“I don’t remember havin’ sex, and I don’t know if I’m supposed to miss it,” I lie, and set my glass on the bar. I miss being close to a man. I miss a man’s arms around me and his breath in my hair. I miss the anticipation of skin on skin, and the fire-flash when it finally happens. “I don’t even know what it’s like to kiss.”
He clears his throat. “And you want me to show you?”
If I have to drive him in the direction of the chute, I guess we’re not going to rodeo. Which is probably for the best, since we’re not friends, I have to remind myself. “No, I’ll find someone else to teach me. I’m a fast learner.” But I’m still annoyed that he’s not interested in my virginal self. “I’ve watched movies with kissin’ and such.”
“What’s ‘and such’?”
The movie 365 Days on Netflix comes to mind. “Naked stuff.”
“You watched porn?”
I’d go to hell for watching porn, but I rock back on my heels and look at him all innocent. “What’s porn?” I ask, because I have amnesia.
He opens his mouth, then closes it. His neck looks like he’s turning red. “Sex on film.”
He’s back to giving short answers to things he doesn’t want to talk about. “Do you watch porn?”
He sets his glass on the bar next to mine and turns to the doorway. “It’s time for me to leave.”
And he should know by now that I’d never let him off that easy. “Do you?” I hurry to follow him down the hall, having way too much fun. “Do you watch people have sex?”
He reaches for his coat but I grab a sleeve before he can put it on. His cheeks are turning red now, too. I can’t tell if he’s embarrassed or burning up inside with the same feeling burning me up, too.
I laugh. “You said you’d tell me everything.”
He tugs on his coat and pulls me into his chest. Suddenly I’m not laughing as I look up into his green eyes. “Not everything,” he says, his voice a little raw from whiskey and testosterone. He puts his hands on my shoulders to push me away or pull me closer, but he does neither.
The old me wouldn’t be standing here, pressed against a man’s hard chest, the heat of his skin warming me up through our clothes. The old me would slide my hand to the back of his head and bring his mouth down to mine. The new me looks up into Oliver’s face, his eyes turning a deeper green and his jaw set as he wrestles with what he knows he should do and what he wants to do.
The new me takes a step back. For the first time in my life, I do not give into feelings and desires or the old voice in my head telling me that sex will make him like me. If we’d never met, if I’d never seen his face before tonight, I might go ahead. A one-nighter with a handsome stranger sounds good, and I might just do that sooner rather than later, but not with him. “Are we good now?” I ask. I’m certain that sex with Oliver would not disappoint, but no matter how good the sex was today, it won’t make him like me tomorrow or ever. “Are you goin’ to wake up in the mornin’ still hatin’ me and my drawl?”
“I haven’t hated you for some time. I’ve avoided you.” He gives me a crooked smile and shoves his arms into the sleeves of his coat. “God knows that if we’d ever been alone in the same room, we would have killed each other.”
“What about now?”
“We probably wouldn’t end up dead, but it’s still not a good idea.” He looks down to take his keys from his pocket, then back up at me. “For different reasons this time. I think you know what I mean,” he says, and I know exactly what he means. It’s in his eyes and the depth of his voice, but just in case it’s not clear, he adds, “If we’re ever alone in the same room and I shove my hand up your dress like when you were eighteen, it’s on you to stop before things go too far.”
I don’t point out that I did just stop before things went too far, or that until tonight, he’d made it clear that he didn’t want his hands anywhere near me, let alone up my dress.
I’ve been demoted to janitorial duty at UMC El Paso. That’s Ingrid’s “six ways to Sunday” punishment for my bending rule 5.5.10. by bringing Ace to the Limbo Lounge before his prognosis, and for my disregard for Patient Identification Protocol 9.9.5. in the PORC manual. What they call an act of disregard, I call an act of mercy. What Ingrid calls a possible misidentification of incoming souls, I call doing Maynard a solid.
One thing I’ve learned around here is that logic takes second place to the rules. “You don’t have to understand the rules. You have to follow them. Period,” is Raymundo’s favorite saying.
Another thing I’ve learned: exercising is pointless, and no matter how often or how many ways I try to change my hair, it remains blue. Now, I have a fondness for blue, but not in my hair. I am the image of Brittany Lynn Snider before her accident, and there’s no changing it, and that, in itself, is a special kind of hell.
Now that I’ve been busted to the rank of janitor, I can’t go to the emergency room, introduce new patients, or tell them what to do. My job is to clean up after them, which means put away the playing cards and bingo chips they’ve left out and fluff pillows in the Limbo Lounge. I can only talk to the patients if my conversation is uplifting and hopeful. I was raised on polite conversation and fed etiquette at every meal, but souls are selfish and just want to talk about themselves. If I wasn’t already dead, I’d die from boredom.
At the moment, there are only three coma patients at UMC El Paso, but they’re not here in the lounge. I don’t know where Raymundo is either. I’m by myself and don’t know which is worse: being alone or listening to Ruby talk about her ailments. She’s eighty-one and the list is long.
It’s quiet except for the screams from the aquarium. Lot’s wife turns into a pillar of salt as Sodom and Gomorrah burn in the background. I move to the doorway and stick my head out. The hall is empty, and I quickly walk to the big tank. I discovered the hologram has uses beyond projecting 3D Bible scenes when I caught Raymundo watching the CJ Cup at Shadow Creek not too long ago. He says that projecting outside the hospital is how they track the occasional soul who manages to leave the grounds with a family member or chase after boyfriends suspected of cheating. It’s never supposed to be used for personal reasons, but when I caught him watching golf in Las Vegas and breaking the rules I blackmailed him into showing me.
“This is only for a concierge to use, and that ain’t you,” he’d said as he demonstrated how it works. “The tank operates on two electrical frequencies. When it detects high energy from livin’ spirits, it projects 3D holographic imagery. You and me are different. The tank recognizes our lower frequency and engages Omni Sight, a real-time view of anywhere on the planet.”
I check behind me one last time and pass my hand over the top of the tank. Sodom and Gomorrah change into an image of the earth. It shows the date, October thirty-first. Halloween. Last year I dressed up as a dominatrix and Magnus as a dom for Sloane’s party at a bar in Bricktown.
“Find Edie Chatsworth-Jones.” It doesn’t move, but I know it’s voice-activated. I frown and bite my lip. I try, “Brittany Lynn Snider,” and just like that the image opens at a park. Little kids are running around in costumes, and I see myself holding a baby dressed as a dog. I don’t recognize the child, but Meredith is beside me with Rowan and Magnus—both dressed as cats! Magnus hates cats and kids.
Brittany, the impostor, has curled and teased my hair like a Texas rodeo queen. If I didn’t know better, I’d think she was wearing a Halloween wig. She’s making me a laughingstock and ruining my reputation with the people who count. My friends must be horrified. My parents must be confused and horrified, but not surprised.