Sex (6 page)

“Gaia.”
Heather laughed.

“Gaia.
What is she, Finnish or something? Wasn't she in ABBA or Ace of Base?”

“They're Swedish,” she replied between harder and harder laughs.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said. “I bet her real name's Edith and she's just trying to be exotic.”

Heather laughed and laughed until …
No way. It's too early.

She'd been laughing so hard that she'd laughed her way into one of her most guarded secrets.
Her snort laugh.
She couldn't believe she'd just revealed her snort laugh to him. She could usually hold that back for months until she was absolutely sure that an extremely rare pig noise wouldn't cause a guy to reassess her completely. She'd never in her life trusted a man with her snort laugh so soon. But there was just something about Josh. Even though the duration of their relationship could still be described in terms of hours … she somehow already knew she could trust him completely.

And of course because he was Josh, her pig noise didn't send him running or even earn her a funny look.

“Okay, okay,” he went on, “so you honestly expect me to believe that Sam and this Ed guy both left
you
for
her?”

“Mm-hmm,” Heather confirmed.

Josh threw up his arms. “Well, that just doesn't make sense,” he said, as if it were the most obvious fact in the world. “She can't be prettier than you. She can't be smarter than you.” Heather's entire body was now gurgling like an ecstatic baby. “She can't possibly snort as well.”

“No” Heather agreed.

“So what is it? What the hell is wrong with these guys?”

Heather opened her eyes wide and considered his question. If she were to be totally honest with herself (which, thanks to Josh, she was being), then she'd have to admit that she thought it was a damn good question. Because in truth, in spite of all her attempts at turning over her “new leaf” and being less self-involved, Josh was helping to remind her of a very simple fact: Heather really couldn't fathom how a man could choose Gaia over her. How exactly could being ornery, cruel, coldhearted, and unshowered make such a favorable impression on intelligent men?

Heather had only one theory. A theory she'd been careful not to share with a soul since it did sound quite ludicrous. But in Josh's case, maybe she could make an exception. Josh just had this amazing power to make her feel … justified—
validated
in some way that she'd been sorely lacking ever since … well, ever since Gaia Moore had set foot in the Village School.
That's how long it had been since Heather had felt like herself. She decided to go for broke and share her secret theory. If anyone would stick with her on it, it would be Josh.

“Well, I think …,” she began carefully, “and I'm totally serious here … I think she hypnotizes them.”

“Oh, really?” Josh laughed doubtfully.

“No, really,” Heather insisted. “It's like she casts some kind of spell on them that convinces them that she's so
special.
I swear, it's like they think she's
superhuman
or something.”

“Well, is she?” Josh asked.

“No,”
Heather replied, not totally sure if she believed her own answer. “I mean …
whatever,
the point is, they obviously didn't realize that I can be superhuman in my own ways.”

“Oh,
really?”
Josh laughed suggestively.

“No, I didn't mean
that”
she squawked. “Or … maybe I did,” she admitted. She dropped her face in her hands to indicate embarrassment when, in fact, some part of her was feeling rather proud. She was back on her flirting game, and she knew it.

“Wait a minute,” Josh said, straightening his posture as he eyed Heather with mock suspicion. “Is that why I had to see you again this morning? Are you casting some kind of spell on me like your friend Gallagher?”

“Gaia.”
Heather laughed, locking eyes with Josh.
“And
yes.
I just made my Josh voodoo doll last night. I am now controlling your every move with my mind.”

“Of course,” Josh said. “And that's why I…” He cast a blank, zombielike stare over his eyes as if he'd been hypnotized. “I must meet you here again tomorrow night.”

“Exactly.”
She grinned, wondering if she might be able to find a private corner where she could literally jump for joy if not engage in a full series of cartwheels. She'd known her theory wouldn't scare him away. If anything, it seemed to have done just the opposite.

“And that's why I must …” He clamped his large hands to the small Starbucks table and began to shake his body as if some unearthly force had taken control of his will.

“What?” she begged.

“Can't stop myself … I must …”

“What?”
she pleaded, widening her eyes with nervous anticipation.

He finally shot out from his chair, causing Heather to jump slightly in hers. He leaned across the table and kissed Heather on the cheek, letting his warm lips linger on her face before he pulled away. Heather's body heat must have increased at least twenty degrees. She tried to steady herself as best she could.

He stood up and rattled his head a few times. “I'm sorry,” he said, as if he'd just awaken from his trance. “I—I had to do that.”

“Of—of course you did,” she said, straining
desperately not to leap out of her chair and throw her whole body onto his like a sex-crazed koala bear. “I told you,” she said shakily. “I'm … I'm controlling your every move.”

“Why does that not bother me?” Josh remarked. “Eight o'clock, tomorrow?” he asked.

“Yes,” Heather replied, using every last ounce of her feminine wiles to appear nonchalant.

Josh flashed her his overpowering grin and then he made his way to the exit without another word.

Heather sat in her seat for a moment, trying to answer one very important question for herself. And finally the answer came to her.
The bathroom.
That wass a perfectly acceptable place to go jump for joy. She shot up from her seat, hoping she could make it there before she started doing back flips right in front of the milk-and-sugar table.

Memo

From:
L

To:
J

Provide status report on subject B.

Memo

From:
J

To:
L

Preparations for subject B are progressing smoothly. Project may take even less time than anticipated.

THE STAIRS. WHY THE HELL HAD ED taken the stairs? Because the elevator in his building was taking too long, that's why. Every additional minute of waiting had felt like slow murder.

Amnesia

Jeez.
Brilliant choice of words.
He wondered how many more times the word
murder
would be popping into his head unnecessarily. Probably as often as the images from twenty minutes ago were flashing through his memory. The thick black gun in his face. The ugly, robotic glare of his unexplained executioner. The sight of a man being punctured with bullets as his erupting body was driven to the ground.
Get it out of your head, Fargo. Stomp it out.

That could have been Ed's lifeless body on the street if that cop had shown up five seconds later. The thought of it was weakening his limbs, sapping what little energy he had left. But if he could just haul his ass up those freaking stairs and get back to her, then everything would be okay. He was sure of that. He just wished he hadn't been quite so traumatized as to think that the stairs would get him to her faster.

Brilliant move. Nothing speedier than climbing the stairs on crutches.

Right now he would have sold his soul to be rid of the crutches. Anything to be able to pump his legs up those steps like it was three years ago. Leaping them in
twos and threes, hoisting himself over the railings if he had to. That's what he needed. He needed whatever it would take to get back into his room and back into his bed with Gaia.

Because that would be the cure: to simply delete the horrific incident and pick up right where they had left off twenty long and painful minutes ago. It would be just like pressing rewind. That was the only way he'd be able to stop his brain from spinning and his heart from reeling.

In fact, he was living it in his head already. It was helping him to drag his shopping bag and his clumsy butt more quickly. He could feel her hair against his cheek and the curves of her back spooned against him. The sunlight pouring through the window, lighting up her face.

Most important, he could hear the last words she'd said to him. The brilliant simplicity of those three words never ceased to amaze. Not to mention the way she'd said them. Totally unencumbered. Totally natural. As if she'd said them a hundred times before. That was where Ed planned to pick things up. Right from the moment that those three perfect words had fallen from Gaia's lips.

He finally stumbled onto his floor, panting like an exhausted racing hound.
Hallelujah. Home sweet home.

The overly painted stairwell door slammed behind him as he bounced his way down the dingy brown
carpet to his apartment. He ripped open the front door and made a beeline for his bedroom—just a few yards from replacing the quasi-soothing images in his head with her real flesh and her real eyes, and her warm arms wrapped around his neck.

“Honey, I'm home!” he shouted, dropping the shopping bag in the living room. “How was your day?” he called out, turning into the hallway. “Mine was the usual. You know, waking up with the girl of my dreams, getting shot at by a psycho lunatic…”

Ed cut his comedy routine short when he entered his room. He'd expected Gaia's arms to be wrapped around him before he'd even stepped over the threshold. He'd expected some tears of relief and an intense, suffocating bear hug that went on for five minutes without a word. He'd at least expected her to play along with his little domestic bliss number.

But what he got… was the back of her head.

Gaia was crouching down on the floor, searching under his bed. He waited awkwardly at the doorway for another beat as she pulled out her shoe and finally turned to him.

“Are you okay?” she asked. Her tone of voice was almost the exact same as the paramedics had used. Urgent and deeply concerned, but detached and efficient. Professional, even. Ed wasn't at all sure how to respond. He smiled at Gaia, thinking that perhaps she might be messing with him. But she didn't crack the
slightest smile in response. Nor did she make the slightest move in his direction.

“Uh… yes” he said finally, almost shrugging. “I'm fine.” He sensed she was looking for a direct answer. She didn't seem to be looking for the touchy-feely response. In fact, she seemed about as far from touchy-feely as a person with a beating heart could be.

“Good,” she said. She stood up and paced the perimeter of his room, peeking into the corners and under the furniture. “I can't find my other shoe.”

Ed stayed glued to the doorway, following her with his eyes, unsure what to say. Had she been so traumatized by the last twenty minutes that she'd been struck with amnesia and forgotten their morning together? Maybe his recent brush with death had already slipped her mind? “Are… you okay?” he asked cautiously.

“I'd be better if I could find my other shoe,” she replied.

“It's under the desk,” he said.

Gaia turned to his desk and grabbed her shoe. “Thanks,” she said.

She brought both her shoes back to his bed and sat on the edge as she struggled to pull each one on. Ed stared at her in this most bizarre and unexpected silence, watching her tie her shoes.

“Are you… going somewhere?” he asked.

“Yeah, I really have to go,” she said.

What?
What the hell was she talking about? What was the game here? Ed didn't get it. Or maybe he just didn't know how to play?

“Go where?” he asked.

“Out”

The one-word response felt like a sharp elbow to the face. Silence was just about the only thing Ed could come up with in response. He began to rack his brain, trying to understand what on earth had happened to her since he'd last seen her in the window. “Gaia…”

“Yeah,” she said, sifting through a pile of clothes in the corner of the room.

“Gaia, what are you doing?”

“I'm looking for my jacket,” she said.

“No, I mean, what are you
doing?”
He stepped closer to her.

Her body swiped against his as she escaped eye contact and searched the other side of the room. “I just
told
you. I'm looking for my
jacket.”

Ed gave in to another bout of silence as he studied every movement of her body, from her rushed, shaky gestures up to her cold, darting eyes. Okay, whatever this was, he could talk her back to earth, he was sure of it. Seeing him almost get shot must have induced some kind of post-traumatic shock or something, and he just needed to bring her back to that room. Because even though this cold and brittle girl might look like Gaia, it was obvious that the
real Gaia had exited the building and left some monotone robot in her place.

“Maybe I should introduce myself,” he said, stepping toward her with his hand extended for a shake. “I'm Ed. Ed Fargo. Your best friend. The guy you had sex with last night?”

“Ed, please,” she mumbled, stepping away from him again.

“Ah, wait,” Ed continued, “perhaps you know me as the guy who was almost murdered downstairs. Does that ring a bell?”

“That's not funny,” she snapped, shooting him a vicious glance. “There's nothing funny about that.” The look in her eyes cut painfully to the center of Ed's chest. She was right. It wasn't funny. But at least she'd shown an actual emotion for a second. Though one second later she was ice-cold again. A complete stranger wearing Gaia's skin.