by J. Judkins
Angel knew from careful observation that Kim wouldn’t bother getting dressed before going to bed. She probably hoped to catch her at that halfway point, wearing nothing but a towel and a panicked expression, thinking Angel had somehow forgotten the inevitable goodnight kiss.
If Angel caught her in such a vulnerable position, it was easy to imagine herself so flustered at the encounter she’d count herself fortunate to escape with only a kiss. Angel’s victory would be twofold; she’d have her kiss and Kim would escape thinking she’d been lucky!
If she kept to her old schedule, that meant thirty more minutes of waiting. Thirty more intolerable minutes of Angel hoping to build up sexual tension that didn’t even exist.
Yeah, not going to happen! She was going to get it over with right now.
Kim found Angel in the computer room, studying the screen, probably on the internet doing something, she didn’t care what. It didn’t matter. She couldn’t afford the distraction. What she planned to do took all her concentration, and if she paused to take even a second to think things over, she knew she’d lose her nerve. Her unshakable resolve would shatter like glass.
Without conscious thought, Kim stepped next to her and turned Angel’s head to face her with a single fingertip, not allowing herself even a moment to stare into those dark, blue eyes. She kissed Angel as passionately as she knew how, her meaning clear and unmistakable.
Three seconds, and...
Done!
Kim broke the kiss, grinning with satisfaction. One goodnight kiss, out of the way. Now she wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore. And given the passionate nature of the kiss, Angel couldn’t claim it hadn’t been enough and she’d been cheated, somehow.
Angel seemed completely astonished, surprised Kim would dare take the initiative.
“Goodnight,” she added, just to be clear and make certain Angel knew exactly why she’d done it, and turned to leave the room. It would be pointless to stay and revel in her victory.
“Kim, wait!”
She paused at the door. “Yes?”
“What was that for?”
Kim blinked, then whirled back to face Angel. “What do you mean, what was that for? That was your goodnight kiss! Did you think I was just going to sit around all night and wait for it?”
“Oh.” Angel looked lost and hopelessly confused.
“Why? What did you think it was for?”
“I didn’t know what it was for. That’s why I asked.”
Now it was Kim’s turn to be confused. “What are you saying? You had to know. What about that kiss you gave me this morning?”
“That wasn’t a goodnight kiss.”
“I know it wasn’t. Are you telling me that this morning, when you kissed me, you didn’t have a reason for it?”
“There was a reason. You took my hands. We shared a moment,” Angel said, then brightened. “Does this mean we’re going to be kissing goodnight every night from this point on?”
“What? This was your idea!”
Angel gave Kim her best perplexed expression. “How could it be?”
“Are you saying this is my fault?”
“It’s not anyone’s fault, Kim, I--”
“I’m going to bed now.”
“Kim--”
“No! Bed now! I’m leaving!”
Kim stomped off to bed, then remembered she had to take a shower first, and stomped off to the bathroom, instead.
Chapter Fifteen
The next morning, Kim sat in her bedroom and sulked. This was her one remaining sanctuary. The one place she hoped Angel didn’t feel she had the right to enter without permission. Kim wondered how long it would last.
She’d thought herself so clever spotting the obvious trap. It wasn’t until much later that she recognized the underlying trap carefully concealed beneath the first and the final trap just beyond.
It all started on Friday night. She’d believed, as anyone in her situation naturally would, that the events of the candlelight dinner and the carefully orchestrated conversation which followed were nothing more than an easily identifiable and crude attempt to seduce her. She’d identified that trap with ease. Her suspicious nature had alerted her to the danger. Over and done. She’d saved herself. Or so she believed.
She was wrong.
Angel’s sinister plan wasn’t anything as straightforward as a simple seduction. Kim could have resisted such an attempt in her sleep. No, it was far worse.
Instead, it was a clever ploy to manipulate Kim into accusing Angel of attempting to seduce her, all so Angel could claim everything was Kim’s idea with Angel herself as the innocent victim.
Very clever. Very devious. Even after thinking about it for hours, Kim had yet to figure out exactly how Angel managed to pull it off. It was clear Kim was up against a master of deceit and illusion. She’d planned it all so perfectly.
Then came the next surprise.
Instead of capitalizing on her victory Friday night, Angel told Kim all she wanted was a simple goodnight kiss. Kim reluctantly agreed. It was just a kiss, right? Seems perfectly reasonable, given the circumstances. No harm could come of that.
Again, she was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
Kim realized to her astonishment and horror that the seemingly innocent kiss was nothing more than a vehicle, a tool designed to open a door. It made future kisses not just acceptable, but expected.
Before that fateful night, Kim could have held off that all important first kiss for weeks and weeks. Now she didn’t have a justifiable reason to refuse her. How could she reasonably object to a second kiss, or a third beyond that, after they’d already shared a first? It simply wasn’t done.
So the kissing was going to continue, and there wasn’t anything she could do to stop it.
Then Kim made another mistake. The next night, Angel once again pretended ignorance, knowing full well Kim expected a goodnight kiss to follow the previous one. By establishing a pattern, she tricked Kim into voluntarily kissing Angel under the pretense of “getting it over with,” and then had the audacity to claim she knew nothing about it.
And yet, despite all these disasters, there was one thing Angel overlooked.
While it was true Angel now had complete justification to kiss her whenever the situation called for it, her victory was a minor victory at best. A kiss by itself didn’t mean anything. Not to Kim.
But did it mean anything to Angel?
Kim started to pace. Three steps. Turn. Three more. Turn. She sat on the bed again, staring sightlessly at the darkened curtains that showed nothing of the outside world.
Entering a relationship didn’t mean Angel wasn’t still devoted to fulfilling the wishes of her alien masters. That hadn’t changed. The relationship was nothing more than a means to an end for her, something neither Kim nor Angel were actually interested in. Angel was using it to secure her position, and by extension, using Kim and her house as a base of operations.
But it was equally obvious to Kim that Angel was unfamiliar with emotions. By voluntarily entering into a relationship, even a fake one like theirs, she was risking herself emotionally without being aware of the inherent danger.
Kim had seen it hundreds of times in countless stories. By playing a role and doing her best to show she really cared for her, there was a chance Angel could actually fall in love with her in reality. If that happened, her entire mission could be compromised in an instant.
Love superseded common sense. It caused devoted agents of evil to betray their old masters in favor of the hero from Earth. Kim was neither heroic nor studly, but in this particular case she didn’t have to be. Angel was doing it to herself, voluntarily risking all without realizing it, just to secure her own background story.
All of this gave Kim a lot to think about.
First and foremost, she didn’t want to be seduced. Unfortunately, that seemed to be Angel’s eventual plan for her.
There were other things to think about, but she kept going back to that.
It wasn’t that she was against a relationship. Kim considered herself a very private person, and had always been one to keep her thoughts and feelings to herself. If she became involved with Angel, others would find out about it. Her friends, her family, her neighbors, the people at work. Everyone. People would know things about her life.
Simply put, if things escalated that far, she wouldn’t be able to keep her private life private. The last thing she wanted to do was tell anyone anything about her personal life. If the relationship became serious, no one would see her as an ordinary, average, introverted gamer anymore. She’d become…a part of the community.
After Friday night and what followed, it was painfully obvious Angel had no intention of keeping their relationship at its current level, despite everything Angel never said. While she may not know exactly how Angel’s devious mind functioned, she knew a devious mind when she saw one.
Angel would certainly attempt to take it to the next level. Her minor kissing victory would serve as a springboard for newer and even more sinister plots. If Kim wanted to defend herself, she desperately needed more information.
Kim’s thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door.
Before she could answer, the door swung open and Angel entered the room. She held a small stack of three books in her hands which she handed to Kim without a word of explanation.
At first glance, none of them seemed familiar to her. She took a moment to examine them, saw a cover, paled, and suddenly remembered everything. These were the books she had picked out to arm herself against Angel’s seduction techniques, the same three she knew Angel had read in her place. But instead of securing the dark knowledge contained within for herself, Angel had subverted her plan and added those techniques to her own growing arsenal.
The titles made her wince. The cover art was worse. Kim held them at arm’s length, wanting to drop them in a dark hole, to throw them in a box and set the box on fire and scatter the ashes to the four winds. If Angel had read these books, they were useless to her. How could they possibly help her now? By their very existence, they’d reinforced Angel’s belief that Kim lusted after Angel and wanted her body in the worst way.
“Do you think we could go to the bookstore? I’d like to purchase the others in the series,” Angel said.
“Which one?” Kim whispered, her heart heavy with dread.
“All three.”
Not only no, but hell no!
The prospect of going into that bookstore again with her self-appointed girlfriend in tow to buy lesbian romance didn’t appeal to her in the slightest. The embarrassment alone would kill her. She’d never leave the store alive.
“You’re embarrassed,” observed Angel, “but there’s no reason to be. All three had acceptable storylines, and only one relied too heavily on sex to advance the plot.”
Kim winced a bit at that. “Normally, I wouldn’t give anyone a book until after I had a chance to read it, first.”
Angel cocked her head in puzzlement. “You haven’t read them?”
“Not yet. I bought them because they were the first in a series,” Kim said, which was entirely true.
She examined the first book again, seeing it in a new light. Hadn’t she been thinking she needed more information? Maybe they did have some value.
“I have something else to show you. Follow me,” said Kim.
They left for the living room.
Kim knelt at the credenza and swung open the doors. When she’d moved in, it had taken three men and a minor miracle to get the bulky piece of furniture up the stairs without killing anyone. Her DVD collection sat inside, sorted not by title or subject but by shape of the box. Entire seasons on one end. Individual movies on the other.
After a minute of searching, Kim selected the second season of Doctor Who and set it up for Angel.
Kim had two reasons for doing this. Primarily, she hoped to keep Angel entertained, but she was also hoping the Doctor’s underlying message would sink in. The Doctor was a time-traveling alien fascinated with the human spirit and their willingness to venture out into the universe and take chances despite their limitations.
He also routinely stopped alien invasions practically single-handedly, which was the second message Kim hoped to convey.
Kim handed the remote to Angel, then frowned, staring at the couch as she considered her next problem.
She had to decide where to sit.
Kim had to be careful. It had to be the perfect position. Angel was sitting at the center, but a little off to one side. Kim considered all the possible implications in an instant, then chose the smaller of the two places available to her. This both allowed for her personal space, and was close enough to Angel so as to maintain the illusion that they were a romantic couple without actually doing anything blatantly romantic.
It also cuts off all escape routes, Kim realized to her dismay as Angel scooted just a little bit closer.
Kim resolved to ignore it. A minor defeat. There were other things that required her attention.
The romance book felt like a lead weight in her hand. Based on the cover art alone, Kim knew she’d never be able to convince Angel she wasn’t interested in a sexual relationship. That was a fact she couldn’t change.
But because Angel read these specific books, it gave Kim an edge. It offered possibilities that could save her she hadn’t seen before.
If Kim read these books as well, she might discover the exact techniques Angel intended to use against her for her eventual seduction. From there, it would be child’s play to formulate a counter defense when the moment came.
With that in mind, Kim started reading. She ignored the sounds of Doctor Who playing in the background. She mostly dismissed the comfortable feeling of Angel’s warm body pressed up against her, and how she didn’t mind nearly as much as she thought she should.
The hours flew by, and Kim became absorbed in the story. The subject matter itself was easy to handle. Kim was never into romance, as her sex drive was practically non-existent. She only became self-conscious and fully aware of Angel sitting right next to her when certain scenes became a little too heated and erotic.
“The couch isn’t very comfortable, is it?" observed Angel.
Kim hadn’t even thought about it, but she found herself nodding in agreement.
“Do you think I could share the bed with you?”
Kim froze.
Very carefully, she marked her place in her book and set the book aside. With exaggerated care, she picked up the remote and paused the DVD.
Only after all of this was complete did Kim start breathing again. “I’m sorry. You want to do what, now?"
"I’d like to share the bed with you."
"Share. The bed," Kim said slowly.
"Yes."
"Is there something tragically wrong with the couch?"
"As you have seen, the couch becomes increasingly less comfortable over time. Its space is also limited. I’d like to try the bed."
Kim didn’t want to have this conversation. She should have stood up and walked away. The door was right there. Six steps, and she’d be gone.
By sharing the bed, did Angel mean share the bed or “share the bed?”
"So what you’re saying is, you just want to share the bed,” Kim tried to clarify.
"Yes. I’d like to sleep with you. Why do you keep asking the same thing?"
Kim jumped to her feet. "Because of that! What you just said! You don’t want to sleep with me, you only want to sleep with me!"
Angel let out a sigh. “Your words are in English, but...”
"Listen. I’ll try to make this clear. If I came up to you and said, ‘I’d like you to sleep with me,’ then that really means, ‘I want you to have sex with me’."
Angel looked more surprised than any other time Kim had seen her before. "You're asking to have sex with me?" she asked, incredulous.
"No, I’m only saying I want to have sex with you.”
Angel's surp
rised expression became slightly more pronounced.
“I don’t actually mean it," Kim continued.
Very slowly, surprise gave way to understanding. Angel smiled a distant smile and nodded.
"Do you understand?"
"No," replied Angel, still smiling.
Kim resisted the urge to swear.
"You don’t want it, but you’re saying it," Angel attempted to clarify.
"Yes."
Angel shifted on the couch to better face her. Her eyes narrowed, and a hint of irritation crept into her voice. "Why are you saying it if you don’t want it?"
"When a person says ‘sleep with you’ it means ‘sex with you.’ Sleep is another word for sex," explained Kim.
"Is this why you didn’t want me to share the bed with you on the night we first met?"
Kim tried to remember, but it was an exercise in futility. She doubted she could remember what she had for breakfast that morning. “Yes," she guessed.
"I understand. Then let me clarify. I only intend for us to share the bed. It was never my intention to alert you to a plan of mine to have sex with you.”
Kim swallowed.
“That plan does not exist,” Angel added in her best serious expression. “That is not my purpose for asking. You may relax.”
Kim didn’t relax.
Chapter Sixteen
As Kim prepared for bed, one thought kept running through her mind. At what point did she agree to this?
It must have happened, because apparently they were going through with it. She tried to justify the decision in her mind, telling herself Angel all but promised she wanted sleep and that was it, but she knew Angel wanted to eventually take things further. All Kim lacked was proof and evidence.
So why in the world was she doing it? She was vaguely certain the phrase, “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” didn’t mean she should sleep with them.
Kim had placed her hopes in the books, but in the end, they did nothing to save her. They outlined a general pattern of mutual, initial attraction. There was a bit of innuendo, casual touching, kissing, and then the main characters were tearing each other’s clothes off and falling into bed together. Kim’s actions could have been misinterpreted as having done all of this, except for the tearing her clothes off bit.