Off the Edge (The Associates)

by Crane, Carolyn

  She put on some lipstick and paused. The hopeful, happy feeling scared her a little. She’d sometimes felt like, getting out of Stoley, she’d tried to take too much—like a jack-in-the-box popped up too high, and she’d spent the following years getting violently stuffed back down by Rolly. And now, this feeling of hope made her feel dangerously popped up. Like maybe it was safer to stay inside her little box. Like hope and happiness were for other people.

  She shoved the cap back on her lipstick. It was just the night market. And it was her birthday, dammit.

  And she wanted to touch him again. Because he was beautiful and magnetic.

  She locked her door and headed out the side way. The Shinsurins would frown on an excursion like this. Let them assume she’d gone to bed.

  She dated now and then, mostly emo travellers, like the German boy who wanted to look at the stars. Or Darrin, the American singer, all sweetness and pop hooks. Like her they’d been in their late twenties, but she thought of them as boys because they were pretty and sweet, and the opposite of Rolly. Even Rolly’s face was hard, with sharp cheekbones, as if his hate was trying to bust out of his brain.

  In both cases, the boys had up and left town after a few dates. It was probably for the best—any guy she was running with would be in big trouble if one of Rolly’s thugs showed up. But they were both so lovely and she’d enjoyed having sex with them, even if she didn’t ever orgasm during sex. Rolly had always said it showed she was frigid. Well, with Rolly it wasn’t so much a frigidity problem as a being-married-to-a-frightening-and-narcissistic-psychopath problem.

  She was a shy orgasmer, that’s all, and she had great orgasms on her own. And as she got time and distance away from Rolly, the idea of sex was way more exciting. These days she was a very sexual person—at least in her mind. She was even a little kinky…in her mind. Or did that not count? Was being a little bit kinky in your mind like being a good gymnast in your mind?

  She slipped down the stairwell and out the side into the hot, moist, diesel-flavored night, heading down the walk and around the corner to Tamroung Road where four lanes of traffic buzzed up and down like crazy, even at this time of night.

  Across the way, a shop girl swept the neon-lit entrance of the 24-hour donut shop, but most of the other shops up and down the street were gated now. Shabby apartments and office buildings soared up into the sky, topped by colorful, constantly changing signs. You saw a lot of this mix of color and concrete grubbiness in Bangkok. Decrepitude and wealth at vivid angles with each other, like shards from different mirrors.

  Then she caught sight of him and a smile spread across her face all on its own.

  Hopeful.

  Stupid.

  On she went. He stood to the side of the entrance, talking with a tuk-tuk driver. This man, taking her to see a dragon. She pressed her fingers against the outside of her shoulder bag, locating the handle of her gun. Let one of Rolly’s guys show up. She’d protect the both of them. The stupid hope was making her feel brave.

  He and the driver were speaking in Thai, she thought at first, until she drew near and realized it was English. Or had they switched to English?

  He looked so handsome and tropical in his linen suit, like a character out of a Maugham novel, and he glanced down at her legs with a shadow of a smile that made her belly flip flop. Did he like the sheer socks? Or maybe he thought they were funny like Rajini did.

  He looked up at her and her heart sped. He watched her approach with a glimmer of a smile that was like a cord to her belly, pulling her, enchanting her. He extended his hand as she neared.

  She took it. Shivers played up and down her arm as he closed his fingers around hers.

  “You went the scenic route,” he observed.

  “Everybody’s always in your business when you live at a hotel. And here I am meeting some guy whose name I don’t even know.”

  He helped her in and let her have her hand back, settling at her side as the driver took off.

  “Maxwell,” he said.

  “Is that your first or last name?”

  “Last, but it works for both. It’s what people call me.”

  “Well, isn’t that handy.” She sat back, enjoying his easy presence. “Business or pleasure, Maxwell?” She asked it half ironically, because it’s what farangs always asked each other in Bangkok.

  His gaze was full of humor, as though he got exactly how she meant it. Business or pleasure. A thrill shot through her.

  Business, as it turned out. He was teaching linguistics at the University. Not a professor, just an adjunct, there for the quarter. A subject matter expert, he called himself. The way he said it, she got that it was a buzzword, and that he didn’t quite like it.

  “Subject matter expert,” she said, rolling it around for herself.

  “S. M. E. for short.”

  “But never a smee, I hope.”

  He gave her a sly look. Lordy, his charm could light a burnt-out bulb. “Smee? Don’t even utter it. That’s how words like that start.”

  She smiled innocently, thinking she might have to call him a smee later on. She was having fun already.

  They sped down bright streets full of colorful signs and lights under thick, black power lines strung back and forth like ropy garlands for a strange kind of holiday, or the webs of power line spiders trying to trap the whole damn city.

  She rambled on about her life at the hotel, carefully avoiding the whole being-on-the-run business, as they drew near the chaotic night bazaar. He had the driver stop at the west end and they got out.

  “I thought your supposed dragon was on the east end,” she said, pulling out her money.

  “It is.” He pushed her hand away and paid the man. “We’ve got a stop first.”

  She frowned. A man paying for things and making decisions for her was a little too Rolly-ish. “You’ve decided to change our plan? Just like that?”

  He smiled. “I’m going to spend the thousand bhat I’m about to win from you before I win it.”

  She snorted as they began to walk. “So sure you’ll win?”

  “I am,” he said.

  “Total surrender—that was our agreement.” She felt her face heat as she said it.

  And when he glanced at her again, she knew he’d caught it, like they were connected. Two travelers on the moon.

  And then he said, “That’s what I’m expecting.”

  “Hmph,” she said, trying to cover a rush of excitement. Again she imagined the way his hair would look during sex, no longer combed neatly back, but hanging down in his eyes, and him all sweaty, and their bodies mashing wildly. She resisted the urge to kiss him, just out of the blue. She hadn’t been impulsive like this since before Rolly. It was something about this guy. She could do it—she was close to doing it.

  “Ready?” he said.

  “Yes,” she replied.

  He looked at her for an extra beat, and then he touched her elbow and they headed between rows of colorful stalls stuffed top-to-bottom with purses, puppets, electronics, jewels, and every other kind of merchandise known to humankind, all lit by slender fluorescent bulbs affixed to the undersides of colorful canopies. They wove through the crowds, past hawkers and shoppers and zombie-like tourists stuck in other time zones.

  She kept an eye out for Harken. Rajini had been so sure it wasn’t him, but Laney couldn’t shake the residue of that scare. Looming danger. Eyes watching.

  Deeper and deeper they went. Finally Maxwell stopped in front of a book stall, tables topped with boxes of colorful paperbacks, an oasis of calm in the bustle.

  He had chosen books. She loved that. Just being in his airspace made her happy. He was hot, he made her feel happy, and he liked books.

  She studied the side of his face as he ran his finger down the colorful spines of the mostly mysteries and thrillers. She liked the way his smooth cheek swept up to his cheekbone under glasses that were neither square nor round. She liked his strong, straight, simple nose, and the way his linen suit
tightened over his arm when he moved his hand to a different box. She had half a mind to touch him, to make sure he was actually real.

  Maxwell spoke in a low voice. “He keeps the hard stuff in back.”

  Hard stuff? She stilled. Was he talking about porn?

  He turned to her then, all secrets and danger.

  Of course. What else would a vendor hide from public view? Her heart sank. “Oh.”

  Maxwell watched her eyes, like he found her disappointment amusing. He whispered, “I think you’ll enjoy it.”

  It must be especially shocking, considering they were in the middle of one of the red light districts where you could buy an hour with a girl as easily as a pair of sunglasses. Bringing her out to see a man’s stash of dirty magazines or something? Creepy. Probably there wasn’t even a dragon.

  “The books are a bit dirty,” he said, then he leaned over and spoke in Thai to the man behind the table. Requesting the box in back.

  What a fool she’d been.

  She looked around, strategizing her exit, feeling more upset than she likely should.

  “But if you keep an open mind…”

  “No thanks,” she bit out. His obvious amusement pissed her off more than this wasted night. “I come with you. Like a dope, I trust you have something fine to show me…” The man was coming up with a heavy-looking box. She averted her eyes as he heaved it up and onto another box.

  “I thought you’d be into it.” Maxwell seemed to glow with pleasure. A real pervert.

  “Seriously?” She motioned at the box the man had set down, looking over at it, finally. It was full of…old hardbacks. Clothbound editions with gold lettering. Classics. Poetry.

  A hush came over her as she moved to the box. English language classics. You couldn’t get these in Bangkok.

  “Forgive me,” Maxwell said. “I thought you were a certain kind of woman, but it seems I was wrong.”

  She felt her mouth fall open. She didn’t bother to close it.

  “I’ll have him get them out of your sight.” He moved to wave to the man and she caught his wrist and electricity flowed between them, and she wanted to laugh and yank him to her and push him and kiss him all at once. She turned back. “Sweet Mary, this is…” Everything. Shakespeare, Keats, Coleridge.

  She pulled out a fat volume of Romantics and paged through. She only ever looked at this stuff on the computer, or on her phone. Here it was live, heavy with smooth, cool pages and the old book smell.

  “I hope you’re not disappointed. It’s not exactly Naked Cowgirl Party.”

  “Not funny.”

  Except it was, a little. She slid her finger over the elegant, old-world typesetting. She turned to the Byron section and read the first line of her favorite. Her blood raced. “How did you think of this?”

  “You told me,” he said. “Up on that stage you told me.”

  She turned to him. She was so used to Rolly telling her what she wanted. Even Rajini told her what she wanted. But Maxwell listened. He saw her. He soaked her in, seemed almost to enjoy her, with a kind of sparkle in his eye that seemed just for her. It made her feel happy, bold. And it was mercilessly sexy.

  “What’re you getting?” she asked.

  “Hmm?”

  “What book? You’re here to get something specific.”

  “This. For you,” he said. “Or choose another if you prefer.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I’m about to take your money. I insist.”

  “I’ll say yes. But only because it’s my birthday.”

  A cloud seemed to pass over his eyes.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” He pasted on a smile. “Happy birthday.”

  “You think it’s pathetic,” she guessed. “Here with a stranger on my birthday.”

  “Not at all,” he said softly.

  She turned over the book and ran her finger along the roughened edges. “This one.” Maybe she could trust him. The idea of trusting him felt like a flower in her heart.

  He paid the man. “Come on.”

  Chapter Seven

  Maxwell touched the small of her back as they made their way through the increasingly wild crowd. The touch felt proprietary. She liked it.

  “How’d you know about the place?”

  “University colleague. We’re all very eggheady over there.”

  Riiight. To her, eggheady meant somebody with an overdeveloped brain and a weak body, liable to crack and break. Too many thoughts. Maxwell wasn’t that. He was an academic, sure…like Indiana Jones was an academic. Like an adventurer academic.

  “I thought you were linguistics,” she said. “Not English lit.”

  “You don’t get to linguistics by way of math. You get there through language. Some people get there through poetry.”

  “Like you?”

  He scanned the area, ignoring her question. He seemed to be always on alert, this guy. Had he sensed somebody watching them? He pointed to a line of stalls that stretched up to the right. “This way.”

  “Not answering the question?”

  “No, I’m getting ready to savor the moment of your capitulation.” His gaze sent a bolt through her. “You can’t imagine how I’ll enjoy it.”

  “You think I’ll roll over that easy?”

  “I do,” he said simply.

  Her belly tightened. She wanted to roll over for him. Preferably naked.

  “Where to?”

  “The dragon,” he said. “We have a mission to complete.”

  Oh. Complete the mission. Get on with it. She felt a pang of disappointment, because she wanted this birthday to last. He made her feel big and bold, like her old self. She was tired of being small.

  After she found a sturdy travel backpack she insisted they stop at a booth full of strange little wind-up toys. She wound one up and watched him track its movements. She decided that the lovely icy luster in his gaze came from his eyes being—okay, gorgeous—but also from being curious.

  After that, she insisted they buy ices and eat them at the little patch of tables at the lit edge of the bazaar. She got lime and he got kiwi, but then they tasted each other’s and traded.

  His was tastier, and also, it was his. “I would’ve never gotten kiwi,” she said. “Who the hell gets kiwi?”

  He turned to her slowly, gravely, as if in warning, and she laughed. And right there, the moment expanded. It gave her shivers to feel it, like a song changing key or deepening in an unexpected way. Or the world getting bigger and taking on magic.

  A fellow traveler on the moon.

  Suddenly she wanted to tell him everything about herself. Not hide anything. “You never asked me the question,” she said. “Business or pleasure.”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “I’m here for neither,” she said. “I just thought you should know. I’m hiding out from a crazy ex and his guys. They’re a pretty bad bunch. I just thought you should know. Two years I’ve been fine. I’m not saying we’re in danger—”

  “Don’t worry about that,” he said, forehead furrowed. “Are you okay? Do you need help?”

  “Oh, I’ve got lots of help. More help than I need. Just thought I’d tell you.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said. She could feel the sorry in him. He meant it.

  “Thanks.”

  “What happened? You don’t have to tell if you don’t want, but…”

  “No,” she said. She wanted to tell him. She’d always been one to bare herself. “I married the guy when I was 18. Stupid. Dazzled by a whole lot of shiny hoo-hah.”

  “That’s very young.”

  “Not the time of life known for good judgment, that’s for sure. I was singing in this shed bar up in the Florida panhandle. I was too young to be in a bar, but you know. And this guy comes in, all charm and polish and money. I didn’t have much of a home situation at the time. And the next thing I know, we’re flying around on planes and he’s fixing up my mama’s house and putting
my brother through college.” She licked her ice. “I guess I felt like I was doing that for my people. It felt good.”

  “Heady, for an 18-year-old girl.”

  She loved the quality of his attention, as if he listened with his whole being. “Yup. And suddenly I’m married to him. Rolly. It was nice at first, everything so lovely, and people looking at me like I’m somebody. But little trade-offs, they have a way of growing into bigger trade-offs. It was like he wanted to scrub everything off me. He broke me of smoking and drinking and swearing.”

  Maxwell’s lips quirked. “That didn’t quite take, did it? The swearing.”

  “Hell, no.” She smiled. “But it sure took while I was with him, believe me.” She picked at the hem of her dress. “Life went way easier when I bent. Like a coward.”

  He gaze darkened. “You’re no coward.”

  “I felt like a coward. The first five years, it wasn’t bad. Certainly not enough to leave and make my way in life as an unskilled, uneducated person. But then he started turning, and little by little it got to be where I had less rights than a poodle.”

  A dangerous glint appeared in his eyes. “And you’re okay now?”

  “Only because he’s doing a 10-20 year bid in an Arkansas prison.” Thanks to evidence she’d collected. “Prison only made him madder and meaner.”

  Maxwell asked a lot of questions—he seemed really to want to know about her plight. She found herself telling him about the scary messages Rolly would send from inside. You’re mine. Only mine. She’d moved deep into the panhandle, staying with distant cousins, but Rolly’s men found her all the same and tried to bring her to him—in prison—and it was only luck that she slipped away. She told him about all the woman-on-the-run tricks she developed, even back in the States. She fled to D.C. and they found her again. She told him how she finally traveled to Bangkok with the help of a dear friend.

  “That’s not the story of a coward,” he said. “It’s the story of a fighter.”

  She looked up at him. She could tell he had something more to say. “What?”