Taming the Beast

Of course she wants to leave.

Nervously, he shifted his weight. If he were a better man, he would have led her to the door and bid her farewell, perhaps stating, “No hard feelings,” but he wasn’t a better man. He was probably becoming a worse man, because instead of searching his brain for ideas on how to mend the strain in their acquaintance enough that he wouldn’t find himself in jail by morning, he was thinking of ways he could further detain her.

She couldn’t leave. If she left, he’d be alone again, and he was so utterly through with being alone. There was no one else he even wanted to be in his company. Not his absent parents, who seemed to be utterly unaffected by the return of magic. He only wanted the goddess with too many names.

She stood, slowly, smoothing down her skirt and then tugging her cardigan together at the plackets. She moved slowly toward him and the open refrigerator, tucking wisps of hair behind her ears, and stepping gingerly over some tools left on the basement floor. “Given the circumstances, accepting food from you would be unwise.”

He furrowed his brow.

“After all, you did drug me.”

He grimaced. He’d had no intention of apologizing for that, though he did regret having harmed her. At the time, he’d done what he thought he had to. He couldn’t trust people in Fallon.

He still wasn’t quite sure he could trust her.

“I’m so hungry, though, and I guess I picked the wrong week to stop keeping spare candy bars in my purse.”

“Nothing in here will harm you,” he said. “In fact, I intend to eat, too.”

She stopped a few feet from him, rubbing her hands up the sides of her arms. “Well, in that case, feel free to pick something out for me.”

“And you’ll watch me eat the same thing?”

Smiling, she shrugged. “I want to trust you. Really, I do, but like I told you before, I have a really hard time getting a psychic reading on you. Being able to discern when you’re being duplicitous should be easier, especially at this proximity, but I feel like…there’s something…” She made a noncommittal hand gestures. “There’s something between your magic and mine that’s keeping me from being able to get too close. Not physically, but—”

He grunted. She didn’t need to explain further, but he did wonder what she felt. There hadn’t been anyone he’d been able to ask. At least, no one who’d known him both before and after the magic trickled back. There was no one around who would have been able to articulate the differences.

He pulled from the refrigerator a container of deli meat, cheese, and the remnants of a loaf of bread he’d purchased during a trip out to his desert bunker. He’d intended to go back and stay there until the full moon had passed, but he’d driven into Fallon to fetch some items he’d inadvertently left in the Smith Building. He hadn’t expected that he’d encounter anyone there.

“This won’t make for a very sophisticated sandwich,” he said, gesturing toward the items, “but at least most of the food groups will be represented.”

“I guess that’ll have to do.”

“I don’t have plates here,” he said. “I generally eat standing.”

“Holding your food in one hand, I’m sure.”

“I’ve adapted for efficiency.”

She smirked. “I like efficiency as much as the next girl, especially since doing my job well is somewhat predicated on it, but I still prefer to eat sitting down and with the aid of a plate.”

“Oh?” He set the sandwich items atop the refrigerator and then untwisted the tie on the bread bag. “So I imagine you avoid street vendors.”

“Well, not entirely. I make a special exception for shish kebabs and hotdogs.”

“Hotdogs?” He chuckled and lifted the lid from the meat container. “Really?”

“Yes, hotdogs, why?”

“I just can’t imagine you consuming such fare.”

“Such fare, meaning what? Things shaped like dicks?”

He nearly dropped the meat.

“Oh, come on,” she said teasingly. “You were thinking it. I’m convinced that joke is as old as sausages themselves. Men always think about fellatio when they see women putting certain foods into their mouths. Hot dogs. Bananas. Popsicles. The list goes on.”

“To be perfectly honest, I’ve never made that association before and, I assure you, I think plenty about fellatio.”