SOPHIE

Veek was quiet the whole afternoon.

We tore the botánica apart. Every box, every bundle, every drawer and battered suitcase. Jars and jars of herbs and things. Veek grew increasingly distressed. I let him disembowel my backpack and probe the insoles of my shoes. He let me shake out all the books.

When I found a tablet computer leaning against some bound volumes of Playboy magazines, he took it away from me.

I protested, “Wait! We can look at his email!”

“No.” Veek looked stormy.

“But you could see what Jake wrote to Mme Vulcaine about you!”

“It’s probably password protected,” he snapped.

“I bet I can break into it. I break into my papa’s laptop all the time, and he changes his password weekly. I bet Jake never changed his password,” I said, but I could see Veek was set against it.

He wedged the tablet back into the shelf between books. Then he looked me angrily in the eye. “No.”

“Then we’ll have to go back to Papa’s suite,” I said, sighing in defeat.

“Why?”

“The rest of my things are there. The clothes I’ve been wearing this past two weeks, and my other shoes and my handbags. Jake may have put the leash in my pocket or my handbag.”

His voice lightened. “How many handbags do you own, little fashion victim?”

“In Chicago? No more than half a dozen. The shoes are another matter. But how could Jake have put anything in my sandals?”

“Will your papa be angry with you? He knows you climbed down the building into Yoni’s suite. I watched him when he saw you.”

“That will be a pain. He may be waiting for me. Perhaps I can make a diversion to draw him out of the suite. Then we can bring all my things back here to search them.”

“Make yourself at home,” Veek said drily.

I said, distressed, “Don’t you want me here?”

He bowed. “Vous êtes toujours la bienvenue ici.”

I noticed something. “You speak very old-fashioned French.”

He smiled so warmly that I went suddenly weak in my tummy. “I’m the old-fashioned kind of guy.”

“And your American idioms sound foolish.”

He grinned. “Baz says this all the time. Jake spoke Kreyol whenever we were alone, but I never learned that very well, either.”

“But you’re so smart.”

“I speak the French I was brought up to speak. One must always sound like a member of one’s own class.”

This I understood. In my family it was a sin to use lower-class patois. Did sex demons get elocution training?

“Why do we have to put this all away again?”

He looked at me. That was all.

I put out my tongue. “Neat freak.” I began to pile tattered paperbacks into a cardboard box. “Can’t we put this away later? I think we should search my things at the hotel as soon as possible.”

He nodded.

I emptied the toys my father had forbidden—burglary tools, climbing ropes, my harness, some electronics that he disapproved of—out of the pockets of my cargo pants. Feeling naked, I took Veek’s hand and we went out, making the front door bell jingle. I wondered if I would ever hear that bell again. I’d known Jake only two weeks, but the place was still filled with his life.

While Veek was locking up, I noticed a man get out of a taxi down the street. Brown suit. Briefcase. Erect carriage, well-cut gray hair. My father!

I towed Veek by the hand in the other direction. “Come on. We don’t have much time.”

I watched over my shoulder as my father went to the botánica’s door. The postman pushed him aside. My papa put his hand in his pocket and spoke to the postman.

Veek looked over his shoulder, too. “Move!” he hissed. We walked faster.

The taxi my papa had used was passing. I ran into the street and hailed it.

“Four Seasons,” I said as we tumbled in.

o0o

Veek said nothing on the drive downtown.

My key still worked in the suite door at the hotel. Apparently my father was still willing to let me sleep there. Veek and I searched everything in my room, clothes, handbags, shoes, umbrellas—had I really bought two of these brightly-flowered umbrellas?

We didn’t find the navel string.

“Damn! Where could he have hidden it?” Veek threw down a shoe he had mauled.

I had a bad feeling. “Maybe it got thrown away.”

“No,” he said positively. “With you I feel—” He stopped. “You have it. Among your personal belongings.”

I stepped closer. “With me you feel what?”

“You’re only a child,” he said, as if to dismiss his true answer before it was spoken.

I stood chest to chest with him, looking up into his face. From this angle he looked more open. I wanted to force him to admit that he felt something with me.

“No one is only a child, Veek. One thing I have observed. Children can be wise.”

He moved my hair out of my eyes. “And valorous. And too strong for their size.” He smiled.

“Were you too strong for your size once?” I said. He had never told me of his own childhood—only details of the real Clarence’s life.

“I must have been. I’m here now.” His eyes got small as they sometimes did when he was thinking of sad or bad things. His lips were big and soft. I could picture that child, even if I didn’t know where or when to picture him, with small eyes waiting to be hurt, soft lips wanting to kiss and be kissed.

I put a finger on his lips.

Then I stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

He sighed a sigh so deep that I thought he was weeping. He snatched me into his arms, pulled me against his chest, lifted me off my feet, and kissed me many times with desperate, hard, schoolboy kisses.

“What?” I gasped, as he broke for air. “Veek? With me you feel what?”

He was rubbing his face on my hair, as if we had been parted for years. He whispered one word at my ear. “Caught.”

I wondered what that meant. “You wouldn’t choose me,” I said tentatively. “Is that it?”

“How could I? You’re too young, and,” his tone turned despairing, “I might as well be dead.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but he touched his lips to mine.

“Don’t talk. We don’t have time,” he murmured into my mouth. With strong arms he lifted me again and laid me on my back on the bed, then shucked his clothes with one hand, pawed mine away with the other, and pinned me to the coverlet with kisses.

All we have is time, I wanted to say. I was too breathless.

No one had ever made me so hot and slippery as this. His hands were everywhere, teasing my vulve, roughing up my breasts, pinching my nipples, taking me strongly by the throat until I melted from head to foot. I was slowly, heavily throbbing.

My faux Clarence might as well be dead?

His thigh jammed between my legs.

Oh yes, this is a dead man. I giggled.

That made him lift his head. “What?” I could feel him rushing toward penetration, his hand on my hip, his cock a hot iron on my thigh. Come into me! I thought.

I laughed. “This is sex-demon technique, is it?”

“No. This is me, not putting all that on for you. I thought you might understand teenager sex better.”

That was a lie. I heard tightness in his voice.

“I understand it all too well,” I said severely. “It’s lame. I may be young, but I’ve had several competent lovers.”

“Forgive me,” he mocked, his eyes small again.

“So I will, if you deserve it.” I petted his shoulder. “Come on. Don’t be stuffy. Show me,” I begged. “Does it hurt your feelings if I ask for special effects?”