Sigils and spells, p.12
Sigils & Spells, page 12
But he didn’t rile up the hormones in my body, no, that was Merle. Merle could flare his nostrils just so and my brain would be quivering goo. He had no clue, and without vomiting my feelings on his shoes, he would never figure it out.
Ramsey walked toward me. My eyes lifted, and I started to say hi, but he kept on walking. Great, I knew this would be a short night if Ramsey wouldn’t even talk to me. Typically, I could count on him to be left out enough to sit awkwardly with me for an evening. Merle knew lots of people, and they all seemed to find him here every weekend. Even though he was friends with Darren and Ash, he had his own cadre of people who wanted to be around him.
In some cases, Ramsey hung out with them, and in others Ramsey was cast aside. He never seemed to realize it. He didn’t get that he was a second tier player in their world. At least he was in their world. If I was persona non-grata with him, well, I might as well be invisible.
I wasn’t even a player, just a desperate wannabe.
“What?” Darren asked.
“Huh? What, what?” I asked in reply.
“You let out a very defeatist sigh. This evening not working out the way you thought? You need another beer?”
He shot a dazzling grin at me, and not for the first time, I was really grateful that I didn’t have the hots for him. Darren was heartbreak on legs. I swiveled my chair, so I could face him, and see the bar. I didn’t want to look at Merle tonight, it hurt too much.
“Yeah, another beer would be good,” I said.
I glanced over at him. He no longer heard me. He was already eyeing his conquest for tonight. There was a gaggle of beautiful lovelies in short skirts and thigh-high boots. I had boot envy. No one made thigh-highs for calves like mine. I was perfectly comfortable squeezing my ample ass into a mini skirt, but I preferred flippy skirts to body-con styles.
Maybe I should give up on mooning over Merle and just proposition Darren? Of course, that would be a real ego death-trap. Darren would never scope me out for one of his conquests, he didn’t do ample asses.
“So, who’ve you got your eye on?”
“What do you mean?” He held eye contact with the one with short blonde hair and big lips. She was pretty, and she seemed to not be able to get her fingernail out of her mouth. She batted her lashes at Darren before turning and giggling with her friends.
“Who are you stalking to take home tonight?”
He finally turned his attention back to me. He raked his eyes down my torso, and back up when the table cut off the rest of my body from his view.
I shrugged him off, and shook my head. Darren was always a flirt, but never more than a casual, meaningless quip with me.
“Why did you roll your eyes at me?”
I cast my gaze from side to side. Had I rolled my eyes at him as he flirted? “Did I roll my eyes out loud?”
“Yes, ma’am, you certainly did.”
I sighed. Busted.
“Well?” He held my gaze with his dark blue eyes.
I tried to toss the remains of my beer down, there was barely enough to get my mouth wet.
“You’re kind of predictable, that’s all.”
“Not true. Are you trying to slut-shame me?”
I laughed. “Not at all, Darren. I am type shaming you.”
“Oh yeah?” He puffed up as if I was a threat. “I am an equal opportunity womanizer. I’ll have you know that I picked up some hottie who was pushing fifty.” His tone was defiant. “And the girl I hooked up with the night before last was African American.”
“And they were all beautiful and thin and long-limbed, and…” I gave up. I sighed back into my chair.
“What’s your point?” He grumbled.
I cast my gaze from the women at the bar we discussed, to behind me, where I could see Merle and Ramsey in discussion of something intent with a rather grungy looking fellow. What was my point, and did it matter?
“It doesn’t matter.” I pushed my chair back and stood up. I pulled my coat on. “Have fun, whatever.”
“Aren’t you gonna stay?”
“What’s the point?”
He laughed. His eyes crinkled a bit, and he took a drink. I swear I could hear panties melting and longing sighs coming from the bar. He was attractive, and he knew it.
My thumbs flew over my phone as I searched for a car service. I didn’t feel like walking tonight.
His eyes flashed to mine. “The point is, maybe you’ll meet someone.”
I let out a sharp laugh. “I’m not gonna find a hook-up here.”
“You aren’t the hook-up type.” The little corner of his mouth quirked up in a sexy little grin.
“No, Darren. I’m not your hook-up type.” I leveled my gaze at him, and shook my head. “Apparently no one else’s either.”
I approached the bartender, and got my credit card back and paid for my beers. Checking my phone, I saw that my ride was outside. I ignored the bar behind me and started to get in the back seat.
I’m not sure why I looked up, but I did in time to see Darren coming out the door. He paused as he shrugged into his denim jacket. Our eyes locked, and held for a few moments. I gave him the briefest of nods, and he continued to put his jacket on before climbing into the back of the car with me.
Neither of us said anything the entire ride home.
CHAPTER 2
Pandora
I unlocked the door and tossed my things onto the little table by the front door.
Darren closed and locked the door behind us.
Still not talking, I took his hand and led him to my bedroom. We both knew exactly why he was here. It would have been foolish to think this was anything other than a challenge. I called him on something he didn’t like, and he was here to prove me wrong.
He helped me off with my coat and then began kissing me. His hands held my face as his lips slid over and pressed against mine. His lips were soft and masterful. He knew what he was doing. Soon his arms were around me, pulling me in closer, so his tongue could dance with mine.
Eventually I pushed away from him. “I’ll be right back.”
I slipped into my bathroom and undressed. Not expecting to have company, I wasn’t wearing the nicest of my undies. Nothing matched, that wasn’t the worry. The concern was in the holes and stains, and general rattiness of my under things. I didn’t need him, or anyone, seeing the state of my clothes. Clothes off, robe on, I made my way back into the bedroom.
Darren had undressed too. Only he didn’t bother to cover up. He lounged in his naked glory across my bed. I stopped to take in the sight before me. Ripped abs, long legs. His hair was down, and fell over his shoulders like a blanket. And that part that all the women wanted a piece of, well, his sex was as spectacular as the rest of him. He shaved, or waxed, and his overall presentation made me think of a porn star. Hell, maybe he was. I didn’t know what he did for a living.
For the longest time, I had assumed he was with the fire department. They seemed to have an abundance of hot guys. Then I figured he was another one of the local farm boys. He probably had acreage, chickens, and maybe even some tobacco growing out in the hills. But he never had mud on him, and he lacked that earthy scent that most farmers had lingering around them.
As far as I could tell, he wasn’t associated with the college, or even college-adjacent. He was a local, but he hung out with Merle. And as far as I knew, Merle wasn’t local. I gave my head a quick shake, banishing Merle from my thoughts.
I slid onto the bed next to Darren.
He rolled into me, and his hand undid the tie at my waist. His skin felt soft and smooth and he was so warm. That night I earned exactly why he had the reputation he did. It was well deserved. I didn’t have to think, I only had to feel. And he felt amazing. He made me feel amazing.
I was boneless and half asleep when he kissed me on the forehead and left my bed.
I woke up the next morning and felt even worse than I had before. My body felt relaxed, but sleeping with Darren hadn’t changed anything. It had been nothing more than a means to prove me wrong. Darren would and did indiscriminately sleep with big girls. He had slept with me.
Point. Set. Match.
I still woke up alone, and I needed to go to work.
Breakfast, shower, clothes. My hair was damp when I left my little apartment, and the chill of late winter -early spring clung to me for hours, even after it fully dried.
At work I sorted documents, re-shelved periodicals, and pulled and processed journals to be shipped out to other archives and directly to patrons. Another one of those weird not-quite locals, I didn’t work at Duchamp College. I worked for the W. Duchamp Archives, tucked in next to the Weiss Library at the school. Technically across the street and not on campus. I had moved here to work at the archive.
Duchamp was a postage stamp sized town tucked into the Appalachian foothills with deep Kentucky roots. It was the county seat, hell, it was the only actual town in all of Belvoir County. All the other names on the map were glorified crossroads with a post office.
Like the rest of the county, people here were obsessed with chickens. The proverbial chip on the collective shoulder of the women of Belvoir County over fried chicken recipes would have been the stuff of mighty epics, if it wasn’t so ridiculous.
Since I tried not to eat anything fried, let alone chicken, I didn’t get the fuss. And not being a local, as I was told repeatedly, I just would never understand. I did understand that chickens were the foundation of the robber baron fortune that founded the town, the school, the archives, the whole damned county.
I kept hoping I would catch a glimpse of Merle coming in to research more ancient esoterica, items of interest to only a few select individuals. But each time it was a shadow, or someone who looked nothing like the tall man I so desperately wanted to see. And at least once every other hour, my body would shiver with the memory of Darren’s masterful touch. Hormones and nerve endings were obnoxious things. I could see how easy it would be for someone to confuse those feelings for love. I was safe from falling in love with Darren, I was already in love with Merle. Only he didn’t know it.
“Dubbya Duchamp Archives, how may I help ya?” Claudette, the Archive’s receptionist, answered the phone. She pronounced Duchamp as Dushawn swallowing the second half of the u-n sound up into her nasal passages in a nod to the old French pronunciation. Anyone who pronounced the town as Dew-champs gave themselves away as not being from these parts.
I said Dewchamps once. Claudette has never let me forget it.
“Pan, can you do a pickup?” she asked.
I stared at her until she gave me more information. I learned not to answer her until she provided all the information. Claudette was queen of incomplete requests, and then adding in unnecessary tasks. If I said yes to a pickup, it could be anything from retrieving documents from our clients, to making a Taco Bell run.
“Oh, right. Chris at the Weiss Library said he’s got some material for Dr. Armitage, and he wanted to know if we could piggyback it with our delivery.”
“Pandora!” our boss, Dr. Simon Bronson, Ph.D., bellowed.
I scooted behind the counter that separated the bulk of our collection from the general public and stood at the open door to the only office we had. He sat behind a big desk, and looked puzzled at his computer screen.
“Yes, Dr. Bronson?”
“Oh good. I have a delivery request.” He handed over a print out of the requested document. “You might have to check with the folks across the street at Weiss on some of these.”
I scanned over the list. Atlantis. Mesopotamia. “Dr. Armitage?” I asked, recognizing a few of the items. I tried not to smile.
“How did you know?”
“Chris already called over to see if we could pick up Dr. Armitage’s order from him.”
I confirmed that I could not only handle pulling the requested materials, but that I could run to campus and pick up the materials from Weiss Library.
The Archives weren’t officially part of the college, even though it was the same money, and the same family. Our collection wasn’t exactly based in science, or math, or documented history. It was a bit more eclectic than that. If eclectic was the right term? Dr. Bronson liked to say esoteric. Claudette just called it weird and creepy shit. But she always, always followed that with, “I like that weird stuff.”
Weird was the easiest way to describe our collection. Part natural history, part antiquity, maybe some paranormal, some magic, a lot of the unknown.
“Thank you.” Dr. Bronson sounded exasperated. Dr. Armitage was neither from the university nor the museum. He was, in the eyes of my boss, a nuisance.
In my eyes, he was brilliant, if not a bit eccentric. And I was thrilled to be making a delivery to see him. Unlike the night before, today he would have to speak to me. Dr. Merle Armitage had to account for all items in the delivery and sign for them before I could leave.
If I were lucky, he would even invite me to stay for a cup of hot tea, which he did sometimes.
I spent the next hour locating and pulling the documents Merle wanted, this involved making copies from the master files of some of the rarer documents that were not allowed out of the building. With everything collected, I pulled on my coat, wrapped a scarf around my neck, and trudged over to the library on campus.
The walk was insanely short. The library was on one corner of campus, and the Archives were literally across the street. It was faster to walk and return with an arm-full of books than it would have been for me to start up my scooter and find a place to park it.
I secured all the books in the cargo crate on the back of my bike, shoved my helmet over my pink hair, and headed out. The weather was confused this time of year. Was it late winter or was it early spring? Trees were blooming, but the rain felt like ice. It was cold and wet, and cars and trucks kicked up so much road dirt. It wasn’t some miracle that I wasn’t covered in grime, it was a little talent I had. And the reason I worked for the W. Duchamp Archives.
My scooter sputtered to a stop as I parked in against the curb. Thanks to my minor talents, I was clean, not a mud splash in sight.
I loved Merle’s house. Several large Brahma chickens roamed free in the front yard, ignoring the rain. Then again, it was foul weather. I snorted at my pun, at least I found myself to be funny. There were other smaller breeds, but the huge, fluffy chickens always stood out. Someone had a coop around back. Hell, it seemed like every other person in Belvoir County had chickens. And they had fancy ones, like the big gentle giant Brahmas with their big fluffy feet.
Merle lived in an upstairs apartment of an old converted Victorian style mansion. The house had been originally built for one of the original Duchamp children. It was ostentatious and large. And completely purple. People called it the Capitulum. I think they were going for a fancy way of saying think-tank. It was part dorm, part cheap rental apartments for researchers, and all wonderful.
The house was splendid with a wide porch, and a tower. It was the kind of house that doll houses were modeled after. The kind of house, that if a house was going to be haunted, this was the one. It was beautiful and spoke testament to a time when construction was durable, and ornamentation was a necessity, not superfluous embellishment.
The stairs creaked in the way that old homes creaked. But the treads were solid under my feet. I trailed my fingers delicately over the original wood paneling as I climbed up to Merle’s second floor apartment. Touching this house was irresistible.
I knocked on the door.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hold on a second, will ya?” Merle yelled from somewhere inside the apartment as if I had been hounding him to open the door.
I didn’t suppress the smile that crossed my lips. I could already picture him with his hair mussed, and his eyes bright with intellectual fervor.
The door flew open, and he was mightier than I had expected. I had to blink a few times and change my focus, looking up. His hair was wet. And there was skin. A lot of it. A line of dark curls trailed down from his bellybutton to vanish beneath the towel that clung to his hips. He had a physique that caught me off guard. I hadn’t expected defined muscles layered over defined muscles to be hiding under his clothes. I always expected him to be, well, generically thin, not cut. And definitely not in possession of that hip bone divot.
“In!” He demanded.
I clutched the bundle of documents tighter and stepped inside. I couldn’t find words. In my eyes, in my heart, tall skinny, nerdy Merle was already lovely to look upon. Now to add on super human ideal physique, I had to fight hard not to swoon at his feet. And maybe snag that towel to follow me down as I crashed to the floor.
He skimmed past me to close the door. He stood close and breathed hard, flaring his nostrils. Damn, he was sexy. Any professional detachment I might have had was gone. I was here to deliver books for the library, and documents from the Archives. The ogling needed to wait for after hours at the bar. But at the bar he was always fully dressed, and frequently had a long dark frock coat over everything.
Merle turned away from me and crossed the room in a few stomping steps. He muttered something about getting dressed.
I carefully unwrapped my scarf from my neck, and sat in one of the few chairs that weren’t covered in stacks of papers. I left my coat buttoned, and continued to hold the bag of documents for delivery close to my chest. My knees glowed orange through my tights. They seemed obnoxiously bright in the dim light of his apartment.
When he returned, he didn’t say anything. It was hard for me to imagine that all that skin and hard muscle lurked beneath his loose jeans and baggy shirt.
He thrust a hand out to me. “Here.”
I handed over the delivery. In my stunned state, still reeling from the eyeful of his body, I barely noticed his abrupt choice of words and actions instead of his typical distracted, unfocused, but polite self.
“Ok, it’s all here.” He scribbled his signature on the top sheet and rattled it in my face.
