Ten Thousand Lies (14 page)

After Jones dropped us off at the Inkwell, we cleaned up and changed into our civvies. Rex was the last to come out from the back as Ronen and I waited in the front for him.

Red as a fucking tomato, he couldn’t meet our eyes.

“You all right, Rex?” asked Ronen.

“I, uh…” He kept his hands in front of his groin. “It’s not going down.”

Ronen busted out laughing. “You need to go find yourself a candy-ass?”

The poor kid went even redder. “Is it normal?”

“For everyone but Ricki, yeah. Come on, we’ll head to De Wallen after we drop Ricki off at home.”

“I’m gonna head to Ellen’s,” I told them. “I’ll walk.”

Ronen gave me a weird look. “You ain’t banging the old broad, are you?”

“Nah, man. She’s just cool to talk to.”

“Yeah, she is,” Ronen agreed. “So, Rex, I got a couple of friends who enjoy casual sex over in the Red Light District. Not hookers or anything. Just some friends who like to get their freak on. You game?”

“I, uh…um, yeah. Yeah, maybe.”

“Come on,” said Ronen, clapping Rex on the back. “See you tomorrow,” he said to me in passing.

A few minutes after they left, I locked up and headed for Ellen’s. Ronen always got the bloodlust after a mission, and he’d go to the Red Light District to get it out of system. Ronen knew some bizarre fucking people and wasn’t joking when he’d told Rex his “friends” were into casual sex. I’d heard the stories from Ronen, never having the urge to participate myself. Apparently, people really did get together for tapas and orgies.

For me…maybe it was weird. The bloodlust would leave me after the operations were complete. Seeing people abused, raped, killed…it didn’t turn into something that needed to be released. The kill
was
the release for me.

Instead, I’d just go hang out with Ellen.

Ellen was waiting for me in the bookstore when I arrived.

“How’d it go?” she asked as we trudged up the stairs to her loft.

“It was beautiful,” I told her as I sat down on her couch.

She handed me the fattest joint I’d ever seen. Ever since my and Ronen’s first Locals assignment, I’d taken up the habit.

“Ronen took Rex to De Wallen.”

“Fudge packer got a rager, eh?”

I nodded. “Is it weird I don’t?”

“No. It affects people differently. You just process it in a way that is your own. Nothing wrong with that.”

“Yeah.”

“You don’t have much experience with sex, do you?”

Blushing, I shook my head, suddenly thinking of Jaime. When I spoke with her on the phone, I’d imagine what it might be like to have sex with her, a faceless beauty I could lose myself in.

“Nothing to be ashamed of,” she said. “It makes sense, what with the way you grew up.”

“How do you mean?”

“Well, knowing your mother was forced into it. You knowing you and your brother are the results of coercion and rape even if the times you were conceived was consensual. In a way…it really wasn’t. Your mother never had a choice. She said yes just to live another day. You don’t equate sex with love, and for that…I am truly sorry, Ricki. Because, as bad as sex can be, it can also be that wonderful.”

When I imagined doing it with Jaime, it was wonderful.

“What Ronen and Rex are up to now has nothing to do with love,” I said.

“No, but both of them know the power behind the act when it does. Are you a virgin?”

“No,” I replied, sounding exhausted.

On my sixteenth birthday, my father had taken me to a club and paid a stripper to initiate me into the world of sex. She was a gorgeous black woman named Orchid. It was quick, messy, and humiliating, and I never wanted to experience anything like that ever again.

I’d fantasized about my first time before it had happened. I had pictured a woman with all the love inside her shining through her eyes just for me. I’d imagined it being this incredibly powerful, sexy, wondrous moment that would fill my life with greatness. It would erase the shame my mother had lived through with my father. It would eclipse those horrible memories the two of them had created.

Instead, my virginity had been pumped into a slimy rubber, buried in a stripper whose true name I would never know. We’d sat and chatted afterward and sipped champagne, giving us the time to come up with a plausible story. She’d told my father I’d fucked her well and good; it was one of the few times true pride for me had shone from his eyes.

Even all these years later, I felt the sting of shame behind that act.

Ellen patted my knee. “Don’t worry, son. There will come a day when it all falls into place for you. She’s out there, and she’s going to show you what it means when sex and love are one in the same.”

“What makes you so sure?” I asked.

One day, Jaime would be here.
Will she be the one who shows me?

“Because your heart is too big for you to live your life with only the turd by your side. I have a feeling ass doesn’t really do it for you either.”

I shook my head. “No, that’s all Rex.”

“You two are good for that kid, you know that, right? You accept him as he is; you don’t care that he’s gay. You treat him like any other man.”

“He is like any other man,” I replied. Half the joint was gone, and I was still waiting for the mellow to take over.

Ellen settled back into the cushions on her side of the couch. “Such a shame for women though. At least Xanthe got to tap that ass before it went all fruity. Is it me, or does that young lady get the most attractive males to bump uglies with?”

“Say what?” I exhaled my hit before she made me laugh so hard that I choked on a lung.

“First, Rex, who’s just the epitome of everything beautiful about men. Now, Deo, a walking, talking god of a specimen if I’ve ever seen one. What is he? Six-five?”

“Something like that. Are they together? Because, if they are, then I guess David knows.”

“David knows. Xanthe and Deo aren’t what the other needs, but I suppose they’re what each other needs right now.”

“How…how do you mean?”

Ellen looked at me with bloodshot hazel eyes. “They’re too much alike. Both very dark within themselves. I think they care very much about each other, maybe even love each other on some level. But…they need someone to bring the light to them. Together, they’d be a powerful force, no doubt, but…Xanthe needs a man who’s going to show her all that’s beautiful in the world. The same for Deo. He needs to feel needed, and Xanthe…she doesn’t need anybody.”

“Huh.”

“We all have that darkness in us. You, me, Xanthe, Ronen, Rex…whether it’s our DNA or from nurture, it’s in us. We need our better halves to be light and love to show us the way out of our damn heads.”

“What happened to your light, Ellen?”

“He died a year after my sister and niece did.”

“How?”

“I killed him.”

Shocked, I stared at her.

“He had cancer,” she answered my unasked question. “He asked me to end his suffering. So, I did.”

“Oh.”

“Love is a powerful thing, Ricki. Even if yours has to end the same way, don’t hesitate to hold on for all you’re worth. I still have all those years I had with him. He’s still with me. Just as Elaine and Hanna are with Xanthe and David. Love is more powerful than anything. All types of love. With what you do now, you need as much as you can get, you feel me?”

“I feel you, Ellen.”

Ricki

Another Year Slips By…

Ronen didn’t understand my need to talk to Jaime. Hell, I bloody didn’t understand it either.

But what had started as just being concerned about the welfare of Xanthe’s best friend had become something much deeper. Over time, I had grown to love Jaime. It was hard not to. She was strong, freakishly independent—which I knew was from a lifetime of having only herself to rely upon—with a heart hell-bent on saving the world. She had thought she had no spark, no talent within herself, but I’d gotten to know her. Her passion was helping the less fortunate. The Locals couldn’t have asked for a better person to have on their team.

She had the mouth of a sailor, an accent that was abrasive, but a voice that made me feel like warm honey inside. When she laughed, my groin would grow heavy with an ache I wasn’t used to. I’d started calling her late at night while I was alone in my room, so the evidence of what her voice did to me wouldn’t be noticed by anyone else.

My phone chimed with a text message.

Jaime: I stretched my ears today. Want to see?

My heart started racing. Strangely enough, I’d never seen a photo of Jaime. It wasn’t as though I didn’t want to, but it had never come up with either Xanthe or Rex. And I wasn’t sure if I should put a face to the voice that turned me into jelly.

Me: Sure.

Then, my phone chimed with her second text message, and I was bloody thankful I was alone in my room because Jaime…was fucking
stunning
. Her smile beamed like a bloody supernova with small, straight white teeth. Her mouth was wide with glossy full lips. Cute nose. Her light-brown hair wasn’t quite as curly as Xanthe’s auburn bush, but it fell in soft waves around her face. What struck me deep were the China porcelain color of her big, bright blue eyes, like a doll.

“Oh my God,” I whispered to myself.

She looked young and fresh and really tan. Suddenly, I wondered if I was perving over a picture of Jaime as a minor, and I quickly messaged her back.

Me: When was this taken?

Jaime: 5 minutes ago. Why?

Me: Just wondering. You look so young.

Jaime: I’ll be 21 in a few weeks, so not that young. Pervert.

Me: Busted.

Jaime: Now, tell me what you think of the plugs.

Screw the plugs.
But I took another look, noticing she was indeed showing off her swollen red lobes. I liked them. Without further ado, I speed-dialed the girl whose China blue eyes and doll face had just snatched my heart completely.

“Ricki?” she answered.

I grinned. “Hey, Dollface,” I replied, biting my lip, not meaning to call her that.

Her laughter bubbled through my phone, and my cock flat-out swelled.

“Dollface?”

“Yeah. You’ve got the face of a doll.”

Jaime sucked in a sharp breath. “Really?”

“Mmhmm.”

She giggled. “You’re a dork.”

“So Ronen likes to inform me on a daily basis. What are you up to?”

There was a bit of rustling. “Having a few beers at home. I got back from work about an hour ago.”

The sound of a door opening and closing could be heard, and then Jaime sighed, as I imagined she’d just lain back on her bed.

“Are you alone?” I asked.

“I am now. JT likes to talk to me while I’m on the phone for some reason. He never says shit otherwise.”

I laughed. “He sounds special.”

“In more ways than one,” she replied dryly. “What are you doing?”

“Lying in bed.”

“Oh, yeah? Are
you
alone?”

“Yeah. I need quiet after a long day with the twatwaffles I live with.”

Jaime snorted. “Twatwaffles?”

“Yes. And that’s putting in nicely.”

Ronen, Rex, and I lived together, worked together, and had a secret assassin life together, too. It was such a pain in the arse that I had gone and bought up the local bar, Wurther’s, just to give Rex someplace else to be besides the tattoo shop. He’d been running it for only a few weeks now, and I was praying he wasn’t going to drive it into the ground. So far, some deity was listening to me, and business was good.

She sighed again, and I closed my eyes, wondering what it would feel like to have her sigh in my arms, have that soft sound caress over my skin. It wasn’t the first time I’d had such thoughts of her, but now that I’d seen her face, it was as though my mind had gone into overdrive.

“Ricki?”

“Hmm?”

“Are you seeing someone?”

“No,” I replied, snapping out of my fantasy. “Are you?”

It wasn’t something we’d ever discussed before. I’d never asked her because I didn’t want to know. I never wanted to picture her with another man.

“No,” she said. “It doesn’t really make sense to.”

“Why not?”

“Because…I’m leaving in a year. And I have no plans on coming back.”

“Yeah, I guess that would do it,” I said dryly.

Her fucking giggles were doing me in. My groin had turned painful, and I reached my hand beneath my jeans, finding a cock-stand fit to burst.

“So, why aren’t you seeing anyone?” she asked.

The shaft of my cock tingled, and I swallowed thickly. “Just not interested.”

“Oh. Are you…like Rex?”

“What? Gay?”

“Yeah.”

“No.”

Pinching the phone between my ear and shoulder, I tried to be as quiet as possible as I unbuttoned and unzipped my fly. It had been a while since I’d last had a go at meself, but fuck it, I was going to now.

“It’d be all right if you were,” she said.

“Well, it doesn’t matter because, I assure you, I’m straight.”

Fisting myself, I pulled up along the length of me, squeezing out an obscene amount of pre-cum.

“That’s nice,” she sighed.

Suddenly, I wondered where her hands were.

“Because your voice is so damn sexy, Ricki. It makes me feel…awesome.”