Like wasn’t exactly the right word, and for the moment, the drone of the professor in front of the room disappeared from my conscious brain as I focused on the hypnotic beauty of her perfect head, balanced on a slender neck.
It was a delicious little package, one meant to be handed over in a quiet booth, glinting its fineness in moving candle light, offered beside a long stemmed wine glass. Unfortunately, I planned to just put it on her desk and hope for the best.
“Why?” she wondered. There was no mirth in her eyes. They were breathtaking but blank, as if she were a perfect robot in human form.
My elbows were yelling that they were slowly shredding into useless pulps with sand grinding the skin off of the bone with every forward slither I made toward the trees.
It no longer mattered to me if Julie’s real name isn’t Julie, if she is Colonel Frank’s actual daughter or not. I loved this woman, her body, her mind and her soul.
“Forget about sex, because it’ll come with the right girl and will be more meaningful for both of you. If you just concentrate on sex, you will never be happy for more than a few seconds at a time, and it will lead to a desolate life, one without meaning.”
“Yes, I screwed up again and now had to avoid ex-cons as well as Middle Eastern terrorists. What a life, and why am I living this way? I’m not actually that useful, more in the way. Even Julie won’t trust me fully.”
“No, sir. I’m not under your command. Rick James is a free citizen who decides his own fate. Perhaps if you told me more, I would feel part of a plan rather than like a dumb kid with a gun.”
Instead of feeling fear, I was relaxed, watching dispassionately as my quarry came to me. It wasn’t hatred that I felt, nor excitement. I felt detached, methodical, like a scientist in his lab or a housewife killing roaches.
“Rick. I’m so sorry that you had to be involved in all of this, so so sorry my dear.” She leaned down and kissed my sweating forehead in such a tender familiar way that I nearly forgot all the violence I had just witnessed.