James Hynes - Kings of Infinite Space

“I’ll get that,” Paul said. He wanted to pluck the pickle off her warm skin with his teeth.

“Easy there,” she said. She sat up straight and pinched it off herself between two fingernails. Then she rewarded him anyway with a greasy kiss.

On their way back to work, Callie manhandled the stick shift and maneuvered the big, rattling truck through lunchtime traffic, and Paul almost felt he should confide in her. He was beginning to think she might have some rough, sensible, working-class way of looking at his predicament, some Oklahoma gal’s prairie insight into how to deal with a cheer-leading queen like Olivia Haddock or with the oppressive military bonhomie of the Colonel. But at the moment he was happily drowsy, with a bellyful of ground beef, a hot breeze rippling his shirt, and a warm, diffuse, noonday lust for the woman at the other end of the seat.

“How ’bout I come to your place tonight?” Callie said as they pulled into a spot in the TxDoGS lot.

“My place?” Paul said, stirring out of his stupor of beef and desire.

“You’ve been to my place twice. I thought I’d come over to yours this time.”

“You, uh, you were there last night.”

“Unless you don’t want me come over.” She gave him a canny look. “Maybe your other girlfriend is coming over tonight.”

“Other girlfriend?” Paul laughed nervously. “I should be so lucky.”

“Ha. Ha.” Callie tugged at the door latch. “I’m not kiddin’, cowboy. I’m coming over.” She heaved the door open on its whining hinges. “I want to see that cat you say you don’t have.”

Paul reached along the seat and clutched Callie’s arm, keeping her in the truck. He had thought that last night’s moment of more or less sincere vulnerability had bought him all the credit he needed for the time being, and now he found himself calculating the likelihood of an appearance by Charlotte if Callie came over. The ghostly cat had been fairly discreet when Paul had lived with Kymberly, but then, it had been Kymberly’s house. Now that Charlotte had Paul all to herself, he wasn’t sure she’d be willing to share him. And there was still Mrs. Prettyman to reckon with, not to mention the beetling stares of all those horny Snopeses.

“You know what?” Paul said abruptly. “Come on over. We’ll get a pizza. We’ll watch a little TV, make a little love. We’ll read to each other from the Norton Anthology.” Back off, you freaking dead pussycat, he thought, I have a girl , goddammit. And I’m going to have noisy, athletic sex in my own apartment tonight, and you’re going to vanish in a fucking puff of smoke.

“Okay, now you’re foolin’ with me,” Callie said.

“No, I’m not.” He took her hand in both of his and kissed her. She tasted deliciously of mustard and onions and pickle. “Really, truly I’m not,” he murmured, and kissed her again.

Callie was blushing when he pulled away, and he heaved open his door and got out of the truck. He heard Callie’s door bang shut, and then she was alongside him, looking at him quizzically. “What ain’t you telling me?” She gave him a playful rap with the back of her hand.

He walked backwards before her. “You kind of have to see it to believe it.”

Inside the lobby, Callie stiffened her spine and marched across the lobby, trying to make it look as though she and Paul had not come in together. For his part, Paul pretended that he didn’t see Preston beckoning him, and he followed Callie up the stairs and into Building Services. “What are you doing?” she hissed just inside the door.

“I need to book the laptop and projector for tomorrow,” he said, and then, in a loud voice, “How you doing, Ray?”

In the inner office Ray sat massively behind the desk; a row of tacos leaned together before him in a little cardboard tray. He lifted a taco carefully, so as not to spill any of the filling, opened his mouth, and bit the entire thing in two. His cheeks bulged, his lips tightened, but he didn’t lose a speck. “Mmmph,” he said.

“Tomorrow?” Callie said loudly, glaring at Paul. “I’ll have to check the book.” She slapped the schedule book open, and Paul leaned over her shoulder as she filled in his name. Then, with another glance back at Ray — the other half of the taco had just disappeared — she bit Paul quickly on the neck and shoved him out the door. As Paul came out of the office, Preston was hauling himself up the last couple of steps onto the balcony. He pivoted heavily round the railing and called out, “Paul! Hold up!”

“I’m late back from lunch,” Paul said, but Preston caught him by the elbow and dragged him around the corner up the hall towards cubeland.

“How you doin’?” Preston said breathlessly, backing Paul up against the wall with his belly.

“You keep asking me that.” Paul tugged his elbow free. “I’m fine.”

“Good. That’s good.” Preston wheeled around his belly so that he stood next to Paul with his back against the wall. He glanced both ways up the hallway, then he held Paul with a solemn gaze. “You remember what I asked you this morning?”

“About seeing anything?”

“You know,” Preston sniffed. “Anything weird.”

“Weirder than a guy dying in the cube next to me?”

“All due respect?” Preston glanced past Paul down the hall. “That was unfortunate, okay, but it wudn’t weird , per se. You understand the difference?”

Paul said nothing. What did Preston want from him?

“What I mean is,” Preston said, “have you seen anything. . different? Really out of the ordinary?” He fixed Paul with his gaze again. “Something, you know, you’re not really sure you saw it.”

Preston fingered the strap that held his pistol in its holster. Why should I trust this guy? Paul wondered. Would he believe me if I told him what I’ve seen? And anyway, Paul reminded himself, he’d decided over breakfast that morning that nothing out of the ordinary had happened, that it was all a product of his imagination. Still, Paul heard himself say, “Well, actually, since you asked—”

“Good afternoon, ladies,” boomed a voice, and Paul flattened himself against the wall. Preston stepped into the hallway and reflexively popped the snap on the holster, pressing the heel of his hand against the pistol grip. The Colonel swung gut first down the hallway, working a toothpick between his molars.

“Mister Pentoon,” said Preston, narrowing his eyes.

For Paul, stationed between them, it was like watching two bull walruses squaring off. The Colonel rocked back on his heels and lifted his chin and gazed down his nose at Preston, even though Preston was a half a head taller. The security guard squared his shoulders and smoothed his thick moustache with thumb and forefinger, across and down. Then he looked rather ostentatiously at his wristwatch, still keeping his other hand on the butt of his gun.

“Twelve-fifteen,” he said to the Colonel, every inch the officer-on-parade. “A little late back from lunch, ain’t you?”

The Colonel gazed over his head, as if he were considering something. “I don’t believe,” he said, “that I’ve ever heard that question before from your pay grade.”

Preston narrowed his eyes into a steely Eastwood squint.

The Colonel worked his toothpick. “Shouldn’t you be watching the front desk?”

Preston shifted his hand on his gun. “You never know where they’re gonna get in, do ya?”

“Paul,” barked the Colonel, shifting his gaze. “We missed you at lunch today.”

“Yes,” Paul gasped. There was such a powerful military vibe in the air, he nearly said, “Yes, sir.”

“You know,” the Colonel continued, with an insinuating air, “I don’t mind you abandoning us at lunch, especially if you have a better offer,” and he carved the curve of a woman in the air with the edge of his hand, “but I don’t think Preston here’s your type.”