296 lines
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296 lines
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO oOOOO OOOO. OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO" .OOOOOO OOOOOo OOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
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OOOO oOOOOOOO OOOOOOO. OOOO oOOOO
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OOOO .OOOO OOOO OOOOOOOOo OOOO OOOO"
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OOOO oOOOO OOOO OOOO "OOOO. OOOO OOOOo .OOOO'
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OOOO .OOOO" OOOO OOOO OOOOoOOOO "OOOO. oOOOO
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OOOO oOOOOOOO..OOOO OOOO "OOOOOOO OOOOoOOOO"
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OOOO .OOOO"""OOOOOOOO OOOO OOOOOO "OOOOOOO'
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OOOO oOOOO ""OOOO OOOO "OOOO OOOOOO
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|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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| There Ain't No Justice |
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| #86 |
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|---------------------------------------------------------------------------|
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- Date With an Angel -
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by Dava
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(for shaunagh-lyn, lisa, alice and all the other angels.)
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because this was originally Loki's idea, and this was one of Loki's
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friends, i was determined to see this through, to try and make it
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work. he had a reputation (that i was determined to disprove), and
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it often extended to his associates.
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i had been sauntering around the house, having shaved almost two
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hours ago, deliberately trying not to get ready for this... this
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-date-. that word sat uncomfortably with me. i didn't -date-. it
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was a matter of personal preference. i didn't like mushrooms on
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pizza; i tried to avoid rap music; and i didn't date. i had only a
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vague idea of what normal people actually -did- on dates.
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i'd dressed for the nightclub that i'd planned on taking her to;
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reasonably neatly, and all in black, of course. black jeans, long
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woollen coat, motorcycle boots with a metal-studded collar wrapped
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around the left ankle. my `Skinny Puppy' T-shirt was buried
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somewhere under the unwashed clothing in my bedroom; mike had spray-
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painted a "Bob"-head on the back of the only other decent T-shirt i
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owned; fortunately, the coat covered it.
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Loki had said she'd be here around eleven; the VCR had just ticked
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over to 23:00 when the buzzer sounded. i had been hovering around
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the intercom for the past ten minutes, so i leaped to the receiver,
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snatched it up (balancing on one leg; we'd never managed to shift
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those boxes away from that corner since moving in), shouted, `hello?'
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a faint female voice sounded over tinny electronic crackling; i
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thought i recognised my name and the word `Loki', so i held down the
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foyer door button until i heard it open. i went to our front door
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and opened it, curious about what she looked like.
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mid-to-early twenties; just a bit shorter than me, with masses of
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curly blonde hair, pale, thin face, lively grey eyes; generally,
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very attractive, not discounting the two huge, pale-grey-dove-
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feathered wings folded neatly behind her shoulders.
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always something. where were all the -normal- people?
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`come on in.' i said, trying for a Keifer-Sutherland-in-`The-Lost-
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Boys' sound, making a determined effort to remain unsurprised. she
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smiled and entered, her eyes closed in a demure, i don't know how
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you'd describe it, something like batting her eyelashes except
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nowhere near as twee. it was a very fetching affectation. i felt
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something almost like a knife-blade twisting in a wound, inside;
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recognising it for what it was, i ignored it. `would you like a cup
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of coffee, or tea or something?' then thinking, maybe she isn't
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allowed to drink coffee or anything mortal or vaguely sinful like
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that, i added `or, uh, mineral water?' she smiled, as if
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understanding my intention, forgiving my confusion. it was then that
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i began to believe that she wasn't human.
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while she examined the array of `Hellraiser' posters prominently
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displayed over mike's computer, i snatched a glimpse of the rest of
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her. she was wearing something blurry, almost glowing white, like
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television static; still, the outline of the body that it followed
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closely wasn't as slim as i'd first thought, behind where the
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wing-tips crossed over her legs. the fuzzy dress seemed to merge at
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the shoulders, into the wings, which moved slightly with her
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breathing. i got a bit closer; the feathers were real. they were
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attached to her shoulders. i could see tendons that us regular humans
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didn't have. i inhaled gently; there was a scent that i couldn't
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quite place; associated with walking past the florist's, the
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collected perfume of hundreds of flowers. it unlocked other, strange
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associations in my mind.
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suddenly, she turned to face me, just a bit too close for comfort,
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considering that we'd only just met.
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`i'm Zhehrael.' the way her lips moved when she pronounced that `zh'
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sound was hypnotic, the sound a soft hiss. `and, no, i haven't slept
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with Loki.' i -hadn't- been thinking that. i had been deliberately
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-not- thinking that.
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`you'd be, possibly, one of the few people in Melbourne who hasn't.'
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i heard myself saying. she laughed.
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`i'm not from Melbourne.' i moved aside on the pretense of
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straightening a loose stack of disks on my desk.
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`i got that impression, somehow.' there was a pause, one of those
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awkward and embarrassing discontinuities that signalled how much she
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was trying to put me at ease. i wasn't deliberately trying to step
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on her lines. really.
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she moved over to the couch, standing in front of the space left by a
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stack of hardware that mike was trying to shift, and sat down. it
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was such a smooth, coordinated movement, the wings crossing over
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almost like arms folding behind, her legs crossing easily, that i
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almost felt like applauding, or at the very least, holding up a card
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with 9.8 written on it. i looked about for an empty pizza box and
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one of the whiteboard markers that we used for refrigerator messages.
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somehow, she knew what i was looking for and why; her chin ducked
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down towards her chest and she giggled, looking up at me through her
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lashes.
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that might have been a mistake; it was such a calculated, cinematic
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move that it looked prearranged. a crack in the armour, a tiny hitch
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in the performance. she looked suitably abashed, and for a brief
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second i felt like asking her if she was going to be reading my mind
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all evening when her attention turned to my notebook, which was
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sitting on the coffee-table next to a stack of Monty Python videos
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that mike had borrowed. uh oh, i thought, but she ignored the
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potentially embarrassing dream diary at the front and instead, began
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reading from the back. that was safe territory; nothing more
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revealing than stray ideas, anything that drifted by that i thought
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noteworthy; taglines, diagrams for jewellery, notes for stories;
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general mental detritus. she smiled at some of the more humourous
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ideas, reading one of them out (`naked women eating butterflies.
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Uh-huh.') and nodding with approval and, uncharacteristically (for a
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christian angel, at least) eyes widening in appreciation at some of
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the cenobite mask designs. for a moment, she seemed lost in thought
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and i had the idea that perhaps she wasn't a traditional christian
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angel...
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perhaps she was one of -them-. a cenobite. this raised my opinion
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of Loki considerably. i simply stood in the doorway, staring at her
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and considering the possibilities when she stood up again, the book
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clasped in both hands like a shield, and asked,
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`where had we planned going out to, tonight?' i smiled, picked up my
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car keys and gestured that she should follow me. these purely
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mechanical motions allowed me to analyse what she'd said, and how.
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using `we' could have been accidental, or it could have implied that
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she thought of us as a couple, already, and i couldn't overlook the
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contrived awkwardness of `to, tonight'. as the cold night air swept
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over my face, i wondered if i was over-analysing this situation.
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perhaps she did just want to put me at ease. so far, in finding out
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what she expected from the evening and doing something to satisfy
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this, i was doing about as well as usual. `that bad, huh?'
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i opened the passenger-side door for her and helped her in, making
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sure that her wings were comfortably nestled between her back and the
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seat; she wriggled from side to side, trying to get comfortable; then
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she sat forward and half-spread the wings, threading them alongside
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the seat, extending them into the back of the car quite neatly.
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it was a cold night, and, as usual, the Volkswagon didn't want to
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start. i got the feeling she didn't even want to leave the car-park,
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as would a horse comfortably stabled for the night. Zhehrael laid one
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hand flat to the dashboard, her slim fingers pale in the light of the
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overhead fluorescents. the car kicked over immediately. of course.
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we seemed to slip through the traffic easily, gaps between cars
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appearing as if by magic, traffic lights in our path turning green
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whenever we got within shouting distance of them. this allowed us to
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continue tossing small talk back and forth safely; i didn't need all
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of my concentration on the road. i'd given up over-analysing
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everything she said and thought, the hell (heh) with it, just treat
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her like anyone else. i just had to try and avoid questions about
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her parents, her job, her religion and where she lived. easy.
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she opened the glove-box and sorted through the unlabelled tapes,
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selected one and slotted it into the glowing green mouth of the tape
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deck. David Bowie, `Diamond Dogs.' she turned up the volume and
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sang along with the title track unabashedly; by the second verse, i'd
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joined in, singing harmony at points:
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`That Halloween Jack is a real cool cat,
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and he lives on top of Manhattan Chase
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the elevator's broke, so he slides down a rope
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onto the street below
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Oh, Tarzan, go man go...'
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we were perfectly in sync well before the last chorus, singing `bow
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wow, woof woof, bow wow' and giggling. she'd managed, somehow, to
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crank down the window (despite the lack of a window-handle) and sat
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there with one elbow draped over the door, her hair blowing in the
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wind.
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most of the evening was uneventful; she didn't attract any undue
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attention at the nightclub, possibly because they saw that sort of
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thing all the time. we sat well up above the dance-floor, where we
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could converse without having to shout. around half-past two in the
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morning she went over to the bar and came back with a bottle of
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champagne. `The bartender just gave it to me,' she said, swigging
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from the open bottle in a most undignified fashion. she offered it
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to me and i shook my head. she regarded me with genuine affection.
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`you don't have to worry about getting drunk. i can take care of
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you. that's one of the things we do, watching over motorists.'
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again, i shook my head, pushing it back towards her. she shrugged
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and drank a third of the bottle's contents in one go.
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an hour later i was sitting in Fast Eddie's, listening to her talk at
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machine-gun pace. it was strange; considering how much we knew about
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each other, it should have been inconsequential chatter but somehow
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it all seemed vitally interesting to me. she was more than a little
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drunk, and i had to help her back into the car. i was wondering why
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none of the straights coming out of the Metro, just up the road,
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could see her wings. perhaps they were drunker than she was.
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we sang on the way home, too; more Bowie. she was definitely getting
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a bit maudlin by then:
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`when you rock and roll with me
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there's no-one else i'd rather be
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nobody down here can do it for me
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i'm in tears again when you rock and roll
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with me.'
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and, as we pulled into the driveway:
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`to feel that we are paper
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choking on you nightly
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they tell me: son, we want you
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be elusive, but don't walk far
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for we're breaking in the new boy
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deceive your next of kin
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for you're dancing where the dogs decay
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defecating ecstasy
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you're just an ally of the legion
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locator for the virgin king,
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but i love you...'
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and she was sobbing slightly as i helped her out of the car, tears
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running down her face, choking out the words: `we are the dead.
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we... are the dead.' at this, she collapsed and i grabbed her just
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as she fell, holding her in an awkward fireman's carry, her left wing
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dangling free, her right uncomfortably trapped underneath her. she
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hardly weighed anything, no more than a large dictionary, or a
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continental quilt filled with soft grey feathers.
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mike and his significant other had staked out the couch and were
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casually ignoring the television; after managing to work open the
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front door, i carried Zhehrael to the bedroom. the room was dimly
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lit by the street-lamp outside shining on the window-shade; she was
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still sobbing slightly as i sat her down on the mattress, picking up
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a stray Country Road top (the softest material i had handy) and
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carefully wiping away her tears. she sat back on the pillows i'd
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stacked against the wall.
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`i'm sorry,' she whispered with only a bit of hoarseness in her
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voice, clutching the sleeve of the top. `i don't get drunk very
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often.' i sat back against the wall, next to her.
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`nonetheless, you do it very well.' she bit her lips and, briefly,
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glanced down in embarrassment. her head seemed to move naturally down
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to my shoulder and suddenly i found myself holding her, one arm over
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her right shoulder, the other under her left, stroking the downy
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fuzziness between her wings, feeling her sobs pushing against me.
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presently she disengaged and she said,
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`i can't stay for very long.' i hugged her close to me once more.
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`that's okay. as long as you can come back again.'
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<20> <20><> <20>
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