CHAPTER 11: The Good Part.
We screeched to a halt in front of her building, sweating hard. Erin was shaking bits of window glass from her hair, as I tried to feel the extent of the damage from the gash on my face. I turned off the car, and the sudden silence was punctuated by the ticking of the cooling engine. I reached into the back seat, carefully picking around the exoskeletons and carcasses, until I found an old shirt, which I proceeded to tear into strips, dabbing away the blood on my face.
“My God! Are you all right?” asked Erin.
“Yeah. Fucking claw shrimp. I hate those bastards.”
“I’ve never actually seen one up close. I mean, I’ve seen them on the video feeds, but…”
“Now you know what an entire horde of them look like, especially when you enter their turf.”
Erin looked down. “I so need a shower. Looks like you do, too. Come on inside.”
We stepped out of the car, and stuck in the rear car door handle was a still twitching leg, trying after ripped from its body. Growling, I crushed it against the car door with my boot. So much for my new paint job, I thought.
We stepped up to the front door of her building, and Erin submitted to the retinal scan and voice print. We were soon in the elevator, going up, up, up. “How far up do you go?” I asked.
Erin blushed, and said, “I own the penthouse. It was a gift from my father.”
The penthouse? Why did this broad come all the way downtown if she can afford a place like this? Maybe she had already tried some others. Let’s face it, L, you know some things others don’t. The elevator door hissed open, and we were inside her apartment. The walls were made of glass polymers, and we were high above most other buildings. I could see the City stretched out before me like a tumor. You could almost see it twitch. Erin pressed a button on the wall, and the sight of the City mercifully faded from view as the windows polarized. “Come on,” Erin said, leading me to the living room. It was an opulent affair, large couches and expensive Asian rugs. There was a side bar, where she picked up a decanter, and poured out a dark red wine into two glasses, handing me one. I slung my coat over the arm of one of the couches, and gladly took it. “You settle in, while I clean up,” she said, moving off into one of the other many rooms.
I sat, and took in all the details of the place. The apartment was mostly white, minimalist without being stark, with a neo-Asian flavor. I noticed a Noh mask on one wall, and an abstract painting opposite, sort of a Pollock-meets-Duchamp adventure. I stood to look at it more closely.
“I had an idea,” Erin spoke up behind me. I turned, and saw her there, a towel wrapped around her lithe body. “Why don’t we clean up together?” She let the towel slip down past her
The Editors would like to apologize again for the intrusion into this Epic Saga/Romance, but they were just looking at http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/storytelling/archives/sex_scenes/index.html and decided that the following sex scene in “LMNO-PI” conveyed no new information concerning the characters, save for the specific measurements and shapes of certain anatomical body parts of both main characters. Seeing as how such a scene did not contribute to the main story arc, The Editors have decided to delete the scene. In addition, the over-use of the word “member” to describe the human penis, and use of phrases such as “dripping flower petals” struck The Editors as overly poetic and ultimately, not in a style suitable for such a story. And who wants 25 pages dealing with one sex scene, anyway?
collapsed to the bed, as Erin lit two cigarettes, and passed one to me. “Where did you learn how to do that?”
“Years of practice. I’m surprised by your flexibility.”
“Well, I used to by a gymnast.” Erin curled up against me, our sweaty bodies cooling in the air-conditioned room. She smiled.
“Looks like we’re going to need another shower.”
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