Chapter 13: One of the Dark Pces of the EarthThe sed lo retionship I ever had sted three months. Her name was Akiko. She was this cool Japanese chick, a professor up at the uy. After about a year into my new life, into being this corporate climber and rising young star, giving the real, normal retionship thing a try seemed a good idea. Julia had been fun and all and sted nearly two months, but it wasn’t what I’d call a retionship, you know? She was gone, anyways, after Tom and I had had ht with her.

  So: Akiko, God. She was brilliant, that kind of blistering intelligehat makes a woman dead sexy. And I’ll be ho: the Japahing didn’t hurt either. She reminded me of Sakura. The way I took so much pleasure in fug Akiko every which eaks volumes, I think. I liked it rough with her. I liked being in trol with her. Normally I’m pretty chilled about what happens in bed, but not with Akiko. It’s what did us in, iend. Looking back, I see how unfair I was to that woman, really. I elled way too muresolved issues into that goddamionship. No wo didn’t work out.

  But it’s not like I was eo bme. I was only twenty-three for chrissake and still trying to figure out who the hell I was now that I’d been thrust into the so-called normal world. I was youhan her by more than a decade, the same age if not youhan some of her grad students. There’s no way it could’ve ever worked out, and she must’ve known that.

  All this was before I hit Indigo Ted all, still w off my debt to Tahir by bartending and w door as a bartehat’s how I met Akiko: she was on a hen night, some messy girls’ thing with penis-shaped straws and sparkly hats, and some assholes got a bit touchy-feely with the bride-to-be, got a bit racist with Akiko and her friends.

  Let’s just say those guys were nid apologetic by the time I got through with them. Afterwards, Akiko broke away from her gang to say thank you. Thank you turned into a drink. That drink turned into… more.

  And fuck me, but did she ever give great head. I’ve never known a girl so enthusiastic to go down on a guy. She brought a real artistry to the job, know what I mean? And the sexiest thing was that she seemed to get off on it herself. By the time I’d return the favour she’d be soppi, and sometimes all it took was a single, cat-like lick at her pussy t on her first shuddering asm.

  But if I had to pick out ohing I took away from that retionship--ohing she really did for me, Akiko--it was a love for reading. Akiko taught English lit, specialized in something or other with a healthy side of whatever critical theory was fashionable and marketable that month. Post-post-historicism, she’d say, and smile wryly. Or Neo-geheory, critical pushback against the liberalism of the past decades. She also told me that with a wry smile. She expined almost everything about herself with a wry smile, as though everything she told me was a subtle joke only she really uood.

  And she might’ve liked her men young, but she loved her literature old. Beowulf, Chaucer, Shakespeare. You ever have someone softly whisper bits of the terbury Tales into your ear--while gently riding your cobsp; It’s sexier than it sounds. To this day, I ’t lie in bed on an April m and listen to the raily falling without growing hard.

  In any case, you know those long Sundays that just seem to go on for ever? The ones spent lying together in bed, having slow sex and talking about nothing and dozing off and having sex again? We’d lie twisted amidst the bedsheets and she’d read out ss of whatever was at hand, I’d listen aly stroke her small breast rip her thighs and pull her bato my embrabsp; To this day, ss leap bato mind at the oddest times, literary words forever mingled with the st of jasmine and the faded impression of her smooth skih my touch.

  “And this also,” I whispered beh my breath, watg the headlights trailing us in the rear-view mirror, “has been one of the dark pces of the earth.” Funny ops into your head when you’ve got the hired agents of a megalomaniacal magnate chasing your ass. Especially when that ass in wearing satin and ce.

  K didn’t seem all that perturbed by the pursuit. She didn’t ge her speed or make any sudden turns or anything. Her grip stayed rexed on the wheel as she drove us along the outskirts of the city tre. Her eyes, however, were bright and alert a a careful eye on our followers. The asshole behind us was good . . . but not that good. Uhe false neon dawn of passing shops aaurants, the car was easy enough to pick out. Sure, he didn’t ride our bumper but the traffic was light a some of those ers just a little too sharply. After a couple kilometres and a few unnecessary but inspicuous ges in course, the car was still behind us. It wasn’t just a fluke.

  “You going to lose him?” I asked.

  “In a Honda Civic?” K answered, cog an eyebrow. “Besides, I do not believe we o worry.”

  Now it was my turn to raise a finely-plucked eyebrow. “K, we’re being fug followed by fug assassins. I’ll be ho: I’m a little worried. What’s there not to be worried about?”

  She shrugged. “If the people in that car are indeed agents of Mr. Steele,” she said, “and they truly believed that Mr. Saunders was in this car, they would have driven up beside us a few kilometres back, especially as we passed through one of those quite industrial areas. They would have overtaken us and opened fire on this car until everyohin it was dead.”

  I gave a low whistle.

  “The fact that they have not shot at us yet leads me to believe that they are merely following us on suspi or whim. Hopefully they will soon realize that there is nothing more to this car than a middle-aged woman and her young niece.”

  “Huh.” Could it be this crazy dy disguise gig was actually w? Go figure. “So, where we going then?”

  Auntie fshed me a big smile. She tapped the dashboard of the car, indig the battery level. “Well, we’re not going to reach the iight, I’m afraid. eeds a charge. You hungry, dear? Let’s grab some munchies a iel room. How does that sound?”

  “Sounds great, Auntie!”