Closest Encounter (8 page)

“Fair enough,” Beth said “So what does the Department of Xeno-Cryptology want with me? Did you guys find another strange item that you need my legendary skills on? It’d be a nice change if you guys just asked me for my help this time.”

“Actually I’ve been working with GITI lately. They had something they thought we might both be interested in.”

“I’m not sure I wore the right underwear for another encounter with
that
object, if that’s what this is.”

“They have assured me they have harnessed its powers for goodness or something.”

“I’d be interested in seeing that.”

They drove on for a bit in silence before Brad spoke again.

“I’ve missed you, Beth,” he said. “I really have. I’ve thought a lot about…everything we went through.”

“Who wouldn’t?”

“Not just the sex stuff, I mean.”

“Okay.” Beth didn’t want to pull back emotionally, but she felt it happening all the same. She was nervous, unsure. The world ending in an unstoppable alien-induced fuck-a-thon did not frighten her the way her feelings and the feelings of the man sitting next to her right then did.

Where is he going with this? Where do I want him to go?

Her own heart was beating faster inside her chest from just the proximity of him and, because of that, she felt compelled to seal herself off even more. It felt like a weakness. Her impulse was to keep it hidden.

Brad drove on without saying anything, though she could sense the words building inside him.

“The thing is,” he said, but then didn’t say anything else for another minute.

Half a mile later, he started again. “The thing is, I can’t stop thinking about you. And I know what you’re going to say. That it was all due to that alien thingy we found, and it’s not real or it’s residual or I am imagining things based on events that would never have happened under normal circumstance. But that’s not exactly true. What I’m feeling…
now
…isn’t because of some goddamn space rock.”

“What you’re feeling now,” she said quietly.

“Yes… Yes. What I’m feeling now…”

“Which is…”

“God damn it all to hell, Beth, I’m in love with you. That’s what I’m saying!”

Beth laughed and felt as if a lid had been blown off her and all the unnamed tension she had been feeling flew out of her like the spring snake in a novelty gag fake can of peanut brittle. Like that, but not as funny. “Well, I’m glad you said it first!”

Brad glanced over at her, a confused but hopeful look on his face.

“I love you, too,” she said and his smile shone back at her like a spotlight.

He rolled down the window then began to whistle. Not in key.

Chapter Thirteen

The building was shiny, new and absent all signage—a black glass monolith about a mile outside of the city proper, surrounded by nothing but a vacant lot on one side and an abandoned factory on the other.

It seemed to lack a normal front door, but a portion of it opened up large enough for a car to fit in. Brad drove his car into it. Inside the pathway led to a parking garage as white and pristine as a hospital. Brad parked the car between two gleaming pillars.

“You seem to know your way around pretty well, Brad.”

“I’ve been doing a little consulting work for them,” he said, leading her from the car to a nearby elevator that took them to an unlabeled level of the building that felt like it had to be several stories below ground level.

From there, he led her down a bright, white hallway, into a dark room that was arranged like a small theater, with padded chairs all facing a blank wall.

He directed her to a seat in the third row and sat next to her.

“Our first date,” she said.

He grinned and called over his shoulder to an unseen party: “Okay, Cecil. Show us today’s feed from Project Keyhole.”

The lights dimmed. The whirring sound came from nearby.

“So we’re not alone.”

“Cecil is a computer program. Stands for Computer Engaged… Uh… And some other words. I’m not good at acronyms. It’s seriously hampered my career, if you want to know the truth…”

The blank wall flickered to life in front of them—a mosaic of unclear images that gradually came into sharper focus. It was a dozen or more different scenes—scenes of translucent flesh or glowing tentacles and appendages, of bright colors slick with a universal wetness, of a black ocean writhing with living waves. It was a myriad of entangled creatures, and without even knowing the biology of them, it was plain to Beth what they were doing.

Brad whispered in the dark of the theater. “They used the object to sort of reverse engineer this thing so it shows all this, but really, they’re not even sure what we’re looking at. This could be scenes from another planet or dimension, alien memories or even some technologically generated hallucination. They… We all think there is something…um, familiar about what’s going on up there, but—”

“I’m pretty sure it’s fucking, Brad.”

“Yeah. That was kind of my theory, too, but I didn’t want to say.”

“I think you guys have managed to make an intergalactic peepshow.”

“Oh. Okay.” He slumped a little in his chair. “I don’t see how useful that’s going to be.”

“I don’t know. I’m sure there are plenty of xeno-crypto-science type-A people that would love to take a look at that feed. Maybe you could even sell tickets.”

“Somehow I don’t think that was the answer GITI was looking for.”

“They’ll get over it. Now pretend to yawn and put your arm around me.”

He did.

She leaned against him and nodded at the screen. “And if you play your cards even a little bit close to right, there may be some of that for us at the end of the day. In a bed even, this time.”

“In a bed,” he said wistfully. “That’d be great.”

“If we do it right.”

“We haven’t done it wrong yet.”

They were quiet for another moment while what looked like an orgy of neon amoeba was taking place on the screen. She leaned against him. It felt good. Better than anything she could remember. And she could remember a lot.

“I really do love you, Brad,” she said. “I mean, I know you said it first. I don’t want you thinking I just said it back to you to be polite.”

“Is anyone
that
polite?”

“I’m not,” she said. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” he said. “And I said it first.”

Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

Samantha Lytton: The Dimple of Doom

Lucy Woodhull

Excerpt

Chapter One

Accountants should not be so sexy.

It all started at the office Christmas party, as many terrible hangovers do.

My palms began to sweat at the sight of The Accountant walking in my direction. His shining eyes said,
I wanna spread your sheet
, his masterful gait said,
Damn, I’m masterful
, and his tantalising smirk said,
I’ve read the
Kama Sutra—
all the way through
.

I swallowed the lump of lust in my throat and twiddled with the tablecloth of the catered buffet table. My usual party plan involved making winsome eyes at the food, but tonight I salivated over more than just the pigs in a blanket.

“Potato ball?” he asked. Sam Turner, aka The Accountant, held the fried offering palm up on a festive red and green paper plate.

I had the hots for a dude named Sam. My name is Samantha. Samantha ‘n’ Sam. It was the stuff of obnoxious wedding invitations.

What colour were his hazel eyes today? Glancing up, I slid into hormone heaven. He stood, eyes mossy green pools of sensual seductiveness, and offered me the Garden of Eden apple. Except it was a potato ball.

Cocking my head, I posed in an alluring manner that I hoped brought Marilyn Monroe to mind. I should say something. Something not stupid.

“I love balls.” Oh, damn. “And potatoes!” Did I just tell him I loved to eat balls? “I mean I love to eat food! In ball form. You know. Because it’s easy. To eat. Except when it rolls. Then it can be hard to catch.”

Stop.

Talking.

“Okay.” Sam’s lips turned upward in mockery on his almost handsome, totally charming face, topped in curling, floppy, please-run-your-hands-through-me brown hair.

Yes, I absolutely had told him I loved to eat balls. I decided I should smile through this faux pas. Everyone knew a bright grin made unpleasant things go away. Ask Judy Garland.

“I like food in stick or chip form myself,” he said, munching a piece of celery in stick form.

I couldn’t come up with anything to say about sticks that wasn’t dirty. “Chips are good.” Really, I impressed even myself with the brilliance of my witty banter. At any moment my clothes would be ripped off my quivering body by Sam, my same-named accounting crush.

I hated the office Christmas party.

Sam blinked and appraised me in what I chose to interpret as a captivated manner. A girl could dream. Instead he said, “So, Scott told me you entertained the employees at last year’s party.”

“Yes. I fell down the steps.” My cheeks burned like the carpet at the end of two flights of stairs. I wasn’t clumsy too often, but when I made the effort, I really won at it. “You can still see the splotch on the floor from the blood. I lost a tooth, but gained a reputation.”

“That’s gross.” He grinned. One wouldn’t call him drop-dead gorgeous or anything. At first, you might consider him kinda ordinary-looking. Then the naughty glimmer in his eye caught your breath. The smile appeared, emphasising the lickable curve of his bottom lip. Charm emanated from his very pores.

And, of course, he possessed the nuclear weapon of facial features. The dimple. Only one—on the left side of his face—deep enough to bury yourself in. One flicker and panties fell at thirty paces.

My body temperature had suddenly shot upward to somewhere near surface of the sun levels. I’d disconnected completely from the conversation and reverted to teenage-girl-like gawking.

I took a steadying breath and jumped back into the fray. “So, accounting? Is that as glamorous as it sounds?” I had, apparently, decided that deriding his profession was the way to go, flirt-wise. Plays like this were risky, but desperation had sunk in. His temp job in the finance department ended today—I would have no more chances to bend and snap at the water cooler for his benefit.

The corners of his sometimes green, sometimes brown, always dreamy eyes crinkled. “Of course. Usually I have eight models in my accounting entourage, but I gave them the night off.”

Uh-oh. He was funny, too. It just wasn’t fair. “How kind of you. You could say you’re a
model
boss! Ha ha!” Yes, I laughed at my own joke, which was a behaviour shared by the most sophisticated of ladies. Then I remembered I turned a horrid shade of blotchy red when I got too excited. I choked off my laughter and forced down some potato.

“I could say that, but I won’t.”

“No, you really shouldn’t.”

The dimple chose that moment to come out and play.
Oh, Sam—let’s retire to the supply room and hump.
It had been so long since I had humped anyone. Or anywhere. I shoved more mmmmm-yummy potato ball into my mouth and almost didn’t get it on my festive sweater, the beautiful red one I’d spent way too much money on in the hopes of getting Sam to notice me.

He noticed now. “You have a blob of—”

Then he grabbed my boob.

“Jesus, I’m sorry!” His eyes became saucers, and he jerked his hand back, leaving my skin scorched and feverish. “There’s a bunch of potato on your…sweater. Let’s, um, let’s go to the kitchen. There’s a sink.”

My stomach dropped three storeys—I’d just accidentally got to second base in public. He grabbed my arm, and we hurried past a maze of monochrome cubes draped in twinkle lights to the break room. This was the most exciting event in the office since they had switched the carpeting from taupe to tan.

Sam stood there while I applied a paper towel to my tit. Actually, he didn’t merely stand there—he stared, turned away, blinked and stared again. I couldn’t blame the guy. The girls were rather ravishing—perky from the cold water, encased in a formidable push-up bra, eager for more inappropriate fondling.

“I’m sorry about…that.” He slumped and shoved his hands in his pockets.

“It’s okay. It happens.” I smiled, brimming with reassurance.

The tension finally broke when he snickered. “It does? How often does it happen? You should avoid potato balls.”

“And accountants.”

We laughed at each other. For once I wasn’t laughing by myself.

My ears pricked at the silence surrounding us. The back office echoed, and we were alone. The whirring hum of the old refrigerator sounded like a Lionel Ritchie love song to me in my hyper-aroused state.
Hello? Is it me you want to do on the floor?

I stared at him, knowing I resembled an enraptured puppy, but unable to help it. Unbelievably, he gazed right back. Soft green eyes mesmerised me. After what felt like ten minutes, I found my voice again. “I think I’ll wait here until my boo—sweater dries.”

“I understand.” His focus never left my face. “We don’t want to start any lactating rumours.”

“No. It takes a long time for those to go away—I know from experience.”

Sam chuckled, flashing the dimple again.