Touching Dream (two)
Her name was Janelle.
It was a melody he couldn't stop singing despite himself.
Will, what are you thinking? You know what this'll do to you. How are you going to make rent next month? She's... *gorgeous.* Not to mention *married* -- and not to the nicest guy in the world, if the vibe you're getting about this mystery object is any indication. Get up. Run. Never look back. Change your locks -- to hell with what the landlord says, if he can't respect your privacy...
"Relax. I won't bite." She'd lost any trace of that fear as they'd talked. Lightweight stuff -- weather, the food, the decor, going on about each thing between brief bouts of silence the way strangers do.
"Sorry," he said. "I just... I'm not good at small talk."
"That's okay, neither am I."
The silence was worse than the chit-chat. He could only stare at his food or at the car parked outside for so long, and then he had to look at her. And he began to notice things. Like the slightest tinge of color to her skin, something between mocha and olive. There was a not-quite-caucasian look to her features, a hint of something exotic, too subtle to identify, something in the slight cant of her doe-eyes, the round broadening of her nose, the curved pout of her lips, the slivers of amethyst in her gray eyes.
And she seemed to radiate in his attention. Most women didn't like being stared at, at least not the way Will did it. He'd never mastered the art of the brief friendly appraisal or the sly appreciative glance. Maybe because he spent so little time with people and so much time with objects. Maybe because most of the time that he *was* around people was in the safety of Dream, intimitely disconnected.
But the more he looked at her, the more she seemed to glow. And that was a problem. Women like Janelle operated on a different plane. They wanted things. They made men stupid; whether by nature or intent didn't matter.
"You're not like Randy at all."
The comment came out of the blue, on the tail end of a shared laugh about the waitress' upside-down nametag.
It stopped Will's heart for a moment, like that sliver of silence that came before an explosion.
She'd dropped a bomb, all right -- complimenting Will, alluding to the connection he'd made with her, and bringing up her husband all at once. It was the kind of comment designed to suss a man out, at once disclaimer and enticement. A siren's song sung to separate salacious from sedentary. Go big or stay home.
Will rationalized a third option.
"Why do you say that?"
"Well, for one, you're... interested." Gulp. Busted. "I mean in things, people, life."
"That's a lot to get from a two-minute conversation on the way to a diner." It was flattering, but at the same time, it was like she was trying *way* too hard. It made him feel like it wasn't about him at all, but just about grabbing the nearest floating debris after a shipwreck.
"And five minutes waiting for our food," she corrected. "But it's enough. Randy barely even talks anymore, and when he does it's always about dominating somebody."
Gulp. "What does he do?"
"You mean when he does anything? His new thing is sales. Industrial equipment, I think. Before that he did private security work. But when he first got here it was football. Mean sport -- and he was the meanest. He got off on people cheering after a big hit, 'rhino, rhino, rhino'..."
"Wait... Rhino? Randy -- Randall. Randall Holden? The football player?"
"That's what I said."
"No, I mean, *the* football player, *the* Randall Holden, played for the Raiders."
"Yeah. So?"
"God, I used to watch him play when I was a kid. Middle linebacker, Number 54. The Rhino. All-Pro six years running, until that collision with what's-his-name, McManis." Will remembered the incident -- open-field tackle at full-speed, a good clean hit, but so hard and at just the wrong angle that it snapped McManis' neck. Some said he was dead before he hit the carpet. "Man, that had to be rough. No wonder he retired. --Oh, sorry. Went into Sports Mode for a sec there."
He looked at her -- another good look, despite his earlier declinations. Rhino Holden would have to be about forty by now, but Janelle... not a day over twenty-five. And if she'd been around him when he was playing, some... ten? twelve years ago? then... Hmm. So it was like that.
Janelle had been looking out the window -- apparently even a few seconds of Sports Fan Reminiscence bored her, even if, probably especially if it was about her husband. But she looked at Will now. "He didn't want to retire. They forced him."
Will wasn't sure what to make of that. Except that his imagination began drawing exaggerated images of a hulking rhino of a man in full football armor bearing down on him...
"He still takes his aggression out on other people. He's just more subtle about it now." Janelle looked down at her hands, one rubbing the other.
Will caught a glimmer of something in the statement, and her movement, and then the ugliness of Janelle's meaning became clear.
Will felt suddenly hot. He found few things more reprehensible than-
But Janelle deflected it, her demeanor lightened. "He's always bragging about his latest conquest -- what competitor he stole his latest customer from, how bad he beat another rep in the monthly numbers." Her previous implication seemed withdrawn. "They're all so competitive." She shrugged. "Men..."
Will relaxed a bit, smiling as he put up an obligatory defense of his gender. "We have to know where we stand."
"Randy stands wherever he wants," she smirked.
Randy. There was an evocative name. Will imagined it having something to do with how they'd gotten together.
He imagined Janelle being attracted to the man at first despite and then because of his macho gruffness.
He imagined Janelle staying with Randy longer than she should because the sex was great.
He imagined Janelle feeling intense physical satisfaction in Randy's rough riding.
He imagined it vividly.
"Hello? Up here."
"Hmm?"
"You were staring at my chest."
He blushed so fiercely that the noise in the diner faded beneath the dull roar of surging blood.
She leaned close to whisper, a stray blond curl bungeeing to touch the tabletop. "I don't mind, really," she excused, "but I think the waitress is jealous."
She was blushing too. He had to close his eyes before her loveliness made his stare a permanent condition.
He had to find some control.
He had to cut the bullshit.
"You could leave him."
Boom.
She hadn't said anything about wanting to leave Randy, or even being unhappy.
But she'd dropped a bomb on him with the "you're not like Randy" comment, and Will's only chance at escape was to return the favor.
Go big or stay home.
If he was wrong, this was where she got pissed.
If he was right, this was where she equivocated, where she said Randy wasn't such a terrible guy, it was just that they'd grown apart. This was where lightheartedness drew him into... whatever her scheme might be, some dangerous liaison, some twisted tease, some deadly doublecross, downplaying the risk, emphasizing the reward. Or, reining in the delusions of male grandeur, where she just got him to work for free finding whatever sentimentally-valued trinket she'd lost.
This was where she either slapped him or soothed him.
Only she took a third option.
"That's just it -- I can't. Not without..." She trailed off, breaking eye contact, drawing her hands back across the table in startled reserve, staring at them dully, affecting a secret vulnerability.
And it almost worked. But Will had a thing for femme fatale movies as much as he had a thing for femmes fatale, and he knew this move was calculated. It had to be.
And if it wasn't, well, a damsel in distress was a romantic notion but a real nightmare. He'd been on the back end of enough cases of girls in trouble, nice guys from the suburban middle class drawn to and used up by girls with abusive fathers or psychotic boyfriends or mean pimps or wicked drug habits or... Fuck.
Footage of the McManis hit replayed in his mind.
Fuck.
Fear iced him. He lashed out, desperation calling down the thunder of every cliche he'd seen come true.
"Now I get it. He's got money tied up in... *something*... and you think if you could just find it, you'd have enough to make it on your own for a while, just until you get settled -- and of course whatever this *thing* is, it's surely worth enough that you can afford to pay me handsomely. Or maybe we could just run away together, get away from this terrible place... until I let you out of my sight just once, and then you and the money are gone and I'm left in a lurch in some faraway place. Or maybe we don't even get out of town, and you leave me behind for your husband to take out his frustrations. I've heard this story before. No thanks."
He had to get up now -- if she was as good as she looked, she'd start to cry, and even when he knew she was just a big faker it was always harder to walk away when they were crying -- not because you gave a shit about them, but this was his regular hang-out and he didn't want everybody thinking he was some kind of heel.
"Sit down." She grabbed his hand.
Her touch was hot against his skin.
"Let go of my hand."
"Not until you let me pay you."
Did she still expect him to help her find... this thing she couldn't -- wouldn't -- even describe? "Not a chance." Every second her skin touched his he felt his resolve weaken.
Her tone was suddenly acerbic. "Don't be an idiot. You're going to dream about me anyway; you might as well get paid for it."
She had him there. Still, he didn't like... encumbrances.
"Anyway," she added, "the money wasn't easy to get, and I might not have it later." Her tone was all tough, but from the words alone she was obviously trying to work his sympathy. He was supposed to say, "that's okay, keep the money" but he was nobody's fool.
"Fine." He took the folded bills and stormed away from the table. Eyes tunneled straight ahead.
A part of him argued against walking out. A very hard part of him. He shifted the way he carried his coat. He wasn't falling for it. A girl like that wouldn't *actually* sleep with him, and if she would, it was just that much more trouble.
But right now it wasn't cynical self-preservation that motivated his legs. It was fear. Fear that he wasn't in control. Fear that she'd already played him.
He barely remembered to pay the check before running out.