Michelangelo_s Notebook

5

They walked back to her apartment, strolling slowly down Avenue A, listening to the music coming up out of the little basement clubs, smelling the aromas from a dozen different cuisines from around the world. Finn was in no hurry to get home from Max’s but she could feel the tension coming off Peter in waves.

He had his arm around her waist, his hand slipped into the tight pocket of her Levi’s and about every third step his hip would bump into hers. In high school she would have cut off her left boob to walk down a street with a boy like that but now it just seemed… high school. Like a guy going out and finding a street sign with your name on it and stealing it for you. She sighed. Maybe that was the point; Peter was just too damn high school.

“You okay?”

“Sure. Why?”

“You sighed.”

“Sometimes people sigh, Peter.”

“You’re not getting your period or something?” He sounded nervous, as though menstruating was some kind of disease.

“Or something? Something like what? The clap? A yeast infection? Vaginal warts. Herpes maybe?”

He flushed, hurt at the hardness of her tone. “No, no, I didn’t mean anything like that. It’s just you’ve been down all evening and I thought maybe…”

“Thought maybe it would screw up your evening or something? Make things a little too messy for you? Blood and gore on the sheets?”

“No,” Peter answered a little distantly. “I didn’t mean that either.” He took his hand out of her pocket and moved away from her side a little. He smiled tightly. “Where I come from girls don’t talk like that.”

“Yes, they do, Peter. You just never listened.”

She sighed again. She was treating him horribly and it wasn’t really fair of her. She was being a bitch and that wasn’t her at all. It was one thing to let a person down easily, it was something else to shoot him down in flames.

“Look,” she explained, “I just got fired from my job for no reason. I was pretty sure I’d done something good and it turned out to be bad and I got into a fight with someone and wound up looking like an idiot. On top of that, Alexander Crawley is the biggest inflated-ego chauvinistic prick I’ve ever met in my life!”

“Gee,” said Peter. “And I was worrying that it might be me.” He gave her a boyish grin and her resolve wavered briefly. They reached the door to her building and she got out her keys.

Somehow a few seconds later she was kissing Peter. After the day she’d had at the museum she could feel her decision beginning to weaken even more. His lips felt soft and warm and his tongue poked coolly and insistently between her teeth. She could feel that little space right underneath her stomach begin to melt.

Then she tasted cinnamon Tic Tacs and realized he’d somehow popped one into his mouth a little while back, already planning his attack. His hand went up to her breast and she gently removed it. She broke the kiss.

“Not tonight, Pete. Really. I’m too tired.”

“At least let me see you to the door of your apartment.” He turned on the grin again. The grin and the Tic Tac seemed to go together.

“You don’t need to do that.”

“But I want to.” He shrugged. “God knows what might be waiting for you in the elevator.”

“The elevator monster,” said Finn. “And you’re it.”

“Then I’ll protect you from myself,” he said. She laughed and turned the key and the two of them went inside.

Peter started kissing her again on the way up in the elevator and by the time the long jerky ride to the fifth floor was over she knew she was probably going to make a mistake and invite him in after all.

She also knew that she was just looking for comfort and distraction from the events of the day and Peter would try to turn it into much more than that, but right now she really didn’t care. She wanted his taste and his smell and the feel of him. Maybe it was time she allowed herself to be the selfish one. After all, it wasn’t her job to protect him from the realities of life. She wasn’t his mother, for God’s sake! She giggled at the Freudian implications of that thought and turned her door key in the lock.

“What’s so funny?” asked Peter.

“Nothing, just a stupid thought. You might as well come in if you want.” She stepped into the darkened apartment and Peter followed her.

“Gee, sound a little less enthusiastic, why don’t you?” Peter muttered.

A man appeared out of nowhere like a soundless black shadow. A light flashed briefly in Finn’s face and she lifted one arm to cover her eyes, her heart pounding in her chest as fear clutched at her throat.

“What the hell?” was all Peter had time to say.

There was a brief rustling sound from directly in front of them and Finn caught a quick scent of cheap aftershave before something hit her on the side of the head hard enough to take her to her knees. The flashlight? Maybe, because everything was dark now.

She heard Peter rush forward to help her, and in the last split second before the blackness swallowed her, she heard a distant terrible cry cut short by a drawn-out gurgling sigh and she wondered who it was making that awful noise.