Going Under

by Jeffe Kennedy

  Not Fox’s area of expertise, but he’d find out.

  And, oh look—Phoenix had just passed through the Labyrinth forum, leaving a blazing trail of withering remarks in his path. Fox reviewed the threads, though this wouldn’t be the juicy stuff. Some gamer tried to call out the last module as lame and Phoenix had waded through the thread, laying waste to dissenters with incisive arguments. Fox found himself chuckling out loud at some of the insults—a few so veiled the recipients wouldn’t know they were fatally wounded for hours.

  That was the rub, really. Fox had been chasing Phoenix for years, not only because unmasking him would be the reveal of the century, particularly those the guy regularly annoyed with both his caustic attitude and gaming genius, but because the guy fascinated him. Fox had first run across Labyrinth a little over two years ago. The game had rocketed to the top in popularity, not least because of the mystery surrounding the designer. Jacker milked the hype for all it was worth, implying that anyone from an AI to aliens had created the thing.

  Phoenix himself played the tease well, which became clear as soon as Fox checked out the fan forums. The guy oozed brilliance, and Fox liked to think they’d see eye to eye on a lot of stuff. Not that they’d be having a friendly beer once he’d blown Phoenix’s true identity.

  Unless the guy appreciated that it had all been about the game. Which was possible. Hell, Phoenix had practically set up the scavenger hunt and thrown out the dare. Find me if you can.

  No one had.

  Well, Fox could and he would. He could taste it.

  He logged out and logged back in with the new alternate identity that let him into the private chat rooms. No sign of Phoenix—at least under that ID—but Fox could wait.

  He was very good at anticipation.

  * * *

  Em would have run home, except that the stupid boots she’d worn had the wrong heel for it. What the hell had she been thinking, dressing up for him and playing that flirtatious game? As usual, she’d come away feeling like she’d bungled it. Loser.

  Her face burned still, the cold rain chill against her skin, stinging little pelts that hinted of ice. Her slick sole skidded and she slowed her furious pace. Her body throbbed with arousal—in an unreal way. The lacy bra scratched her nipples, her breasts ached and her jeans, totally drenched, rubbed against her swollen clit as she walked. Even her heart pounded still, the blood thudding through her nerves, everything alight.

  As if Fox had set her on fire with a few kisses and some heavy petting.

  Inside, she churned. Humiliation? Maybe. Anger, yes, but no idea why. Oddly, she felt like she wanted to cry, as if some forlorn part of her had been carelessly injured and she’d just now noticed the blood.

  None of it made any sense.

  Even more bizarre, she had this impulse to call her mother, who she rarely spoke to, telling her that telephone calls from Indonesia cost too much and why bother when they could chat on the internet? It wasn’t as if her perfectly cool and correct mother would have any advice, even if Emily could think how to frame the question. If she even had a question.

  Hi, Mom—I went on a date with this guy, only it wasn’t supposed to be a date, because he said it would be just fucking. But then it wasn’t only that and then I had the best orgasm of my entire life, while he held off, and then he asked me if I was okay and I turned into a neurotic puddle.

  Not the sort of letter you saw in Dear Abby.

  She could maybe talk to Glory, but they’d never confided in each other that way. Em really detested women who only called up their friends when they had shit to spill anyway. Besides, it wouldn’t be fair to tell Glory about how much Fox had turned her on and how she’d bolted like the frightened virgin she hadn’t been since she was an adolescent.

  Was that it—fear?

  But of what, was the question.

  With a sigh of relief, she let herself in the front door of her quiet home, her retreat, and sat on the bench to take off her boots. It seemed as if she’d been living in some kind of cocoon, working and interacting with people only virtually. She’d been, if not exactly happy, at least peaceful and content. Somehow the episode—she liked that term for it, nice and clinical-sounding—with Fox had upset that peace. With his knowing grin, intrusively sexual vibe and mind-shattering skills, he’d simply been too much for her.

  Like an overloaded circuit, she’d blown. That was all it was.

  Satisfied with that explanation and feeling better about it all, she hung up her jacket—not thinking about the Kapsucks’ hall closet. Jesus she’d never be able to go to another summer barbeque there again—and headed to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.

  And stepped on dog vomit.

  She’d been gone barely two hours and Anansi had managed to not only unsnap and upend the kitchen garbage, but chew up most of it and then puke it up again. The dog himself lay flat on the floor, looking repentant, miserable...and like he’d be sick again at any moment. That odd rage flared up again and, rather than risk being unreasonably mean to him, she booted Anansi outside, turned her back on the kitchen and went to her computer.

  She would deal with the mess later.

  Once she felt calmer.

  Saturday night and the forums foamed with all the sexual repression of the home-alone gamer geek world. Not that she cast aspersions—they obviously were her tribe. Her mistake had been forgetting that for any length of time. Dates with overwhelmingly sexy men were not part of her world. Some of her favorite Neanderthals had been stinking up the place, so she let loose some of her savage frustration on their stupid complaints.

  She never directly addressed the blatantly misogynistic shit, for fear of outing herself. Phoenix had a rep among the female gamers as fair-minded and one of the few programmers who built more into “his” female characters than the Fighting Fuck Toy trope. Some of the guys played as her women, too, which she took as a compliment. As much as she itched to, however, she resisted picking up the torch against the trolls who bashed anything they perceived as impinging on their white male gamer privilege.

  And she’d never tried anything as bold as Amazonia again. Not just for fear of tripping the legal system.

  She’d tried fighting them head-on before and look what happened.

  Instead, she worked on multiple levels within the communities. After Phoenix visited his righteous fury on the biggest lunkheads, she logged out and came back as one of her several avatars, both male and female. As those people, she lent support to the various women leading movements to make gaming more welcoming to everyone. Several of them had appealed to Phoenix to weigh in on their causes. Being the general asshole he could be, he’d turned them down, succinctly and without apology.

  They never knew she circled around and did what she could, shoring them up here, defending them from attack there. Checking in on her favorite Kickstarter, led by a very smart gal who’d withstood a firestorm of shit for her project to evaluate the female tropes in video games, Em reviewed the latest reports and made some notes for the new module.

  She’d always work the counter-culture angle where she could.

  More settled and clear-headed now—and kind of regretting procrastinating on the kitchen mess, but oh well—she switched to an identity known only to a few trusted friends and checked out her favorite private chat rooms.

  As soon as she entered one, BikerBoi flagged her down for a one-on-one. Well, he flagged Phoenix, knowing her current face was one of Phoenix’s covers.

  BikerBoi: Dude. Word to the wise. Heard a reporter is after U.

  X: They always are

  BikerBoi: This one got to Moondog

  X: Fuck ’em both

  BikerBoi: No lie. Word is he’s been asking about access to this room

  X: Then we burn it down.

  BikerBoi: Roger that. Will ping with new de
ets.

  X: Thx

  With amusement, she watched the interface shrivel at the edges and burst into flame graphics, reminiscent of Phoenix’s logo. BikerBoi had a flare for the dramatic and had clearly planned to burn the room as soon as he got Phoenix’s okay. Words in crimson font, dripping drops of blood, appeared on the screen.

  PIGS GO HOME

  She shook her head. Brilliant with graphics but, with English as at least his second language, the slang sometimes escaped him. What did one call a journalist anyway when you wanted to piss them off?

  So much for procrastinating that way. Resigned, she went to let the prodigal dog in, clean up the god-awful mess and maybe work a few hours on the new module. At least she could justify the evening with Fox that way—she felt full of energy to create. Leave a little something for her team to chew on when they showed up for work in the morning, as some of them undoubtedly would, even on a Sunday, logging in from home.

  One thing about the night’s debacle—she had an idea.

  Chapter Eleven

  Fox woke up with a wicked hangover and a bad taste in his mouth. Not only from hitting the bottle of Jameson after he polished off the wine, either.

  After he’d made it into the private chat room, he’d barely nosed around before they burned it. Pissed him off no end. He hadn’t even said anything, but they’d seen him coming and had been tipped off, obviously. Phoenix never had returned to any of the forums, at least not as himself.

  Calling the whole night a complete and utter loss, Fox proceeded to finish the whiskey, which at least suppressed the urge to jack off again, this time to the fresh fantasy of paddling Emily’s ass while she wept and wriggled, with her dressed only in those fancy black boots with the suggestive gold chains.

  Not thinking about her, Sparky, remember?

  Nevertheless, when he decided to work out the toxins in his system with a run on the beach, he found his feet turning in the direction of her house. So what? Public beach and all. Maybe she’d be up and he’d say hi or something. Her house, however, looked dark. No welcoming lights. He couldn’t see if Anansi lurked in the garden behind the trees without going up the boardwalk a ways. Which Emily would not appreciate.

  Perversely, he really wanted to, just to tweak her out-of-joint nose a little.

  Okay, he was still pretty pissed.

  And hot as hell for her.

  Besides, who was he kidding? She wouldn’t be coming over that night or any night the way they’d left things. Not as if he could blow it any worse with her than he already had. So, he did what he always did when in doubt, he followed his instinct and went up the boardwalk. If nothing else, he’d please himself. God knows there was no pleasing her.

  The garden stood empty, the gate closed. He’d thought she normally awoke early and went running, but it looked like she might be sleeping still.

  Or not there.

  With a strange pang, he entertained the possibility that she’d been so determined to ditch him that she’d packed up and left. No, she wouldn’t do that, if only because she wouldn’t want to expose herself that way.

  She was in there all right.

  He went up the steps to the deck and knocked on the glass door, with sharp, loud raps. That would wake her up.

  Sure enough Anansi came clicking across the floor, tongue lolling in doggie delight, which he then swiped across the glass—as he’d done many times before, judging by the smears.

  “Hey, buddy,” Fox said, tempted to try the door handle. Restrained himself. A hundred to one she had it locked and bolted anyway. Anansi woofed and glanced over his shoulder.

  Emily appeared in a bathrobe that had seen better days, her hair falling around her in a glorious dark tumble, her face soft with sleep. She blinked at him and irritation crept through, burning the drowsiness away. He was so damn gone over her that he wanted to laugh at the sight. Instead he grinned and waved.

  She flipped him off and turned away. He rapped on the glass again.

  With a seriously mean look, she spun around and strode to the door, unlocking the handle and at least two internal bolts. Point for him. She yanked it open, Anansi pushing past her to charge down the steps, tail high, and stepped through, closing it behind her. She was barefoot and her toenails were painted bubblegum pink, a detail that bemused him.

  “What?” she snapped, folding her arms.

  “Good morning to you too.”

  “Fuck off, Fox. I told you to leave me alone.”

  “I’m out for a run. It’s supposed to pour later, so this might be the best window of opportunity.”

  “Thanks for the update. Shall I alert the media?”

  She looked gorgeous, both disheveled and pissed. Was she wearing anything under the robe? He bet not. “Let me guess—you’re one of those people who stay mean until they’ve had their morning coffee.”

  “And you’re Mr. Bright Eyed and Bushy Tailed.”

  He wished. “Actually, I have a serious hangover. Drank too much whiskey after you bailed on me last night.”

  “I’m not talking about that.”

  “You don’t have to. I am. Anyway, I’m hoping the run will burn off some of the haze.”

  “Not interested.”

  “I didn’t ask. I thought Anansi might want to go with me.” He nearly laughed at the look on her face, the beat of misstep.

  “You want a play date with my dog?” Her voice had lost some of its edge and she looked past him to where Anansi sniffed around and renewed pee markings. Something about her expression seemed forlorn. Not nearly as tough as she liked to make out.

  “No, Miss Emily.” He waited until she looked back at him, her gray eyes the same color as the fog. “I want to play with you.”

  He filled the words with all desire he’d built up, picturing her in the various scenarios he’d imagined even though he wasn’t supposed to be thinking about her. She flushed a little, the color pinking her cheekbones, and she looked down, a thrillingly submissive gesture that he felt sure she didn’t intend. But he saved the image to add to one of the fantasies.

  God knew that might be all he’d get out of her.

  “If I wasn’t under suspension from the game,” he added, “I’d say how about you come running with me and I’ll take you out for coffee and Sunday breakfast after.”

  She looked up at that, narrowing her eyes and unwinding one of her defensively folded arms to point at him. “That would be against the rules, regardless of all else, as it would be a date.”

  “Oh, come on—what do you call last night?”

  “A disaster.” Clearly pleased with herself for scoring the point, she unfolded more, pushing her hair over her shoulders.

  “Though it was pretty awesome for a while there,” he said with a smile she had to fight herself not to return. “I’ve been thinking,” he continued, a lie, but he needed to get through to her somehow before she thought up a way to shut him down again, “that maybe our basic premise sabotaged the evening.”

  She tilted her head a little. Waited, curling her toes against the damp deck. Probably feeling chilly, which meant he didn’t have much more time.

  “See, we set it up to be just fucking. That part worked great—”

  “Even though we never got to that part.”

  “True enough, but I think it’s good we didn’t or maybe you wouldn’t be speaking to me at all this morning.”

  “I don’t want to be speaking to you, in point of fact, but I can’t have you standing on my deck all day, banging on the glass and scaring Dinah.”

  “Dinah?”

  “My cat. Currently hiding under the bed.”

  “Alice’s cat in Alice in Wonderland.”

  She yawned, deliberately. “Is this conversation going anywhere? Since you rudely awakened me, I wan
t my coffee now.”

  “You could invite me in and we could talk over that coffee—sounds wonderful.”

  “No. Finish your point and go away.”

  At least she wanted to hear it. Or would, anyway. He took a breath and wished he could risk touching her. This would be easier to say that way. “I think you ran because you don’t really know me yet. After that amazing orgasm in the closet, you felt exposed and vulnerable, especially when I dragged you into the light, and you realized that you’d opened yourself to a stranger. It scared you and you shut down.”

  She rolled her eyes, miming contempt for the psychobabble, but drew the tangled mess of her hair over her shoulder and twisted it into a rope that she worked with her fingers.

  “So, I think we should try being friends,” he threw out there, winging his way through this. “Starting with breakfast.”

  Giving him an owlish stare, she snorted. “You just want to be friends now.”

  “No,” he contradicted her with a cheerful smile. “I still want to have you sexually in every way imaginable, but I think we should be friends first.”

  “And I still don’t want to have the emotional-baggage conversations. I’m very uncomfortable having this one.”

  But she’d stayed it through and she hadn’t said no to the new plan.

  “You don’t have to—the point is for you to get to know me. To trust me.”

  “I can think of about ninety-seven smart remarks to make to that one.”

  “And yet you didn’t say any of them. How kind of you.”

  She made that snorting sound again, but actually smiled. “You’d be a fool to think I’m kind. I’m really not a nice person, Fox. I know that much about myself.”

  Ooh, a clue. That had been truth, right there. Definitely progress. “I don’t need kindness, Miss Emily. I have a yen for cruel lovers too.”