The Most Dangerous Dame

“Do you think it will always be like this?”

“No.”

What a fool I was.

I worked a case a while back. Gigs were scarce so I did grunt jobs to keep a few dibs in my account. Some rich frail thought her old man was cheating on her (he was), and paid well to keep tabs on him. They have orbots and other nut and bolts that do surveillance, but the thing about digital jobs is they’re too easy to spot. No imagination. Some gigs just need a human touch.

Seems the old man spent a lot of time at the Ritz, which meant I spent a lot of time at the Swiss, the swanky layover across the street. I enjoyed a luxury suite on the frail’s dime while I shutterbugged the old man and captured audio recordings of his naughty side life.

That was when I met Scarlett. She worked at the front desk, wearing one of those cute hotel uniforms that summon thoughts of kinky sex to a dirty mind. Not that mine has ever been clean. A few exchanges, a dab of charm, and soon we were doing a lot more than seeing each other on the pass. I thought she was just another skirt I’d toss while I was on the case, but after I wrapped it up we were still spending our nights in that room on the ninth floor.

I wish I could say it was just the sex, but that would be a cop-out, and I’m not too fond of cops. There was something about her eyes when she laughed, the way her hands gestured when she talked, the peaceful look on her face when she slept.

I wished the time could have lasted. But I had the tendency to drift back then. Not much has changed since. When you’re in search of lost memories, you don’t spend a lot of time trying to create new ones. I needed to roam again, but couldn’t come up with a way to break it to her gently. It all came to a head when she asked a simple question.

“Do you think it will always be like this?”

“No.”

I remember the hurt in her eyes at the abruptness of my response. The way she recoiled like I struck her. The stiffness in her back when she left the room.

The staccato of her heels down the hall…

Scarlett zeroed in on my location like a guided missile to its target, with my survival chances being about the same. Her long brunette hair tumbled over one of her eyes when she sat beside me with the grace of a stalking panther. The other eye gazed at me with a potent mixture of sensuality and melancholy.

“I heard you come by here sometimes.” She slowly traced her fingers across my shoulder.

I stared at contents of my glass. “Only when I can’t sleep.”

“How often is that?”

“All the time.”

She smiled. It was a sad smile. The kind that lingers when all reasons for smiling have died. She took the glass out of my hand and set it on the counter. I was struck by how her eyes were the same color as the whiskey.

“Dance with me.”

I shook my head. “I’ve been doing some kind of drinking, darlin’.”

“It’ll be a slow dance.”

She led me to the floor. The joint was almost empty. Only a few boozehounds and ghosts were left.

And us. Fats the Jazzman had turned to pack it up, but I caught his eye.

“One last song, Fats.”

He nodded.

The mournful wail of the sax floated us across the floor for a few melancholy minutes. She pressed her cheek against my chest with her eyes closed, like the time lost between us had never existed. My hands started at the safe zone above the small of her back, but as the sax played on they drifted, much as we did. Across memory, across streams of unforgiving time.

“Do you like dragonflies?” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“As much as the next man, I guess. Why?”

“That’s all the picjector plays on the walls of my hotel room.”

I wasn’t ready for the aggression, the almost hostile manner of her lovemaking. Ok, lovemaking wasn’t exactly the word for it. Lovemaking involves tenderness, affection displayed through pleasure. Soft moments combined with hard movements. The things we did in that hotel room of ours back when time didn’t exist.

Times had changed.

There was a sense of determination in the motion of her hips, an intent look in her eyes that never left my face. As holographic dragonflies flitted around us, she stayed on top the entire time, as if switching positions was a sign of weakness. She was a force of nature — a solar storm, and I was the hapless planet that happened to be in the way.

Only when my muscles stiffened, when my hands clenched the sheets and groans grated through my teeth, only then did she slow down and let the tempest inside of her pass on like the whisper of distant thunder.

Only then did she let me hold her.

Hours passed. The blinds in the windows glowed with the promise of morning.

I opened my eyes and she was leaving.

It’s funny. It wasn’t the sex that stood out clearly about that night. It was the profile of her slender back, the hair that fell across her face as she pulled on her stockings in the blush of the early sun.

I reached out to her. “You don’t have to go. Stay. Stay with me for a little while. We haven’t even talked—”