Sun seeped in through the window. Memory and dream mingled, leaving Malcolm unsure if the night of debauchary that flashed through his mind was real or...
Her mouth pressed to his. Sliding down, teeth scraping against his chest, his stomach, his...
Her body, hard and angular, hardly a woman's body at all. But all woman.
Strong limbs grabbing, pulling him in.
Sweet. Desperate. Raunchy. He was deeply and irretrievably in love.
She snored. He loved that too.
Hunger drove his eyes open. Hunger, but not a black hole of emptiness. Just regular, run of the mill, walked 5 miles, fought or ran from a handful of monsters then got his brains fucked out desperation for a Grand Slam.
She had a dorm fridge and a hot plate, but no food. He could go get food, but not naked. My suit. My beautiful fucking suit. No amount of peroxide was going to get out the blackened blood that crusted those lapels. Melancholy passed like a summer cloud and rolled away. How could he feel bad when a beautiful future laid ahead? This angel of the morning, this sexual dynamo, this queen of demon killers-- she changed everything.
In a tangle of mis-matched sweaty sheets and yellowed caseless pillows she woke, a second dawn. She scrubbed the sleep out of her big brown eyes and yawned. And blinked. And stared.
"Who the fuck are you?"
Not what he hoped for. But since he didn't know her name, there was no room to judge.
"Malcolm. We killed monsters and fucked last night."
"Huh. You'd think I'd remember a thing like that." She threw her legs over the edge of mattress and padded to the corner. Pulling a large shower curtain, she disappeared.
This was not how the first morning with the love of his life was supposed to go.
She came back out, biting her toothbrush, still gloriously naked. "Monsters."
"Yes. Animas. Dead bodies with their faces pulled off, possessed by some sort of demony thing."
"Demony thing? You fight these anime things often?"
"Animas. And no, I'd never seen them before. Last night just sorta happened." He tried to play it cool. Not easy when when you are naked, have dried blood in all your creases and, well... He looked down at his pale, skinny body, His hand dropping over his belly in a vain attempt to hide the paler than pale web of scars that lived there.
"So, you just picked the name Animas?" Her eyes had a flicker of playful doubt.
"No. Well, yes. Well." Malcolm paused for a moment. "You called them that, too."
"Did I? Before or after I killed them?"
"Before." Suddenly, he felt a little dumb. Did he have to be naked right now?
She wandered over to a carelessly neat pile of antique suitcases in the corner. She flipped open the top one.
"And then I had sex with you." She ran her hands over a tidy row of thongs and pulled one out. She flipped open a cigar box and found it empty. "And I didn't even charge you."
"Um, no." He'd pay any amount of money for a pair of underwear. Or a loin cloth. Or even a pair of the tiny panties that she pulled up those long legs.
Much to his dismay, she kept putting on clothes. A sports bra. A pair of tan tropical weight wool trousers. A guinea tee. A beautiful set of suspenders and vest that didn't match the pants, but coordinated perfectly. "That is a really nice suit."
"Great. I freebie fucked a gay guy." She headed back behind the curtain. When she reemerged, her short hair slicked back in a tight pompadour, she looked really … masculine.
"I'm not...you're not..."
"Oh, you one hundred percent surely are, and so am I. Not a very good one, as evidenced by my squatter status and bringing home freebies." She swept her hand around the room in a grand gesture that landed on me. She actually seemed more disappointed by the sight of him than the whole of her dilapidated apartment. She unstacked the luggage and popped it open.
"Here. This is too big for me anyway." She tossed his a worsted wool pair of trousers and a shirt.
Behind the curtain the makeshift bathroom was mostly just broken pipe sticking out of the ceiling, feeding into a zinc tub. Malcolm had no idea how to turn the water on, so he chose a rag from a Gap-worthy stack, dipped it into the left over water in the tub and began to scrub off the ichor.
