Simple Mischief, Part 2

Simple Mischief, part 2 of 2
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   Carter watched the three women walk back into the bar. They were talking and
laughing like old friends, even though they'd known Angel less than an hour.
Both she and one of the women were sweating. It was the sort of mild sheen
which made attractive women look vibrant and alive.
   I need to get some semblance of a life,  Carter reminded himself. And not for
the first time.
   They sat down at the bar, ordered three beers. Angel and the woman who was
not sweating lit cigarettes immediately. The third woman hesitated, smiled,
and took a pack of cigarettes from Angel. As she pulled a cigarette from the
pack, Angel produced a lighter and lit it for her.
   Carter frowned, disappointed. That should have brought him some pleasure, but
instead it left him cold.
   Because of who it was.
   He was thinking that maybe he should have done his homework better when the
most amasing thing happened.

   It was him. He was really here, as she'd known he would be.
   The man was something to look at. Although his hairline was far up his
forehead he was still young. Broad shouldered, even stacked. His fitted shirt
was an extension of that muscularity, the rare sort of physique which made a
dress shirt look manly and sexual. He was patiently worrying an expensive
cigar and just as carefully playing a mug of dark ale.
   Everything about him screamed caution, attention to detail.
   But what was under the skin was different. He was the sort of man that Angel
preferred. Barely in control, always straddling some great gulf and balancing
great weight on those broad shoulders.
   Was that all cliche ?
   Yes, but Angel knew it to be true anyway.
   Best of all, he was a devoutly moral man. She could see no hint of religion
in his steely grey eyes, that was not for him, but morality-
   Yes. And nothing could be bent more easily to Angel's purposes than a little
morality.
   That was what would help her with Amy, and it was certainly the card she
planned to play now.
   She had a feeling he would enjoy this. That he liked it a little bit rough-
and she was going to be rough with him.
   No wedding ring. She noticed that as she took the last step before she would
have to speak. He was listed as married, but her research indicated that was
simply a matter of lawyers not quite working out the details of how his salary
would be segmented to their best advantage.
   His smile was so cold that it nearly froze his strong face.
   She smelled hate. That too was a good place to start.
   "I couldn't help noticing that you were alone," she said, forcing herself to
be pleasant when what she really wanted was to gouging his eyes from his head
in public view.
   "Yes. By choice."
   She sat down across from him, dropping her cigarettes and lighter on the
table.
   "We all make bad choices."
   "True. I think you're making one right now."
   Angel smiled at the naked unpleasantness of it. Yes, he was the reason she'd
come to this place. Her diversion completed, he would be the focus tonight.
   He leaned across the table, making it creak under not his weight but his
strength.
   "I know who you are. And why you're here. If I were you, I'd get back into
your black Celica with the Virginia plates and drive back to 66 Exeter
Street."
   "And miss this opportunity to enjoy your company ?" she asked, leaning
towards him until their noses were nearly touching.
   He was taunt, sexually charged, and Angel wanted him. 
   She opened her mouth, parting her lips slowly, allowing her tongue to expose
itself only fractionally. She willed him to want her back, knowing that this
was not a man so easily turned.
   Their eyes locked. Her was trying to stare her down, intimidate her, and she
would allow that, but not here, not now. Later, when they were alone, she
would let him pretend towards control for as long as it served her purposes.
   "I'm not here to offer you company, Angel. I came to suggest that your best
interests aren't served here."
   She kissed him on the nose, sat back, and lit a cigarette. When she spoke
again, there was no tone to her voice, no level of inflection. She spoke by
wrote, allowing him to see that she was by nature a cold person. That would
draw him.
   "You're not talking about us at all. Your interests, mine. Don't be so
transparent. You're talking about the needs we serve, not the needs we have."
   He set his jaw, narrowed his eyes. There was anger in the line of his jaw,
and as always, he considered his words carefully before he spoke. But she saw
something in his eyes that she liked. He made himself out to be the obstacle,
the bad man, if one would, not because he was but rather because he understood
the importance of that particular lie.
   Would it be so hard then, for him to cross that line ?
   Yes. And even if he were dragged kicking and screaming across it, he would
find the fortitude to step back.
   Because he was a moral man.
   Very well, then. She would settle for hurting him, and that was sometimes
enough, wasn't it ?
   "I don't care how you term it. You know what I'm saying to you."
   Angel leaned close again, her sensuality blossoming. She saw that he was
wavering, not about what he wanted from this meeting, but in what he wanted
from her.
   "You're saying nothing to me. And you can't protect her anymore. Do you lie
awake at night and worry about that ? Do you let your respect for her cloud
your judgment ? Have you ever laid in bed at night, bathed in a cold four am
sweat and wished that you could really know her ?"
   "Who would that be ?" he asked, his jaw dancing like a granite boulder.
   "Agent Pondress. Your little smoking gun. Have you ever wanted to fuck her
while she sat in that chair across from your desk, telling you how she was so
close to understanding ? Ever wanted to take her in your arms and hug her
because you know that some day she'll get too close to something and one of
the people you deny even to yourself that you answer to will have her killed
?"
   "I think maybe we should go outside now," he said, putting the spent remains
of his cigar down in the ashtray.
   "Is the big FBI agent going to beat the crap out of me for asking him if he
thinks dirty thoughts ?"
   "Maybe," he said, the force of the threat naked, sensual. This was going to
be-
   Fun.

   Kyle saw her from across the bar. As he was sure he was meant to. She was at
the bar with Charisma, and they were both smoking. There was more than a
little irony there, wasn't there ? He'd pushed her in that direction after
all. When he'd drawn a line, saying that he wanted her to move out of that
stupid house they shared- with the one bedroom they shared, and get away from
that smoking bitch she called her best friend, he hadn't seen this fucking
possibility, had he ?
   She was enjoying it, too. That much was clear. She was on her third cigarette
already, puffing like a chimney.
   He'd gotten so sick of the way she always smelled smoky, gotten tired of
lying in bed alone at night wondering if two women could share a bedroom and
not share sex as well.
   Maybe that was insecure, but he knew Charisma had never liked him anymore
than he liked her.
   Finally it was too much. He knew that walking over there was a mistake, that
he would later regret it, but right now he didn't care. He was going to speak
his mind, going to blast her, and then be done with it.
   The third woman was already gone, having left with an older guy who looked as
though he might just try to snap her in two. Weird, that.
   He put on his best macho stride, gliding across the dance floor, hoping some
techno-geek grinding to Purest Feeling would bump him so that he could shove
him off. But it didn't happen. Kyle was a big man, after all, and with that
look on his face, no, no one was going to fuck with him, were they ?
   Charisma saw him first, exhaled, and smiled.
   I won, she was saying, and the truth was that the bitch had won.
   Wendi trimmed the ash from her cigarette and placed it square between her
moist lips. She was pleasantly drunk and that allowed her to be glad he was
here now.
   "Hello, Kyle."
   Her voice was muffled by smoke.
   "Wendi. I see you've gone over to the dark side."
   She drew on the cigarette again, treating him to a faceful of smoke. He
frowned.
   "You're drunk. And you're a bitch."
   Charisma stood up, and there was no smile on her face now.
   "You said what you had to say, asshole. Why don't you leave now ?"
   Wendi reached out with the hand holding the cigarette and gently touched her
arm.
   "Let him stay. He's so pathetic, he's almost cute."
   Their laughter did drive him right out of the bar in the arms of regret.

   Carter knew that there must be something fundamentally wrong with him,
because he was lying naked in her bed.
   She was in the bathroom, getting herself ready-
   Ready for what ?
   Was he really going to do this ? Was this what he'd gone to that bar to do ?
Why he'd followed her for over an hour ? To make love ?
   He wanted to fuck her, but Carter was not a man who could fuck a woman. He
just didn't have it in him.
   That was why he was no longer really married, wasn't it ?
   He wanted to pound Angel into the bed, wanted to make her bleed and then make
her leave, but half of that would never happen, would it ? No, it wouldn't. He
would do something entirely different.
   She was attractive. Of that, there could be no question. He thought back to
his college days and Marcus Walter. Marcus was the most prolific of his little
set of friends, and Marcus had a thing about closing his door- or rather,
intentionally forgetting. Sometimes he locked it, sometimes he just closed it,
and sometimes he left it `accidentally' open. This was one of those cases
where he would have left the door wide open. With the lights on.
   And she wanted this. That was the part he hadn't figured out. Not fully,
although he could guess well enough. She would try to do to him what he was
bound to try to do with her. This was really nothing more than politics, not
the politics of the bedroom but rather the bedroom of politics. 
   Where was clinical detachment when you needed it ?

   Angel was stunningly naked. It was not cold in the room- rather a perfectly
temperature controlled 68- but she could still feel her skin. Not in a
detached, secondary way, but entirely, as if it were one contiguous external
organ.
   His eyes widened. He was here because perhaps he understood that he could not
simply break her in two the way he would have preferred. There was only one
avenue for violence, and that was here in her hotel room. It would be more
emotional than physical, more imagined that real, almost violence by proxy.
What he didn't understand was that his desires were transparent to her, that
she knew what he was feeling, even before he felt it. There was no hope for
him to control this.
   Or her.
   She stopped in the doorway.
   He looked uncomfortable. He was clearly a man who was not- nor had any reason
to be- ashamed of his body. But being here, in this situation- lying on that
bed, waiting for her to come to him- yes, he was uncomfortable.
   And he had never done anything remotely like this. There was no difficulty
understanding that. After all, this was not a man who got out from his desk so
often anymore, and when he had been such a man he would have been above such
behaviour.
   She lit her cigarette, tossing the lighter aside.
   His eyes widened. There was no question now that he was interested in what
she had to offer. The item which was sill open was how much she was going to
be able to get him to pay for it. What currency would be used ?
   She drew on it for him, not in any special way but rather in the normal way
in which she always smoked because she knew that would be, of itself, enough
for him. Arching her head back she blew a long stream of smoke deep into the
room, her lips arched, the cigarette down by her waist. She took a single step
toward the bed and repeated the gesture. One step, one draw, one exhale,
varied only in the nature of the exhales, no two the same.
   He watched through remarkably veiled eyes. The jaw was still set, rock hard,
unyielding, as if by force of will he could prevent himself from enjoying
this. 
   There might be no way of doing that, but he would come to that understanding
the hard way.
   One step, one inhale, one exhale.
   One purpose.

   Amy read the long email from Tess, frowning as she ran down the short bio and
utterly insufficient background material.
   Of greater interest was something taken from the web.
   The Dark Midnight of the Soul. 
   Amy read it, lit a cigarette, read it again. In fact she read it over and
over until her cigarette finally burned down, and the only thing which she was
undeniably sure about was that she didn't understand what it was really about.
Someone else, someone with a different sort of pattern of thinking, might
understand it, but it was most certainly beyond her.
   And maybe that was what Angel was trying to tell her yesterday.
   Suddenly their conversation came into sharp, realistic focus. 
   "Everyone lies. Even the people you really trust- even the people who need
you for their own purposes- even the people who honestly like you, are still
going to lie to you, whether to protect themselves or even to protect you. The
sooner that you accept that-"
   The sooner I become like you, Amy thought.
   Angel was a nice looking person- even a person who looked nice, if you wanted
to put it that way.
   But she wasn't nice. No, the word which most clearly described her, to Amy's
method of thought, was evil. Again, it wasn't a rational response, any more
than it was rational that she knew it was him  on the phone earlier.
   And wasn't this just what she wanted ? Angel- hadn't she come here to sow
doubt and confusion.
   "I'm here as a friend," she'd said, but it was an obvious and intentional
lie.
   Why ? Why come here from wherever it was she'd been to tell easy lies- lies
told in a way which assured that Amy would dislike the woman instantly. She
didn't come across as a stupid person- quite the opposite. No, she'd been
working to plant seeds, making herself as disagreeable as possible precisely
so that when Amy began to see a little glimmer of truth in her words she would
be forced to take them at face value.
   It made her hate Angel even more.
   And all she could do about it was light another cigarette and get on with her
life.

   Carter was on top now, thrusting and wishing he was one of those people who
could do this with their eyes closed- preferably while thinking about someone
else.
   As if divining his thoughts, she pulled the cigarette from her mouth, smiled,
and bored into his eyes with her jamaican blues. "Close your eyes, Carter.
Pretend I'm her."
   He set his jaw momentarily, thrust twice more, slowing to hold his orgasm off
just a little longer, and then spoke through clenched teeth.
   "Pretend you're who ?"
   "Her. Your little smoking gun."
   He continued working, wondering how he could hold a conversation like this
and yet not have it become mechanical.
   "I don't think of her that way." There was more than an hint of anger in his
strong voice. 
   She brought the cigarette to her mouth again, inhaled, coating their naked
skin with the wonderful scent of smoke.
   Carter had had any number of women who smoked that same cigarette, but the
smoke which came out of her mouth was sweeter than what he'd known from any
other. It was nothing short of intoxicating, and he suddenly felt absurdly
glad that he was doing this. As that joy washed over him he came unexpectedly,
breathlessly. She inhaled again, grabbed his head with her free hand, and
roughly forced it down to her lips. As their tongues met she blew the smoke it
his mouth and he swallowed it gratefully.
   She raked her nails across his back, drawing blood, and he bit her lower lip
hard. It too bled, mixing the tastes of sex, blood, and smoke in their warm
mouths. He began to harden again and instinctively pulled out before something
bad could happen to the condom. Without missing a beat, Angel's hand went to
her crotch, meaning to finish what he had started.
   Instead, he grabbed her wrist roughly- there would be no gentleness now, and
forced it away. Sliding down on the bed, he burrowed between her legs,
enjoying the opportunity to put his skilled tongue to work. She contorted
herself miraculously and began to lick the streams of blood from his back as
he pleasured her. Her mouth was full of his blood when she orgasmed, and
although her heard her swallow it so that she could breathe raggedly, it did
not disturb him.
   When it was over, she stubbed out her cigarette with one hand and tore the
condom off with the other. He was hard again, painfully erect.
   She stroked him expertly as she lit another cigarette and he knew she was
just keeping him hard until she finished with that task. She inhaled deeply
and without exhaling, went down on him without pause or permission. She would
thrust three or four times, pause, inhale, start again, ending each set with a
beautiful, artistic nose exhale.
   When her cigarette was half gone and he was almost entirely gone, she put her
free hand back and met his eyes.
   "You trust me more than her now."
   He could have asked how she would come to such a conclusion, but he knew the
answer well enough. You might hate a woman, but when you let her take your
penis inside her mouth, you were trusting by default on a level that defied
denial.
   There were times when a policy of deny everything simply didn't work.
   "Maybe," was the most he would give her.
   "She lies to you. Withholds the things you really need to know-"
   He smiled. Even now, to her, it was a game. She stroked and inhaled.
   "I want it that way. If she tells me everything-"
   "She becomes expendable. That's what you think." Another nose exhale which
brought him to the brink. "What you don't understand is that we are all
expendable- in different ways, Carter. I'm honest with you, at least."
   "Prove it," he said, menacingly.
   She inhaled again, placed her mouth over his stiffness, and did something
with her tongue which was-
   Maddening.
   He came, more forcefully than before. Angrily at himself and her, he thrust
himself as deep inside her mouth as he dared, knowing she could respond with
the same force. But instead she somehow swallowed and exhaled through her nose
in the same instance, and he sagged backwards, understanding that neither of
them were going to get what they wanted tonight.
   Perhaps, he thought morosely, the runnels in his back throbbing, it was time
to start wanting something different.

   Amy was sitting outside the hotel room, waiting. 
   It was early morning and she had no assignments today- Arose had called her
at about five and told her to take the day off. He sounded atypically tired,
actually spent, which was highly unusual for a man who, from what she
understood, usually got up around half after four to begin an eighteen hour
day.
   She wanted this over quickly. She would tell Angel that it would be best if
she were never to come see her again, that she had no interest in the sweet
rancor of her lies, of her open foulness. It would be the spending of a few
sentences followed by a great relief.
   Her cell phone rang, and she answered it without thought.
   "You're following a dangerous path, Agent Pondress."
   As always, his voice scratched across the surface of her thoughts like coarse
sandpaper.
   "I want to tell her to leave me alone-"
   "It's too late for that."
   "What does that mean ?"
   There was a long pause. Amy lit her first cigarette of the day- she'd been
holding off, wanting the edge that nicotine withdrawal brought, but she needed
as much as wanted the cigarette, so she had it immediately while he collected
his thoughts.
   "You don't require that information. I'm telling you it's in your own best
interests not to pursue this any farther. Not now."
   "I'm not interested in my best interests-"

   Angel sat by the window, peering out through a slit in the curtains. The room
still smelled of him and off their coupling. Cigars and cigarettes, sweat and
the faint tang of blood all lingered, though he was long gone.
   She was tapped into the cell phone and she smiled when Amy said that she was
not interested in her best interests. That was exactly where she'd wanted her
to go, and she realised that her work here was done. She closed the tap,
snatched up her bag, and walked out the front door, pausing only long enough
to light her first cigarette since Carter had left.
   How she had done it, well, she wasn't sure, and she didn't care. She had a
long list of work to do, starting with an high school girl in Peroria. It was
essential that she started smoking, as soon as possible. And Angel was the
only woman for the job. It now required punctuation. Her trump card was no
longer as valuable, but it would played.
   She made only about half a dozen steps towards her car when Amy confronted
her.
   Typically, she would have asked who she really was or why she had come here.
   Amy was not typical.
   "Don't come back. Don't contact me again."
   Angel blew a thin cloud of smoke in her general direction.
   "Why not, sweet Amy ?"
   The way she said sweet, as though it was some sort of a deficiency,
infuriated Amy. She was not sweet. Not anymore. Every day brought her some
piece of knowledge which moved her farther away from sweet.
   "All you do is lie to people. I have a feeling that's what you do for a
living."
   "Carter was here last night. All night. Do you think that's a lie ?"
   Amy stared at Angel, noticing her swollen lip, over which the woman planted
her cigarette. It would have been such an easy lie to tell.
   It was, Amy knew, the truth. Suddenly the gravel man's warning that he was
the only one watching her back seemed true.
   "So ?" Amy said, feigning a callousness she didn't feel. "So you're easy."
   Angel shook her head, tossed her hair, mixing smoke into it. She hated the
way her hair smelled before that first cigarette. Shampoo without smoke.
Sterile. She'd been obsessed by the thought during her morning run, but a few
more windy exhales would solve it for her.
   "There was nothing easy about it. We hurt each other- and in doing so-"
   "You think you've hurt me. I'd think again."
   Still, the woman smiled. Amy drew on her own cigarette, matching Angel's deep
inhales. Her own exhale, through the nose, was close and tight and carried
away without approaching her. She wouldn't give this woman her smoke for any
reason.
   "Maybe I just wanted to make you callous, Amy. You're soft. You're good
hearted. Those are useless qualities in dangerous times. I came to do you a
favour. And I think I'm finished here."
   "Don't come back," Amy said with another close-hugging exhale.
   Angel moved without warning, the speed undeniable. Amy didn't see it coming.
Her hand closed around Amy's wrist. She lifted her hand until the burning
cigarette held between the first two fingers was between them at eye level.
   "This is who we  are."
   "There is no we, Angel."
   Her grin was sardonic. She dropped her hand, releasing it with mild, world-
weary contempt.
   "Then there is nothing."
   She said nothing else, just drove away, leaving Amy to wonder.
   Was she right ? 

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