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Authors: S. G. Browne

Tags: #Humorous, #Romance, #General, #Contemporary, #Fiction

BOOK: Fated
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I stare at my mirrored ceiling and try to pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about.
“A few weeks ago,” she says. “I got on at Houston Street and sat down across from you. You were wearing a Boston Red Sox cap and a T-shirt that said, ‘Fuck New York.’ ”
Sometimes I like to wear something incendiary just to see how humans will react. True, it’s technically interfering, but I haven’t drastically changed anyone’s fate by doing it. Except this one time when I swung by the Tower of London during Henry VIII’s reign wearing a tunic that read,
Your Wife Is a Treasonous Whore
.
Oops.
“At first I couldn’t believe you could get away with wearing something like that on a subway in Manhattan,” says Sara. “But no one had the courage to confront you. You had this aura about you that no one wanted to mess with. Except instead of intimidating or combative, you had this expression of absolute boredom. Like you didn’t care what anyone thought.”
Pretty much.
“That’s what intrigued me so much about you,” she says. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Do you remember?”
I nod. Damn afterglow honesty.
“I knew it,” she says, rolling over on to one elbow and staring at me with her captivating eyes. “I could tell by the way you looked at me on the rooftop. You recognized me, too. But your recognition was deeper. As if you’d known me for much longer than a chance encounter.”
I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to have to answer her, to tell her the truth. But I can’t lie to her. I can’t pretend I haven’t been following her around off and on since she moved in, trying to get up the courage to talk to her.
“I’ve been stalking you,” I say.
Probably not the best way to put it, but there you have it.
She looks at me, not laughing because she thinks I’m making a joke, but just staring, studying me, making me feel like I should get up and leave.
“Really?” she asks.
I nod.
“Since the subway?”
I nod again. I only started stalking her afterward. Which should be good for something.
She stares at me in silence long enough for me to think that I might have to ask Memory for a favor so I don’t end up with a police record. Then Sara smiles and says, “I’ve never been stalked before.”
“Is that good or bad?” I ask.
“Good,” she says, the word coming out so soft and sultry it almost sounds like she’s purring. “Definitely good.”
The next few moments pass by in a combination of relief and sexual tension, as it’s all I can do to keep from showing her my appreciation for not slapping me with a restraining order.
“What are you thinking?” she asks.
I look at her, at this woman who helps the homeless and who doesn’t raise her voice in anger and who listens to people with genuine interest. This woman who smokes pot and who likes to be stalked and who has sex with an immortal entity she just met. This woman who has screwed Fate and who is on the Path of Destiny.
“You’re a conundrum,” I say.
She studies me, still leaning on one elbow, her head propped on her hand. “You’re one of the most unusual men I’ve ever met,” she says, her other hand sliding along my chest and past my stomach, where her fingers wrap around my aroused accessory. “And the most potent.”
Thank you, Ingenuity.
CHAPTER 15
One of the
biggest problems with dating a mortal woman, since I’m technically breaking the rules about falling in love and getting involved, is that it’s not a good idea for me to be seen with Sara in public. Which kind of limits our options.
No theaters.
No restaurants.
No strip clubs.
So for our first official date, rather than taking Sara out for a nice dinner at the Blue Water Grill or for some his-and-her lap dances at Scandals, I’ve invited her over to my place for Chinese take-out. Not the most romantic of gestures, but my culinary skills leave a lot to be desired. Plus I haven’t cooked for anyone since I had Instigation and Destruction and a few of the Deadly Sins over for a barbecue during the Peloponnesian War. And that was more of a potluck.
Of course, having Sara over to my place presents its own challenges.
I have to hide any physical evidence of my identity, which includes my predestination dry-erase calendar, several memos from Jerry about upcoming droughts and famines and other natural disasters, and a framed photo of me with the Donner Party.
And I have to remember to keep the toilet seat down.
I know I shouldn’t have anything to worry about. But I’m anxious and nervous, wanting to make a good impression. So I clean and I prepare and I buy scented candles and I put on some Velvet Underground, trying to make everything perfect. It’s as if I’ve forgotten I’m immortal.
As soon as Sara shows up, we sit down at the kitchen table to eat mango prawns and General Tso’s chicken. Just for the record, General Tso didn’t care for sweet-and-spicy deep-fried chicken. Spicy food irritated his bowels. But he was a sucker for custard pie.
The whole time we’re eating, I’m trying to figure out what to talk about, stumbling through the conversation. For obvious reasons, I can’t be too forthcoming about my existence, but for the most part, I figure it shouldn’t be a problem. Just so long as she doesn’t ask me what I do for a living.
“So tell me more about what you do,” says Sara.
I’m trying to think of a way we can just have sex and avoid this whole honesty thing, but I’m not getting the sex vibe from Sara. Plus all of this anxiety is causing my man suit to malfunction, so to speak, which doesn’t leave me with a whole lot of options.
“I travel a lot,” I say, hoping that satisfies her.
“Where do you travel?” she asks.
“Lots of places,” I say. Which is true. So I’m not technically lying.
She laughs. “Can you be any more vague?”
“I can try,” I say.
Sara laughs again and I think I’ve managed to avoid any further discussion about my existence until she says, “What exactly does someone do who is in futures and options?”
I can sense Persistence having a hand in this, the relentless bastard.
“Mostly customer service and problem solving,” I say.
There, that should do it. So long as she doesn’t ask me what kind of problems.
“What kind of problems?” she asks.
“The usual kind.”
Sara stares at me with an amused smile.
“You’re not much for small talk, are you?” she asks.
I shrug my shoulders.
“Would you rather just fool around?”
“Is that an option?” I say. “I thought we had to finish dinner first.”
Sara laughs. “Do all men just think about sex?”
The short answer is: yes. All men just think about sex. At least, the men I have to deal with. It’s one of the reasons they get so distracted from their original paths.
Singles bars.
Strip clubs.
Online pornography.
I’ve lost more productive human hours to the pursuit of sexual pleasure than I have to plagues, genocide, and all of the wars combined.
Sara gets out of her chair, walks over to me, and sits down on my lap, straddling me, then gives me a long, lingering kiss. When she pulls back, her eyes regard me with so much warmth and sincerity that I realize all of my anxiety has drained away.
“How do you do that?” I ask.
“Do what?” she says.
“That thing you do,” I say, studying her face just inches from mine. “The way you manage to make me feel better with just a kiss.”
“I don’t know,” she says. “But I’m glad I make you feel that way.”
We sit and stare at each other, her straddling me and me getting lost in her face, the sexual tension building until I wonder which one of us is going to crack first.
Or maybe it’s just me.
“I want you to know, I don’t normally have sex with someone I’ve just met,” says Sara.
“Me either,” I say, hoping the fact that I’m not technically a person cancels out the fact that I’ve had sex with more than a hundred thousand mortal women.
“I didn’t even lose my virginity until I was twenty-five.”
The thing about Sara is that she’s unabashedly honest.
“How old are you now?” I ask.
“Twenty-nine.”
I look at her, wanting to ask, more out of curiosity than jealousy or any sense of competition. But before I can get up the nerve, she holds up three fingers.
“Three?” I say.
She nods. “The first one was just to get it over with. The second one was a mistake. And the third one . . .” she says, tracing her finger along my face.
I start to offer up an amusing reply, but there’s something about the look on her face that makes me reconsider. Instead, what comes out of my mouth is:
“Maybe the third time’s the charm.”
Sara looks at me and smiles. “There’s something about you. Something different. Something that makes me feel connected to you. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“I can give you some suggestions.”
“I’m serious,” she says. “It’s as though something has clicked into place inside of me and everything just feels right. Does that freak you out?”
“No,” I say.
“It would probably freak most guys out.”
“I’m not most guys.”
“I know,” she says. “That’s what I like about you.”
Sara kisses me again, softly, then smiles and brushes the hair away from my temple, and I realize that in all of my existence, no one has ever touched me like this. No one has ever looked at me like this. No one has ever made me feel this way.
Powerless and invincible.
Frightened and courageous.
Filled with hope and doubt.
All at the same time.
I have to admit that while I’ve had my share of unusual experiences, this whole being-in-love thing is a little disconcerting.
No wonder it’s against the rules.
CHAPTER 16
“Sex is the
new black.”
I’m having a drink at Marion’s Marquee Lounge in the Bowery during happy hour, listening to Infatuation wax philosophical about the current state of love.
“Love is out of style,” he continues. “It’s old-fashioned. Like homemade ice cream or petticoats or horse-drawn carriages. Quaint but impractical. Men and women don’t have time for love anymore. Instead, they share a few laughs, down a few drinks, have sex, and figure they’ve found love. Just look around this place.”
I glance around the lounge, filled with small round tables and vintage lamps and men and women gathered together in the subdued lighting, sharing drinks and conversation and sexual tension. I came here looking for some answers about human relationships, hoping to get some insight from the likes of Love or Romance or Affection, but Infatuation offered to buy me a drink, so I couldn’t exactly turn him down.
The thing about Infatuation is that he’s narcissistic.
“Every one of these humans sees someone they imagine could be their perfect partner,” says Infatuation, smiling at himself in the base of a nearby lamp. “But their perception is skewed by their infatuation for the person sitting across from them, their eyes and thoughts filled with passion and desire. See what I mean?”
He motions toward the corner of the lounge, where Passion and Desire are wearing cocktail dresses and drinking margaritas.
The thing about Passion is that she’s bulimic.
The thing about Desire is that she’s obsessive-compulsive.
“Now, Love will try to tell you nothing clouds good judgment like pure, unadulterated
amore
,” he says, examining both of his profiles in his half-empty highball glass. “But humans fall in love with one another
in spite
of their faults and deficiencies. When it comes to Infatuation, Desire, Passion, and Lust, those shortcomings disappear. Hell, we’re the original beer goggles.”
The twenty-nine-year-old man at the table next to us is as good-looking as Vanity and about as sharp as Incompetence, but that doesn’t matter to the thirty-four-year-old woman he’s with who can’t stop thinking about how beautiful he is. She won’t be thinking that in another eighteen years, when her husband is unemployed and their two teenage children are taking remedial courses.
“Most humans today get married because of passion and desire,” says Infatuation, leaning over to check himself out in the polished surface of our table. “Especially those who meet over a few gin and tonics. You just don’t tend to find love in bars. Not in Lower Manhattan, anyway.”

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