Poker Face (Chimera Club Stories)

by Cybill Cain

  I burst out laughing.

  C: Now that I would like to see!

  B: You spent all that time cleaning? You must have a big place.

  C: No, I can stand in the middle of the room and turn around and touch everything I own. I just hate cleaning.

  B: Haha that does sound small. What do you hate about cleaning?

  C: The pointlessness of it. You have to dry dishes that will dry themselves if you just give them a minute. You have to fold clothes that will be unfolded when you wear them. It seems like a waste of time when there are so many better things to do. But my true enemy is silverware! You put in the drawer, you take it out of the drawer. It makes me crazy.

  He paused before he responded, and I wondered if I had been too honest. I was probably making a terrible impression. I started biting my nails while I waited for him to say something.

  B: Sorry, I had to find a bench and sit down. I was laughing so hard that the people I passed on the street were giving me wide berth.

  I blew out a breath of air in relief that he found me funny instead of crazy.

  B: Tell me some things you would rather be doing with your time instead of chores that make you crazy.

  C: Reading.

  B: What do you read?

  C: Depends on my mood. No, that’s a lie. I read all kinds of things, but what I most enjoy are romance novels. Don’t tease me. I’m not proud.

  B: I would never tease you. No, that’s a lie. I will probably tease you, but it will be with affection.

  Holy shit! My toes curled up, and I felt something awaken in me. Affection. I was swooning. I hated it, and I loved it. That was exactly how I felt about him!

  B: I think the romance novel gets a bad rap. They’re about the most important thing we all have in common. They’re about our desire to find and have love in our lives.

  I slid down on the sofa with a grin so big it made my face hurt. Did he really get it? I didn’t think it was possible for anyone else to get it.

  B: What’s your favorite kind of romance? Does everyone have tea and biscuits and pine for each other from across a crowded room while trading snarky comments?

  C: Christ, you read Austen, man?

  B: Don’t tease me. I am proud. ;) Answer the question, please.

  C: I can’t stop laughing long enough to type.

  B: Take a breath, and make with the confessions. Enquiring minds want to know.

  C: Oh, God. You’re going to be the death of me sweet sexy man.

  B: Thanks for the heads up. I’ll hold off on the sexting until you get yourself under control. I need to get this information out of you before you give up the ghost.

  C: Oh, that’s not helping. The neighbors are going to call the police if I don’t stop howling with laughter!

  B: When they get there, just tell them the butler did it with the maid using two candlesticks in the drawing room. They’ll think you’re clueless at Clue, but they don’t arrest you for that. I know because they’ve come round to my place for the same thing, and it works every time.

  I felt like my sides were splitting and every text made me laugh that much harder. This was like nothing I had ever felt before. It was pure joy and it was sublime. No, Brandon was sublime. Gorgeous, funny caring and sexy as all get out. Oh, God, why did I have to meet him like this?

  B: Now, gimme the deets on the romance novels you read, please.

  C: I like them sweet and filthy dirty with lots of graphic details about experiences I’ve never had.

  B: Elaborate, please.

  C: My favorite ones are the ones with the aliens.

  B: Aliens? Little gray men probing you, aliens?

  C: No, freak, who would want that?

  B: Whew! I’ll be quiet now while you educate me. Promise.

  C: This genre is about races of aliens who want or need to breed with Earth women due to some reason like a loss of their own females or a slowing birth rate, stuff like that. They wind up taking Earth mates, and bonding with them in all kinds of crazy and fabulous ways. The sex is always mad crazy good, and they fall in love forever and ever. The best part is that there is almost always a catch like when they bond with an Earth woman, they bond completely. There will never be anyone else for them emotionally or physically. And the second best part is that they have none of the hang ups that human males do. They like big curvy women as much as they like small thin delicate ones. Not being from Earth they look for and respond to something more than boob jobs and ass implants. They bond with their souls forever. It gets me every time.

  He was quiet for several minutes. I felt so exposed. I panicked and texted him again.

  C: You can make fun of me now. It’s all right. I can take it.

  It was almost the truth.

  B: Yeah. There’s nothing funny about what you said. I’ve read it three times, and all I can think is that you don’t have to be taken to space to find a man like that. There’s one right here in town, sitting on a park bench, and falling a little more in love with every text you send him.

  Falling a little more in love. It echoed in me, giving a name to what had been unknown only minutes before. I was falling in love. He was falling in love. This was falling in love? Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. It felt like the ball gag was back in mouth, and I was suffocating. I didn’t know what to say. The phone buzzed again.

  B: I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.

  I still didn’t know what to say. He had made me uncomfortable, but not in the way he thought. I was falling into something new and scary, but he was falling with me. Shouldn’t that make it better?

  C: Stop, please. Just give me a minute.

  B: K

  I took a few deep slow breaths, and tried to gather my thoughts. I knew how important whatever I said next was going to be, and of course that made it harder to find the words.

  C: Until you said it, I didn’t know what this feeling was inside me. I’ve never been in love before, but you’re right. I’m falling, too. But we’re in this messed up situation, and you didn’t even get to see me last night. When you do, it might change things for you. That makes this even scarier for me.

  B: You make good points, and that tells me, like everything else you have said and done, that you are smart. You’re right, I don’t know what you look like, but I know what you feel like when you’re near me. I know that you are kind and considerate, because you massaged my arms when they fell asleep. I know that you are funny and have a deeply romantic soul. Shouldn’t those things matter more than the color of your hair or the size of your waist?

  C: They should, but you are not from the planet Xenon. You’re a good old home grown Earth boy who gets bombarded with the same advertising BS that I do. I don’t know what you’re expecting, and I don’t know what you need. I may be none of those things. I may never see you again after the game.

  B: Don’t sell me short just because my skin isn’t green, and my penis doesn’t vibrate.

  I couldn’t help but laugh.

  C: Stop Googling, and listen to me. :P

  B: No, you stop being scared, and listen to me. You got to see me, and since there were no complaints then or now, I would hazard that you liked what you saw. That gives me a confidence that you are resistant to let me provide for you. But you don’t know me either. You don’t know my story, or the women I have dated, and why those relationships didn’t work out. I left some of them and some of them left me, but none of it was ever about appearances. It was about the fact that I have never been in love before either. I wanted to love some of them, hell I even believed I could have loved them, but they weren’t willing to open their hearts. I don’t read alien love stories, but I do dream of a love that is forever, and a bond that feeds my soul. I’d just given up on it until now.

  Tears were streaming down my face. He’d said something like that to me in the coffee shop. ‘I used to wear my heart on my sleeve.’ My phone buzzed again.

  B: I loved the
taste of you, and the feel of your body next to mine. I wouldn’t trade those for anything, but I feel cheated that I didn’t get to hear your voice, or feel the kiss of your lips. You were so brave and kind last night. There’s no way you are getting rid of me after the game is over.

  But what happens when you find out that you knew me all along, Brandon? Will you be so angry that you walk away? The hot mess of me boiled over into a hiccupping sob.

  C: I hear you. I feel you, every word of you, like you have written them on the walls of my heart, but I need to go right now. I have to take a breath. I’m sorry. I just need some time.

  B: I understand. I’ll be here when you are ready. Take care, baby.

  7- New You, Same Old Me

  Brandon

  Fuck me. I blew it. I said too much, too soon. I sat back on the bench and closed my eyes, running through everything again in my head. She’s a virgin. She’s never been in love, and the day after she meets me for the first time I fire both barrels of crazy right at her head, expecting her not just to stand there, but to welcome it. Brilliant.

  No, the other side of my mind argued. She told you she was feeling the same way. She just needs some time to process it all out. If it weren’t for this messed up set of circumstances she wouldn’t be scared. On the other hand, if it weren’t for this messed up set of circumstances I would never have met her.

  Exhausted from so much honesty and doubt, I opened my eyes and looked around. When she hadn’t answered me this morning I had just started walking. I had my headphones in listening to the David O’Dowda that she had told me she liked. It was haunting and sad, and like her, deeply romantic. After hearing her explanation of alien romance I knew why she loved the song so much.

  When I got my bearings I realized I was across the street from a chain bookstore. I smiled as I got to my feet and jaywalked through the traffic. The girl behind the counter did a double take when I approached her, but I barely noticed. “I need some help finding a book, please.”

  “Yes, anything. How can I help?”

  “I just found out that there is a genre of romance novels that center on alien mating?”

  “Oh, yes, we have several sets on aisle three. Would you like me to show you?” I glanced around and saw the aisle.

  “No, thanks. I can find it on my own from here.” I turned to go, and stopped. “Have you read any of them? I was wondering if you could recommend a good one for me.”

  “Brides of the Kindred by Evangeline Anderson.” The quickness of her answer, and the flush on her cheeks told me that this was a series My Lady C would enjoy. I gave her my thanks and found the books, buying the first three in the series. The checkout girl raised an eyebrow at me as she rang them up, but I held my chin high and stared her down. What I read, and why I was reading it was no one’s business but mine.

  I exited the bookstore feeling very pleased with my purchase, and without thinking took a right. I wasn’t ready to go home yet, and I knew of a park bench a block away where I could spend some time reading on this beautiful afternoon.

  ***

  Camille

  I ran from my apartment like he was in it, but of course he wasn’t. Brandon was in my head, so he came with me. Every step I took was punctuated by a sound he’d made the night before when I held him in my hand, lovingly rubbing the tip of him with my thumb, or the way he’d told me to use him to make us both feel good, and then proceeded to blow what was left of my mind. As if that wasn’t enough I kept hearing his text messages, my mind applying his voice as if he had said those words aloud instead on the screen of an electronic device.

  At some point I realized I was running, but didn’t want to stop. I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to stop, because I knew when I did he was waiting for me. Patiently waiting for me to get my shit together, and say something less lame than I need some time.

  In the middle of all that I thought of my Mama, and wondered if she had ever felt anything like what I was experiencing. I wished I could ask her, but even if she was having a good day it was more than I could take right now on top of everything else.

  Still, even the memory of her as she was now made me even more confused. What if I wound up like her someday? Would I remember this very special man, and the time we shared or would I lose it to the air, and not remember what it was to laugh and fall in love?

  It made me want to take the risk he was offering me, and pray that when he finally saw me that he would understand, and that I would be a woman he could love in return. He’d seemed interested when we’d met on the street and shared a coffee. He’d let me kiss him, but maybe I had misread things, and he was only being kind to save me embarrassment.

  It wasn’t that I doubted my looks. I knew that most people considered me attractive. I also understood that didn’t mean he would. Attraction came down to something that couldn’t be scientifically explained or even anticipated. Attraction was more like magic. It could begin with a shared joke, and burn through the stratosphere only to peter out over something like pineapple on a pizza order. Attraction did not mean love, but it was a part of the recipe.

  When I looked up I was standing outside the coffee shop we’d gone to after meeting on the street. I hadn’t planned to come here, but I knew this was where I wanted to be because of the connection to Brandon. I went in and ordered the same cappuccino I’d had that day, before taking a seat in the same booth we’d shared. I sipped slowly, and was nearly done when I felt the phone I’d forgotten I’d brought with me buzz in my pocket. Expecting a message from Brandon I frowned at the unknown number and opened the message.

  U: Tell him anything and you are both disqualified.

  I looked up and around to see who had sent the message, and found myself staring into Brandon’s amazing blue eyes.

  “Hi.”

  ***

  Brandon

  I’d read for an hour and half, completely lost in the strange erotic world of alien mating. It was everything she’d said it was. I quite liked it. I could hardly wait to chat with her about it, and find out if she had read this series. There was no word from her yet, so I decided to grab a coffee from the shop that was right down the street before heading home.

  I thought of my Coffee Girl as I entered and placed my favorite order, and realized that she had slipped from the forefront of my mind as soon as I had broken the ice with My Lady C. I glanced back at the booth where we had sat and froze mid-step when I saw Coffee Girl there, sipping what I was sure was a cappuccino in an oversized cup. She looked up frowning just as I got to the table.

  “Hi.” I flashed the smile she’d said I needed a license for, and waited to see if she would invite me to sit down. You should go, my inner voice warned, making me feel like I might be doing something wrong. Was I doing something wrong? I didn’t even know what the hell I was doing. Maybe it was just as simple as wanting to see a friendly face while the woman who was swallowing my heart one bite at a time took a powder to get her thoughts together.

  “Uh, hi,” she said, looking a little confused, and very uncomfortable as she slipped her phone into her pocket. “How’s it going?”

  “May I join you?” I asked, gesturing to the empty side of the booth. She nodded, but pursed her lips as if she’s tasted something bad. Maybe she was considering turning in her humanity card again? I slipped into the seat, placing my coffee and bag of books on the table in front of me. Her eyes zeroed in on the books immediately. The bag was opaque, but you could still easily read the titles of the brightly covered books.

  “Interesting reading,” she said, a smile curving her lips. She was still beautiful. It hadn’t been my imagination after all.

  “Yes, I’ve gotten some strange looks, starting in the bookstore with the checkout girl. I just spent an hour in the park reading, and I think at least three people tripped from staring as they went by.” She laughed, the same glorious sound she had made before, but it affected me differently this time. “Have you read them?”

  “No,” she said,
looking at them a little wistfully.

  “You can borrow them when I’m done if you like.” Her eyes darted to mine, and I saw a surprising mixture of fear and disappointment there. What had I said? “Or not. Perhaps they aren’t your style.”

  “Do you like them?” She leaned forward, very interested in my critique.

  “I do actually. Much more than I thought I would.”

  “And why are you reading them if you didn’t think you would like them?”

  “They were recommended by the attendant in the bookstore, but I’m checking out the genre on the recommendation of a special friend.” Her eyebrow went up.

  “What kind of special friend?” Was she asking if I was seeing someone?

  “Someone I met recently who makes me laugh.” I could feel my face light up when I thought of her great sense of humor, and her devastating touch. “She’s a romantic, and since I am, too, I wanted to see what she liked about these kinds of stories so I could share it with her.” She blinked, and looked down quickly, but I thought I saw a tear in her eye.