Blood Soaked and Contagious (25 page)

Could it be as simple as he wanted to give us an advantage in terms of surviving the coming attack? Possible, I suppose. That would have to do until I could ask him in person.

My brain perked up. Someone was approaching the door from the other side. I knew that they were at a 45-degree angle to my position and approximately five feet away. At current speed, that person would have their hand on the door in 4.5 seconds. The door would slide, and in .12 seconds, I would be able to turn and attack if necessary.

I also had the impression something inside me was waiting for a decision as it was counting down the hundredths of a second before I could assess the target. New information showed up, a pheromone signature—it was Charlie behind the door. That strange part of my brain, the nanomachines, I assume, disappeared from the edge of my consciousness.

“Hi Charlie.”

“Frank, what the fuck was that all about?”

I turned around to face her. She was still covered in soot, but the tears were fresh. All I could do was pull her into my arms and hold her. I don’t know if she needed it, but I did.

“Jaya’s husband, Bajali, sent us a gift,” I whispered in her ear. “I didn’t give you the virus, because I didn’t have it. What we’ve got are nanomachines.”

“When did this happen?”

“Mister Yan was probably the carrier. That’s why my body started rejecting the stitches; at least, that’s what I think is going on.”

She let out the breath she was holding and sagged into me just a little bit. “Then what was the deal with the cramps and licking metal?”

“My best guess is that the nanos wanted to replicate enough to do whatever it is they’re supposed to do. Baj wanted to give us the best chance he could to survive the attack, and this seems to be a way to do that.”

Charlie lifted her head up from my chest, looked up into my eyes, and said, “If we get him back, can I punch him really hard and yell at him a whole bunch?”

“If Jayashri leaves anything for you to punch, sure.”

“Okay.” She looked a little confused for a moment. “Why do I think someone is about to walk around the door and then up behind me in under eight seconds?”

“Probably because someone is. I got the same sort of information before you even slid the door open.”

Before she even came around the door, we heard Jaya say, “No one is allowed to beat my husband into a pulp but me. I cannot find a towel and am not going to reveal myself to the prying eyes of someone who is not my cursed spouse. Where can I find something to cover myself with?”

“The plastic cabinet,” Charlie and I said in unison.

“Thank you. I will tell you when it is appropriate for you to come in.”

I looked at Charlie and we smiled, doing our best not to laugh. She was still in my arms, and I liked it. She was curvy, warm, strong, and feminine. Unfortunately for me, my brain started playing back the memory of Jayashri and the water pipe, and my anatomy stood up to share an opinion on that recollection.

It seemed that Charlie could feel my... editorial, because both of her eyebrows shot straight up and her mouth formed an “O” shape. Any sane man would have expected what I did, that she’d extricate herself from my embrace and slap the crap out of me. We would have been distinctly wrong.

She smiled like a shark and started to gyrate against me in a distressingly erotic manner. I blushed. I could feel it.

“My, my, Mister Stewart. Is there something you’d like to share with me about how you’re feeling right now?”

“Nargle!”

She dissolved into laughter at my expense, and I was entirely grateful for it. Then we heard Jayashri say, from the other side of the door, “Charlotte, what are you laughing at? Did Frank make a fool of himself in some way?”

Charlie replied, tears streaming down her face, “Oh, honey! No more than he usually does!”

The sad thing is that I was becoming adjusted to being spoken about in that way. I imagined I might find it worrisome if my gonads weren’t having a karate tournament in my reptile brain. She felt really, really good against me, and I wasn’t able to decide if that was a bad thing or not.

We wandered back into “Frank’s Bath and Spa” (as it would later be called) to find our friend sitting on the bath stool, looking amused and thoughtful. I was able to think clearly enough to decide against mentioning that I saw her adventures with the water pipe. It also occurred to me that I should have installed security cameras in the bath area.

“Looks like the little Chinese zombie brought us tidings of comfort and joy,” Charlie said.

“That seems to be the most logical assumption, given recent events. What I cannot decide for myself is whether I am happy that my husband gave this to us, or if I feel as though I have been poorly used by him.”

“Baj, narg narg fwhew love love. Yah!” My frontal lobes were taking their own sweet time in getting up from in front of the widescreen TV. That had to be it. The only other possibility is that the machines stole my IQ when I wasn’t paying attention.

“Should I even try to understand that gibberish?” Mental note: Jaya pronounces “gibberish” with a G sound, not a J sound.

“I think I flirted with him a bit too intensely for his over-stressed brain to cope with. He’ll be back to his normal self in a few minutes.” Charlie looked me over, seemed to assess something I couldn’t quantify, and turned back to Jaya. “If his brain doesn’t come back, then we’ll just find something for him to do that doesn’t require much thought.”

“For example?”

“Paperweight.”

“Charlotte, your brilliance is only matched by your lovely personality and physical beauty.”

“Why, thank you! I’m going to take my bath now, I think. Maybe I’ll have the Brainless One scrub my back. What do you think?”

“Are you sure that he would be capable of such a delicate task, reduced as he is to a barely sentient state?”

“I’m willing to take the chance.”

Jayashri stood up in the towel, walked over to her clothes that were folded so neatly by the opposite wall, nodded to both of us, and started toward the door.

“Grnnah room wa arg!”

“Thank you, Frank. I think I will lounge in your room for a while. Perhaps, if you have some books, I might read for a while?”

“Books, ight elf. Iction, nd row.”

“Splendid!” With characteristic grace, she floated from the room, pausing only to slide the door closed.

Charlotte started to undress, and I was still in the room. There was something incredibly wrong about that, but my brain was not ticking over fast enough to do anything other than watch her move. Her back was turned, and she didn’t seem to care I was in the room.

Her tattoos fought for my attention. They couldn’t have been old, because the colors were too bright, almost too intense for words. The pinks, reds, and greens stood out against the pale canvas of her skin, highlighting the strong curves of her shoulders and the smooth play of muscles as she moved. The architecture of her back, waist, and hips was more perfect than any set of numbers that could have described it.

She was luminous. Color, lines, forms, and shapes that moved me more than any of the cathedrals I’d visited in Europe.

In my travels, I’d felt God in quiet places. I’d heard angels in Bach and Beethoven. Until then, I had never seen art made flesh.

Charlie sat down on the stool in front of the tap with the soap and bucket. I couldn’t see anything more than the change in the play of light on her skin. All I could do was watch while she soaped and rinsed parts of herself that I couldn’t see, and I would not have been anywhere else in the world if I could have been.

“Will you wash my back?” She asked quietly, almost too low to be heard, with vulnerability that I’d never heard before... except the night before, in my arms.

To my credit, I didn’t stumble over, or collapse to my knees. For once in my life, I had a moment of physical grace in the face of overwhelming feelings. She offered me the loofah, and I took it.

She scooted the wash bucket around to her side so I could use it. My thought processes were a little dim and I was grateful I didn’t have to make my mouth work in order to have access to the water. All I could reliably do was what she asked of me, not because I didn’t have some ideas of my own, but because I was so incredibly unprepared for the situation.

I put my left hand on her shoulder to steady myself as I sunk to my knees behind her. Then I did what I was asked to do. I washed her back. It was the fastest eternity I’ve ever lived in.

My hand was still on her shoulder when I put the loofah in the bucket and I was about to stand back up when she tugged my wrist. Charlie pulled my hand from her shoulder and across her chest, which gave me little recourse but to move in behind her, my chest to her back. Then she reached around, found my other hand, and pulled it around her tummy. I was Frank, the Human Cape.

Smelling her skin is what sunk me. I rested my head on her shoulder with my lips touching the side of her neck, and it was the most natural place in the world to be. She sighed, and some sort of tension inside her evaporated.

I needed to speak. I wanted to say things. My guts were filled with poetry and my heart was eager to pump the words out of me, but my tongue felt lifeless.

“Say, Frank?”

“Mmm?”

“You kinda like me, don’t you?”

“Very much,” I said, and my eyes bugged out because I actually used words.

“That’s nice. You don’t think I come on too strong or that I’m too ballsy to be a girl, do you?”

“You’re strong. Sweet. Beautiful. You’re funny. Sharp, but kind.” Words. Okay. A little on the simplistic side, but at least I was getting concepts across. I hoped that the Poetry Pump would kick into gear quickly.

“You think I’m beautiful?” She laughed a little and tried to cover up by throwing humor at it. “I guess this means that you’re kinky for tattooed, muscular country girls who are pushing BBW. Frankie likes the chub.”

I had wanted to kiss her neck. Between the thought and the action, my mouth opened and I found myself gently biting her instead.

She didn’t sigh. She quivered and made a noise that should never be heard outside of a bedroom. I felt both of our hearts slam inside our chests.

Maybe some day I’ll know why I needed to bite down harder, but I did. Charlie jerked in my arms and her breasts ended up resting on my arm. They had warmth and weight, and I knew I wanted to turn my hand over so I could cup the one closest to it.

I did.

“Frank. Frank, please bite me again.”

I moved my mouth down to her shoulder, and for a moment it felt like I had unhinged my jaw to fit as much of her in my mouth as I could. My hand found the curve of her breast and the crinkled hardness of her nipple. I bit her, closing my mouth around the petals of passionflowers, and pinched the flesh under my fingers.

She didn’t jerk in my arms, or moan. She heaved and the stool went skittering away on the wet concrete. There aren’t perfect words to use to describe what came out of her mouth. To say anything would be like throwing a box of darts at a dartboard in the hope that you’ll hit inside the center circle.

We ended up in a heap on the wet concrete, my teeth still in her shoulder, and my arms around her. She made me feel like growling.

I let go of her shoulder, and she turned over before I could even think about suggesting caution. Her arms slipped around me, under my t-shirt, and held on.

“I don’t want to sound all girly, but I’m going to.” She looked into my eyes and I was pulled into the rings of color and flecks of brown in her green irises. “Do you believe in first kisses?”

“How?”

She smiled shyly. “I’ve always believed that your first kiss with someone would tell you about what you could be together. That you’d feel their soul before you could have a chance to put all your walls back up.”

At that moment in time, I would have believed anything and everything she asked if I could see that look in her eyes every moment of every day until I closed mine forever.

I didn’t kiss her. She didn’t kiss me. We fell into the kiss together.

I believed in first kisses, because what we shared gave us no choice. It was a living and vibrant thing that we made together, and it was bigger than both of us. The beginning was gentle, full of exploration, and it felt like it could last forever.

As if it had a mind and a purpose all its own, the kiss swept us up into something else. Passion. Instead of warmth and restraint, we fed on each other’s lips, battered our tongues together, and our teeth clicked as we attacked without the civilized veneer we had tried to maintain.

Do people keep time when they kiss? I know I could have, had I wanted such a thing, but I didn’t. I wanted to live in the exquisite
now
of exploring Charlotte Marie Cooper.

The kiss showed us that the passion didn’t fade over time, even if the feral madness subsided. We were slaves to it, riding between the ferocious and the sublime. The gentle touch of lips on lips returned, but our hearts did not slow a single beat.

If Charlie was right about first kisses showing you who the person in your arms was and what you could be together, then I learned enough in those moments to change my life. I never knew that I ached for someone, or that I could, like I did for her. Every switch I had ever identified in myself was flipped by this incredible, vivacious, and beautiful woman.