Everyone's Favorite Girl (6 page)

I waited for most of the blood to clear--all except for the new blood still pouring out of her arm--and then hit the switch again.

Dropping everything but the rags, I went over and made a temporary bandage out of them.

"Come on, let's get that cleaned up."

I helped her stand and led her to the edge of the Jacuzzi pool, where I poured peroxide over the wound and made her hold the rags to it while I threaded a needle.

All the color had drained from her face.  She was no longer crying.  Instead, she stared blankly at the needle, eyes a little droopy, and every thirty seconds or so she shuddered violently.

"How much . . . blood have I lost?"

"I don't know."

"A lot?"

I tracked the red dots on the floor leading back to the shower room.  "Not a dangerous amount, I think."  As though I had the first clue.

Flora pulled the rags away just enough to peek at her wound.

"It's just oozing.  I don't think you--an artery got severed."

Even flayed open--against her will, by all legal standards, I'm sure--Flora still hesitated to place blame where it clearly belonged.  To her, that would be mean.

Too nice.  There very much is such a thing.

"I want Patton," she said.  She was growing more and more calm.  It was starting to scare me.

"You're
gonna be okay, Flora."

But now that I had the needle threaded and ready to go, I got a good look at her.  Pale, shivering, maybe not fully conscious.  There was no way I could stitch her right now.  I'd have to knock her out, or else I'd spend ten minutes pricking her, making her heart rate increase, which would speed up the bleeding.

I put the needle aside for now.  If I was going to stitch her up, it had to happen within eight hours.  I remembered that from cutting my leg open in a bicycle accident when I was thirteen.  I successfully hid the injury from my parents most of the day by wearing sweatpants, but when they wanted to go out to dinner, I had to give in and tell them.  That or deal with blue jeans rubbing against a raw cut in ninety degree weather.  My parents had to skip dinner to take me to the hospital.  They were so mad they left me alone with the doctor while he stitched me up--a failed attempt at punishment, because the doctor was young and gorgeous.

Until he spoke, at least.

The cut was so high on my leg, he made me pull my pants down.  After he put his hand on my leg and leaned in close to inspect the cut, he said had I gone two more hours without stitches, I'd be stuck with an ugly scar across my thigh for life.  A shame, he told me, since I was such a pretty girl.

When you get
creeped out that bad, the memory sticks in your mind.  You have an eight hour window to receive stitches, and if that doctor had been nice to me I would have fallen in love with him instead of taking home the requisite to forever be wary of men.

I made Flora a fresh makeshift bandage with new rags and led her back to the room.  I lay a garbage bag across the bed and then put a towel over it.  That way if more blood seeped out it wouldn't stain the sheets or mattress.

In bed, she quickly developed a throbbing pain in her arm.  I rummaged the kitchen for any overlooked narcotic, bottle of liquor, or pinch of weed and came up with nothing.  All I could find was a box of organic tea with valerian root, which was supposed to have sedative properties.

I brewed all eight of the tea bags in two cups of water and poured half of it in a big mug, adding a few
spoonfuls of sugar and a little honey, then tasting it to make sure it wasn't disgusting.

To my delight, it was amazing.  I'd made enough for both of us, because if I was about to do what was on my mind, I wouldn't mind being half-conscious myself.

~ ~ ~ ~

The tea worked.  Flora fell asleep in a matter of minutes, and half an hour later she hadn't so much as whimpered.

I inspected the device under the bright bulbs where Kate's marijuana plants used to stand, trying to guess which eyelet leaked which drug.

I would have to test each one by plugging the other two and hitting the button, then trying it myself.  That could take a while.  The Longevity Drug would have no noticeable effect, from what I understood, but I would need at least a day to recover from the Love Drug and the Libido Drug consecutively.  I only had eight hours to get Flora stitched--and maybe not even that long.  What if she bled out and died?

This had to happen.

I put away and cleaned up every shred of evidence that a half-assed surgical procedure had taken place, from the blood on the Jacuzzi pool ledge to the box of garbage bags I'd left on the night stand, stopping to pull the comforter up to Flora's chin, covering her bandage completely.

Next I changed into a silk bathrobe that barely covered my ass, tying it loosely so a little cleavage showed.  I tossed my hair into a mess and looked at myself in the mirror to see if I had a convincing just-woke-up look.  The valerian tea had made my eyes a little droopy.  Perfect.

When I called James, I spoke in a breathy whisper.

"I need to talk to you."

"It's late," he said, sounding like I'd woken him.

"Flora is sick.  She needs medicine."

"What's wrong with her?"

"Flu, I think.  She needs antibiotics.  And a sedative.  She finally passed out, but I've been up with her all night."

"She'll just have to tough it out.  I
gotta go."

"Wait."  I only hesitated for a moment, for fear that he would hang up.  "I'll fuck you."

He chuckled, a little more alert now.

"You'll fuck me," he repeated.

"Yes."

"Tonight."

"Bring me an antibiotic and a sedative, and I'll do whatever you want."

Silence for a moment.  Then, "You know I'll be reporting this to Sean."

"That's fine," I said.  "Just bring me the medicine.  I'll deal with the consequences."

"If I do this, there's no turning back.  We're fucking when I come through that door."

"I'll be waiting."

James breathed into the phone.  Then he hung up.

~ ~ ~ ~

This is the part where I quickly come up with some scheme to get myself out of the corner I've painted myself into, but in the ten minutes it took James to crawl out of bed, get dressed, find the drugs, and come to my door rubbing the grogginess from his face, I merely sat at the kitchen table, mind blank and body frozen.

When I opened the door, I put a finger to my lips.

"Don't wake her," I whispered, taking his free hand--after spying the pill bottles in his other hand.

He'd thrown on a white t-shirt and a pair of dress pants with no belt.  I had to admit without the cocky, self-satisfied expression he usually carried on his face, he was actually pretty attractive.  In other circumstances--minus the alpha personality--I might have been attracted to him.

I led him through the room on tiptoes, even though his house shoes clopped like horse hooves.  My heart raced as we passed by Flora.  Anything could go wrong in this moment.  Flora could wake up and expose her injured arm.  James might break away and approach the bed.  As we entered the corridor, I began to fear that I'd missed a drop of blood, like a porn addict second guessing whether or not he deleted his browser history when his wife sits down at the computer.

In front of the Jacuzzi, I let go of James's hand and turned around to face him.  He was grinning from ear to ear.

"You must really care about her."

"I'd do anything for Flora.  Any of these girls."

"Why?"

"Because they deserve better than this."

James shrugged, sat on the ledge, and kicked off his house shoes.  "I don't know about that," he said.  "The Favorite Girls wouldn't even exist if not for this company.  Are you saying they shouldn't exist?"

Still a smart-ass, even when sleepy.

"They shouldn't," I said, "but they do.  When you kill one, you're not removing her from existence.  You're just killing her."

James pulled off his shirt, wadded it up, and threw it on the floor.

"See, that's where we differ.  Philosophically.  You see a person.  I just see physical matter."

"If that's how you see things, why haven't you killed yourself?"

"Because I enjoy living."  He stood, unbuttoned his pants, and dropped them to his ankles, kicking them away.  Naked now except for his socks, hands on his hips, dick pointed straight at me.  His eyes went up and down my body.  "How old are you?" he asked.

"Twenty-two.  How old are you?"

"Twenty-six."

"So you were just going into high school when I graduated."

"I guess."

"What was your GPA?"

"I don't remember."

"Not good, then?"

"No."

"I was the valedictorian of my class."

He was clearly proud of himself, but this was the first time I saw something in James besides pride.

Ambition.

"Did you deliver your speech naked?"

He laughed, dropped his head, and rocked back and forth on his heels.  When he looked up again, he took two steps forward, now standing just a few feet away.

I pulled the string on my robe and let the silk glide down my arms and down my ass, dropping against the backs of my ankles.

James immediately slipped his hand behind my back and pulled me to him, reaching up to grope my breast with the other hand, then sliding it up to my neck and behind my head, pulling my face against his chest and locking his arm around my neck tight enough to scare me.

What scared me more was the fact that he was shivering.

His dick was sandwiched between us.  I reached down and touched the tips of my fingers to his balls and suddenly he squeezed me even tighter and I felt him jetting semen.

"Oh God," he grunted slowly, pushing me away.  "Goddamn you."

My vision went blurry as pain and pressure rocked my left cheek and I collapsed half-conscious to the floor, consumed by the image of cracked and chipping cheekbones.  It hurt so bad I couldn't even cry.  I'd never been punched like that by a man.  Slapped?  Quite a few times.  But the hardest slap I'd ever taken was nothing compared to this.  One of his knuckles landed against the side of my nose.  Now my own blood pooled on the floor.

He stood over me, a tall, blurry, naked shadow.  I cowered.  This was the part where your attacker usually starts kicking you in the side.  Then again, he was barefoot--but crazy, all the same.

"That doesn't always happen," he said, all the confidence drained from his voice.  "I'm coming back."

Then I heard two pill bottles rattling on the floor, one after the other.

~ ~ ~ ~

I woke Flora and made her take the sedative, putting a hand on her chest to insist that she not sit up.  I even held the glass to her lips as she raised her head to take a drink.  When her head hit the pillow again, her eyes closed immediately.

I stroked her forehead and observed her breathing pattern.  Frequent and shallow at first, after a few minutes her chest began to rise and fall slowly, nostrils flaring as she exhaled, lips parting barely.  Breathing out of her mouth must mean her oxygen was low due to blood loss.

Look at me, thinking I'm a doctor now.

For the first time since I watched him fall to pieces over his little brother's death, I wished Patton was here.  He would know everything Flora needed, especially how to make her feel safe and comfortable.  He could probably stitch her up blind if he wanted.

Then he and I could slip off to the shower room to play doctor and nurse while our patient slept.

It must have been the expectation of sex with someone I didn't want, followed by the relief of not having to do it.  Or maybe it was thinking about Patton.  Or even being punched.  Whichever the case, I suddenly realized I was horny, and for a split second I was struck with the fear that I'd activated the device in my robe pocket.  When I checked, it was bone dry, and I took a deep breath.

I pulled the comforter back to begin removing Flora's bandage but didn't stop until I'd uncovered her down to her knees.  She still wore nothing but tiny athletic shorts.  Completely unconscious, though I suppose the skin never sleeps because goose bumps formed all up and down her body.  I touched her with my
finger tips around the waistband of her shorts.  Up her body, over both breasts, down again.  I glided them gently and daringly over her pubis.  Once more, watching her breathing, any sign that she might wake up.  Then I slipped my hand down her shorts and curled three fingers over around and between her labia.  Warm, soft, unadulterated.

When Patton seduced the Prototype Flora, some random, normal girl who just so happened to be heart-stopping gorgeous and as good natured as they come, how could he have resisted falling in love with her?  After years and years of raising brand new, virginal Floras, didn't he at least fantasize about having one for himself?