Species (16 page)

“I’ll take you,” the guy said immediately.

The girl’s smile widened as Sil watched, stunned. “Will you? Cool!” She found her own balance and tossed her hair. “I have to go to the little girls’ room first, okay? You wait here. I’ll be right back.” She veered into the crowd.

Sil looked at the guy, but his back was to her as he motioned to one of the bartenders. Outcompeted by the other woman, Sil was already forgotten. As she heard him order something called a “Jell-O shot,” Sil slid to her feet, ran her hands down her hips to straighten her skirt, and headed for the rest room.

T
he rest rooms were on the lower level, down a flight of bottom-lit stairs that were never meant to be negotiated with a stomach full of alcohol—at least it seemed that way to Sil as she watched the drunken girl from the bar wobble down them as a few other woman staggered up. Sil followed the auburn-haired beauty into the women’s room and squinted at the unexpected bright white tiles, relieved only by an occasional framed movie poster bolted to the wall. The stalls were off to the side, floor-to-ceiling enclosures—little rooms—that reminded Sil of the tiny bathroom on the train but without the luxury of a sink or mini-shower stall. For the moment they had the rest room to themselves, and Sil’s competitor stopped at the mirror and dug her hand inside her tight leather vest, giving her breasts a few practiced tugs that resulted in a cleavage far more generous than before.

As she turned to go into a stall, the young woman saw Sil waiting for her and scowling. Her response was a self-satisfied smirk. “Whatever works, right?” She didn’t seem nearly as intoxicated as she had upstairs, and Sil’s expression went icy and full of hate. The girl shrugged, unimpressed. “Hey, honey, all’s fair in love and war.” Ignoring Sil’s glare, she ducked into the closest stall and shut the door.

Sil slipped into the one next to her and carefully pulled the latch closed, wondering where she’d heard that saying before. Perhaps it had been on the television, during one of those innuendo-filled daytime shows about men and women that she’d watched on the train. It didn’t matter now, and what bothered her more was not understanding exactly why she had disliked being called
honey
by the woman who was now singing to herself as she used the toilet in the next stall. Sil could hear the words—

“Touch me now, stranger, it’s time to explore . . . My body is your ship into which—”

Barely aware of what she was doing, Sil calmly punched through the wall separating the stalls. Despite Sil’s earnest efforts, the screaming, bleeding girl just wouldn’t fit through the hole Sil had made in the wall-board.

T
he noise and blazing streaks of colored light in the nightclub’s main room was an assault after the clean, eye-popping whiteness of the rest room. Sil almost didn’t see the handsome man standing casually by the top of the stairs. When she did notice him, she ducked her head and glided back into the shadows for a moment, where she could study him without being seen. As handsome in a dark-haired way as the guy she’d be talking with before the drunken girl had intervened, this guy struck Sil as more intelligent and watchful . . .
cunning.
Dressed in a tuxedo as though he’d just come from somewhere special, he surveyed the crowd with the air of a predator familiar with the hunting ground; Sil found the aura of shrewdness that surrounded him immensely electrifying.

Stepping out of the darkness, she intentionally swayed into him as she passed. “Whoa!” He laughed as he held out a hand to steady her. “Better find your balance before you try those stairs again, babe.”

“Hi,” Sil said. Her voice didn’t sound as slurred as her previous rival’s had, and she hoped it wouldn’t matter. “I’ve got a party to go to and no one to take me.”

“Really?” The man’s dark eyes sharpened with interest and he slipped an arm around her waist. His breath was warm in her ear. “Well, my name’s Robbie and I’ve got a car that says I’m your transport. Where’s the party?”

“I . . . don’t know. I can’t find the address,” she added quickly. Sil hadn’t thought about anything beyond the borrowed phrase, but that didn’t seem to matter to Robbie. He simply laughed.

“What the hell, baby. Let’s go—we’ll make our own.”

“H
ere it is. What do you think?” Robbie opened the door to his convertible and looked at Sil expectantly. She didn’t understand the question, so she nodded agreeably and climbed into the passenger seat. He closed the door for her, then came around and settled behind the steering wheel. “It’s a Puma. I special ordered it.”

“Puma?” She’d thought a puma was a type of cat, but apparently that was incorrect. Sil slid her gaze over the inside of the automobile, watching as he inserted a key into the ignition and turned it, learning the process as the engine started and he shifted into first gear and pulled out of the parking spot, then left the lot behind. It didn’t seem to take substantial intelligence to operate the car—hand-eye coordination, attentiveness to your surroundings, memorizing what the various knobs and pedals did. She thought she could do it if she had to.

“Yeah,” Robbie continued as he steered smoothly into the flow of night traffic on La Brea, then turned left onto Hollywood. “From Brazil. Not too many of them around.”

“It’s very . . . orange,” she finally said.

Robbie chuckled. “Yeah, it is. Like I said, you don’t see a lot of ’em. So what’s your name?”

“Sil.” A familiar sound above them made Sil’s head snap up. A helicopter sped by far overhead, then joined another hovering somewhere behind them, spotlights probing the street from which they’d just come. Were they from the complex? Had they been able to trace her here?

“Wow,” Robbie said, acknowledging the copters with a nod, “check it out. There’s always some action going on in this part of town.” His disinterested expression didn’t match his enthusiastic words. Then he brightened. “Wait’ll you see my place . . . uh, Sil.” He gave her a sideways glance. “It’s on Chalette Drive, built on the side of a hill. When I turn out the lights, you can see all the way to the ocean.”

Sil nodded again, still keeping one ear tuned to the fading sounds of the helicopters. What was the
ocean?
For a while the street signs had continued to read
SUNSET BLVD.
and follow a line of apparently endless parking meters, then Robbie had passed a corner called Fairfax. On it was a cylindrical building made of glass, and she looked back and saw a sign in front of the building that read
DIRECTORS GUILD OF AMERICA.
Then he turned and began weaving the car along a dozen smaller, curved streets. It didn’t take long for the noise of the helicopters to disappear entirely, but she was still disappointed to leave the gigantic billboards and the bright clubs and stores behind.

“Don’t talk much, do you?”

Sil shrugged, hoping that gesture would suffice. She wasn’t sure what to say, what he wanted her to say, what she
shouldn’t
say. She knew that there was a sort of ritual that was usually applied here, but she was at a loss as to the finer points of it. The television—her best teacher—had shown her the basic biological steps, but not much else. She had a lot to learn.

The Puma had been climbing steadily for several minutes, and suddenly Robbie used a turn signal and veered into a carefully landscaped driveway. Farther up, at the peak of the hill and lit by strategically placed yard lights, a blue-stained cedar A-frame with huge windows waited. Robbie stopped the Puma in front of the lower-level garage and pressed a button on a device clipped to the driver’s-side sun visor; the double-wide garage door rolled smoothly up. He pulled in and hit the switch again to close the garage, then killed the engine and came around to open Sil’s door.

“Home sweet home,” he said cheerfully. “This way.” Sil followed him to a set of steep, wooden stairs, looking curiously at the unfinished garage, with its open wood framework and scores of hardware items hanging and stacked on shelves everywhere. Robbie waved a dismissive hand at it. “Don’t look at this mess. I hate screwing around with garage stuff. Come on—wait’ll you see upstairs.” He pushed through a door at the top of the staircase and motioned for her to follow. As she stepped through he snapped his fingers. Soft track lights winked into life on each side of the living room, following the high peaks of the ceiling until they met. Robbie snapped his fingers again and a stereo system against the far wall lit up, spilling soft music into the room from surround-sound speakers. On the other wall, in the center of two sets of patio doors, was an unused fireplace faced by two expensively upholstered Papasan chairs. Surrounded by deep brown leather couches, a thick, twelve-by-twelve area rug the color of café au lait dominated the room. In the rug’s center rested the highlight of the room, a circular coffee table made of heavy, polished copper, a lovely disk with hand-beaten designs that rested on a dark wooden base. The muted track lighting made it sparkle.

Robbie grinned at her, showing capped, expensive teeth. “You like it?”

Sil nodded amiably. “Yes. It’s very nice.”

“Great.” Robbie watched her for a second, then made a mock fanning motion in front of his face. “Whew,” he said nonchalantly. “I’m all hot and sweaty from the crowd in that place—what a madhouse. I feel like a shower.” His eyes, a clear gray color she’d never seen before, glittered in the subdued light. “How about it, beautiful—you want one?”

Sil smiled hesitantly. A shower?

“Tell you what,” Robbie said easily. “I’m going to take one. Join me if you like, or take one later. If you’d rather get something to drink, the fridge is off the living room. Help yourself. No problem.”

“No problem,” Sil echoed, watching as he headed toward the bathroom, stripping off his clothes and leaving them in a trail across the living room. She followed him through the living room and into the master bedroom’s bathroom, liking the sight of his muscular back and lean hips. He grinned at her, completely at ease in his nakedness, and ducked quickly into a overly large shower stall separated from the rest of the bathroom by a seven-foot wall of glass blocks. The blast of the water startled her for a moment, then a cloud of steam rose above the stall, billowing out and up toward an exhaust fan embedded in the slanted ceiling twelve feet above her. She could see Robbie’s silhouette, distorted by the glass blocks; moving back and forth under the hot water, he was humming huskily as he lathered up with some kind of scented soap. The smell reminded her a little of the scattered spots of greenery back in the desert surrounding the complex—earthy and exciting.

Sil’s breathing sped up, kindled by the sound of Robbie’s throaty singing, the clean, steamy scent of his soap and the erotic glimpses of skin shifting in and out of view through the glass wall. Her face began to flush as the temperature built in the bathroom, and after a few moments she went to the bedroom to wait for him. The bed was ridiculously huge, covered by a thick comforter in a sizzling dark Persian print with a dozen matching throw pillows. She ran a fingernail slowly across the bottom of the comforter, listening to the sound it made and being careful not to tear the fabric. She felt as wet and sultry as the moist, heated air in the other room.