Super Born: Seduction of Being (34 page)

“
That depends,” she said, uncrossing
and spreading her legs until only the sides of her skirt stopped
them.

There wasn’t anything cool left in
me after that. My heart decided it was a track star and tried to
burst through my chest like a finish line tape. My brain was full
of so many thoughts, possibilities, and worries that it went into
overload.
Is this it? Am I about to buy
the ranch right now, today? Dead as in D-E-A-D? Would she rip me in
half or do the old Demitri Spinderella move on me?
(I leaned toward the latter.) Generally, what the
fuck was going on? I wondered.

“
What is it you want?” I asked
finally, circling around to the kitchen. “Can I get you
something?”

She laughed.

“
Something to drink?”

“
All you have are those fucking
Miner’s Lites.”

I opened the door to the fridge, then
discovered she was right. “Well, I have two eggs in here as well,”
I offered.

She smirked at me, left the sofa, and moved to
the kitchen, apparently tired of games. She picked up my laptop and
shoved it into my arms. “That’s how you’re supposed to do it. She’s
easy to find in the Pub Crawler game.” On the screen was a picture
of the B.I.B. at Flanagan’s with a big text banner blinking, “You
found the B.I.B. You Win!”

This is fucking it!
I panicked in my head.
You’re a dead man!

She rubbed her hand over my shoulder and down
my arm. “I need a man.”

Holy shit! Demitri , here I
come!

“
I need a man to help me find
someone,” she said, starting to rub my chest. “Are you that man?”
Jennifer asked, reaching for my crotch.

“
How…how am I supposed to do that?
Sounds like you…you need a private…”

“
Dick?” she said, diggin around my
pants in search of her elusive prey. “I’ve tried private detectives
and they’ve just wasted my money. No, what I’m looking for has
proven very hard to find,” she said, with her second hand joining
the search. “But I know you know where it is.”

“
What…what makes you think that?” I
asked, with my voice jumping on the last word.

She stopped her digging, apparently realizing,
for the second time, that she couldn’t overcome the B.I.B.’s mark.
“You know where she is. Christ, you have a whole fucking website
worshipping the bitch! I need to know where she is ’cause they’re
gonna kill her. You want that to happen, lover boy? They can do it.
She’s next. Only I can save her, and only you can get to her. Think
it over and call me, before it’s too late,” she said, turning to
leave.

“
Why should I trust you? How do I
know you’re not the one who’s after her?”

“
Ah,” said Jennifer, turning back to
me, “so you do know where she is!”

Damn
, I
thought,
What an ass
! And by that, I meant me. There was no use denying it
anymore. “How am I supposed to reach you?”

She stopped and turned at the door. “My
number’s burnt into that little excuse you have for a dick. Figured
that’s the only place I could put it where you wouldn’t lose it,”
she said, before slamming the door.

Those numbers were going to become
gigantic the next time I saw Allie, I feared. I sighed deeply and
felt my heart returning to my chest. I began to think I might
actually survive. I went to the fridge for a Miner’s,
thinking,
What the fuck?

Then I became aware that my near-death
encounter had given me a firm desire to go to the bathroom. Why not
check out her number while I did? It should have bothered me that I
had to open the bathroom door, which I hadn’t closed, but it
didn’t. Waiting for me, cowering in the shower, I found Rebecca
staring at me through her rose-colored glasses.

“
Is she gone?” she whispered. When I
just stood in disbelief and didn’t respond, she said again, more
emphatically, “Is she gone?”

I nodded, and she came running at me like a
bill collector. “You didn’t tell her anything, did you? Did
you?”

I shook my head, thinking,
I’m not gonna get killed again, am
I?

She stuck her head through the doorway and
looked down the hall in both directions. As she passed, I held my
beer bottle over my crotch—irrationally, perhaps—to keep from being
violated again. . “You got my phone call, right? I tried to warn
you she was coming.” Then she began to pace back and forth in the
bathroom. “I’m sorry I lied to you. I really am. But if I’d told
you where the B.I.B. was, you’d have led Jennifer right
there.”

I had even less of an idea what was going on
now than I had before. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.
How do you and Jennifer know each other?”

She paced for a moment, then sat down on the
edge of the tub, her elbows on her knees and her hands on her head.
“You’re not going to believe me, but I have these special powers.
I’m not like other people…”

“
You’re a Super Born, just like the
B.I.B. and Jennifer.”

“
You know?” she said, looking up at
me in relief. “I met Jennifer about a year ago. It was a rough time
in my life.
My powers were just coming on
and I thought something was wrong with me. I put my fiancée—my high
school sweetheart!—in the hospital; I don’t even know how. He still
won’t take my calls. I discovered I could make things happen with
my mind, communicate with machines…” She glanced back at me, as if
checking my credulity quotient. “I didn’t program your website, I
just thought it, and there it was.”

“
So how’d you get hooked up with
Jennifer?”

“
Jennifer came to my house and said
she had been looking for me. She knew I had powers I didn’t
understand, and she would help me. She said there were others and
she needed my help to find them. It made me feel a lot better to
know I wasn’t alone…you know? So, of course I agreed and, right
away, using the Internet, I found a woman named Victoria. She had
just started having premonitions of things that were going to
happen, and it was driving her crazy. Her husband left. She started
to get sick over it. When we found her, she was thin and almost
gray.

“
After a few days, she felt better
too. She told Jennifer a number of things that were going to happen
in the world financial markets: stocks, commodities. Jennifer made
a lot of money. Even I invested a little, and it worked. Then, for
some reason, Victoria started to get sick again, and her
predictions turned sour.

“
Around that time, Jennifer told me
about the B.I.B. and asked me to find her. But I couldn’t. She was
like a ghost. That’s when you met Jennifer for that fake survey at
the coffee shop. When she realized that you had been marked, she
knew you would know where the B.I.B. was. When you called me for
the survey, she already knew about your ugly website and knew you’d
take the bait and hire me if I let it slip that that’s what I did
for a living. That way, we could monitor your site, your
communications, and your phone. She was sure you would lead us to
her.

“
That’s when it all went wrong.
Victoria disappeared. Jennifer started talking like she was glad to
be rid of her. I started to suspect that Jennifer had her killed.
Then she sent two men to my apartment with guns, guns like I had
never seen before, to kill me…”

“
Kill you? What happened?” I
asked.

Rebecca stood up and turned away. “I don’t
know. I saw them point the guns, and the next thing I remember,
they were gone. The room was empty. There were just black burn
marks on the floor.

“
That was right when you helped me
find the B.I.B.’s home address. I didn’t know what to do. I thought
if I told Jennifer the address, then she’d kill the B.I.B. too. I
couldn’t let you lead her to the B.I.B. either. So I gave you the
phony address and decided to go to the B.I.B. myself and warn her.
But then I started to worry that Jennifer was having me followed.
She called me and we had a fight. I’ve been running from her ever
since.”

“
Quite a story,” I said.

“
It’s true,” she said, empathically,
turning to face me. “Do you really know where the B.I.B.
is?”

It was then I started feeling suspicious. Was I
being scammed….again? “No, I have no idea where she is. She worked
up a whole new identity after you closed in on her.”

Rebecca looked at the ground. “Then we’re
lost…without her help, I don’t know what’s going to happen…Jennifer
will turn on you too! She’ll kill us both! As soon as you are of no
use to her. She has to believe you know how to find the B.I.B., or
you’re not safe.”

“
Listen, you’ll be safe with me.
She’s already been to the apartment, so she won’t expect you to be
here. Stay here for now, until we figure this out. Don’t call or
visit anyone you know, no friends no relatives. She’ll have my
place watched, so don’t walk out in the open…Is your car
here?”

“
Still at my apartment. I knew she
could trace it.”

“
Good. You can use the back
bedroom…stay away from the windows.”

She nodded in agreement and then gave me a hug.
Her body felt like a furnace against mine. “Jennifer didn’t unmark
you, did she? You’re not working for her?” she asked, feeling my
crotch.

“
What is it with you people?!” I
exclaimed, pushing her away.

“
Sorry, I just had to be sure
…”

I waved her by me out the door. “I know. So if
you don’t mind, I have to pee!”

She walked by, then turned back.
“Sorry.”

“
I know, I know! Get the hell out!”
I slammed the door and hesitated before checking for Jennifer’s
phone number.With Allie no where in sight, the digits weren’t as
gigantic as I’d hoped.

When I emerged from the bathroom, I found
Rebecca in the living room, appearing distressed. “What’s wrong?” I
asked.

She turned to me with a burning stare. “Have
you seen your back bedroom?”

“
What?”

“
Have you seen those nasty sheets,
the stained pillows? Do you even own a vacuum?”

“
If it bugs you, take my
bedroom.”

“
Do you really sleep in there? And
do women actually have sex with you in there?”

“
Okay, I’ll get you new sheets and
pillows. The vacuum’s….around here somewhere,” I said, scanning the
room till I spied the vacuum in a distant corner. “Right
there.”

“
And the blankets—whose horse did
you take them from?”

“
Okay, blankets too.”

She reluctantly stood up, crossed the room, and
touched the vacuum with the tips of two fingers. “Eeewww,
gross.”

“
You said you got along with
machines.”

“
It’s the slime I’m worried
about.”

“
I’ll be back. Don’t show yourself
or answer the door or phone, okay?”

“
There will be someone watching
you,” she warned.

“
I know,” I said, scooping up my
keys and wallet from the kitchen counter as I passed.

“
And food. I love Miner’s Lite, but
I can’t live on beer and eggs,” she added.

Did everyone know the contents of my fridge? I
nodded. “Got it, chick food.” I stopped as I passed her, trying to
get a look behind her glasses. I slid them off her face and checked
her eyes.

“
Something wrong with my
eyes?”

“
No, they’re a pretty gray, very
piercing,” I BS’ed.

“
Gray? I don’t think so! Try
hazel.”

Hazel, my
ass
, I thought to myself.

Before she could speak again, I
slipped out the door.
Didn’t know I’d
gotten married
, I thought. All of the
Super Born had been at my apartment except the one I wanted to be
there.
Life is weird.

As I walked to my car, I looked
around
checking my peripheral vision for a
tail.. I didn’t see a candidate, but knew someone had to be there.
I hopped into in my car, slammed the door shut, and reached to put
the key in the ignition, when a forearm pinned my neck to the
seat.

“
Do you want to tell me why the two
people who are looking for me have both been at your apartment
within minutes of one another?” asked the B.I.B., tightening her
grip further.

“
Allie! Be careful, I’m being
watched, they’ll see you,” I said, with great
difficulty.

“
The guy tailing you is over there,”
she said, gesturing with her head to a group of cars nearby.
“Caught him too busy playing B.I.B. Rescue on his mobile phone to
notice me. I don’t think he’s in any condition to do much watching
anymore. Now, answer my question.”

“
It’s so weird, you won’t even
believe it.”

“
Try me.”

“
Take your arm off my throat, and
I’ll tell you. Remember? I’m on your team.”

Allie lessened her grip, then her arm
disappeared into the backseat.