Last Kiss

by Jessica Clare

  I would not be gentle—not that first time—but I would see that she came. I know many tricks. How to twist my hips to strike the spongy bit of extra-sensitive flesh. The right position so that my pelvic bone rubs against her clit. The precise point between too hard and too soft when my teeth are scraping against her tits. I haven’t had to employ these tricks in some time and never really for pure pleasure.

  But I would like to see how Naomi would respond, how she would catalog each effort and measure each response.

  It takes more effort than I care to acknowledge to wrench myself away.

  Below me the taxi appears.

  “It is time to go, Naomi,” I call.

  She stumbles out of the bedroom, dressed in a gown of pale peach. The silky material clings to her peaks and creates enticing shadows in her valleys. Her hair is tousled and the red lipstick she’d applied for the club is smeared. She looks like she was fucked hard and enjoyed it. My cock thickens in response to the sight. Perhaps I should have shot myself after I finished Emile.

  I toss her a long jacket. She can change on the train.

  “Let’s go,” I say. My tone is shorter, more terse than ordinary, but gods in heaven, what is a man to do when presented with that kind of temptation?

  She shrugs on the trench coat while I dismantle my rifle and pack it away. I want to avoid looking at her, but I cannot. Her stocking-covered legs beneath the knee-length trench hint at what I know is beneath. She looks doubly provocative. More enticing than the vestal virgins probably appeared to the invading barbarians.

  In the lobby as we check out, I strain not to pummel the slack-jawed clerk who stares at her with lust in his eyes.

  “We need a taxi,” I bark. When he does not take his gaze from her, I bark, “Taxi for Termini Stazione. Now!”

  My sharp command has him nodding and doing my bidding, but not without one last glance at Naomi. I should pull out my gun and shoot him.

  Naomi still blinks owl eyed at me as if not fully awake. “Where are we going?”

  Part of me wants to reveal nothing to her. No, that is not correct. Part of me wants to reveal all to her. To place my head in her soft lap and shudder out all my concerns as she pets me like a domesticated wolf. So I give her only the smallest of details. “Firenze.”

  “Firenze?”

  “Florence,” I translate.

  She contemplates this for a moment, and then her gears engage. I can almost see it happening out of the corner of my eye, because as much as I don’t want to gape, I find I cannot look away.

  “That’s where the statue of David is. I’d like to see that. Oh and the Uffizi gallery would be nice. There’s Botticelli’s Birth of Venus. Have you seen it? Can we go to the leaning Tower of Pisa? I’d like to study that up close to see how exactly it’s still upright.”

  “Those places are crowded. Many people.”

  “Oh . . . I guess, maybe it would be okay. I could try the earplugs again.”

  I rub a hand down my face. “I am sorry, Naomi. I am anxious to be on our way and that is why I am short with you. Perhaps another time we will do these things, but not this trip.”

  “Oh of course. I get it.”

  Her gracious acceptance of my surliness makes me feel even worse, and I find I cannot speak as we ride the taxi to the train station.

  Dawn light is peeking through the clouds, casting a rosy glow over the landscape. Even the squat ugly Termini station looks romantic in this light. Throwing the driver money, I pull Naomi out of the vehicle and then grab our bags. I’d chosen the earliest train so as to avoid most of the crowds. The seats I have reserved are in the silent section of the business-class carrozze.

  I stow our two bags in the seats across from the bolted table and gesture for Naomi to sit. She climbs in without a word and stares out the window. Her lips are moving but I can’t make out her words. Throwing my body down into the seat beside her, I slide the compartment door shut. It’s like a glass-enclosed tomb now. Silent and oppressive.

  Why do I push her away when she has been nothing but accepting of me, my bloody violent ways, and my own idiosyncrasies? She has had opportunity to betray me. Her previous lies were out of self-protection.

  There’s a shift inside me. I no longer want this distance between us, but since I am the one that placed it there, I must remove it.

  “Do you want to change?” I ask.

  She does not respond.

  “Naomi?”

  Again she ignores me. She’s added a slight rocking motion to her repetitious, soundless words. The train fills slowly, almost agonizingly slow. Tapping my fingers on the table, I stare at the back of her head where the hair is tangled. She can’t like that. Naomi is a person of order and precision. That she has not tried to straighten her hair is worrying. Reaching into her bag, I pull out a brush.

  “This is a high-speed train. It will take only slightly more than an hour and we will be in Firenze.” I pull the brush through slowly, carefully ensuring that the brush does not tug on her roots. Years of brushing someone else’s hair has taught me things. I tamp down those memories. Slowly I brush one small section and then another, almost separating each strand individually. “Firenze is an interesting city. It’s landlocked, having no access to any major ports. Despite this, the Arno River has wreaked devastation upon the land. In the sixties, the river flooded and knocked down Ghiberti’s baptistery doors and ruined countless other precious artifacts. There are markers all over the city noting the flood levels. They are higher than your head, Naomi.” Her rocking has stopped and part of the rigidity in her frame has melted, but she still holds herself apart. The tangles are almost gone, but I keep brushing, smoothing her hair into a silk curtain of chestnut and bronze.

  “The baptistery doors are outside. In the early morning hours there are few people about. The Cimetière de San Miniato al Monte is open air as well. There would be no crowds there. Inside the Santa Maria del Fiore is an entrance to Santa Reparata. It is the original cathedral, and the Santa Maria is built on top of it. There would be no one down there. It is not Pisa or the Birth of Venus, but it is part of the heart of Firenze.”

  “Will you take me?” she says quietly.

  “Da,” I answer hoarsely. Her supplication is a piercing arrow. I prefer my Naomi to be mouthy and outspoken. “I will, but first, we must go to Guillaume. He is familiar with the scene in Florence and will be able to provide us entrée.”

  “What type of man is he?”

  I smile ruefully, because it is a perfectly worded question. Not who is he, but what kind of man he is “He is a collector of things. Not of the Madonna, though. He would not be interested in a religious triptych. Rather he likes profane and unusual things. A bull’s penis used by a holy man in Persia to relieve virgins of their hymens the night of their weddings, for example.”

  At this, Naomi turns, bright eyed. Her interest is piqued and she cannot resist asking me questions. “How is it not desiccated? Right after death, it would start to atrophy and decay. Is it some sort of mummification? Do you think he would show it to me? What else does he have? I once tried to mummify a frog at school. We were supposed to dissect it but I thought it would be interesting to mummify it first and then dissect it to compare and contrast the aging of the organs, but my teacher wouldn’t allow it. He felt that would be an improper use of the frog. But the frog was already dead so it isn’t like it would have feelings. It seemed like an entirely appropriate use of the specimen.”

  “The penis is likely carved out of ivory but I agree. The frog was already dead,” I say, amused by the story. Naomi as a student must have been a terror. Smarter than her teachers, no doubt they were ill equipped to handle her questions and thirst for knowledge. “Your parents? What did they say?”

  “Oh they moved me out of the school then and put me in a different one, designed for people like me.”

  “Other Asperger’s sufferers?”

  “No. You know . . . weirdos.”

  “You are no
t weird, Naomi,” I respond sharply.

  She shrugs. “Whatever. The school was good. We all learned at our own pace, some advancing faster than others. Once you reached a certain level, though, they made you take university classes. One girl told me that those classes were even worse because the professors aren’t interested in being challenged and you simply have to regurgitate what they say in lectures during examinations. I stayed in my little Montessori school for as long as possible until they finally realized I wasn’t actually doing anything.”

  “How did you find the university?”

  Another shrug. “The same. I was able to do a few independent studies such as the one I did on the Selfish Gene theory and whether it is still applicable given the new understanding of gene regulation—how genes turn themselves on and off. Dawkins coined the Selfish Gene in 1976 building on the late-eighteen-hundreds work by Mendel on gene theory.”

  At my blank stare, she explains. “Dawkins said that a gene replicates if it is necessary for survival or adaptability and the other genes that are unnecessary die out but new understanding of how genes function are giving rise to new hypotheses. Of course, there’s no answer yet, but because there isn’t an answer I didn’t have to give someone else’s. I could make up my own. That was fun.”

  A knock on the glass door interrupts our discussion. “Tè o caffè?”

  “Caffè. You, Naomi?”

  “Orange juice if it’s bottled.”

  “Succo d’arancia,” I tell the hostess. She pours the glasses and provides us with napkins, a moist towel, and our drinks.

  “Dolce o salato?” She holds up a bag of cookies and a bag of pretzels.

  “Do you wish sweet or savory?” I ask Naomi.

  “Savory.”

  “Due salato.” I hold up two fingers.

  “What is this?” Naomi picks up the slim plastic package with the train’s name on the packaging and the words Salvietta Rinfrescante.

  “It is a cleaning towel. You can wipe your . . . hands.”

  Naomi already has it open and is wiping her face, neck, and hands. She then proceeds to wipe the table. With horror, she holds it up to me. The Trenitalia train is fast but perhaps not as clean as it could be. Wordlessly I hand her my towel. She rips it open and feverishly begins to wipe.

  “I need another one,” she pants. Rising, I pull open the door to summon the hostess back, when a black-suited man wearing thin black gloves turns and pulls out a pistol.

  “I need another towel,” Naomi cries behind me.

  “My companion needs another salvietta rinfrescante,” I say to the pockmarked, tanned face. His lip curls and he raises his gun to my forehead. My two hands fly up on either side of the barrel. In one motion I step toward him, pushing his gun hand up. The action surprises him and he stumbles backward. I thrust the gun into his throat with a punch, flip it to my other hand, and shoot the other black-suited man running down the aisle.

  “Naomi, grab our bags,” I yell, facing Naomi, one hand stretched down toward the front of the car. My foot is on the throat of the first attacker.

  I sense a shift in the air behind me and drop to my knees, rolling over and then up. With one knee up and the other leg bent back, I sight and then shoot. The man stumbles but manages to squeeze off a shot before falling to his knees. I shoot again, this time aiming for his hand, but he topples over and I think I graze his shoulder. A burning sensation on the side of my biceps warns me that one of their bullets has made some contact with my skin. The shot isn’t embedded, though. This feels more like it sliced off the outside edge of flesh and muscle. It’s of no concern at the moment.

  “Naomi,” I yell again, running toward the first attacker, “the bags.”

  She saunters out. “You don’t need to yell. I heard you the first time. Raising your voice is only necessary if the listener has hearing impairment or the sound is blocked. In fact, for some people, it’s better to merely lower the octave of your voice instead of speaking louder. Studies have shown—”

  The attacker pushes upright and leans down to pull at his ankle. I shoot again. One bullet left. Pushing Naomi back into the compartment, I drop a knee on the gut of the downed man. He grunts and I shoot him in the shoulder. At point-blank range, his wound is enormous. Blood spurts out like a geyser. He cries out and I slam the butt of the now-empty gun onto his wound, which causes him to howl like an animal.

  “Who sent you?”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  NAOMI

  People scream around us as Vasily shoves the gun harder into the stranger’s wound.

  “Who sent you?” Vasily snarls again, and I realize this man is another assassin. He howls as Vasily tortures him, and I want to retreat mentally, to pull away from the noise. But Vasily needs me, so I pop in my earplugs and force myself to take calming breaths. Itsy Bitsy Spider . . .

  The man grins up at Vasily and grinds his teeth, and Vasily shakes him angrily even as froth bubbles out of the man’s mouth. I stare in fascination, wondering what could cause a chemical reaction like that, but then Vasily grabs the bags from my hand and throws them over his shoulder, then takes my hand and drags me forward.

  There’s an audible sound in the train, muffled by the earplugs, and a screech, and I realize we are braking. The train is slowing, and everything seems to surge forward.

  People continue to scream around us as Vasily drags me through the car, toward a door at the far end. He shoves it open, muscles flexing, and then tugs me after him, and we’re on a platform outside of the car, a mere foot above rushing track. The ground screams past, even as the brakes continue to squeal.

  Vasily mouths something to me and grabs my chin, forcing me to watch him. I’m near deaf from the earplugs but I stare at his mouth as he speaks.

  Watch me. Run. Follow.

  Then, as the train continues to squeal, he tosses our bags over the side and onto the ground, and moves onto the side of the train, hanging off of a ladder. He looks back at me again, surely seeing my wide eyes, and I catch the word follow again before he jumps down to the ground, running alongside the train, legs windmilling until he rolls away.

  I just . . . what the fuck.

  Vasily, that crazy Russian, just jumped off a train and expects me to follow. I can’t stay here, but I don’t want to jump, either.

  Of course, I’m fascinated by the fact that he can do this. I wonder what speed we’re at, and if he’s hurt himself, but there’s no time. I hear more alarms sounding—faint and annoying—through the earplugs. The train is getting slower and slower, and in moments, it’s going to stop entirely. I can’t stay here. I climb out to the ladder like he did and watch the rushing ground, then jump and run like he did.

  The impact on my legs is harder than I thought it would be. I try to run but the ground gets away from me and I end up flailing. I lose my balance and roll down a hill into the green countryside. The wind is knocked from my lungs and I lay on my back, stunned. I think I’ve lost an earplug. Or a kneecap. Or both. Everything hurts. If I’m dead, I hope they bury me back home—

  A shadow looms over me and I squint one eye open. Vasily.

  “Naomi?”

  I groan. I just jumped from a train. Surely he doesn’t expect me to hold a conversation?

  He kneels beside me, and his hands run all over my body. “Speak to me. Tell me you are all right.”

  I wait to see if his hands are going to go to my breasts or between my legs. I’m disappointed when they don’t. “The train must have been going a very slow speed, or else we would have broken several bones simply due to the velocity—” I break off as he starts to laugh. “It’s not funny.”

  “I am not laughing because it is funny. I am laughing because I am relieved you are not hurt.” He extends a hand to me. “Come. Get up.”

  “I’m up, I’m up,” I grump, and take his hand and get to my feet. Other than bruises and an all-over body ache, I’m fine. “Why are we jumping off trains?”

  Once I am standing, his ha
nds move over me again, examining my skin and smoothing down my limbs, as if he doesn’t trust that I am truly all right. It’s almost . . . sweet. He’s obsessed with my well-being, this man. When he is satisfied that I am whole, he speaks. “We jump because several people saw me kill those men, and they will be looking for us. Follow me. We will retrieve our bags and hide until train is gone.”

  I trot behind him as we head down the tracks. Our bags are nearly a mile away, but we retrieve them and then Vasily hustles me over a hill and into the countryside. We find a copse of scrubby bushes near a road and hide behind it. I can’t help but think we look like the criminals we’re pretending not to be. Vasily’s clothing is torn and grass stained, and I’m sure I look like a mess.

  “What is the plan?” I ask Vasily.

  He says nothing. His jaw clenches and grinds, not unlike the man on the train a moment before the bubbling froth emerged from his mouth. I watch him curiously to see if the same will happen.

  “Do you have a poison capsule in one of your teeth? One of the men back on the train did.”

  He shakes his head. “I am just thinking.”

  I pick a piece of grass off of his collar and my fingers smooth his clothing. He looks rumpled, and it doesn’t suit his fierceness. “Think harder. We have to have a plan, Vasily.”

  “I know.”

  But he doesn’t share. I make a frustrated noise in my throat. “You need to tell me what’s going on. Were those men Golubevs?”

  Vasily shoots me a look I guess I’m supposed to understand. “Nyet.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because the Golubev Bratva is filled with fools who bust in and take over buildings. Those men were different assassins. They were professionals.”

  And I suppose the Golubevs are not. “Emile’s men, then?”

  “Emile would not have assassins after us. No one could finger us but the woman, and I doubt she will talk.”

  My brow furrows. “So who else is trying to kill us?”

  “That is interesting question, is it not?”

  “How many enemies do you have?”