Chapter Forty #2
If it’s no trouble for you, I would like to see you again, maybe at a restaurant of your choosing. Not tonight, but sometime between tomorrow and next day. Let me know your schedule.
After I sent the message, I reread it, hoping I didn’t pass across the wrong subtext. I wasn’t well-versed in the world of texting, and it was worrisome how one text could be interpreted into many meanings.
I exited her message box and let my thumb hover above Zahra’s message.
Something bizarre happened at that moment. I felt a small squeezing burn in my chest; an odd—out-of-place—nervousness gripped me out of nowhere, and I hesitated for a long time before clicking on her name.
Yesterday
Zahra:
Hey Dad
2:35 P.M.
Zahra:
U know, when u said u’d call, I didn’t think it would take u so long. I’d love to believe u are not blowing me off
4:42 P.M.
Zahra:
Are u blowing me off?
7:50 P.M.
Zahra:
Wait, this is not delivering, did u fucking block me?
9:02 P.M.
Zahra:
Fine. I get the message. I’ll delete ur number too. Asshole.
1:42 A.M.
Today
Zahra:
Listen, I’m not much of a texter, and I obvs did not delete your number. I was kind of high when I sent that, anyway. Is this really you blowing me off and changing your mind about that rule? Cause you can just come clean and say it to me instead of ignoring me? It’s kind of a dick move.
12:56 P.M.
Zahra:
My God! I can’t believe I’m being ghosted by YOU of all fucking people
4:08 P.M.
Zahra:
Is something wrong?
6:31 P.M.
Zahra:
Text me when you wake up.
9:26 P.M.
I frowned at the last message and looked around the room as if I’d spot a trace of her. There was nothing.
But she was here. A few minutes ago.
I clicked on the call icon above the screen without thinking.
Drumming my finger against my knee, I felt another squeeze in my chest when the first ring came through, and then the call was declined.
I frowned, my brain already taking a route down its familiar overthinking lane.
This was why I was not too fond of phone calls, receiving or initiating them.
They never came with a positive outcome.
Either something was wrong, or the person you were trying to reach didn’t respond, or, in my case now—declined the call.
I didn’t know if I should feel anger or worry.
The first time I willingly initiate a call, it’s rejected almost immediate—
The phone buzzed in my hand, Zahra’s name flashing on the screen. I watched it ring for a decent stretch of seconds, and then I picked it up.
“Hi?” Her voice came through uncertain, soft, far away.
“You declined my call.”
“I called back,” she said, voice low like she didn’t want anyone to overhear her.
“Why did you decline it?”
There was a slight shuffling sound at the end of the line. “My phone was on the center table, and Devil was there. I didn’t want him to see that you were calling.”
“I thought you were smart enough not to save my number with my actual name.”
“I didn’t. It was saved as Dad. How the fuck would I have explained that to him. I don’t have a dad, and it’s—I can’t tell him it’s you because then he’d ask what that is about, and then he’d wonder why I have your number and why I didn’t save it with Marino or Elio and I—”
“Zahra.”
“Yeah?” she breathed out, and I could sense a twinge of nervousness in that small gesture.
A calm settled within me. “Your voice … it’s different on the phone.”
I think I heard a small laugh. “Of course it is; you’re hearing it through signals from a satellite in space.”
“Fascinating.” I relaxed back on the bed. “I didn’t know that; enlighten me on satellites and space that I definitely know nothing about.”
“And he says I’m insufferable.”
“We are alike in so many ways. Therefore I concede that it is normal for both of us to be insufferable.”
“Smart-ass.”
“I have an IQ of 170, so yes. I am smart.”
“You weren’t supposed to respond to that. For a man with an IQ of 170, you lack basic conversational skills.”
“Being academically intelligent is not equal to being socially intelligent.”
“Fine, I give up.”
“As you should.”
Silence stretched.
“So Cassie’s awake.” She broke it.
“Indeed.”
“Did you see him yet? Any valuable information he might have to pass across about the people who did this?”
I sighed. “I don’t want to talk about Casmiro.”
“Oh … What do you want to talk about?”
“Food. I think I’m hungry.”
I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “You’re in luck. I haven’t had my dinner yet. In fact, I was about to eat when your call came in. Give me a second. I’ll be there, and you can eat me—I mean, eat with me. With me. Jesus fuck—bye.”
The line cut off abruptly, and I stared at the screen, unable to stop my lips from curling at the side.
After a few useless seconds of replaying our conversation, I fixed myself a cigar and grabbed the book by my bedside table, put on my reading glasses, and settled as I drew in a lungful of smoke.
It burned my chest, sending the breath out of me in an instant and clogging my windpipe; the feeling compelled a cough out of me.
“That’s a first,” I mused aloud, blowing out the smoke while stifling the cough.
I cleared my throat, ignoring the feeling as it subsided. Somehow, the pain the cigar caused pushed me to take another drag, expecting to feel the burn—nothing happened.
Disappointment weighed heavily on my shoulders.
I fought off the thought and focused on the book in my grip.
About forty minutes into the book, the cigar had been discarded, my hunger forgotten, and the sound of my door quietly pushing open became a background disturbance.
I looked up briefly to catch Zahra walking in.
“Your idea of a second is worrisome.”
“Shut up; I had to make sure it was safe enough to sneak out.”
I memorized the page number and then dropped the book on my bedside table.
Unintentionally, my gaze took her in, sweeping from her head to her toes and then back to her head.
She was in a different silk nightgown, bloodred, with a robe over it.
I watched her drop the food bag on the two-seater couch before she turned to me, her short hair brushed to curly perfection, and she watched me like a package handed to her on a platter.
She was in awe for some reason. It would be quite embarrassing to admit that the look had me feeling the same way compliments made me feel—flustered.
“It’s late already, you shouldn’t be walking around the compound dressed like that,” I said, and she looked down at herself innocently.
“Dressed like what?”
“In a nightgown.”
She shrugged. “Well, I told you, it’s all silk inside my wardrobe.”
“Why do I have the urge to see your wardrobe?” I asked, and her eyes widened and sparkled beautifully in mischief, lips curling to the side in a smile as she approached the bed like she had done this particular action many times before.
“Maybe because you are a fucking weirdo,” she said; her sly smile turned genuine as she got on the bed. “And a creep with serial killer genes.”
A twitch in my cock told me I liked the way she gracefully climbed onto my bed, and how perfect she looked on it. “There’s no such thing as serial killer genes, Zahra.”
“I saw a TV show once. One of the main characters had serial killer genes.”
“Fiction.”
Her perfectly shaped brows drew together. “Yeah?”
“Yes, if you must know, a lot of things can be created in fictional works. Like transportation tubes, Holophonors, and the What-If Machine in Futurama in 2000; DNA altering in Gattaca, released in 1997, which was said to help children not contract genetic diseases from parents; and the Skin-Healing patch from the film Aeon Flux, made in 2005. That one is self-explanatory,” I said, expecting her to respond, but she just stared.
“I can understand why someone like you would mistake the serial killer genes for—don’t give me that look, Sport. ”
“What look?” She blinked, her eyes brighter than before, staring lustfully at me.
My index finger gestured in circles to her face. “That look.”
She grinned. “Your intelligence is a huge turn-on, I’m not gonna lie. Besides, only a creep would want to see my wardrobe.”
I took off my glasses, dropping them on top of the book without taking my eyes off her. “If we want to talk about creeps, your name should be included on the list.”
She angled her body towards me, her nipples reflecting against the silk nightwear she wore, tilting her head and baring her neck for me to see how suckable it was. “How so?”
“Turning on my night lamps, closing my windows and curtains, drawing my covers up my body as if you don’t plan to kill me in the near future.”
She rose to her knees, fingers raking her hair back from her face. “You were shivering.”
“I never shiver.”
“And how would you know that? Do you set cameras around your room like a creep who loves to watch himself sleep after he wakes up?” She crawled to me, straddling my thighs and making breathing extremely difficult.
“Are you asking about cameras so you know which to take care of when you sneak into my room to slit my throat?”
“I already checked. There are no cameras or bugs. For a man who preaches about carefulness, you are very careless.”
“I am not. Getting killed in my sleep is one of my fantasies.”
She drew her body closer to mine. “Weirdo.”
“Creep.” My voice was hoarse as her long fingers brushed down my shoulders, stealing my breath with the warmth of each graze through my shirt.
“Asshole,” she whispered.
“Greedy thief.”
Her lips found my ear. “Psycho killer.” She bit my earlobe.
My lips parted. “Witch.”
She chuckled, lifting her face from my neck, then her lips aligned with mine, a breath touch away from brushing, and then she whispered, “Whore.”
My breathing fevered against her lips. “Slut.”
Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip, her fingers disappearing underneath my shirt, her palms feeling up my stomach muscles, which flexed at the tantalizing burn from her touch.
Her gaze locked with mine.
Beautiful.
I switched to Spanish. “You do not want me obsessed with you, Zahra.”
“Funny,” she also said in Spanish, “I was about to say the same thing.”
“Really?”
“Yes, I can be really scary.”
My hand moved to the back of her neck, fisting her hair, not enough to cause pain, but enough to bare her neck for my hungry tongue.
“I am hungry,” I whispered in the language. My tongue and teeth dragged up her collarbone to the top of her neck, below her ear, the warmth from her skin feeding me in more ways than one. “But not for food.”
In a swift movement, I flipped us over until she was beneath me, her lust-filled eyes peering up at me.
“It’s all your fault,” I said, tightening my grip on her hair.
“What is?” she asked when I released my hold, watching me take one of her hands from underneath my shirt.
“Putting the idea of eating you out in my head,” I answered, gesturing for her to keep her fingers up as I removed my rings one by one, slipping them down her fingers for safekeeping. “Now you’ll have to hold these for me.”
Her chest heaved in anticipation. “Thought you didn’t like the mess?”
“Apparently, Sport, you have not been paying attention to the things I say to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do I need to fuck you to bring back your memories?”
Her pupils dilated.
My hand, free of the rings, was ready to inflict torture.
“I’m sorry, but the last thing I want to do right now is think,” she said, frustration leeching into every rise and fall of her voice.
The smile I allowed to curl at the sides of my lips did not promise safety; it was created from the intentions buried deep inside my head, intentions that I finally felt comfortable putting into play.
My eyes searched hers as I repeated my words from a few days ago. “I don’t like a mess, Zahra, but I’ll take yours any day.”
“Oh, that.”
“Yes…” I trailed off, gaze dropping to her lips, my heart thumping harshly. “Allow me to give you a chance to tap out now before it’s too late,” I said.
The smile that touched her lips mirrored mine.
“I never tap out, especially not from your challenges.”
I was amused yet again. Immensely impressed by her confidence. I tilted my head, watching my living, breathing addiction as I responded, “That, Querida, is one of the many reasons I like you.”