit, leaned forward and said, “Boy, you are screwed.” There was a general round of head nodding.
“I don’t need help figuring that out,” I snapped.
“Don’t be snide, young man,” one of the elderly woman scolded. “If you were foolish enough to keep dating that awful girl after she slept with Larry, then there’s no knowing what you’re foolish enough to think.” A murmuring of agreement rose around the bus.
“Do you see what you’ve done?” I asked Suzume.
“Yes,” she said, complete delight filling her face. “I’ve solicited audience participation. Now”—she turned to address a pigtailed girl in a Dora the Explorer T-shirt who was traveling with her mother—“what do you think Fort should do about Beth?”
The rest of the bus ride was a new experience in humiliation.
“You have to start talking to me again eventually,” Suzume told me as we walked into Busy Beans. I glared at her and pulled on my apron.
“I think you got a lot of really useful advice,” she continued. “What I can’t understand is why Beth hasn’t called you yet. She had a lot of strong feelings when I was messaging her last night.” Correctly interpreting my look of horror, she said, “Oh, I was using your account, but she knew it wasn’t you. Just the really hot chick sleeping in your room who had a certain interest in determining the rules and boundaries of your open relationship.”
I pressed my hands to my face. “My cell phone broke last night when I fell on it.”
“Oh.” Suzume considered for a moment. “You should replace it. She’s probably left a few voic
e mails for you by now.”
“What god did I offend badly enough that you were sent into my life?” I asked her. I wasn’t kidding.
She leaned forward and pecked a playful kiss on my cheek. “Didn’t I tell you that this was going to be fun?”
It was hard to fall into my usual routine. Jeanine was fuming because Tamara had texted her resignation fifteen minutes into the start of her shift, and was now doing a very poor job at manning the register. Suzume was keeping herself entertained by seeing how many sad hipsters she could con into buying her a scone. Apparently she was also adding a challenge to this by not eating any of her loot—just leaving it displayed prominently on her table. Thirty minutes into my shift, she already had five piled up and was hard at work dazzling a poor specimen in a Green Lantern T-shirt into providing number six.
It wasn’t until the eleven a.m. early lunch crowd from the retirement community two blocks over arrived in a wave of canes, walkers, and polyester that I realized that I hadn’t put out the day’s papers. Jeanine’s hissed invective filled my ears as I ran back to the service door where they were piled every morning. We stock four different publications, but only about fifteen copies of each, so I was able to grab the whole stack and haul it in. There’s a shelf built beside the main counter, and I glanced at the headlines as I put each pile in its place. The New York Times was all Middle East politics, the Wall Street Journal was raving about a dot.com company going public, the Boston Globe was apparently shocked that yet another giant construction contract had apparently been bid out in a shady and potentially illegal manner, and the Providence Journal-Observer—
Normally the local city paper led with either kittens rescued from trees or whatever shenanigans the mayor had gotten up to this time. Today, though, the front page was devoted to a police sketch of a young girl who I immediately recognized.
It was Maria. The moment stretched, everything else fading away except the sight of the sketch in the paper, that face looking up at me. For a second I felt her wrist in my hand again, felt myself loosen my fingers and let her go.
Generation V Page 9