The Succubus's Silver Ch. 04

To be safe.

They'd play this song and dance out and when the evening was over- if they weren't wrapped up in the sheets- it'd be a pleasant little distraction that Chi could look back on fondly. It was a moment of time stolen from the jaws of whatever hell existed and had created her.

In the meantime, she paced outside of East Syracuse Lanes with the sharp tack of her low heeled boots punctuating her wavering heartbeat. Her blouse was going to get soaked in sweat even before Amy showed up- if she did at all. Maybe she wouldn't and Chi could just take the night off and forget this foolishness.

Why had she asked a cop of all people out? Cops were trouble, cops were observant and this one seemed particularly professional. It was always better to watch from a distance and fantasize, but damned if her nature didn't get the better of her. Dammed if it didn't want to take from her until there was nothing left of body heart and soul. . .

Chi pulled at the edges of her coat, fingernails digging in while she paced another circuit and tried to ignore the aching of her wings compressed against her back. This was a stupid fucking idea.

But it was too late. She caught sight of Amy in the corner of her vision pulling through the four way intersection. It was too late.

Too. Late.

Chi brushed her tendered bangs out of her eyes and straightened up, suddenly aware of the pea green Kia Soul that the sergeant was driving. Chi had been picturing something more substantial- a Camaro or a Mustang or something as powerful as she seemed to be. Maybe Chi was projecting what she thought a would-be butch lesbian should drive.

Then again maybe she was just nervously trying to piece together someone else's life from fragments she found online. Because that always worked out well.

When Amy rounded the corner Chi hesitated, actually felt herself suck in a breath and hold it. Between work and now Amy had traded in her stupid little bun for an elaborate pair of braids that started at her temples and snaked into her pony tail with overhangs on either side to frame her face- and those sharp blue eyes that'd drawn Chi in the first time they met. . .

She'd taken to wearing a dusty brown lambskin coat with a grey t-shirt and jeans that hugged her curves in a way that set Chi's mouth immediately watering. Then, to top it off, combat boots.

She wore her duty boots.

Chi laughed internally even as she offered Amy the most pedestrian smile she could. Everyone that she dated who worked in these spheres always seemed to find excuses to wearing their duty boots and it seemed Amy Laidlaw was no exception.

"Hey," Amy said lightly. She was already blushing, pensive. Her voice wavered. "So, uh, this is where I tell you that I don't do this very often. . ."

"Date women, or date at all?"

"Never and rarely, how's that?"

Oh boy. . . .Chi swallowed and spread her hands. This'd be the line she drew in the sand, then. "If it makes you feel better, I never try to hit on beautiful police officers."

Amy smirked faintly. "Too busy running from them, huh?"

Chi wanted to quip and tell her the truth but she wouldn't make this more awkward than it already was. "Your hair looks really nice. . ."

"Thanks. So uh, bowling?"

They glanced at the building almost in unison. Chi relaxed some and threw on a plastic smile, turning and spreading her hand out as if inviting Amy to lead the way. She was a succubus, dammit, she didn't have any reason to be nervous. Casual. She just needed to be casual. "How's your day going?"

"Uh, good. . . .good, thanks. Yours?"

"Better now."

"Yeah? Send off your course work for your next certificate?" They stepped into the bowling alley and were instantly surrounded by the sounds of low thrum of bowling balls running the lanes and smashing into pins along with sizzling burgers and fries. The sounds of a normal life doing normal things with normal people.

Chi drunk it in with half lidded eyes- only to catch Amy's glance. She smiled sheepishly and chuckled. "Yeah, I was gonna ask about a complementary back brace too so I can carry the book it'll go into."

When they got to the counter Chi tried to pay for both of them but Amy wasn't having it- just as well, really. A few minutes later at one of the lanes with their rented shoes on, they went through setting up their score sheets and for some reason she couldn't quite explain, Chi managed to resist the urge to use profanity for her name.

If she could've been any less like herself, she'd have probably been wearing a rosary or something. Not for the first time, she wondered how people managed to live like this, but when Amy went to pick up her ball she put it together- the way Amy's jeans hugged her hips and the slow, methodical roll she had to her body when she walked. . . .feline, graceful. A panther made from years of training and confidence earned through hardship.

Yeah, this was why people lived these mundane lives- so moments like watching a tall red head stroll forward could punctuate their boring existence. Chi leaned back in the chair, smiling privately. Of course she wouldn't dare break the fragile silence, but she'd appreciate it.

Fantasize about it.

As the ball rolled down the lane and Amy straightened, Chinnamani felt something run through her- a profound sadness that this would probably be the only time she could ever appreciate those curves. The instinct was there, but the complications of the mechanics of sex with a woman meant she'd--

"Hey. . ."

"Huh?" Amy was looking at her quizzically. Had she been staring?

"You uh. . . .your turn."

Chi cleared her throat. "Right, sorry. What was your score?"

"Strike."

Of course it was. Chi marked it down.

They went on in that awkward back and forth for most of the game, six frames in Amy mercifully broke the ice when she sat back instead of getting up for her turn on the lane. She crossed her legs, bobbing her knee as she considered Chinnamani.

When she spoke her voice was soft but intentional. Deliberate. "So what's Sin to you?"

"So," Chi grabbed a seat opposite hers. She just needed to act natural and this'd be okay. "You have imputed sin and personal sin. . ."

Amy slung her arm over the back of the chair. She didn't look impressed.

"Fuck."

"Commission and Omission are for personal sins- you either sin or you sin by not doing something, yeah? Imputed sin, I'm going to lay at the feet of society, though."

"How so?"

How far could she push this? She dampened her lips. Women liked smart people, right? "Ever hear of the Milgram experiment?"

"Isn't that the guy who shocked some people or something?"

"Yeah. He wanted to see how far people could be pushed when their actions were causing apparent harm to another person-- his researchers never told the participants that the person who was apparently being electrocuted every time they adjusted the dial was just acting. But they didn't tell the participants that they actually /needed/ to keep turning the dial higher. . . .it was always coached in 'this is important to the experiment' and nothing more.

"So you take the result that sixty four percent of the participants kept going even when the actor screamed out and pretended to fuc-- uh, to die. Milgram figured out people were all too happy to absolve themselves of responsibility and put blind faith in an authority that didn't even tell them why it was important that this person be fried."

Amy wrinkled her nose some. "So sin as a society issue, then. . ."

"Kind of? I think so-- you think about the little things nobody questions. Social norms and stereotypes that tell you that druggie might kill you and steal your sh- stuff or that big black guys are going to molest your daughters. . . .it puts up a lot of barriers to understanding, much less compassion. It's tribalism at its finest."

"What if some of those stereotypes exist for a reason? Not everybody shooting up in a back alley is just going to roll over and beg you for money to get their next fix."

Despite herself, Chi let the mask drop. "And not every black guy is going to take your white ass to the back of the Bangbus either."

Amy scoffed but something twinkled in her eyes.

"Okay, so come on. You've been a cop for a while, right? Tell me you've never been in a position to help some crack head get into detox and clean up his life--"

"Doesn't mean it works that way, though. There aren't many public assistance programs for that kind of thing. . ." She wrinkled her nose again. "There's barely enough money to pay for policing, much less anything else."

Chi spread her hands. "See? That's not your fault or mine, but we have a retributive justice system that doesn't care about the people it--"

"That's a bit broadly drawn, don't you think?"

She couldn't push this too far, even if she was able to keep up- or particularly cared about laws and justice. Her coin had never been about either; there was little room for it in her world. "Maybe, yeah, but I don't think it's wrong to want better for the world."

Amy smiled a touch at that and nodded a couple times. "Is that what it's like in India?"

"Beats me, I grew up in San Diego."

"Oh. . ." She said, crestfallen.

"Yeah, I'm afraid if you're looking for something exotic I'm probably not gonna be it-"

Amy raised a hand. "Let's. . . .let's not worry about that for now."

"Okay. . ."

And so the silence rolled in like a toxic fog, sapping the energy from their conversation and anything they might've had before Chi had decided to be a chicken shit. By the time they finished their tenth frame that spark she'd seen in Amy's eyes had dimmed but she was too polite to be honest; this had been a terrible idea. Both proposing and agreeing to go on a date.

It probably wasn't the worst thing either of them had ever done, but even before they turned in their shoes, Chi knew that they were probably going to part company.

It was for the best.

She opened her mouth to relay the idea when Amy turned on her and said. "Hey, uh, I need to get to work early tomorrow. Maybe we can take a rain check on that trivia?"

"You don't have to bullshit me--"

"I know I don't." She paused, lips pouted as if she was processing something sour. "I get the feeling your mind is somewhere else, and I don't want to be responsible for messing that up for you--"

"No, I--"

"I mean it," she said more firmly. "Maybe another time, but we'll definitely do the trivia thing. . ."

Chi plumped her cheek, her vacation to normality over, she let go of her mask entirely and shrugged it off. "If you want."

Amy nodded noncommittally, but before she could wander off Chi fell in step beside her to walk her back to her car. She could at least be polite about it, she decided.

"Do you like movies?"

"I guess, once in a while."

"There's this movie called "In the Mood for Love" where these two are married to others, but often get left alone because of their spouses' overtime hours. They wind up intersecting a lot of times, going to a lot of the same places and eventually they start talking to one another. . ."

"Why do I get the feeling this ends in an affair."

"Ooh, you're sharp-- close! They come to believe that their spouses are having an affair with one another, so they start roleplaying what they think their spouses might be doing with one another, but they keep it platonic. . . .they never actually do anything, even as they start developing feelings for one another."

When they got to the little SUV Amy popped open the door and turned, crossing her arms on the top of the door and hanging over it to regard Chi- to look down on her just slightly. "So what happened to them in the end?"

Chi rocked back on her heels. "The guy leaves, girl barely misses him when she gives chase. . . .guy comes back some years later looking to rekindle the old flame only to find out the apartment building's under new management and the manager doesn't know about anything. He asks after the woman and learns that some single woman and her son are renting the woman's old apartment-- he leaves." Chi smiled vaguely.

Sharp as ever, Amy refocused on her, That same sparkle in her eye. "But it was her, wasn't it?"

"Got it in one."

"What's that saying 'to thine own self be true'? Something like that. Sounds like they should've gone for it when they had the chance."

"Yeah. . ."

"In the mood for love, huh?"

"I am, yeah. Are you?"

Amy scoffed and blushed furiously. "I'm not at liberty-"

"You're too sober, you mean."

"That too. . . .hey, I'll see you at your stand."

"Sounds good," Chi lied. "Night, Amy."

The woman blinked, a brief flicker of confusion crossed her features.

"You're not the only one who can investigate people," Chi waggled her brow.

Just like that her demeanor changed, she edged into a smile. Maybe she liked that sense of competition and playful combativeness-- which meant Chi had completely fucked this up by handling things like a normal person. She shook her head as Amy got back into her car and drove off.

Didn't it figure.

Try to be 'normal' and find a woman just her style.

"God dammit," she muttered.

#

An hour later she was camped out at Wegman's supermarket in the deli section munching on the scraps of the 'make a meal' buffet that'd gone well past its freshness. It was a good substitute for her usual coping mechanism of eating a tub of ice cream and furiously masturbating in a public bathroom-- usually at the same time.

She was trading texts with her computer guy when he sent her a PDF of all the records she'd lifted from Mark's computer. Flipping through them between bites of salt potatoes and beef ribs, she got a better picture of why Janet married him in the first place. His financial picture was rock solid-- steady income, minimal expenses, good retirement options. . .

He was doing everything right by modern standards.

But the further she went back, the more she noticed a trend that he was in even better straights before two thousand and six. A quick search confirmed what she'd suspected-- they'd been married in oh eight. Presumably they'd been dating at least two years before they got married, so either he splurged on her or she'd demanded it out of him.

Another quick search through her paperwork turned up insurance records on the birth of one of the boys in the tail end of oh seven, just before they were married.

Chi leaned back looking at the record. "Janet, you little snake. . ." A cold smile warmed her lips. It was time to pay Mark a visit in person, it seemed.