sex bots 04 - one night steined (12 page)

She smiled, trying to let him down as nicely as possible. “I don’t know yet.” She’d have to work in the interim between the Christmas and New Year’s holiday closures, since Kuri wasn’t eligible for any vacation time yet. “Listen, I have to go.” She looked at her watch, urging the guy to take the hint.

“Oh. Oh yeah, I’m sorry.” He retreated to the office building, his shoulders rolled forward in defeat.

Though Kuri felt a little sorry for him, she was proud that she hadn’t run away. Her work with Dr. Sheila was paying off. She looked at her watch again, realizing she only had ten minutes to get across town. Kuri hurried to her car.

Eight minutes and fifty seconds later, Kuri pulled into the strip mall where her psychiatrist had an office. She rolled her neck and focused on relaxing all of her muscles. Then she counted backward from twenty, using her most recent relaxation technique.

Dr. Sheila never made her remember stuff on purpose. According to the therapist, dredging up old memories didn’t help Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in most cases. Instead, the doctor had referred Kuri to someone for an antidepressant prescription, and was helping her explore new thoughts and feelings. Dr. Sheila called the process
decoupling
. Her goal was to help Kuri separate ideas about sex from the triggers that set off her panic cascade.

Kuri stepped into the waiting room and found Dr. Sheila’s office door already open. With a fresh roll of her shoulders, she stepped inside the cozy therapy room and settled onto Sheila’s couch.

“Hello, Kuri.” Dr. Sheila Francis was a middle-aged woman with long gray hair and a nouveau-hippie wardrobe. She smiled kindly. “How’s your day?”

“Fine. Actually, good.” Kuri told her about the guy who’d asked her out at work and how she hadn’t gotten upset.

“I’m glad to hear that you can turn someone down calmly.”

She knew a “but” was going to attach itself to Dr. Sheila’s words.

“But, I wonder how you’d feel if you had accepted the date.”

Kuri’s skin pricked up. Goose bumps rose on the back of her neck. Much too fast, she replied, “I didn’t want to.”

“Hmmm.” Sheila leaned back in her chair. She sat with her hands folded, waiting for Kuri to go on.

Kuri wanted to play the waiting game and refuse to answer, but she knew from experience that it was a losing battle. Rolling her eyes, Kuri said, “Really. He’s not my type. He’s a nice guy, but I honestly didn’t want to go out with him.”

Sheila nodded, less like she agreed and more like she was sarcastically thinking, “Uh-huh”.

“Really.” Kuri folded her legs up on the couch. Sheila always said that was her “safety” posture, but she didn’t care.

“And that other man—Frank. He was your type?” She lifted a wise eyebrow. Sheila had been trying to coax Kuri into talking about Frank since they started these sessions.

“Yeah.” Truth was, Kuri thought about him more than she wanted to admit. Every time she saw a man she might consider handsome, she measured him against Frank King. Sure, lots of guys were more attractive than Frank objectively, but none had his soft brown eyes, or his kind and sure touch. She hated and loved thinking about him in equal measure. But there was no denying that Kuri, when she could think of sex at all, still wanted him. “Yeah, he was all right.” She could still feel his hot breath on her neck, his hands pinning her wrists. The memories were as upsetting as they were erotic.

“You’re blushing.” Sheila’s lips curled into a smile. “So I take it you can think about the sex you had with him now?”

Kuri exhaled. “Yeah. It doesn’t trigger flashbacks anymore.” That alone was a huge accomplishment. Kuri’d thought it would take years for her to be able to remember even kissing Frank without the thought morphing into a horrible, nightmare-like memory.

“So what’s the problem?” Sheila watched, waited, even when it took Kuri a solid five minutes to come up with an answer.

“I guess I’m mad at him.” As the words came out, she realized their truth. Kuri wasn’t angry they’d had sex, or even that they’d gotten a little rough. It was… Maybe it wasn’t anything to do with what they did in bed. It was the way Frank always had to be in charge of everything and how he treated her like a kid, or a patient, but never like an equal. She didn’t know if she could ever feel confident and in control around someone who refused to let her function like an adult.

She thought Sheila would ask Kuri to explain. But as always, Sheila had a more insightful question. “And he was your boss?”

Kuri thought about how to describe Frank.
Boss
didn’t seem the right word. Savior, maybe? Father and keeper and employer all wrapped together. Even thinking about it—how he wanted to be her boss but also her lover—made icky shivers roll over her skin. How could he expect her to love him like a woman when he treated her like a helpless little girl? It made Kuri so angry she wanted to drive back to Seattle just so she could storm away again. “Yeah.” Without any better way to describe it, Kuri said, “He was my boss.”

“And what was the plan for after you two became intimate? Were you going to leave your job?” She asked it completely devoid of judgment and Kuri loved her for it. Most people, if you told them you slept with your boss, assumed he was a lecherous ass. Of course, none of those people knew Frank. He was one of the most selfless people Kuri knew.

“No. Frank wouldn’t have made me quit. Totally the opposite.” She chuckled to herself, imagining what it would have been like to tell Frank that she needed to get a different job. Somehow, imagining the conversation led to tears prickling behind her eyes.

Sheila leaned forward, her smile so kind it wrought more tears from Kuri’s eyes. “He wouldn’t have let you quit?”

Kuri shook her head. “It’s not like that. It’s not like he would have blackmailed me, or refused to give me a recommendation.” Kuri snorted, thinking about the type of corporate dynamics people usually imagined in these types of situations. The Zombie Underground, the big, loving family with all the attendant bonds and history and relationships, couldn’t have been more different. Though as Sheila’s smile bored into her, Kuri wondered if maybe the ZU was exactly the same.

“Did you want to keep working for him even if you were lovers?” Sheila tilted her head.

“It wasn’t like that. I mean, he was in charge of the organization, but it was a non-profit. We were funded by donations, so really he was just the one who organized things.” She heard herself trying to defend Frank, avoiding the crux of Sheila’s question.

“Hmmm.” Sheila waited.

She waited so long that Kuri finally crossed her arms and blurted, “No. No, I didn’t want to keep working for him if we were sleeping together.” And it wasn’t just that—she didn’t want him tracking her GPS, or telling her where to live. It was a subtle kind of hold he had over her, but it was power nonetheless. And Kuri had been powerless in her sex life too long.

Sheila nodded, her smile growing as if she were proud. “There’s a reason why people don’t normally date their employers.” Sheila’s eyes darted to the side, as if she wasn’t sure whether to say what she wanted to next.

It was such an unusual action for the therapist that Kuri felt herself lean forward in her seat. “Yeah, I can see that.” Kuri thought about how conflicted she’d been lately over the fact that Frank had restrained her. She’d liked it fine at the time, but in retrospect the memory had made her uneasy. So—just as an exercise—she let herself imagine how she would feel if Frank was just a guy she knew—an equal. She pictured them in bed together, him gripping her wrists as he drove into her. Kuri’s body felt as if it had burst into flames.

Yeah, Kuri could have dealt with it if she didn’t work for him, and if he hadn’t had complete control over the rest of her life. The only problem was, Kuri didn’t know if Frank could handle having her in his life any other way.

Chapter Ten

Frank felt Q-ter’s stare, even before the kid cleared his throat in the doorway.

“Uh, boss?”

He didn’t look away from his screen. He flicked through missing person and arrest reports, looking for any sign of Kuri. “Whaddaya want, Q?”

“Your attention, for one thing.” Q-ter marched across the room, and then sat on Frank’s desk. He was wearing his normal striped t-shirt and khaki pants, but something about him was different. Maybe it was Frank’s imagination, but Q seemed to have filled out a little through the shoulders.

“You have it.” Frank folded his hands in front of him. He didn’t close his browser.

“Frank, you need to stop.” Q-ter picked up one of Frank’s spare pens and twirled it through his fingers. “You’re making us all nuts for one thing, and much as it pains me to say it, we actually need you to do your job.”

“I…” His eyes flicked to his computer screen when an Asian girl’s face appeared. But it wasn’t Kuri, just someone who looked like her.

“You’ve missed responding to two donor emails and you haven’t looked over my reports of our last two extractions. I can’t send the reports to our funders without your approval.”

“So send them.” Frank scrubbed at the back of his neck. “You never make mistakes, so why do I even have to approve them?” He wondered whom he was asking, Q-ter or himself. There was a time when Frank had insisted on reviewing every bit of data Q-ter produced or entered. But that time had faded until everything Frank did for the kid felt like a rubber stamp.

Q-ter shifted off Frank’s desk, his forehead creased in confusion. “Well, okay, I guess I could do that. But, y’know, none of the donors knows me. Could you at least send an introductory email?”

“They all know who you are. They’ve seen your name on reports, seen you cc’d on emails. Hell, I’m sure I mention you in just about every communication I have with the board of directors.”

“Oh.” Q-ter’s eyes were pensive behind his huge glasses.

“You sent out that mailer last year.”

Q-ter spun the pen so fast Frank was worried one of them would lose an eye. “It’s just—I’m not good at public relations.” Q-ter looked at the floor, nibbling his lip. For all the shit Q gave him about wanting more independence, Frank knew Q-ter asked for help a lot of times he didn’t need it.

“I’m sure you’ll do fine.” He turned back to his computer and his obsession with finding Kuri. From his door, Q-ter started to say something, but Frank’s phone rang. “I gotta take this.” Frank waved Q-ter off, calling after him to shut the door. “Hello?”

“Frank?”

His heart lurched—missing one beat, then another. Frank dragged in a breath in an effort to get it beating again. “Kur?” He waited for her answer, scared that if he said anything more she might hang up.

“Yeah, it’s me.” She paused.

“Are you okay? Do you need help?” Frank thought of all the places she could be, all the trouble she could be in. It made him desperate to track her down and drag her back, even as he could barely force out another word for fear of pushing her away.

“Frank?” Her voice was stern.

“Yeah?”

“Stop it.”

He processed for a second, but Frank knew what she meant. So, forcing back every impulse he had, he tried again. “So, how are you doing?”

“Good.” Kuri’s smile carried over the phone. “Really good, actually.”

“That’s nice.” Frank heard the edge to his voice. She’d worried the fuck out of him, and now she was
really good
?

“Yeah. I got a job out here.” She paused to give him a chance to reply, but Frank didn’t. “And I finally got a driver’s license. Pretty wild, huh?”

Frank could tell she was trying to be light and flirtatious to get him to tell her it was all okay. Well he wouldn’t. “Huh.” He thought about saying something about how the roads would be more dangerous with her on them, but Frank couldn’t bring himself to be that cruel.

“I can hear you thinking, Frank.”

“Yeah? What am I thinking?” He leaned back in his chair. She couldn’t see his I-don’t-give-a-fuck posture, but it still felt good.

“I don’t want to get into it.” She sounded frustrated.

Frank couldn’t wait for her to start yelling. It would feel a hell of a lot better than this pussyfooting around. “What did you call for, Kuri?” He clicked shut the browser on his computer, as if Kuri might have been able to look through the telephone and see that despite Frank’s callous manner he’d been searching for her nonstop since she left.

“I’m coming to Seattle for Christmas. I thought maybe you’d want to… Forget it.”

“No.” Frank raised his voice, knowing his desperation cracked through his words. “No, I want to see you.” Silence carried over the line, but Frank knew from her breaths that she hadn’t hung up.

“You want to have dinner?” Kuri asked, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

“Yeah, sure.” He wanted to ask if she was seeing the other ZU members, where she lived, what she was doing, but Frank was scared he’d start yelling. Either that or he’d cry.

“Great. Maybe at the same place?”

He nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice.” Frank floundered for something to say next. Christmas was only a few days away, but he wanted to keep hearing her voice. If nothing else, it would prove she was still alive.

“And Frank?”

“Yeah?” He would tell her anything, absolutely anything if she would say she’d come back. Even if he never touched her again, he needed to see her face.

“You’re not my boss anymore.”

Frank rolled up out of his seat. He was on his feet, pacing the room before he could formulate an answer. “Yeah, I know, Kuri.”

“So this is a date.”

He stopped short, blinking. Frank struggled to catch up to the conversation when a second ago he felt cut off at the knees and now she’d grabbed him by the balls. “What do you mean?” If she was asking for sex somehow, he couldn’t do it. Frank wouldn’t let himself get set up for disaster.

“I mean…” She took a deep breath. “That you can’t be both things to me. You can’t be my boss and my boyfriend.” Frank’s stomach dropped to his toes before she backtracked. “I don’t mean that I want you to be my boyfriend. Yet… I mean, you can’t be a romantic interest if you treat me like an employee.”