Super Born: Seduction of Being (35 page)

I turned to look at her. The serious concern on
her face was unlike anything I had seen before. Which explained her
aggressive attitude. “Well, hello, nice to see you too!” I said,
rubbing my neck. “Jennifer was in my apartment when I got home from
visiting Jones; I thought she was going to kill me. She wanted me
to help her find you. She said ‘someone’ was going to kill you. She
said you were next on their list, but that she could stop them if I
let her know where you were…”

“
And?”

“
And that’s it.”

“
What did you tell her?”

“
I told her the truth. I didn’t know
where you were and didn’t have a way to reach you.”

“
And?”

“
She left…after feeling me up pretty
good.”

“
What about Rebecca? She was the one
outside my old apartment.”

I shook my head, not believing the words coming
out of my mouth. “She was hiding from Jennifer in my bathroom. She
is convinced Jennifer killed one of the other women like you and
that she tried to kill her too. They had a fight. She wouldn’t give
Jennifer your old address. She was trying to reach you herself to
warn you but was afraid of leading her to you. She has nowhere else
to go and thought I would understand. She’s hiding out at my place
for a while…this all just happened. I didn’t ask for any of
it.”

“
Yeah right, I’m sure you just hate
these women throwing themselves at you. Where does Rebecca use her
super powers? In the bedroom?”

“
Is that why you’re pissed? It’s not
like that…so far, she’s like the pain-in-the-ass sister I never
had. Besides, you marked me. ‘Live with it’, remember?”

“
Right.” Allie looked concerned,
staring past me through the windshield, her mind clearly racing.
“Who do you believe?”

I don’t know why, but the questions
made me think of the image of Jennifer’s cleavage for a
second.
Focus,
I
told myself. I flashed on Rebecca’s panicked face, her questions
about the B.I.B. “I don’t know. They could be still working
together, you know, good cop/bad cop. Who besides them would be
after you, anyway?”

“
Who indeed

“
Jones thinks you’re genetically
like bees, queen bees. Only one of you can survive.”

“So this Jennifer must think she’s
the queen bee.”

”

“
Apparently so. Although it’s the
little princess in my apartment who’s getting on my nerves right
now.” I gestured to the apartment, “Shewants new sheets, pillows,
blankets, and she has this notion about having more than Miner’s
Lite in the fridge.”

“
Some people,” she said shaking her
head. “Sounds like she’s building a little hive of her
own.”

I nodded.

She popped the car door and began to
leave.

“
Allie, when will I see you
again?”

“
I’ll find you,
remember?”

“
No, I mean…like a date…the night at
O’Malley’s, remember?”

“
Let me get this straight. There are
people trying to kill me right now, and you’re worried about a
date?”

“
Yes.” My answer was immediate and
without question. After all, what else was there? She had become my
obsession, my income, my purpose, and my passion in life, and also,
with her mark, pretty much my only shot at getting laid.

“
O’Malley’s? That was just one
night.”

“
No, it wasn’t. I spent months
trying to make that night happen.”

“
It was an accident.”

“
So explain then why you marked
me.”

Allie’s face betrayed surprise, her mouth left
open by my remarks. She couldn’t fight the logic of it. “You have
no idea what you’re asking for..”

She opened the door to leave, then came
stopped. She sighed, hesitating— I felt her breath on my ear.
Finally she leaned around the seat, and I felt her warm hand slide
over the waist of my shirt, under my belt, and slowly drop into my
pants. As her fingers drifted over me, she ignited a full and rapid
erection. I leaned back in my seat and let out a low moan, inviting
her to continue. She ran her fingers over my full length, stopping
for an instant over the numbers Jennifer had burnt in, then her
thin fiery fingers coasted back out. “Just checking, to be sure,”
she explained. “I’m new to this marking thing. I wanted to be sure
neither of them had got to you.”

“
Anytime…twice on Sunday,” I
answered in a mellow tone. “Feel free to check anytime you want. In
fact, maybe you should check again…just to be sure.”

“
Nice try,” she said, turning to
leave. Then she turned back. “Logan, the last guy I did that to had
to go through weeks of physical therapy afterward. I wouldn’t want
to hurt you.”

“
That’s a risk I’m prepared to
take!” I said, still feeling the effects of her touch.

I twisted around and reached for her only to
find the seat behind me empty. “Maybe I should check you then!” I
shouted after her.I took a little mental vacation, imaginingthe
superwoman who dominated my life surrendering and being consumed by
my touch. Instead, there she was walking away…again.

“
So you’re afraid of me, Is that
it?…Let me check my mark on you!” I said getting out of the car. I
debated whether to run after her and press my point or be patient
with her. Was this my moment? Eventually, in the way of my people,
I just stood there and hoped there would be a tomorrow.

Allie stopped, looked over her shoulder, and
came back toward me a couplf of steps “What’s with the
numbers?”

“
Gift from Jennifer. That’s how you
can reach her,” I said. Then, after a moment of thought, I asked,
“Those will wear off, right?”

Allie smirked and walked away from the car –
for real this time.

“
Right?” I yelled after her.
“Allie?” Watching her leave was hard. Feeling her absence again was
cruel. Just sitting in the car with her had lifted me back to a
lofty place with a lively feeling of purpose in my life. With her
gone, I came crashing back down to a melancholy world of middle
symptoms; not down in the gutter but far from the exhalted place I
wanted to be. She brought back me to life, and had just proven it
again.

Chapter
2
9

Calm before the Storm—We All Have a
Good Night

With the guy who was tailing me out of
commission, I saw no reason to rush while collecting all the items
Rebecca could not live without. I even threw in some extras for
her, and a gourmet treat for dinner—pizza. When I returned, my tail
was still in La La Land, or was it La La-istan—meaning Allie had
really put him out there. I tried not to enjoy his unfortunate
state, or the thought of the new asshole he would be given by his
superiors, but I smiled anyway.

It proved difficult to carry all the bags into
my building in one trip, but the macho challenge was too strong;
dropping one or breaking something by slamming a bag into a
doorframe was of no consequence in comparison with the glory I
would gain by succeeding.

When I finally got all the bags into the
apartment—in one trip I must add—I found myself encircled by
activity. My laptop screen flashed frantically on the dining room
table, the TV surfed channels, the dishwasher ran, and I heard the
sound of my vacuum cleaner moving back and forth in my bedroom.
Amid it all, Rebecca sat reading one of my old magazines, no remote
controls in sight.

Curiously, slowly, I paced to my bedroom,
afraid I might step on something. I peeked around the doorframe to
watch my vacuum round the bed, redo a spot it had missed, then
retire to the corner and shut itself off. I crept back to the
living room to find Rebecca digging through the bags.

“
Pizza? You got pizza for dinner?”
she asked me.

I quickly dug through another bag and pulled
out a small container and displayed it. “And a salad,” I said, in
my defense.

“
You really eat this
stuff?”

“
You really like to bitch?” I
responded, grabbing the food in question from her hand.

Then she stopped, smiled, and turned to me,
holding some basic female toiletries in her hand. “Someone either
had a lot of sisters or…” Then she laughed. “Or someone had a
live-in girlfriend.”

When I began to blush, she knew she had hit a
nerve and went in for the kill with a simple little song she made
up just to irritate me:

“
You had a girrrl friend

And you reallly liked her

But you’re a slobbbbbb

So she leffft you

Even when you bought her presennnts

And you bought her flowerrrs

You gave her pizzza

So she leffft you

Cause you’re a slobbbb”

“
Very funny,” I said.More and more
she was starting to seem less like the sister I never had and more
like every woman I had ever fallen for, and who’d made it clear I
was a total ass. Great . “You want the pizza or not? And I’m not
bringing you flowers, no matter how you beg, so forget
it.”

She turned toward the dishwasher, which stopped
and popped its latch when she approached. She returned with plates,
forks, and glasses for each of us.

I looked down at them as if they were alien
devices. “So, this is what goes in there?” I asked, pointing to the
dishwasher.

“
In the civilized world,
yes.”

“
You really eat your pizza on a
plate? I thought there was a law or something.”

Rebecca handed me a plate and glass, then set
her own plate down on the counter and loaded a slice of pizza onto
it. She cut a small piece with her fork, made a show of shoving it
in her mouth, and turned away.

“
That’s just un-American,” I said to
her back. “In fact, I think it’s French!”

She did her best to ignore me and walked off
toward the living room with her plate and a glass of water.
Generally, my habit was to drink my dinner from a pull top can or
bottle. I held up my empty glass and asked, “Just what am I
supposed to put in here?”

She stopped in the living room, took a long,
dramatic sip of water, and said, “Why don’t you try some water?”
Then she settled herself on the sofa while the TV surfed channels
on its own.

“
Why don’t you try some water!” I
mocked to myself in a squeaky voice. “Why don’t I let Jennifer burn
your ass. How’d you like that? I’m sure she has plenty of water for
you,” I mumbled, stacking pizza slices on one another. I was still
feeling the burn from her little song.

A few minutes later, I joined her on the couch
with four pieces of pizza stacked on my plate, no fork, no napkin,
no water, and placed a sweaty Miner’s Lite bottle on the coffee
table without a coaster, declaring my independence.

“
Nice,” she said, without looking at
me. “Really nice.” I thought that deep inside it must have been
killing her, but then I caught a little curl of a smile on her
face.

We chilled, watched TV, irritated each other,
and she laughed at me while I struggled with B.I.B. Rescue and Pub
Crawler. “Those are so easy,” she gloated. “I can’t believe you
can’t find her!” She stole two of my pieces of pizza, encountering
little resistance, and ate what was left in the box, plus the
“healthy” salad. For a skinny chick, that girl could eat. And did I
mention the four Miner’s Lites she drank?

“
You got any ice cream?” she asked,
excited at the prospect.

“
I don’t recall that being on your
grocery list,” I fired back,

“
Oh well, put it on…for tomorrow,”
she said, fluffing some pillows. She lay across the sofa with her
head on them.

“
I’ll just put that here, right
under the side of beef and truckload of healthy fruit and
vegetables—ten gallons i-c-e c-r-e-a-m,” I said pretending to
write.

But she wasn’t even paying attention to me.
Instead, she watched the TV intently. “Good. That would be
great.”

Now that we had finished and the post-pizza
burping on my part had begun, I was surprised when her petite hand
drifted over and curled up in mine. At first it startled me, but
there was nothing suggestive about it. However much she might have
reminded me of some of my least favorite exes, Rebecca seemed a
nice girl, and more than anything she seemed like family.
Throughout the night we watched some shows and old movies, laughed,
joked. It was nice… once you got past the nagging, bitching,
demands, anal BS, irritating questions, and the general invasion of
my man cave. .

* * *

Being Carmine Camino isn’t as easy
as you would think. There are all kinds of responsibilities,
planning, and shit like that. I was pulling a late night alone in
my newly remodeled office, sitting hunched over my new black desk.
In one hand I had a half-empty bottle of beer, and in the other, a
brochure on the Israeli assault rifles that had just arrived from
overseas in crates marked
Farm
Implements.
“These should do the trick,” I
said to myself, dropping the brochure into the clutter on my
desk.