Succubs on Top Page 0,37

Dana. Her tone was once again set to cool and formal. I decided Bastien had imagined the warm and friendly rapport he kept claiming they had when alone. "Well, I apologize for disturbing you, but when I dropped off the cookies earlier, I think I may have lost an earring."

I straightened up. Cookies? He hadn't mentioned that. Maybe he was making progress after all. Cookies. I wondered what kind she'd brought. Peanut butter? Chocolate chip? Oh. Maybe even white chocolate macadamia.

He and Dana commenced a search for the earring, coming up empty. The whole time, Bastien tried to act like he wasn't stoned, but Dana couldn't have been fooled. Not with those cyborg eyes of hers. Hell, I didn't even need to see it. The audio track alone was entertaining enough.

Meanwhile, I couldn't stop thinking about those goddamned cookies. They sounded good. Really good. Suddenly, I wanted them more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life.

"Well," I heard Dana say, "I must have lost it somewhere else. Thanks for looking."

"Sorry I couldn't help you."

"It's all right." She allowed an elegantly crafted pause. "Isn't that Tabitha's purse over there? Is she here?"

Oh, shit. I had a feeling Bastien was thinking the same thing.

"Uh, well, yeah...but...um, she's upstairs lying down," he faltered. "Has a headache."

"Oh, that's too bad. Did she take anything for it?"

"Um, yeah, she did."

I looked at the joint. Had I ever.

Bastien and Dana started talking about something else, and I decided then that I had to get those cookies. I was starving. The lovebirds sounded like they had moved to the living room, so I could sneak invisibly down the stairs and raid the kitchen without them knowing. Standing up, I put the joint out in the upstairs bathroom and moved on to my covert descent. Pot doesn't usually mess with motor control the way alcohol can, but it can certainly distract you from ordinary things. Like watching where you're going.

About three steps down, my foot slipped out from under me.

I uttered a sailor-worthy expletive and slid painfully down the rest of the way, landing hard on my butt at the bottom, my legs twisting into unnatural positions underneath me. I had barely enough sense to snap back to a visible Tabitha, lest Bastien and Dana think a clumsy ghost had just fallen down. A moment later, they came running.

"What happened?" exclaimed Bastien. He sounded more upset about the interruption than my immediate health.

"I...I tripped..."

Looking down, I tried moving my left ankle to a more comfortable position. I winced. It hurt like hell, but at least it moved.

"Well," he said crisply, "so long as you're okay. I'm sure you'll want to go and - "

"Okay?" Dana gave him an incredulous look. "We need to get her to the couch so she can straighten that out."

"Oh no," I protested, seeing Bastien's murderous expression. "I...I'm fine...really..."

But there was no arguing with Dana. She supported me under one arm, and he took the other. I hobbled over to the couch, putting my weight only on the right foot. Once I was stretched out, she pushed my jeans up over my calf and felt the ankle with cautious, expert precision, carefully examining each inch. I appreciated her solicitous concern and apparent first-aid know-how, but the thought of this wretched woman touching my leg repulsed me. Besides, what I really wanted were those cookies. Fuck my ankle.

"It doesn't feel broken," she finally decided. "Probably just a sprain, lucky for you. We should ice it."

When Bastien neither did nor offered anything useful, she went into the kitchen. I could hear her opening drawers and the freezer.

"Do you hate me or something?" he hissed once we were alone.

"This wasn't my fault," I countered. "I think you've got a defective stair."

"Defective my ass. The only thing that's defective is your sense of timing. Do you know how close I was to scoring?"

"Close? Close? Not to use a cliche, but hell was closer to freezing over than you were to scoring. I don't think she really goes for the babbling, high kind of guy."

"I wasn't babbling. And there's no way she knows I'm high."

"Oh, come on. If you were any higher, you'd - "

I shut my mouth as Dana returned with the ice pack. She knelt by my feet and carefully set the pack on the injured ankle. I grimaced at the sudden change of temperature, but the shocking cold did numb the throbbing.

Still concerned, she surveyed the rest of my lower leg with those sharp eyes.