Page 25 of Succubus

His eyes narrow and he makes an annoyed hissing sound. “Great. Fantastic.” I think he’s about to shut the door in my face. Or at least deny it. But instead he says, “You want money or something? I don’t have it. I’m taking a break. Go away.”

“I don’t want money!” I cry, indignant. “Wait. Are you agreeing that you’re my father?”

This seems too easy.

“Probably.” He shrugs. He squints. “You don’t look like me.” He looks me up and down, seeming to notice me for the first time. He wrinkles his nose, his lips turning down, his whole face a frown of disapproval. “The hell are you wearing? You have no style. You’re so . . . dull.”

I am about to point out his own outfit, but he’s still going: “What was your mother? One of those camp followers? Or a stewardess? I went through a phase with those. Or a backup singer?” The richness of his voice is wasted on his words, on everything else about him.

“Carol Dunlap— ”

He waves his hand like he smells something putrid. “Forget it, forget it, I don’t remember the names. Except a few. A blond?”

I don’t want to answer this, but I nod automatically.

“Probably chesty.” Again his eyes on my body. “Didn’t inherit much from her, did ya?”

I feel my face settling into a mask. A deep, childish disappointment seeps up from my core. He is awful. I knew he would be. But some secret part of me had hoped . . . “Okay,” I say sarcastically. “Awesome. Can I come in?”

He thinks about it, looks sly. “Nah. Why don’t you take me out?”

“Out?”

“Yeah, buy your old dad a drink. You want to talk. Let’s go talk somewhere nice.” He catches my eye, and I feel something strange and wrong, a kind of gravitational pull. I want to do what he’s asking.

“Hey, stop it!” I break his gaze and the feeling drains out of me, leaving an oily residue on my insides. A tiny firework erupts in my stomach at the same moment. He is like me. He can do something impossible. Maybe he will be the answer.

He has to be the answer.

He snorts. “Good job. Very good. You’re definitely my kid.”

It’s better, I tell myself, that he’s terrible. Much better. I can focus on what I need to do. It’s time to finally figure myself out.

CHAPTER 9

It’s sunset and we are at a stupid restaurant-bar on Ocean Drive—one of those places that has a loud guy with very white veneers and a sleazy striped shirt standing on the sidewalk out front, trying to talk everyone who walks by into coming inside. The hostess has some of the biggest altered breasts I’ve ever seen, and her amazingly small white dress seems to emphasize what a good job the surgeon did with the nipples.

Do surgeons do the nipples? Anyway, hers are good. Dick Face takes his time admiring them as she seats us at a round table with a marble top.

We are steps from the beach, but it feels like we’re sitting in a cave. My backpack is squished under the table. Music thumps like we’re in a nightclub (maybe called The Cave).

I get right to work. “Why did you disappear?”

“Man, you’re like one of those reporter types,” he grumbles. “I need my drink first. My first drink.” He grins at the server coming toward us. Her own buoyant breasts are only slightly smaller than the hostess’s. I’m beginning to suspect that everyone in this town has gotten “work” done. You’d think Dick Face would have, too, but he looks sunken, unimproved.

He orders food along with his whiskey, and his choices surprise me. They’re all veggie sides and appetizers. I ask for a water, since I don’t drink. Not since my depressed-hippie phase in Sedona, when I realized that impairing my judgment might make me too dangerous.

“Have you educated yourself about factory farming in this country?” Dick Face asks the server, pointing at some items on the menu. “It’s grotesque.”

She nods, smiles.

Oddly, he continues: “Meat destroys the body; it’s horrific the way you people mutilate yourselves. No respect for your own bodies, even though they die so quickly. You’d think you’d care more.”

“Oh, I agree completely,” she coos.

I stare at her. Her eyes are wide, the pupils fully dilated. She’s leaning toward Dick Face, her hands flat on the shiny surface of the table.

“I want to be a vegetarian,” she says with determination. “I love that.”