Alien Tango

close, I might as well be kind. I moved a little differently, in a way I knew from experience sent him screaming over the edge. Still worked perfectly.
    Enjoyed my reward for a job well done, then lapped my way back up the Happy Trail so I could toy with his chest some more while his body slowly stopped shuddering.
    “You’re such a bad girl,” he purred at me when I was finally up to his pecs and he was able to talk again.
    I laughed against his skin. “Good girls go to Heaven. Bad girls go down.”
    “C’mere, you.” He wrapped his arms around me, pulled me up and kissed me, his tongue deep inside my mouth as it twined around mine. This, of course, caused me to start grinding against his leg. Which caused him to pull me on top of him. Which caused me to grind against him with more emphasis. A-Cs had wonderful regenerative abilities, a fact I’d learned early and appreciated beyond almost any other trait.
    After the last day, making love naked and in bed seemed exotic. He was back in control—and he ensured I loved every second of it.
    I was collapsed on top of him, kissing his neck while he stroked my back when I remembered I had to call Stalker Chick back. I reached around on the bed until my hand hit the phone, looked away from Martini’s neck long enough to dial, and then went back to important things.
    “Hello?”
    “Yo, Serene, how’s the sanity holding on?”
    “You took a long time to call me back.”
    “Yeah, I was occupied. So, are we still sane, or are you about to start shrieking and flinging bombs again?”
    “I don’t want Helen to get into any trouble.”
    “Too late. You want to get her out of it? Turn yourself in.”
    Long pause. Martini shifted us so we were on our sides, then flipped me, gently, so my back was up against his chest. He slid one arm under my neck, wrapped himself around me, and hugged me against him with the other arm. I yawned. This felt nice.
    “I can’t turn myself in,” Serene said finally. Good thing, I was almost asleep.
    “Look, you still want to fight at dawn? I’ll be there. Otherwise, it’s been a busy day, and I’d love the opportunity to sleep in.”
    Martini nuzzled my head.
    “Does Brian know who you’re with?”
    “Yes, he’s clear on the ‘I have a boyfriend and it’s not you’ concept.”
    “So he’s not jealous?”
    “No idea. Don’t care. I haven’t talked to him or heard from him for ten years. You know more about him as he is now than I do. He doesn’t know me at all, he just thinks he does. Why?”
    I could tell she was crying. “I just wanted him to love me the way Alfred’s son loves you.”
    Something was wrong with this sentence. I knew because I was wide awake now, just from hearing it. I nudged Martini and turned the speakerphone on. “If you knew I was with Alfred’s son, why did you try to kill me?” Alfred’s son? No one I worked with referred to Martini this way; to pretty much everyone who knew him, he was in charge .
    “I couldn’t tell until tonight.” She was sobbing.
    “How could you tell tonight?”
    “Seeing the two of you together. I wanted that with Brian. Why doesn’t he want me?”
    My body went cold. “Serene? Are you watching Brian right now?” She didn’t answer, but she was still there, because I could hear her crying. “I know you’re watching me and Jeff.”
    “Y-yes. Brian’s asleep. Everyone in your hotel is asleep.”
    “Serene? This is going to sound like a really prying, personal question, but since you just got to watch the two of us perform for you like a live porno show, I think you owe us an answer. How are you doing it, how can you see us no matter where we are?”
    She sniffled. “I’ve always been able to.”
    Martini moved his head so his lips were near my ear that was against his arm. “We don’t have those kinds of talents.”
    “Serene . . . are you a hybrid? A cross between A-C and human?”
    “Yes.” And yet no one had mentioned this fact. Why not?
    “Um . . . Serene . . . which parent was the A-C?”
    “My mother. I . . . I don’t know my father, just that he was a human.”
    “No one else knows, do they? Your mother didn’t tell anyone.”
    “No. She died when I was little. I was raised by my cousins.”
    “How old are you?”
    “Twenty-two.” Interesting . . . I’d thought she was older for some reason. Helen’s attachment and bizarre attempts to help made a little more sense now.
    “Okay, so you can see us? How?”
    “I just think about