Kip is waiting outside when I leave the club. I breathe a sigh of relief. Each time I think I must have scared him away. He doesn’t come inside the club anymore. I envy him that.
“Is this going to become a regular thing with you?” I ask.
The streetlight a few feet away draws more shadows than it hides. His eyes are dark, unfathomable. But the quirk of his lips, it tells me all I need to know. “I have something for you.”
“Really?” This interests me more than it should. I start walking, and he steps beside me easily. Just like that he’s walking me home, as if we’re in high school. As if either of us were innocent teenagers.
I don’t know what it would have felt like to do this. For one thing, I never went to school. I had tutors and books. I had locks on my doors. And for another thing, I’ve never been innocent. I’ve always known about the world I lived in, the violence it contained.
He reaches into his back pocket, and part of me, that corner reserved for fight-or-flight, tenses. What if he pulls something awful out? It’s not like I really know him well.
Then he reaches out, palm up, with something small and cylindrical on his hand. “For you,” he says.
I take it, examining the smooth silver casing. And the trigger. “What is this?”
His expression grows somber. “I figured since you are experienced with men jumping out of alleyways, you should have something to protect you. It’s a Taser.”
A Taser? I ran away from violence. I don’t want more of it. Even to protect myself, I’m not sure I could hurt someone else. How do you choose your life over someone else’s? Not that a Taser would kill someone.
At least, I think it wouldn’t.
“Careful,” he says, his hand covering mine.
Maybe he saw my fingers going loose, almost dropping the Taser. I freeze at the feel
of him, the warmth. The gentleness. It’s almost as jarring as seeing him come out of the shadows.
“Like this,” he says. “This is the safety switch. Right now it’s on. When you want to use this, you’ll flip it and then press this here.”
His fingers manipulate mine as he shows me how I’d use this. Hypothetically. It’s a good thing his hand is around mine because my hand is shaking. I might tase myself, which would be too painfully symbolic—as well as actually painful.
“This will hurt,” I say, like a question. Even though I know the answer.
“It will incapacitate someone,” he says, letting go. “Long enough for you to get away.”
I run my finger along the smooth metal case. It’s still warm from his body. “Will it hurt them?”
He smiles a little. “Oh, it’ll fucking hurt. Doesn’t matter how big he is, he’ll go down. But if you mean long-term injuries, no. You’re very concerned about this hypothetical guy. He would have been hurting you if you use this. Why do you care what happens to him?”
“I just do.”
He studies me. “If someone bothers you, don’t hesitate.”
I take his measure, imagining what it would be like to use this on him. It feels impossible, but that doesn’t matter. Just the idea that he got this for me makes me feel warmer, stronger. “So I could use this on you?”
“That depends,” he says. “Am I bothering you?”
He has a certain elemental quality in that dark T-shirt hugging his abs, the black leather jacket molded around his arms. The buttery denim encasing his legs. Like a panther. But that is a disguise, as much as the stilettos and tear-away bra I use onstage. It’s a flashy kind of sexiness, designed to distract.
Beneath that smile and those muscles is an intelligence I should be wary of. A watchfulness. He knows exactly what to say to get under my defenses. He knows exactly what to give me, in the form of this small weapon, to make me give in.
“No.” Pinpricks batter my eyes. I blink quickly. “Thank you.”
A slight lift of one large shoulder. “It’s nothing.”
“No,” I say, too loud. I try to lower my voice, but I know it’s still betraying me. “I’m serious—thank you. This is one of the nicest things…”
I can’t talk. I couldn’t explain it even if I could. Men have always wanted to use me, to hurt me. He is the only one who wants to protect me.