me later today, saying ‘I want you to fuck me, Lor,’ I’m supposed to say no?” I’m having a hard time with the nuances of this.
She’s looking all hot and flushed and sweaty, with glazed eyes and kinda panting, and she nods and gasps, “Exactly.”
I shove her head back down and get back to business. Which, I might point out, she’s loving the hell out of.
Thinking the whole time, I don’t get brunettes. It’s why I avoid ’em. Never heard a blonde say such a fucked-up thing.
I’m supposed to help a woman that doesn’t wanna wanna fuck me but obviously does wanna fuck me and sucks dick with the tender aggression and dedicated zeal of a wet, velvet-lined vacuum be strong enough not to fuck me when I thoroughly enjoy fucking her?
Women.
Whose bright idea was it to make them?
No wonder we got booted from the goddamn Garden.
After a few days with Eve, Adam couldn’t think straight.
—
I find Jo in the corridor of the server’s quarters. Her eyes flare and she backs away when she sees me coming, thrusting her tray of dirty glasses out at me, like something so puny could keep me from getting what I want.
I don’t do the caveman routine. It doesn’t work with brunettes. It’s why I hate ’em. They take work.
“You said you got a problem with your memory,” I say.
She looks wary. “You mean my sidhe-seer gift?”
“Sure do, babe. You can’t organize it. Wading knee-deep in mental detritus.”
She gives me a look when I say “detritus” like all I could possibly know are four-letter words, and I think, Keep thinking that, babe. Lor’s just a dumb blond. I’m gonna blow her messy-ass mind and when I’m done maybe it’ll be clean enough in there she’ll be able to see when you wanna fuck you wanna fuck.
“Lessons start tonight. After your shift.”
“I’m not going to have sex—”
“Oh, yes you are. You’re gonna fuck me every time I give you a lesson. Ain’t no free lunches. And when I’m done you’re gonna be goddamn brilliant. And then, maybe, I’m not gonna want to fuck you anymore.”
She gives me a skeptical look. “How are you going to help me organize what’s in my head?”
“Loci. Latin for ‘places.’ Mnemonic device for managing memory. Simonides, Cicero, Quintilian all used it. I’m going to teach you to build a memory palace.”
“How come I’ve never heard of this before?” she says suspiciously.
“Probably can’t find it in your mess in there. The mess that thinks you don’t wanna fuck somebody you wanna fuck.”
“A nicer person would offer to teach me, not bully me into trading sexual favors.”
“Uh-huh. A nicer person would. And I’d hardly say it’s you trading me a favor. Seems damned mutually beneficial to me. You want what you want from me, you gotta give me what I want from you. And hopefully we’ll both get so sick of each other by the time it’s over, we’ll leave each other alone.”
She narrows her eyes and I can tell the idea appeals to her. Hell, it appeals to me. The sooner I get her out of my system the sooner my life gets simple again.
“How do you know anything about this kind of stuff?”
“Honey, when you’ve lived as long as I have, if you don’t have a filing system, you’re fucked. Besides,” I flash her a wolfish grin, “I needed a good way to track my chicks, skirts, and babes through the millennia. Every fuck. All in there. Every last detail.”
She gets a weird look, and I think, Aw, shit, Ryodan wasn’t as open with her as I thought he was, then it turns into a scoff and I breathe a little easier. “Millennia?” She laughs and says, “Yeah right.” She blushes. “I’m in your memory palace.”
And she’s the one I’d like most to take out with the trash at this point. “Every time you come. Smell. Taste. Sound. Deal or not?”
“I’ll try it once,” she says. “And if I think you have anything to teach me, we’ll continue.”
Aw, honey, I think, we’re definitely gonna continue.
—
I start out simple. I tell her about the London cabbies and the test they have to take called the Knowledge. First thing about mastering any subject is understanding the mechanics of it.
Like the clit.
I’ve studied it exhaustively, in theory and with a butt-load of practical application. It’s remarkably like a dick with a foreskin, erectile tissue, and even a tiny little shaft. But it’s way better. Women got some eight thousand sensory nerve endings in