Page 16 of Antihero

Evan found his feet. He could not take the women in directly, not yet, instead sensing them, an aura hovering in the doorway, an intoxicating force drawing him in.

Jack said, “Aren’t you going to shake hands and introduce yourself?”

Evan did.

“Eye contact,” Jack said.

Evan lifted his nervous gaze. His body was honed from more physical disciplines than he could enumerate. Lean yet toned, agile yet strong, powerful yet coordinated. He’d thought that he was secure in it.

Until now.

The women smiled, amused, taking his measure.

“He’s young,” Jack told the women. “Anyone wants to stop? You stop.”

Jack radiated authority. There was nothing lascivious in his tone. He might as well have been recapitulating Confederate battle failures from the Mississippi River Valley.

He turned to Evan, taking both shoulders. From his expression Evan could tell that what was coming was a variation of the speech he’d given Evan outside dojos and sniper ranges, psychology labs and hacker lairs. “You will learn from them. And about yourself. You will show humility and grace. And most important”—Jack drew closer, breathing single-barrel fire, eyes flashing a warning, their foreheads nearly touching—“you will treat them with respect.”

Evan nodded.

Upstairs now between the warm flesh of both women, he struggles with many things—insecurity, self-control, embarrassment. But he is not struggling to feel respect for them. That comes naturally enough.

“And also,” Cassie is telling him, “don’t get all dickish about how you’re scoring or about what you’re gonna tell other guys. Misogyny is just little-dick cover for fear. But this?” A not-too-firm squeeze makes his blood surge. “It’s sacred.” She laughs at herself. “Even when it’s not, it should be. So act like it.”

Evan’s breath is irregular but he evens it out. “Yes, ma’am.”

“And if you want to get experimental or whatever,” Morgan says, her hand tragically retracting, “make sure we’re okay with it. We’re way more sensitive. In so many ways. Honor that.” She tap-tap-taps on his chest, now motherly, causing confusion to explode delightfully inside his seventeen-year-old chest. “Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“If you’re not sure what to do with a woman, always be more gentle.”

An asterisk materializes in Evan’s head courtesy of Jack Johnsian mind control: Unless I’m required to kill her.

“Be a gentleman.” Cassie slaps him, not lightly, across the cheek. He takes the sting without wincing or letting his head snap to the side—no concession to the blow. She stares down at him sternly. “There’s never an excuse to not be a gentleman.”

Now her other hand is working. God, her other hand.

She has a cute broad nose and there are light freckles on her eyelids and he feels her breast against his side. Both breasts. Her pink lipstick, once glossy, is flaking slightly, staining a front tooth. That stain is like one panel hanging down on a beautiful billboard, and she looks a touch sad around the eyes, like Tyrell’s sister back from Evan’s foster-home days. Even so, if he looks past the façade and beholds her in all her fullness, she is glorious. And who ever would have thought the aroma of Juicy Fruit could be an aphrodisiac?

Morgan bites her lip, peers down at him. “And don’t pull any jealous shit. Or adolescent ego crap. You want a girl to agree to go with you, or whatever.” She pokes him in the nose with a fingernail, hard enough to smart. “You want her to want to do whatever she’s doing with you. Never ever get your way just ’cuz you’re stronger or can yell louder. Never take power away from a girl just ’cuz you can.”

*Unless I’m required to kill her.

“Be secure,” Cassie adds, mooshing his cheeks and swinging his face away from Morgan’s toward her big hazel eyes. “‘Secure’ is super sexy.”

This is the point. This is why he is here. To discover parameters in this strange dance between males and females, to learn to first do no harm when it comes to innocents, to ensure that he won’t do bad in the service of doing the good kind of bad.

“Mmm. Yeah. Secure.” Morgan skims a fingertip along the line of his chin. One of her legs is slung across Evan’s lower stomach, the thigh dimpled faintly with a prelude of cellulite. “And, like, quiet. And strong.”

He doesn’t say, Yes, ma’am.

He is being, like, quiet. And strong.

“He’s sort of like that already,” Cassie observes, talking to Morgan.

Cassie’s lips are plush. She fastens her mouth over his nipple, flicks her tongue absentmindedly, then looks up with a big lazy smile. The remaining lipstick shimmers on her lips, her breath pineapple and orange. His nerves—all of him—stand at attention.