Human Hieroglyphix - Dex & Leila (31 page)

'It has been reported that Dr. McCarthy has been spending her spare time with those of questionable character who have obviously been a great and detrimental influence on her.

'Since these changes have only come to the fore in the last two months of the school year, we are not recommending revoking Dr. McCarthy's tenure, but she is hereby under notice that the next infraction will, in fact, be cause for immediate expulsion from her contract and she will be stripped of any and all awards that she has obtained while under the auspices of the University of Colorado/Grantham.'

I raised my eyes to Dr. Weatherby's, but I wasn't seeing her. 

I was seeing everyone at the University that I'd come into contact with since Spring break, re-hearing their comments on my transformation, roaming through my memory trying to find instances where I had, in any possible way, demonstrated the character (or lack of) that was written in my annual assessment.

"Any questions or concerns, Dr. McCarthy," I heard Dr. Weatherby's supercilious voice and watched as she reached to select a pen in her the pen holder placed neatly next to her keyboard.  "If not, then you need to sign the last page and I'll get it to Dean Hotchner tomorrow."

I took a deep breath and sought for just the right words.

"I not only will
not
be signing my assessment today, but I respectfully request that you arrange a meeting with the Dean at his earliest opportunity.  I not only reserve the right to refute your assessment,
but
also would like to hear his viewpoint on his department head's evaluation that seems to be based on their professor's clothes and choice of friends that have absolutely
nothing
to do with the University in the least."

I watched as she flinched at each point of my statement and wouldn't look me in the eye by the end.

"I'm sure Dean Hotchner is entirely too busy at this time of year…" she began.

"Let's just see if we can get him or his secretary on the phone right now to make that appointment happen, shall we?" I suggested, even going so far as to pick up the receiver on her desk phone and handing it to her.

Her look was venomous as she snatched the receiver from my hand and pushed two buttons on the phone before connecting with Loreena, the Dean's secretary and right arm.  After explaining that she needed an appointment and why, Dr Weatherby replaced the receiver with a lot less force than I'd imagined.

"We have an appointment with him on Wednesday at nine a.m.," She said.  

"Good," I offered, bringing my purse to my lap and standing up.  "I'll look forward to it.  In the meantime, I'll keep the copy of the assessment you've given me today and have my attorney review and compare it to the contract that I'd initially signed at the beginning of this year."

Neither one of us offered any of the standard social niceties that one gives at the end of a meeting.

Because I was sure that I just became Dr. Weatherby's number one enemy on campus.

But, surprisingly, I didn't give a rip.

*.*.*.*.*

He heard the bell above the shop's door jingle and looked up to see Leila walk in, dressed to the fucking nines, and wave to him as she stopped by the counter and greet Benny.

God, she was gorgeous and just as breathtaking as when he had first met her.

Dex slowed his machine as he wiped the excess off the heart that he was inking onto the inside wrist of the blonde girl on his chair.  Looking at it, he figured he had five, maybe ten more minutes of work before he could take his girl out to dinner.

He glanced back out to the counter and caught her big, brown eyes and held up one hand, fingers splayed and flashed it twice.  He saw her grin and nod, which had his heart doing a double bump in response.

The blonde on his chair noticed where his eyes had gone and gave a loud har-rump.

"As I was saying…" she said loudly.

Dex just ignored her and bent back over her wrist, anxious to get her and her motor-mouth out of his chair so he could spend time with the girl who had captured his heart.

This happened a lot, a client thinking they were something special to the artist maybe because of their close proximity or because the artist was, basically, branding them for life with their choice of design. 

Sure, sometimes it happened, like with him and Leila but even then he hadn't pursued anything until they met outside of the shop. 

And that implied connection wasn't always just between members of the opposite sex, but with those of the same sex as the artist doing the work.

Dex didn't find a problem shutting down any approach from anyone of any sex if he wasn't interested in and lately, he was only interested in one.  And she was leaning over the counter making Benny laugh at something she said.

He applied the ointment and the piece of plastic wrap around motor-mouth's wrist and handed her a care instruction sheet before moving the ink tray so she could get up.  She pressed a five dollar bill into his hand along with a piece of paper with a phone number on it which he pocketed until she was up at the front with Benny. 

Then he dumped the number into the trash and moved the fiver into his money clip.

Leila was standing at the doorway of his booth when he turned around and he snagged her waist with one arm as he shot the drape closed behind her before lowering his mouth to hers.

"Missed you, babe," he said against her mouth before he brought his tongue into their mouth play and slid his hand down inside the waistband of her trousers to capture her ass cheek.  Just like always, Elle gave as good as she got and Dex was thinking about the different positions that they could do on his client chair if they were very,
very
quiet.  Luckily, she had kept her wits about her and was the first of them to break lip contact.

"Missed you, too, honey," she said softly against his mouth.  "You free for dinner?"

Dex did a nose slide as he tried to get a handle on the beast in his jeans.  He couldn't remember the last time he'd checked the book, but he knew that the traffic today, like every Friday was sporadic.  Especially with the end of classes at the University.

Rather than subject the entire front area to the lump behind his zipper, he pulled out his cellphone and called Benny at the front desk.

"How's it looking, amigo?  Got time to take my girl out to dinner?"

"Slow, man.  Damn slow," Benny replied.  "Slow enough for you to take your girl out to dinner and play 'hide the salami' for dessert." 

Leila, who was able to hear both sides of the conversation, laughed and rolled her eyes.

Dex opened the curtain and sent Leila back out to reception so he could clean his booth.  They worked out logistics and he rode his motorcycle back to her place where he watched as she stopped the Mustang with the wheels at the beginning her driveway.  He pulled up to her window to see her eyes wide and her hands covering her mouth.  He followed the direction of her eyes and saw it.

'Cunt' had been spray painted on her garage door in big bold three foot high letters. Bright red, three foot high letters.

He twisted around on his bike, looking every direction before it occurred to him that the person or persons that had marked her garage door were obviously long gone.

He pulled off his helmet and leaned over to her car window.

"Change of plans, princess.  We'll go back to my place and take the bike or call for delivery, alright?"  Dex watched her swallow and nod before she brought her eyes to his.

"Who-who…" she stuttered.

"Don't know, Elle.  But we're going to have to call Detective Pierson and report it all the same.  You with me?"

Dex watched her nod as she reached for her cellphone.

"Ah, babe?  Let's get up off the street first, okay?"

This was bad.

Not so much the spray paint, or even the word.

It was his girl's reaction to it that was bad.

He would be willing to bet that she'd never been exposed to this kind of viciousness, this kind of vindictiveness in her whole life.  And while he'd never been the brunt of it, he'd seen this and worse in his travels on his motorcycle after his melt down.

They made it inside the house after she'd called and reported it to Lester on the front desk, who put her into Pierson's voicemail.

He was standing next to her at the bar, rubbing her back trying to get her to settle, when his cellphone rang.

"Dex?  Ted Pierson.  Just listened to Leila's voicemail.  She okay?"

"Holding it together is a better way to put it."

"Where you guys going to be tonight?"

"Think we'll be at my place since she…ah, since this doesn't feel like a safe place for her at the moment."

"Sounds good.  I'll come by and check it out tonight.  Make sure you get pictures of it both up close and from across the street so that her house number is clearly visible in the pictures and then email them to me. Okay?"

"Will do and thanks," Dex replied, grateful that the detective was willing to cut into his own Friday night.  Dex disconnected and repeated their conversation to Leila.

"Need to grab what you'll need for the weekend, princess, and then we'll go to my place, alright?"

He felt her nod and begin to release the grip she had on his t-shirt.

And all he could think of, as he followed her up the stairs, was all the different ways he was going to fuck
up
the person that made his girl feel unsafe in her own home.

He followed her as he drove his bike and she drove the Mustang as they made their way over to his house.  He noticed that her driving was careful, almost overly careful, which was another clue that showed how shook she was by what she had seen.

As they made the turn onto his street, he pulled ahead of her so he could use the garage door opener, but he saw it before he even pressed the button.

Same red paint.

Same style of writing.

Different words. 

Words written not on the garage door.

'Leave Her Alone' in letters three feet high that began just to the left of the front door and spread across the entire white stucco front of his house.

And Dex felt his heart clench.

He waved Leila up into the driveway and pulled out his cellphone to call Pierson and to take pictures.

They ended up at the Grantham hotel, since Leila was close to losing it over the fucking shit that had been spray painted on both their houses.

Their hotel room was beautiful and something they both would have probably appreciated more had the circumstances been different.

But they weren't.

So they didn't.

Chapter Twenty Nine

I knew that Dex was worried about me and my reaction to what had been done.  While he was always solicitous, today he kept me closer than close.

I couldn't stop shaking.

My mind was chaotic, unsettled.

What kind of person would do something like that?

Did I know them?

They, whomever 'they' might be must be close enough, somehow feeling that they were in the right, in whatever it was that they believed to be true, to spray paint those words, those particular words, on our houses.

I laid down on my side, face towards the full length windows on the hotel bed, and tried to find my center, tried to find a way to relax.  I felt the bed dip before Dex's arm wrapped around my waist, his chest to my chest, as his legs tangled with mine.  I kept my eyes closed but I moved closer to him, wrapping my arm around his back.

"You alright, babe?" he said, his lips against my forehead.

"Will be," I replied as I nuzzled into his neck.

"You want to order dinner from room service?"

"Yeah.  And have Dirk send up a bottle of tequila, with salt and lemon wedges," I mumbled against his neck.  "I think you might get lucky and have drunken sex tonight."

I felt, rather than heard, Dex's chuckle.

"So all I gotta do to get you in the sack is spray paint stuff on your house?"

"Not funny, honey."

"I know, Leila."

"Who do we know, Dex, that would
do
something like that?"

"Dunno, babe."

"Do you think the person, or persons, that did it would do anything else?  Do you think they're the ones that messed with our cars?"

"What I think is," my man said with his nose pressed alongside mine, "we need to keep our heads and let Pierson do the speculating, the investigating, and keep ourselves safe, alright?"  He said this as he used his beautiful long-fingered hand to stroke me from my knee to my hip and lightly grip my waist.

It took a moment, a long freaking kind of moment, for what he said to sink in.  He was right, there was nothing he or I could do at this point.  We just need to leave it to the police.

The phone by the bed rang and Dex reached a long tattooed arm across to pick it up.