No, not him.
Sheesh...
And this guy.
So, here's Batteries Not Included, winner Spank the Monkey Contest - Judges' Choice, Non-Canon.
.~*~.
"Would you stop fidgeting? Jeeeez…"
I ground my teeth and sighed, for the twenty-first – no twenty-second – time. If Tanya didn't stop her running diatribe on my personal habits, I'd require an emergency trip to the dentist rather than our current destination.
Dentist. Drill.
Swallowing against the queasy lump in my throat, I lifted my hair so I could fan at the sheen of perspiration collecting across the back of my neck. Usually in Tanya's ridiculously small car, there was some half crumpled paper product of one sort or another scattered around the passenger side. A thin card, one of those magazine subscription inserts, fell against my fingers and I drew it up toward my face, ready to use it as a makeshift fan.
Cosmopolitan. What else?
Be Your Own Passion Professor! Solo sex tips for the biggest O's ever!
"Look, Kate, I could be at happy hour right now talking to a hot pinstripe suit guy with awesome hair, but I'm schlepping your ass to Inserection. You could at least show some sisterly gratitude."
With a lift of my chin that I knew from twenty-eight years of experience absolutely infuriated Tanya, I reached forward and turned the air conditioning to maximum. Her pint-sized Miata lurched and hummed heavily under the strain.
"I can't believe I allowed you to talk me into this."
"I can't believe you don't do it."
"Tanya…" The whine in my voice was barely discernable from the similar sound wheezing out of the tiny sportcar's engine. Hopefully.
"Not even when you were a kid? Really?"
"No, not even when I was a kid. Really. We did share a bedroom, you know."
"Never stopped me."
"Oh. God." I leaned against the cool glass and clamped my eyes shut, certain I'd never be able to look at my sister without this absolutely unnecessary tidbit of information coming to mind.
Coming.
Oh Christ…
She parked neatly outside a non-descript windowless gray building, busied herself with her usual grooming checklist, and I practiced my yoga breathing, calling up the voice of my instructor Carlisle for inspiration.
Feel your root chakra grounding you to the Earth, sinking deeper into the serenity of knowing at this moment you are right where The Universe intends for you to be…
Apparently The Universe's intention was for me to be compressed into an electric blue Mazda, too small for anyone as tall as Tanya or me to even consider driving comfortably, parked outside of an adult 'bookstore' while my too-observant, hypersexual twin sister recounted masturbation stories and applied her thirty-fourth coat of lipgloss.
Root chakra… root chakra… root chakra…
"Y'know, if you'd done it too, maybe you wouldn't have been so uptight when Emmett McCarty tried to get in your pants - you probably wouldn't have ended up barfing on his shoes." A more polished, highlighted, and Miraclebra'd version of me blinked back at me and blotted its lips on the Cosmo insert. "High school could have been a whole different experience for you, Kate."
"Have I mentioned I hate you?"
"Not since we got off the interstate."
Got off.
Suddenly I felt like vomiting. Poor Emmett McCarty's size 14 Chucks were blessedly absent this time.
Tanya opened my door, affecting the motions of a doorman – or gameshow hostess, considering the aforementioned highlights and Miraclebra.
"Coming?"
"Don't say that word," I growled at her as I shouldered my bag. Behind me, she slammed the door, and her too-high heels clicked on the pavement as she jogged to my side.
"What? Coming?" She took my arm, stopping me. "Kate, you have come before, right?"
"Wha- well, of course! Just… look, Tanya, I don't want to discuss this with you here, now…" I lowered my voice and tilted my head as unobtrusively as possible toward the gentleman who occupied a bench outside the store. "With an audience?"
"Heeeeyyyy, don't mind me, girls!" crowed an older mustached gentleman wearing a tie-dye t-shirt emblazoned 'I got crabs at Joe's!'. He saluted us with a shaky hand and his quart of malt liquor.
"Yeah, nice porn-stache, Dad." Tanya hustled me out of his sight line. "Seriously, Katie, ever? I mean, you and Garrett were together for years."
"Yes, Tanya. I did have you know… orgasms with Garrett."
My sister watched me silently for what seemed at least seven seconds before she shook her head.
"Nope. Not really."
"What do you mean 'not really'? I was there, Tanya, I'm certain I did indeed have an orgasm with Garrett."
Tanya sighed sadly and tucked a piece of my hair behind my shoulder.
"Not really, honey. Or you wouldn't have that line between your eyes."
She turned and strode for the door.
"Wait!" I scurried after her. "Of course-"
"Too bad you puked on Emmett McCarty – he had magic hands." Tanya called over her shoulder as she pushed on the steel bar and opened the shop's front door.
"Tanya! How did – he never liked you – how did you… a-a-aaa-and Emmett -"
"I told him I was you, twinsie." She winked and held the door adjar for me. "Maybe he'll be at the ten year reunion next month."
"Y-you… you… you know, Tanya it's one thing for me to take your trigonometry test because you had a hangover but quite another to lie to a boy – and may I remind you the only boy – I liked in high school because you were trying to complete your Guys of the Offensive Line tour!"
"Hey, he had it bad for you, sister… the guy needed some comforting after you ruined his Doc Martens."
"You are such a whore," I snarled. "And he wore Chuck Taylors."
"Jealous, much?"
"Die."
"At least I'll die knowing I had a screamer."
Oblivious to my surroundings, I turned to my sister and prodded my finger into the spot on her collarbone that broke when Bella Swan shoved her off of the monkey bars.
"I. Have. Had. An. Orgasm!"
"Alright! Should I get you a smoke or somethin'?" I drew my eyebrows together, glancing back at my sister's face. The offer of a smoke didn't come from her. Her voice never got that raspy, even after walking home in the rain the time Eli Hernandez asked her to demonstrate her fellatio technique on a breadstick during their first date at the Olive Garden. According to Tanya's rules, head was strictly fifth date.
Tanya smiled at the raspy-voiced someone who apparently was located just behind my right shoulder.
Also, his hearing seemed to be in good order.
"Well hello there," she purred. The slut.
Root chakra… root chakra… root chakra…
"Afternoon, ladies. Hey, you two don't have an act down at the Katch, do you? Man, I bet you make a fortune! Y'know… double your pleasure…"
"Yeah, double your fun. Nope, Frosty don't play that." Tanya rolled her eyes at me and stepped to a glass counter. I kept my eyes on the door, the carpet, the magazine display…
Holy Hell!
Right, not the magazine display.
Carpet. Carpet is safe. Or is it in a place like this?
I made a mental note to Lysol my shoes once I got home.
"Well that's just a shame, a wasted opportunity." I felt eyes on my back, and this… sales associate… cleared his throat. "You… uh… need any assistance, there, ma'am?"
"No. No, thank you."
"You just yell if y'do."
I hazarded a glance at him over my shoulder. Sandy blond hair in need of a trim. Olive green eyes set off by deeply tanned skin. A broad smile, completely unencumbered by to-do lists or mortgage payments. The colorful tattoo stretching around the second-largest bicep I'd ever seen obviously claimed the funds for said mortgage payment. Hemp necklace likely purchased at the head shop next door. T-shirt proclaiming 'Everything's Bigger in Texas'.
My stomach churned.
He leaned across the counter, splaying the second-largest set of hands I'd ever seen across the smudged glass.
"Name's Jasper. You just call out of you want anything, darlin'."
Tanya, it seemed, had already started to indulge in retail therapy of the adult kind.
"Hey, Katie, look at this!" She held out a contraption that resembled a butterfly made of gummi bears with a band of black elastic attached to each wing.
"Yeah, that one's wireless, ma'am," that… Jasper added helpfully. "Latest technology."
"Bet this would have made taking depositions a lot more fun for your and Garrett, eh?" Tanya wagged her eyebrows and tossed the… whatever it was at me. I raised the device in front of my eyes and looked back to her, befuddled. "You wear it," she said as though speaking to a toddler. "Under your clothes? Your man takes the remote… is any of this sinking in?"
I studied the comic book-like butterfly and pulled at a piece of elastic.
"I don't get it."
"That's the truth." Tanya snorted. "It's a vibrator, stupid. For God's sakes, Katie, you're twenty-eight years old and you've never seen a remote clit-kisser?"
"Comes with a bonus pack of AA batteries, by the way."
That Jasper was quite the salesman.
"No I've never…" I took another cleansing breath and looked at my sister with calm, softly focused eyes, just as Carlisle instructed in his 'peaceful suggestion' to us before my yoga class did our opening sun salutations. "I'm looking for simplicity." I looked over Tanya's shoulder, still wearing my smile of good intentions. "Where's the simple section?"
"Right past the Double Devil Dongs, ma'am." That Jasper's head indicated toward a small shelf in the corner of the shop.
Forty-seven minutes and a year's worth of sibling abuse later, I let myself into my home - mortgage paid early with extra toward the principal, thank you - and sat the lurid purple bag under my briefcase and jacket, cursing J. Crew's obviously inferior worsted wool. The cheap fabric had turned swamp-like with a fresh rise of perspiration when Tanya and that Jasper started discussing tantric sex.
Jocular interjections notwithstanding, that Jasper had provided a package of free, generic brand batteries and a travel size bottle of lubricant with my purchase.
Outside, the sweltering summer afternoon was beginning to give way to evening. Until I had the safety of darkness on my side, the purple bag and its contents would remain untouched.
And I had research to do.
"Remember, lube is your friend!"
I nudged my glasses in place and moved the cursor to the beginning of the article. Seventeen different websites. Not one explained just how much lubricant should be applied.
Non-specifics caused my eyelid to spasm.
Frustrated at lacking the information I needed to proceed, I sat my laptop aside and punched the television remote toward the TV, looking for my favorite cooking show.
Ah… Brett the Canadian bad-boy and his tattoos.
Brett was butterflying a whole chicken, preparing it for roasting. One of my favorites – a simple, elegant roast chicken, a salad of arugula, tomatoes, and goat cheese.
Heaven.
Reaching for my Brett-Book, I scribbled notes, pausing only to slide my glasses back up the bridge of my nose.
"Alright, here…"
Brett had the loveliest deepest, slightly scratchy voice. And when he said 'about'. Aboot. What a man.
"Now, let's spread this bird open nice and wide," Brett looked into the camera with his good-humored grin that turned his brown eyes into sparkling pools of brownie batter. "First, I wanna lube up the skin really well, eh? Not only will it keep the flesh inside nice and moist, but you'll have a medium for flavoring her."
Oh, Brett, flavor me.
I paused, waiting for Brett to measure the olive oil he was abooot to apply to the spread-eagled poultry. Brett's head ducked a little, but his smile never wavered. His long, wide fingers reached past him and grasped a bottle of organic extra-virgin olive oil.
There was no measuring cup. Not even a tablespoon.
Brett looked at the camera as though he'd just heard some deliciously bawdy joke and tipped the bottle over the prone free-range, vegetarian-fed bird. The oil glugged over chicken skin, splashing as it fell on the high, plump breasts and round leg quarters.
Suddenly my bedroom had become hotter than a foundry furnace. The thermostat read 69.
Of course it said 69. Tanya probably re-programmed it when I wasn't looking.
I lowered the temperature to 65 and hopped back on my bed. Brett was still involved with the chicken.
"Now make sure you get that stuff in every single nook and cranny, eh? I can't tell you how crucial it is when you're going with this initial blast of heat to have the skin nice and lubed up. Just work it in there, use your hands, no worries. This is simple, rustic cooking – no flashy foams or towers of meat and veg." He finished with a healthy slap across the glistening chicken skin. "I think that'll do 'er! All you need is a generous sprinkle of seasoning - nothing more than S and P – and she's ready to put under the heat, eh."
The high-pitched, pleading whimper shocked me, the ragged rise and fall of my chest was improbable.
Brett… yes… please. Put me under the heat.
Time for a commercial break. I sat my glasses on the nightstand and snuggled into my pillows.
With a desperate jerk, I removed the purple shopping bag from under my still-damp suit coat and rooted blindly for the package of batteries and slim cardboard case.
"Hurry, baby, I need you, eh." Brett's breath tickled my ear as he whispered to me. His big, coarse-knuckled hand, moved my hair over my shoulder so he could press his gourmand's mouth against my neck. "Kate, you taste like chocolate pot a crème and caramel with Hawaiian pink sea salt and… mmmmmm… is that thing aboooot ready?"
Brett was back, cleaning parsnips. He smiled as his hand grasped the sturdy root vegetable, never looked away from the camera as his fingers traveled down the pale shaft, steadying it as he prepared it for roasting.
"Let's get you ready for the oven, eh? Make sure you're spread nice and wide for me, Kate, I need to get every single nook and cranny moist if you're gonna stand that high heat."
Brett removed his Canadiennes game sweater, revealing the most glorious broad chest – in fact, the third largest of its kind I'd ever seen.
Brett didn't drizzle or dab. No thin, pencil-like stream.
Brett doused. He poured recklessly, a gleeful chef de cuisine who'd been released from the ascetic world of pre-service meditation, contrived cinnamon incense perfuming the air instead of pumpkin custard and perfect pâte brisée passing open, reverent lips.
Oh. Brett.
The conical aubergine vibrator fit Brett's hand perfectly. He nibbled at the peaks of my nipples, laughed low and husky as I gasped and writhed under his touch.
"Think it's time we made you come, eh? Ready for that blast of heat, Kate? I'm gonna sear your skin first, then lower the temp so you stay plump and moist until I'm ready to serve you to myself. Sounds good, eh?"
Brett was a devil with second course. He barely acknowledged a starter – went right for the main dish.
"Let's get this thing fired up, eh."
The cleft between my legs was bathed in slick, warm, wet – a sous vide for my own neglected mise en place of mons, labia – majora and minora, clitoris, vagina. Moisture dripped, tantalized dormant nerves, made my breath catch in my throat. Brett settled the simple, locally-sourced vibrator within my exposed, glistening lips. Rocked it gently. Circled. Dodged. Batteries connected, the aubergine fired to life against my aching clitoris –
Oh… GGUGVFFFFUCKFUCKFUCK! FUCKING OUCH!
My hips bucked. Not in a good way. My knees clenched and my hand slid like a sportscar on black ice, forcing the whirring vibrator free of my hand. Gone projectile, the shining purple thing was airborne, propelled with my failed attempt to wrestle it into submission. I watched, cemented where I sat, as the whirring purple shuttlecock of plastic sailed hard and fast toward me. The conical tip ascended to the top of its arc. It descended, its aim true. The fucking thing scored a direct hit to my eyebrow and pinged off wildly, crashing against the wall and finally dropping to the carpet.
The battery pack buzzed lethargically, a dying fly. Once. Twice. After three times it gave up and was silent.
Brett the fantasy chef evaporated. I watched, despondent, through one unharmed eye as he served a glistening slice of roast chicken to himself, grunted with animalistic satisfaction as the piece crossed his lips.
"Oh yeah. Now that's a proper roast bird, eh."
Fucking defective, hazardous, god-only-knows-what-compound… silicone… I grunted, exasperated, as I wiped the sticky, cold, mess from myself, found my yoga bag and jerked the lotus blossom embossed top and brown pants on my body, furious.
Carlisle's anesthetic-like voice and my root chakra could go hang. That Jasper sold me a dangerous machine.
I expected a refund.
I'd demand satisfaction.
.~*~.
That Jasper was still leaning against the counter, posed nearly identically to the position we'd left him in hours earlier. He had a copy of Mother Earth News spread before him and was warbling 'Slow Ride' to himself as he read.
"Well, hey there, Frosty."
"Good evening. I need to make a return."
"Uh… a return?"
That Jasper actually recoiled a little, as if the idea of a return was something untenable.
"Yes, a return." I thrust forward the items, now double-bagged, the vibrator in gallon-sized zipper bags, the lubricant residing in sandwich-sized versions. Even with the double-layered protection, it was going to take weeks to get the sickly-sweet scent of artificial strawberry scent from my Honda.
And my bedroom.
And my bathroom.
And the foyer.
Who knew the scent of strawberries could permeate everything it came near? Had I caught the 'Sweet Sizzling Strawberry' advisory on the bottle of Extreme Slick lubricant – with extra Silicone! – I never would have used it.
I hate strawberries.
I spent my formative years assaulted with the smell: That Bella Swan, munching on her strawberry Pop-Tarts on the school bus; blithely disassembling a strawberry jam and peanut butter sandwich in the cafeteria while most of the male contingent of our school gaped, fascinated with her.
Except Emmett McCarty. And his black Chuck Taylors.
Someone cleared their throat , yanking my awareness back to present concerns.
That Jasper. He was watching me intently, unmoved from his perch over an article titled 'How to Make a Rainbarrel: Cool Uses For Harvested Water!'. His olive eyes were alert through the still-smudged lenses of my glasses.
"I think I know you."
"Oh?" I removed my glasses, rubbing my Lotus-blossom'ed hem over another sticky smear. "I can't imagine –"
"Peninsula Yoga, right? You take Carlisle's class. Tuesday at five? Inner-calm with Carlisle?"
"Yes, I…"
"I teach the Bikram class down the hall."
That Jasper could contort himself like a pretzel in 104 degree steam. He was so good at it, he could show others how. He raised from the glass case and took the zipper bags from me.
"What'd you do to your eye?"
"This!" I shook the bags at him.
"Huh. Well, let's see what y'got, here, Frosty."
"That lubricant should be taken off the market. It's obviously over-impregnated with silicone – and fragrance."
"Oh no, this is the good stuff, darlin'." The smaller bag dangled between us, caught between two of his fingers. "I didn't realize you were a beginner. My bad."
"I'm… well, I'm certainly not a beginner! I just… the directions are completely unintelligible and … "
"Uh-huh." That Jasper nodded, his face a mask of empathy. His damn dirty martini-olive eyes glittered, betraying amusement.
Beginner.
He tossed the package of lubricant into the trash behind him and picked up the purple vibrator - in situ.
"Now, what've we got here."
"It's broken."
" It's covered in lube, too. Did it look like this when you took it out of the box?"
"Well, no…"
"So it's been used?"
"Yes. But I washed it. And sprayed with Lysol. Twice. That …. substance is impossible to remove. But yes, I did attempt to use it."
"And?"
"And it's dangerous! Like a turbine engine – not something for delicate – you know…"
He chuckled under his breath, a slow, evaluative smile spreading across his face.
"You broke it?"
"It was unavoidable."
"Oh, hell…" He had the mordacity to double over, cackling like some annoying, large bird. "Darlin' that's one of the most durable vibes we carry. The plastic's the same stuff they use in car interiors."
Huffing with mortified outrage, I slipped into my mantra.
"Root chakra… root chakra… root chakra…"
"Hey," That Jasper said, interrupting my attempt at grounding and positive universal regard.
"What?"
He leaned toward me, drew his thumb across the now canyon-like furrow between my eyebrows.
"You need to unblock here first, Frosty. Can't let energy flow-" he cocked an eyebrow; his eyes flitted to my brown yoga pants. " Down there until you let go up here." He tapped the crease on my forehead with his thumb for emphasis.
"I have no issues with clarity."
"Not worried about your ability to assess a situation, darlin'. But you live up here in your mental plane. Secret to enlightenment's knowing that energy is only part of you. Gotta let it flow – feel it down in your throat chakra so you can speak the truth, in the heart chakra so you can hook in to universal peace," his index finger traveled down my nose, neck, chest, barely skimming over cotton/lycra magenta Lotus blossoms. "Here in your solar plexus, you can tap into your power – the good kind that'll move you further, higher, open your awarenesses of autonomy – your own idea of who you are."
"Uh…oh…" I breathed.
That… Jasper's finger hovered, traveled lower, paused just below the folded waistband of my pants.
"Now, see, here you've got the block that you think is your problem. Second chakra – sexual release – among other things."
"I don't have issues with release."
"Oh me either. Nope, bet you'd just do fine with release if you'd let that force inside of you travel up from the ground , Frosty."
"The Force, use it, Luke?"
He snickered and for some reason it made me proud. My shoulders dropped a little. I let my bag fall to the mottled red and black industrial grade carpet.
"Yeah, somethin' like that." He withdrew his hand and placed it, palm-up, on the glass counter, just over an assortment of colorful glass 'tobacco accessories'. "Here, darlin'. Give me your hand."
Pressing my lips together, I willed my arm to move toward him. His hand, the second largest I'd ever seen, but by far the most calloused, cradled mine gently, cupped my thumb toward my fingers until my palm resembled a fleshy furrow.
Oh.
"Now, we're gonna begin with a classic," he said as he dribbled something called Astroglide over my skin. "Not too much, not too little. You want wet, not tsunami, or things could get a little too wild down there."
Raising his other hand, Jasper traced the pillowed flesh on my contracted palm with his thumb. I glanced up and found him watching me, not his own work.
It would appear he was quite comfortable with his technique.
"Let that happen for a while, Kate. Let the awareness of you at the core of your sexual energy just ease on up to the front of your mind. This ain't about to-do lists and perfect vacuum lines in your wall-to-wall. This is letting that lotus between your legs open up, letting that power climb through your body and blast out into the universe." His voice softened, taking on a graveled edge as his thumb circled over wrinkles of skin and tiny pools of warm wetness. "Go deeper, let those petals open, see how soft and pink and fresh they are."
Though I couldn't look away from him, I shifted my feet – and hips – and dodged my tongue at a bead of sweat trinkling by the corner of my mouth. He smiled.
"Good, nice… Now go inside, check out what's going on between the petals. Take your time exploring each little groove and seam."
Dear God, it's ninety degrees in here. How in the world is he not dripping with sweat?
I fanned at myself with my free hand but he stopped me, circling my wrist in a heavy vice of fingers and thumb.
"Don't distract yourself. Opening up creates heat." The expression on his face, intention radiating from his eyes turned powerful – direct. "Don't cool yourself off, Kate. Don't fan away that heat and that energy. Let it work on your body. Your awareness.."
He released my wrist and dedicated his hand once more to the surrogate for my… down there… and refocused his lesson "Now, let's take it further, give some attention to the heart of that living, blooming flower, darlin'. Don't go right to the center. Let your awareness of it go deeper as you circle it, lift those little strands that anchor it. Tease it to bloom all the way. Slide two fingers around it, get it used to sitting up… make it beg for attention."
I was close to doing that very thing.
"When you're crackling with it, feelin' those warm constrictions and your body is tinglin' with energy, put your finger juuussst so gentle….right there."
I shuddered, whined. From this man touching my hand.
Before I could drift away and urge a mental note to give Bikram a try, Jasper squeezed my hand slightly.
"Hey, this ain't the time to drift off into your head, Kate."
"Sorry."
"No need - your mind is a powerful, powerful thing. It's gonna fight you for control until you let it know who's boss."
Control? Power? Oh… another line of thought for another day.
"Settle back into touching just around the center of that lotus blossom. Remember the feeling of those petals openin' and showin' off that little pink center."
A pleased little sigh escaped my lips. I didn't attempt to stifle it.
"Good," he said, leaning closer to my ear. "Nice."
As Jasper's long fingers brushed and dodged around the furrows of skin on my palm, I realized I'd not been this relaxed since … well, a while.
"Go to the center just ever so lightly," he whispered, husky and soft, right by my ear. "Feel how full of life it is, just budded up with it." Like hundreds of fingers brushed over this previously unconsidered part of my body, Jasper plucked out a meandering classical guitar piece across my skin.
If he played, he was a virtuoso.
The random touches and insistent patpatpat rubrub rub stroke circlecircle stroke at the center of my palm continued, escalating with intensity – intention. His chest resonated with a deep, considering, rolling growl – a rumble of far-off thunder. Distant crashing ocean waves.
"Let it bloom, Kate. Let it push out those nerves and rush across the synapses, an' ride it, darlin'."
Another sigh, high, musical, shuddering. Mine. And color – so much, so many, blossoming, melding into the others, Rothko-ing and Miro-ing and exploding with De Staels of exploding red, orange insisting and assertive yellow, verdant green colliding with cobalt that crackled and sparked indigo and burst forward as purple purple purple purple purplepurplepurplepuple purplepurplepurplepuple …blinding white, no color, every color and bright bright bright.
Inhaling, shaky, sweaty, and loose, my head lolled to the side, finding inquisitive, sparkling, sunbaked grass-green eyes so close to mine.
"Damn," he whispered, throaty. Pleased.
I couldn't speak. Just smiled lazily at him.
Jasper blinked and something snapped taut in him. He looked down at an old stainless steel tank watch and his eyes constricted slightly.
"Twelve oh-five. Gotta get that sign off and close up." He rounded the counter and strode quickly over to a row of light switches by the door. "City won't let us stay open past twelve. Coulda been in a world of shit if Charlie Swan had decided to drive by."
Swan.
"You…uh… you gonna be at the studio next week, Kate?"
"I – ah…um…class reunion. Um, no, I have a class reunion next weekend and the welcome cocktail party is next Thursday." An odd impulse drew my eyes down Jasper's chest and to the buckled, taut fly of his ancient 501's. The appreciative smile the sight inspired was impossible – and unnecessary – to hide. "But after that-"
He met my eyes, shifted his jaw a little as he chuckled softly.
"What's your favorite tea?"
"Chamomile mint."
"Esme stocks that in the smoothie bar. Can I get you a cup next time you're around the studio?"
I considered: Jasper, close and available again, especially after two weeks .
"Yes, but iced?"
"Sure."
I waited for him to gather his keys and bike helmet, stepped around his torso and open arm as we exited the darkened building.
"Ah, man," Jasper groaned as he turned deadbolts in the steel door. "I am not lookin' forward to that bike ride home." His jeans still appeared a bit snug, and he shifted his hips a little.
"Would you like a ride?"
Ow. Too obvious. We laughed together.
"Um… I'm gonna have to decline tonight, Miss Kate, but … another time?" He stepped toward me, his face in shadow as he looked down to me. "I like to consider things a while, let 'em bud up a bit before I go take a look at what's grown."
"Well, do be careful."
"You too, Kate. Um, hope that shiner clears up before your reunion."
I watched him sling his long, denim-clad leg over his bike and strap his helmet over the tousled, sandy blond strands of perfectly ruffled hair.
"Hey, darlin'?"
I paused , just inside my car. He'd been watching, assuring himself I was safe.
"Yes?"
"You're an electric woman. Don't let that open channel fill up again, alright?"
Shaking my head and smiling, I sat in my car, ready for my bed and sleep and tea and high school reunions and roast chicken.
Ready for every unexplored possibility out there.
.~*~.
In the next little bit, I'll be moving Sire here to its new home. I just can't give that story up when there's so much left to write. Once the fanfic net profile is ghostlighted, Sire will live here, along with a few other one-shots.
