Chapter Thirteen #2
“Uh-huh,” I manage, somehow. I try reaching blindly for my phone to shut off the call, but it’s just out of reach. I know I could get Senán to stop—that would be the simple and logical solution—but I really, really do not want Senán to stop.
“He just disappears from the office with basically no notice,” Nix continues, still oblivious. “Probably on a fucking hunting trip or some shit, just watch—”
I feel a vibration of sound in Senán’s throat and I’m not quick enough to stop the moan that spills out of me, loud enough to hear from several yards—or several states—away.
Nix stops dead in the middle of her sentence, and when she speaks again her tone has changed from casual and friendly to accusatory and irritated.
“Motherfucker, are you getting laid right now?!”
Shit, I just can’t help a giddy laugh. “I mean… define ‘laid…’”
“ Dude! Why are you answering work calls while you’re getting dicked down?!”
“I was—hey, I’m not getting ‘dicked down!’”
“I don’t care whose phallus is going into whom, I don’t wanna be part of it!”
I’m still giggling, and Senán is still going. I think he’s sped up, actually. “Sorry, it just kinda happened…”
“Whatever, I’m hanging up. Can he hear me?”
Senán raises his hand above the surface of the water in a “thumbs up” gesture.
“ Hah— yeah, I think so.”
“Good. Hey, Femboy Fatale, he’s more vers than he looks!”
My eyes snap open.
“Hey—”
“Bye, bitch!”
“Nix! You can’t just—”
But Nix is already gone, and Senán’s hand has sunk under the water again, his mouth working faster and faster.
I barely have time to register the fingers skating up my inner thigh before I’m so overcome with sensation and need that I gasp and open my legs wider, a subconscious and eager invitation.
Senán’s hand slides up and back until the pad of his thumb presses against me, not penetrating but so close that I cum, hard, spilling into Senán’s fierce mouth and grinding against his warm, firm, endeavoring thumb.
I didn’t think to cover my mouth this time, but I’m way past the point of caring whether anyone heard me.
Senán slows down, but doesn’t stop until I’m at the brink of overstimulation and have to push him, gently, unfortunately, away.
He raises his head just enough that only his eyes are above water, looking up at me like a flirtatious caiman ready to take a bite.
“You’re out of your fucking mind,” I say, but I’m sure my dopey-ass grin takes any burn out of the words.
Senán moves to sit next to me, and he looks so damn proud of himself that I forget the unspoken rules of the game, slide my arm around Senán’s shoulders, and pull him in close to my side.
Maybe it’s the oxytocin, or the steam. Maybe it’s the fact that I’ve had enough core-memory-level orgasms over the past week that I’m pretty sure I’ve killed off some brain cells in the process.
Whatever the underlying reason is, I am absolutely elated when Senán lets my arm stay.
“She seemed nice,” he says cheerfully.
I laugh. “Yeah, Nix. She’s great. She’s one of the few things keeping me sane at work.”
“Why, Mister Witchfinder, it almost sounds as though you don’t live and breathe bureaucracy.”
I shoot him a wry look. “I know you think that doling out citations for misuse of Magick is my favorite pastime, and the work is important to me, but it’s still a job. It’s rewarding, but it’s also a grind sometimes—there are things I love about it and things I hate about it.”
Senán looks me over in that way that makes me feel like I’m having my mind read. “What do you hate about it?”
The hot water and hormones have knocked my inhibition threshold down so thoroughly that I almost say what I’m actually thinking, listing off all the things that I hate about my job.
I hate writing citations. I hate paperwork.
I hate that so many of you see me as an enemy.
I hate that I was trained to treat you like an enemy.
I hate that we don’t trust each other. I hate that I believed so many wrong things about you.
I hate that I have to leave in two days.
I hate that leaving means I have to pretend like none of this ever happened.
I hate that I have to pretend this wasn’t important.
I hate that I have to pretend I’m going to forget about you.
I don’t say what I’m thinking. But I can’t come up with anything else to say instead, so I just keep staring at Senán, trying to remember why I’m not allowed to say what I’m thinking.
Senán must see the struggle behind my eyes, because his face softens a little and he changes the subject. Sort of. “What do you love about it? Besides your friend.”
I keep staring at him a second longer, then I look away, trying to recall something good about my job. “Well, Paige,” I say after a moment. “She’s another Agent there.”
“Another friend?”
I nod, smiling at the thought of her. “We grew up together, she’s basically my little sister. Her and Nix don’t really get along that well, but they’re my two favorite people. Two best things about the job.”
“So, the people, then?”
“I guess, yeah… Well, that, and the cryptids.”
September 2012
Quantico, VA
Fifteen minutes. He had fifteen minutes.
Fifteen minutes to gather himself, to take a breath, to choke down every intangible thing that was crawling up his throat.
To regain his composure and return to the shooting range like he wasn’t completely overwhelmed, like he wasn’t on the brink of giving up everything he’d earned, everything his legacy had promised him.
Ryder was prepared for Field Agent Training to be hard.
His grandfather, his Aunt Cindy, his entire family had told him it would be hard.
What he wasn’t prepared for was exactly why it would be hard.
Because it turned out that a legacy didn’t do much for you in an academy setting. Not anything good, anyway.
He could take the physical and psychological stress, the grueling obstacle course runs and academic tests performed on four hours of sleep.
He could take the snide comments and unreasonable expectations from his superiors.
He could take the mean nicknames from his fellow cadets, the repeated references to him being the youngest one there, the cajoling about his post-grad Bureau assignment being Strictly Classified while everyone else had the same mundane goals that any FBI trainee might have.
It wasn’t the training that drove him to his breaking point. It was the loneliness of it all—that’s what got to him.
He couldn’t call Paige to vent about everything he was being put through.
She was still hurt over being denied entry to the training academy that season, and any complaints Ryder voiced about the experience she was missing out on would only make her pain worse.
He couldn’t talk to his friends, because his struggle wasn’t for civilian ears.
His mother had chosen a different career, his Aunt Cindy had been gone for nearly a decade, and his grandfather would only tell him that he needed to toughen up.
Ryder didn’t socialize much with his fellow cadets.
Instead, he spent his breaks by himself, outside, sitting on a concrete curb in the late summer sun and telling himself that everything he was going through, all the anguish and pressure and painful feelings of inadequacy, all of it would be worthwhile in the end when he could hold up his completion certificate and see his grandfather’s proud smile.
No one ever came out to the parking lot during the day. In the weeks Ryder had been attending the academy, he’d never seen a single other person in the spot he’d chosen for respite. But, at that moment, when he felt so alone he didn’t care how alone he really was, someone was there with him.
The black cat, sleek and clean and enigmatic, had been there before.
Every time it showed up, Ryder tried to get its attention, to bring it closer with a friendly “pspsps” or an offering from his lunch tray.
And every time, the cat scampered away, leaving Ryder with only his own turbulent thoughts to keep him company.
Ryder didn’t resent the cat for not wanting to get close to him, but the rejections pained him a little. Still, he kept trying.
Today, though, he didn’t have it in him.
“Come here to run away again?” he said to the cat, like it had betrayed him somehow. Like it was the cat’s fault that he felt the way he did.
The cat stared at him, yellow eyes bright against the shadows it stayed crouched into.
Ryder heard laughter carrying across the parking lot and looked to the source—an open window, leading into the break room where his fellow cadets gathered.
Maybe they were laughing at him, he thought.
Or maybe they were laughing about something unrelated, a funny video or a joke someone made. He would never know.
Did he even want to know?
Would it matter?
He closed his eyes and drew air in through his nose.
Held it. Released it through his mouth. His mother, his sister, his grandfather, his friends.
Ryder had a phone full of numbers he could reach out to, none of whom would understand.
It was strange, he thought, that being blessed with so many loved ones could make him feel so isolated.
Hairs stood up on Ryder’s arm and he opened his eyes. There, at his side, was the black cat, sitting just a few inches away from him like it had never done before.
Ryder blinked at the animal, wondering if he was imagining some part of what was happening. Waiting for the cat to change its mind and run away, like it always did.
But the cat didn’t run away. It leaned in close, sliding its face against Ryder’s arm, its fur soft and warm against Ryder’s skin, and Ryder suddenly realized that he hadn’t felt an affectionate touch in weeks.
Ryder lifted his arm and let the cat crawl into his lap. He scratched the cat behind its ears and stroked its fur, and let the cat feel loved and appreciated and safe. And the cat let Ryder hold it, let Ryder close his eyes and cry silently, let Ryder feel just a little less alone.
Senán looks at me curiously. I think that look once made me feel scrutinized, but now it makes me feel interesting. “You like cryptids?”
My smile widens—I love cryptids, but most of the other Agents see them as a pain or a bore, and I don’t really get to talk about them as often as I want to.
“Yeah, I mean, I don’t work with them much.
Most of what we do just involves keeping them hidden, and there aren’t many of them left, anyway.
But I wanted to be a cryptozoologist when I was a kid, I always loved animals. ”
“Animals? Really?” Senán is smiling warmly at me, just a little intrigued, and I don’t know what it is about all of this that’s planting such a glowy feeling in my chest, but I like it.
“For as long as I can remember,” I continue, chasing it. “My Dad thinks it’s hilarious. I mean, he looked at me like my head fell off when I told him I’d stopped eating meat, back in middle school—”
“You’re vegetarian?”
I almost laugh. “You sound surprised.”
Senán shrugs his shoulder under my hand and smiles softly, in a way that looks almost bashful, in a way that I think I’ll have a lot of trouble forgetting after I fly back to DC.
“I didn’t know that about you,” Senán replies.
I can’t help noticing, suddenly, how close our faces are. “There’s probably a lot you don’t know about me.”
“Is that so?” Senán says quietly.
I glance at Senán’s mouth, still wet and a little swollen, and without thinking I lick my lips. Senán averts his eyes and lifts my arm off of his shoulders.
“Enjoy your soak, Mister Witchfinder,” he says as he stands up.
“Wh—wait, where are you going?” I ask, reaching for Senán’s hand. Did I do something wrong? Is it something I can fix?
“I believe you already finished, love. Quite spectacularly, as I understand it.”
“But you didn’t.”
I know I’m being needy. I know I’m pushing the rules. I don’t care.
Senán wavers for just a second, only long enough for me to notice but not long enough for me to call attention to it, then moves to the other side of the hot tub to climb out.
“Tempting as that is,” he says, only a little sarcastically, “I’ve got to get my beauty rest, and my needs have already been taken care of. ”
“Taken care of? By who?”
I realize too late how sharp my tone is, but Senán catches it immediately. “Well, that was a fascinating reaction to that statement,” he says with a shit-eating grin, “but I meant I took care of myself. I’m an excellent multi-tasker.”
Well, fuck. The mental image of Senán getting himself off while he was underwater with my dick in his mouth is sure to be a source of wet dreams for years to come. Senán waves at me, very clearly aware of the effect his words have had. “Goodnight, Mister Witchfinder.”
He saunters back towards the hotel, hips swaying in his tiny swim shorts as he walks. I watch him go, and try to will my mind to stop asking why he left.