Fortune (16 page)

And he folded cranes every day. Sometimes just a few, sometimes a lot of them. Every time he did it she thought of that first night two weeks ago, when she’d crawled at his feet and fetched them one by one with her lips and teeth. He still strung them on lengths of fishing line, counting out groups of forty. He hung the completed strands in the corner, like a colorful waterfall. She didn’t ask why. She knew why. He believed in wishes, fortune, fantasy. No wonder he got on so famously with her mother. They were two of a kind.

But not her, Kat thought as she ran on his treadmill. She didn’t believe and she had no interest in learning how to fold them herself. But she still liked to look at them, the riotous colors, the way they moved and rustled slightly whenever the heater turned on. She was finding it easier to sleep in the silence. She was finding new, quieter noises to listen to just beneath the hum of her lust.

She was just getting out of the shower when he came to find her. She loved to see him after work, all doctor-y and businesslike. He would kiss her and she’d kiss him back and he’d begin the slow slide from brainy surgeon to horny lover. It always fascinated her. It melted her too.

While he changed out of his work clothes, she set out the food he’d brought, some Thai rolls and vegetable soup. She couldn’t cook a lick, although she’d tried for him. He’d choked her meals down, then told her he didn’t mind doing the cooking or bringing things home every once in a while. She loved him for that and she did what she could to contribute to mealtimes, which was set the table beforehand and clear it afterward so he had some time to relax.

Tonight after dinner Kat watched a little TV while he went over his medical notes and upcoming surgeries at his desk off the living room. When he finished he looked around at her. She was picking and fretting over a cut on her finger.

“What’s wrong?”

“There was a paperclip incident at the office.”

“Rusty paperclip?” His lips curved in a teasing grin. He was growing accustomed to her myriad mishaps and clumsiness. Weren’t they together pretty much because she’d fallen down the stairs? He stretched out, his hands behind his head. “Don’t mess around with it, doll. Let it heal.”

She frowned. “I think I’m getting tetanus or something.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“I mean it. I had a headache earlier today and my jaw’s been feeling a little achy. It could totally be lockjaw. What are the symptoms for tetanus?”

“I don’t handle a lot of tetanus surgeries, to tell you the truth.”

Kat pursed her lips in annoyance. “Okay. Go ahead. Laugh all you want. If I get lockjaw where does that leave you? No more blowjobs.”

He turned back to the computer and typed in some search terms with a sigh. “Hmm.” He leaned his elbow on the desk, scanning the resulting pages. “Interesting.”

“What? What are the symptoms?”

“Whining, frizzy hair and excessive paranoia.”

“I hate you,” she said. “You’ll be so sorry after I’m gone.”

“Come here.” He turned to her, shaking with laughter. “Just come over here.”

She went to stand in front of him. He gazed at her, his fingers reaching out to run over her fitted tee and up to her breasts. He cupped each one, then pinched her nipples though her shirt and sheer bra. She stood still the way he liked, not pulling away or flinching.

“Good girl,” he said. “You know what I think? I think your aching jaw might be a symptom of something else.” She smiled as his hands fell on her shoulders and he pushed her down with steady pressure. She knelt between his outstretched legs, unbuttoned and unzipped his jeans. He was already half-hard, his cock warm and heavy in her fingers.

“Jesus, Kat. Your hands are freezing. Just use your mouth.”

She put her hands in her lap, scooted closer and took the head of his cock between her lips. She tasted the salty drop at the tip of it, gazing up at him. He sighed and leaned back, caressing her hair absently, his legs going slack on either side of her as she ran her tongue along his length. He was quickly filling her mouth, growing hard and rigid as she deep throated him. A great many of their lessons had focused on this and she was getting pretty good at it, if his moan was any indication.

“I’m sorry for your achy jaw, baby,” he said. “But that feels like heaven. Don’t stop.”

She chuckled against his cock, teasing him with her tongue, pulling away to pay attention to the base of his shaft and his balls. She loved him this way. She loved that he was in her power for once. She loved the familiar taste and smell of his masculinity. It seemed an eternity ago she’d slept with men—a lot of men—and never once cared to kiss or touch their cocks. She couldn’t get enough of Ryan’s. In a couple weeks they could dispense with condoms altogether. They’d done screenings and she had already started the Pill. Some part of her understood what that signified, what it would mean even when the month was over. Monogamy. An end to her old whoring ways. So be it. He satisfied every need she had, so as long as he would keep seeing her, keep sleeping with her while she figured out her shit…

His fingers left her hair to rest on her temple. He stopped her with a soft sound and pulled out of her mouth. “Look at me.” She raised her head to him, to his dark intense gaze. He traced his fingers down over her jaw to the sides of her neck. “I want to collar you.”

She looked away, back at his cock. “What does that mean?”

“I want some kind of commitment. I want to collar you. I want you to be mine. Only mine.”

She made an equivocal sound and put her mouth on his cock hoping to distract him, but he stopped her again. “Aren’t you happy, Kat? Don’t you like living here with me?”

She glanced up at him. Yes, she liked it, but she’d never intended for this to be permanent. She wasn’t ready for this. “You said a month. That was the agreement.”

“Agreements change. Life happens. Life is happening to us. My life is better with you and I know you like what we do together.”

“Well, yeah. But it’s been a couple of weeks. Yeah, okay. It’s been fun.”

His face twisted into a tight smile. “What an act. You kill me. Fine. Finish what you started, if that’s all it is to you.”

She looked back at his cock, her throat suddenly tight. Tears threatened and she didn’t want them, not now.

“Go on,” he said coldly. “Finish. Suck me.”

She began to pull away. She’d barely moved an inch when his hand clamped on her shoulder. “Finish. Or I’ll get the fucking whip.”

She sat still, still as stone. She could safeword out of this moment. She knew she could even though she hadn’t used a safeword yet. It felt like a safeword moment, but she didn’t want to give him even that. She opened and took him in her mouth again, barely feeling it, just going through the motions. He was flagging, his hardness abating even as she threw herself into pleasuring him. Mindless technique. Tears rolled like liquid shame down her cheeks.

He made a sharp sound a moment later and pushed her back. He stood up and refastened himself, not looking at her. He went into his bedroom and slammed the door.

She, too, slammed the door on her way out.

* * * * *

Kat went home and pretended nothing had happened. Her mother and father played along and didn’t ask any questions. She feigned exhaustion and went into her old room with her two nieces. She found it impossible to sleep with all the noise and lay awake long past midnight. Somehow she’d thought he would come for her. That he would ring the doorbell, come in, find a private place to apologize to her and ask her to come back.

But no. He didn’t come. She barely slept at all, cycling in and out of short shallow dreams only to come awake with a start and look around for him. She wore her sister’s clothes the next day because her clothes were at his place. She imagined at some point she’d have to slink back and get her things and deal with all that awkwardness.

She missed him.

The next evening her mother knocked on her bedroom door. “No, Mama,” Kat said. “I don’t want to talk.”

“I do not care. We talk. You are sad for him, eh? What has happened? Why did he chase you away? Or…did you run from him?” she asked, astute as ever.

“He was too…he was too…he pushed for too much. Too much commitment. Plus he’s just plain mean.”

“Mean? What way is he mean? He hurt you? I kill him.”

“No. Mama, you don’t understand. Not mean like that. Just…annoying. Just forget it. It’s not important now.”

“Not important, eh?” Her mother scowled at her. “Then why you toss and turn? Why you skulk around with that sad face?”

“How do you know I toss and turn?”

“Mama knows everything. If you are sad without him, you must talk to him and explain how you feel.”

“But I don’t know how I feel. And I don’t really want to talk to him.”

“Hmph. Katyusha, you choose unhappiness.”

“No. I choose freedom and common sense.”

“Freedom to be alone and unhappy. Some common sense, this.
Ekh tyi
, always you have been this way. Do you know, I invite Dr. Ryan to dinner tonight.”

“Mama!”

“He refused to come. He tell me, ‘I would love to but…’” She looked at Kat in exasperation. “He says to me ‘but,’ ‘but,’ just as you do. ‘But’ this, ‘but’ that. This is too much ‘buts.’ Dr. Ryan, his ‘but’ is sad. I hear it in his voice.”

“Mama, I love you but you’re cuckoo.”

“What is this, ‘cuckoo’?”

“Crazy, weird. Lunatic. I don’t want to see him, Mama. I don’t care if his ‘but’ is sad. Just accept it. We don’t work well together.” The moment she said it, she knew it for a lie. She knew her mother knew too. Her mother could read anything on her face as if it were written there. Kat put her head in her hands. “I don’t even know anymore, Mama. I don’t know why I ran away. I don’t know whose fault it was. I don’t really care.”

Her mama’s fingers ran through her hair, rubbed her shoulders. “Why do you not tell him this? He probably feel the same way right now. Men. They do not know how to say what they feel sometimes. Do you think he is missing you,
zaika
?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

She didn’t know anything, only that a few moments later she said goodbye to her mama and papa and headed for the door.

* * * * *

Ryan drove home feeling as miserable as the cold, rainy weather. He worked late trying to forget her, to no avail. He wanted her to come back but he understood she might not. He hadn’t folded a crane in two days.

He drove into his neighborhood and continued right through it, turned toward Brighton. He wasn’t going to her house. He was just going to drive around looking at Christmas lights. The holidays were nearly here. His family and friends wanted to know his plans, wanted to invite him to parties and gatherings. For the first time in a long time he didn’t want to go. He had imagined the holidays with her, imagined spending Christmas Eve introducing her to his parents, who would be home from Aruba. He had imagined the fun of spending Christmas Day in the hustle and bustle of Dmitri and Elena’s home. Elena had called him this afternoon and invited him to dinner. He could have gone. Maybe he should have. He had a million questions to ask her, the seer, the fortune-teller.
Do we have a future? Is this worth fighting for?
He thought perhaps Elena could help him, but in the end he’d begged off with lame excuses and pretended he had a meeting he couldn’t miss. Snow was starting to fall, tiny flurries that depressed him. He found himself idling in front of Kat’s house.

The door swung open. The silhouette of a figure appeared there. He had a silly impulse to hide and an even sillier impulse to sit very still and not be noticed. It wasn’t Kat anyway. It was her mother. She was beckoning him, barely cracking the door open in the cold. When Elena beckoned you obeyed. He turned off the car and walked up the sidewalk. She pulled him inside the door.

“Dr. Ryan.”

“Mrs. Argounov, I know it’s late—”

“Yes, you are too late. She is already going to your house.”

“She is?”

“Yes, she is going back there now.”

He turned immediately to go. Elena drew him back with a hand on his arm.

“Dr. Ryan, I tell you quickly. I have two answers for you.” She looked into his eyes and spoke with a knowing intensity that shook him. “Yes. And yes.”

* * * * *

When he walked in, he didn’t see her. She wasn’t in the living area and she wasn’t in his room. He went to the other room, her room, and pushed the door open slowly. She was sitting on the bed fully dressed, her hands clasped in her lap. She looked over at him and it wasn’t a happy or welcoming look. He thought, despite Elena’s uncanny reassurances, that they didn’t have a future after all, that she’d only come back to pack her things and leave him.

“Hello, Kat,” he said softly.

“Hello.”

He swallowed and cleared his throat. “How’s your finger?”

She looked down, blinking rapidly. “I guess it wasn’t tetanus after all.”

“That’s good to hear.” He crossed to her, reached down for her finger and looked at the nonexistent injury. “In my professional opinion, this is going to heal up just fine.”