by Gini Koch
“You’ve said that before, and I still say that while you can be trained and be told, and even expect it, it’s still a shock when death shows up and kicks you in the gut. And most people really don’t believe they’re ever going to die, let alone like . . . what happened today.”
Jeff pulled me into bed. “I know. And I agree. That’s why everyone needs to just be together with their families tonight.”
“Where’s Caroline?” I hadn’t seen her since we’d left her and the rest of the Gowers with Michael’s body. My old friend Guilt dropped in to mention that I was undoubtedly winning the Worst Friend in the World Award.
“She’s with Abigail. Aunt Ericka and Uncle Stanley are in the guest room next to them, so two down from Naomi and Chuck. James and Paul are on the other side. They’re all together, and my mother and father are there, too. And everyone understands that we’re leaving them alone until they’re ready for us.”
“I should have gone down and spent time with them.”
“Why?” Jeff sat up in bed and looked at me. “So you can tell them, again, that you think what happened is all your fault? So they can tell you, again, it’s not? So that you can say, again, that you’re sorry?”
“Yeah, I guess. I mean, it’s what you’re supposed to do. And I didn’t. Not enough. And you’re supposed to be there to comfort your friends and I didn’t even know what room Caroline was in until just now.”
“While you were supposedly going to the bathroom but were actually crying in the closet, Uncle Richard told us that the family just wanted to be together. No one blames you, and they said that, too.”
“Naomi does.” Which made the whole thing hurt all the more.
“Naomi’s under the influence of a drug. Which you discovered so it could be countered, I might add. No one in control of their own mind blames you, baby. If I’d had any way to call in a strike team and tell them where to go, I would have. You activated the only things that had a shot of finding our people. You didn’t know Walter and his team were on the way, any more than we were advised that the Marines were deployed.”
“But my order is the reason two of our own are dead.”
Jeff made the exasperation sound. “Are you listening to me? At all? I can’t tell. I realize you want to wallow in guilt for some reason, but it’s misplaced. Leaders make calls, run plays, try different tactics and strategies. And sometimes what they try works, and sometimes it doesn’t.”
“I’m listening. I just—what we tried worked, but the wrong way.”
Jeff stroked my face. “I know. But, we’re in a war, baby. It’s covert, but it’s still a war. And in wars, we lose people. Did I want to see my cousin murdered in front of me? No, of course not. Did we do everything we could to prevent it? Yes, we did. The outcome is one of the worst we could have ended up with, but death is a part of life. We can complain about it, but we can’t change that.”
Algar had certainly said the same. Decided I was exhausted and just wanted to sleep. Jeff realized, because he lay back down next to me, pulled me close to him, and kissed my forehead. “Go to sleep, baby. Let’s put this day from hell into the past.”
“O-kay,” I said, with a yawn between syllables. Focused on the hair on Jeff’s chest, how nice it felt when my face was snuggled in between his awesome pecs, and drifted off.
Was rudely awakened by someone tapping my shoulder.
“Missus Martini, how nice to see you again.”
Looked around. Lucky me. There I was, back in front of my friends, The Congressional Grand Inquisition.
CHAPTER 50
PERFECT. Because the day just hadn’t been “fun” enough already.
“Why are we here?” I asked.
The congressmen looked at each other and shrugged. The Senator in Charge turned back to me. “We’re here to pass judgment on your latest failures.”
“Oh. Good. Look, per everyone, I need the sleep.”
“Per us, you need to explain why things went haywire today,” one of the Committee said.
“Just lucky, I guess.”
“Let’s put her in prison and get on with it,” one of the other Committee members said. “I want to convict someone, and she’s conveniently here.”
“I want a lawyer.”
“I’ll represent the accused.” Turned to see Michael standing there. He didn’t look like he’d been shot. Heard a mewling sound and Fuzzball jumped up onto Michael’s shoulder. “My associate will give the opening arguments.”
The Poof started mewing. Hopped up and down. Lots of tiny growls. Went large and toothy for a bit, still jumping up and down, though the growling was a lot louder. It finished up, went small, and jumped back on Michael’s shoulder.
“I see,” the Senator in Charge said. He turned to me. “What do you have to add to the learned council’s comments?”
“Ahhhh . . .” I had no idea what the Poof had been saying. At all. It was just so much cuteness from what, if I looked at it out of the corner of my eyes, was a somewhat insubstantial version of Fuzzball. Michael looked somewhat insubstantial, too.
“I say we sentence her now,” one of the other Committee members said. “I have a golf game to get back to.”
“No, my client is more important than your golf game,” Michael said. The Committee and all the rest of Congress, all of whom were, once again, in attendance, grumbled but finally they waved at Michael to continue. “My client will make her statement now.”
Turned to him. “Are you a ghost? Or just a figment of my imagination?”
He flashed me his typical “you so hot, babe” smile, the one he gave to any woman between the ages of 18 and 98. “I’m whatever you want me to be.”
Chose to not take this as a come-on line, seeing as Michael was both engaged to Caroline and also dead. Though he looked alive right now. Very, vibrantly alive. Turned my head and looked at him again out of the corner of my eye. He looked insubstantial again.
Turned back. He looked alive again. Worked for me. “I want you to be alive and unharmed and all of yesterday to have been a really bad dream.”
Michael shook his head. “Doesn’t work that way. You need to explain what happened yesterday. In a bottom line way.”
“We want to know who’s responsible for what happened,” the lead senator said.
“I am. I was the acting Head of Field.”
“Can we just send her to the chair?” one of the others on the Committee asked. “She wants to take the blame for what the terrorists did, after all. Having a scapegoat is wonderful. Gives us something to focus the people on, instead of the bigger picture, or what’s really going on.”
“No,” Michael said. “We find the other side’s scapegoat, that’s great. But that only avenges us for who pulled the trigger, not who gave the order.”
“I gave the order.”
Michael gave me the “really?” look. “So, you told the assassin to kidnap, torture, and kill us?”
“Well, no, of course not.”
“You gave the order to overtake Home Base and the Science Center?”
“No.”
“You called in me and Brian, along with other non-Security personnel, so we’d be easier to capture?”
“No, Gladys did that.”
“Did you tell her to?”
“No, Ronaldo Al Dejahl did.”
Michael nodded. “The Defense rests.”
“We do?”
Fuzzball jumped up and down on Michael’s shoulder. “Ah,” he said, “good point. My colleague would like to ask if anyone believes that Ronaldo Al Dejahl is in charge.”
“He took his own sweet time showing up on the scene,” the Senator in Charge said. “Seems to me he’s a convenient face for the new Al Dejahl terrorist group.”
“Not as if his father ever acknowledged him, after all,” the Committee member who wanted to send me to the chair said. “It seems to me that he was found after his father was killed.”
“By someone who was told where to look,”
the Committee member who wanted to play golf added. “Despite his claims to the contrary.”
The others all nodded.
“Wow, you’re all buying in to the idea that the Mastermind is behind all of this?”
Everyone in the room looked at me. “There is another,” the Senator in Charge said.
“Right, right, another Jedi out there. Or another Sith. You mean the Apprentice.”
“Someone won the job,” Michael said. “Or else this wouldn’t have happened.” Fuzzball mewed again. “Oh, right. Kitty, try to remember that you’re not responsible for what anyone else does.”
“Right, everyone chooses their own path. I don’t remember being this hung up on Star Wars as a kid, but I guess I was.”
“What makes you say that?” Michael asked.
“Well, this is my dream, right? So all of this is coming from my subconscious.”
Congress faded away, until there was just me, Michael, and Fuzzball standing in a gray, formless mass. Michael smiled again. “Is it?”
“Isn’t it? If it’s not my subconscious, if I’m not asleep, or whatever, then what is it, whatever ‘it’ is?”
Michael shrugged. “It’s whatever it needs to be.”
“Okay, then, is death really only the beginning?”
He laughed. “I don’t really know yet.” He looked around. “I think it might be. We’ll find out.” He patted Fuzzball. “And we’re not going alone.”
“That’s good. I guess.”
“It is.”
Fuzzball mewed, purred, and rubbed against Michael.
“See? Fuzzball agrees.”
“Okay. Um, are you . . . with ACE by any chance?”
“Not yet.”
“Will you be?”
“That will depend on a lot of things.”
“Like what?”
He gave me a funny look. “If everyone lets us go.”
With that Fuzzball jumped onto my shoulder, gave me a nuzzle, and jumped back to Michael’s shoulder. Michael kissed my forehead. Then they both faded away into the gray nothingness.
Looked around. I was very alone. Wasn’t a fan. “If this is my dream, I want to wake up now.”
Nothing happened.
“If this isn’t my dream, I still want to wake up now.”
Nada.
“I got the message. I swear! Stop wallowing in guilt, find and stop the Apprentice, get that much closer to the Mastermind. Right?”
Still alone in the gray mass.
“Um, if ACE is out there, we’d like him to be able to come home, please. I’ve met the guy who’s his sorta replacement, and ACE is now even more sorely missed.”
Could have sworn I heard someone chuckling. It so freaking figured.
“Algar, I know that’s you.”
“Who are you talking to?” Jeff asked sleepily.
I blinked and I wasn’t in the gray nothingness anymore. I was in bed next to Jeff. “Ah . . . what did I say?”
“You said ‘I know it’s you.’ Were you talking to me or someone else?”
“I have no idea any more. It was just a weird dream. I’m sorry I woke you up.”
“Mmm,” Jeff said, as he pulled me closer to him. “That’s okay, baby. I have the perfect way for you to make it up to me.”
CHAPTER 51
JEFF REACHED OUT AND BACK and hit something. Music came on. Hall and Oates’ “One on One,” to be exact.
“You’re all prepared,” I said with a laugh.
“Yeah,” Jeff said as he nuzzled my hair. “New mix. I’d been saving it, but I think now’s the right time to roll it out.”
I opened my mouth to say that I was good with it, but his mouth covered mine before I could speak. Jeff kissed me, slowly at first, but soon with a lot more intensity. Chose to show that I’d listened to everyone and kissed him right back.
Jeff was the best kisser in, I figured, the galaxy. His tongue had more moves than most men’s entire bodies. While his tongue twined with mine and proved it was still Galaxy Class, his fingers slid under my T-shirt and traced my skin.
Pre-Jamie we’d taken a long time with foreplay. Post-Jamie we’d learned to get to the gusto as fast as possible. Clearly Jeff was going for a retro approach tonight, and potentially a kissing record, because instead of getting our nightclothes off, he let his fingertips wander all over my stomach, coming close to, but not quite touching my breasts.
As the music changed to “Sexy Girl” by Glenn Frey, he slowly ended our kiss, but only to move his mouth to my main erogenous zone, better known as my neck. He bit my neck gently and, as my hips bucked, he finally shoved my T-shirt up over my breasts.
“He must have written this song about you, baby,” Jeff growled as he trailed his teeth down my neck to my breasts. I’d have commented, but I was too busy moaning.
Happily, the Embassy was the most soundproofed place we’d ever lived, so I’d gotten over worrying about waking Jamie up. Which was good, because Jeff’s mouth and hands were busy toying, licking, and sucking on my breasts, and I was already at my cat-in-heat stage of yowling.
Shakira’s “Hips Don’t Lie” came on and my hips were certainly not lying about wanting Jeff to keep on with what he was doing, potentially forever.
From day one, Jeff had been able to bring me to orgasm at second base. He was clearly determined to do so again, and, as he sucked both nipples then rubbed them gently between his fingers while he bit my neck again, my body obliged. You know, just to show I was a good wife and all that.
As I came down from the climax, he pulled his shirt off, then mine, tossing the T-shirts to the floor. Then he was back to my breasts, presumably because he’d ignored them for approximately five seconds and realized this was a terrible error that needed to be instantly rectified.
Jeff was now sideways to me, and I reached out to stroke his chest. I loved the way the hair on his chest felt, especially over his awesome pecs and amazing abs. And, you know, since my hand was going down anyway, figured I should follow the Happy Trail and just continue on down.
As I slid my hand under his pajama pants, Jeff made the growl that sounded more like a purr. Poison’s “Sexual Thing” came on, and I started stroking to the beat. Jeff chuckled, purred even louder, then shifted again, tongue trailing down my stomach. While his tongue traced my navel, he pulled my pajama bottoms off.
He shifted a little more, and I used the new position to get his pajama bottoms, if not off, then at least down and out of my way. As his tongue delved inside me, I gasped. Then figured that, you know, since he was right there and my mouth was open, might as well do the old Two Can Play That Game.
Jeff really growled against me as he started licking and sucking with more intensity. I matched him as the music went to “Get Down, Make Love” from Queen. We were in time together and with the song.
As I wrapped my legs around his head and his body shuddered, we climaxed together, and with most human men, that would have been it. Great and satisfying, but it. However, aliens in general and Jeff in particular had increased stamina and regeneration.
As our bodies calmed a bit, Jeff flipped us over and around, so I was on top of him and we were head to head again. He had the, happily redundant, “jungle cat about to eat me” look on his face—eyelids half-lowered, half-smile, all sexy. I loved that look. I ground against him and was rewarded with proof that he was ready to go again.
He slid into me as Oingo Boingo’s “Wild Sex (In the Working Class)” came on. Jeff had put some serious thought into this mix, proving yet again that he truly deserved the title of Sexual God.
He thrust into me and moved me up into a sitting position. While his hands squeezed my breasts I rocked my hips back and forth and he continued to buck his hips, driving himself deeper into me. We were like this through the entire song, and through half of the next, “Sex Is Not the Enemy” by Garbage.
We went faster and faster, and another orgasm hit me. As I wailed along with Shirley Manson and my body shook, Jeff fl
ipped us again, so that he was on top of me. He flipped my legs up, put his arms behind my knees and his hands at the sides of my hips, and started thrusting again, as my body rocked with the aftereffects of my latest climax.
“Violent Love” from Oingo Boingo came on, and Jeff ratcheted us up to frenzy. I grabbed his pecs as we slammed into each other, each thrust going deeper and faster.
It didn’t take too long at this pace for me to get worked right back up to the edge of climax, and I could tell he was ready to go over the edge, too.
“Harder,” I managed to whisper.
He gave a half-laugh, half-growl, and slammed into me even harder than before. I cried out and so did he, as I went over and took him with me. He groaned as he exploded inside me and I clutched at his chest, the orgasm too intense for me to make any sound.
He let my legs slide down slowly as he lowered himself gently onto me and kissed me again, deeply and passionately. I wrapped my legs around his lower body and my arms around his neck. We kissed like this until both our bodies stilled.
As “Accident Sex” by Vendetta Red came on, Jeff slowly rolled us onto our sides. He wrapped one leg around mine and pulled me closer as he pulled the sheet, which was somehow still on the bed, up and over us.
My head was pillowed on his arm, my face nestled back in between his pecs, while I let how wonderful making love with him was and how much I loved him wash over me.
He kissed my head. “I love you, Kitty.”
“I love you, too, Jeff.”
He smiled against my forehead. “I know. I can feel it.” He hugged me. “It’s the best feeling in the world. Now, let’s do what the song says, baby, and go to sleep.”
“Whatever you say, as long as it’s preceded by what we just did.”
He chuckled. “I say that we do this again in the morning, to make sure we start the day off right.”
“That’s one campaign promise I’m going to make you keep, Congressman.”