Photographs of Graves

I had to get up early in order to change into proper clothing and shower, all my necessities still at Marion's apartment. When I walked in Ana was sitting at the kitchen table. Upon seeing me she blushed furiously and moved to say something, but I motioned for her to keep quiet.

“Don't worry about it. We're all good,” I insisted. I didn't pause to hear her reply, continuing upstairs into my bedroom, grabbing clothes, and beelining for the shower.

It was long. Steaming hot. Totally necessary.

I let out a long, heavy sigh. Anyone who said that cold showers were better for my health could blow me.

I considered taking the day off work. We were allotted three sick days unless we were in the hospital or dying, but those three days were rather precious. I hadn't really decided if I needed a break or not. I mean, I wanted one, but there was that big difference between want and need.

After stubbing my toe on the door frame and cussing violently before tripping into my bedside table, I really started considering if my day off idea was leaning more towards need. I needed to sleep. I really needed to sleep.

By the time I went back downstairs, rubbing persistently at my eyes with balled fists, Zoe had arrived and was having tea with Marion. She looked up at me, blue eyes giving me a skeptic appraisal before turning to Marion and asking, “Can I steal that one for the day? She doesn't know the difference between manicure and pedicure and the closest thing she's had to a spa day is cracking her back over the back of her chair.”

Marion shot me a glance and started laughing.

“Arden, between your eye makeup that you just smudged and how tired you look you resemble a raccoon. Take the day off. Mentor's orders.”

And that was how I got a day off.

A couple hours later I found myself in a creamery about a block down from Ann Frank's house-memoriam thing, tourists flooding the streets outside with cameras and awkward looking fanny packs. A lot of them were cyclists and were lodged at a youth hostile nearby. We stood in a monstrous line for ice cream, the hot sun breaking through the window and beating upon our backs. Zoe seemed unconcerned with the heat, leaning casually on a shelf in a blue top that showed off her assets and a matching white skirt that brushed a couple inches above her knees. She could have passed off as going to watch a tennis match or going to dance, I'm not sure which. She smiled winningly at some of the cuter men that walked by, collecting shy waves and hearts by the handful. Some days I would die to have her charisma.

The – er, creamer? Ice cream guy – at the head of the line gave us a warm smile, his voice thick with a rich accent and dark eyes. His smile was one of those that made women's panties spontaneously evaporate from their bodies, and more than that made all those who were with someone wish they weren't. While I gave a simple wave and made my order, Zoe got busy charming the hell out of the guy with that killer smile of hers. They might have gone on smiling at each other all day if there wasn't a line behind us, and we both walked off with cones of ice cream that we could barely hold – and in Zoe's case, a wink and a phone number written on a receipt.

Being friends with a babe. It was a hard life.

“That was fun,” Zoe said, a mischievous tinge to her voice. I snorted, trying to balance my heavy abundance of ice cream on my not so large waffle cone.

“I kept on expecting him to be gay,” I mused back. She stuck her tongue out at me, licking her ice cream cone. I honestly think she might have gotten ice cream just be be provocative. Do you know how sexual of a food ice cream is? If handled right, some one might come up and ask you if you'd like to film in a porno.

And someone did. I'm not even kidding. Zoe shook her head, laughing, and batted the erotica recruiter away with a batting eyelash. Oh, Zoe. She might not have been a model, but she had it where it counts.

We walked past the Ann Frank house – being Jewish, Zoe tended to avoid any holocaust memorials like the plague – and she got in the car and drove me to a place called The Elysian Fields. By then the giant mound of ice cream had disappeared into my stomach, all other remnants being the sticky residue on my mouth and hands. I licked these up with a complete lack of ladylike grace, and when Zoe gave me a reproachful look I even added little sucking sounds.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Something you've never heard of. It's called a spa,” she gave me a cheery smile. I snorted.

“Hells bells, kill me now before I embarrass myself.”

“Too late, we'll just have to make due. Maybe you'll even learn something along the way.”

We walked up to the building that resembled something between a water park and the outside of a UFO. I waited for the doors to open with some sort of gas and little green men to walk out with probes and towels. No one came out but a bodacious blonde woman that had proportions that were as close to Barbie's as was physically possible without her falling over due to the weight of her ass and boobs. She wore a gray dress that clung to her curves and shoes that made me wince just from looking at them. She teetered on the small points that protruded from her heels and smiled with wide, plump red lips as she let us into the building. Her hair was straight and glossy in the way models for shampoo commercials envied.

I had died and entered a world of beautiful people. I still looked the same, my boobs still an A cup and my skin still pale, so this must be Hell.

They kicked the dead carcass of my self-esteem once more by leading Zoe and I into a room and asking us to strip. I turned red as the beautiful people watched me take off my clothing, holding white towels and plastic smiles. I bet their boobs were plastic, too.

“Zoe, why the hell did you bring me here?” I hissed in a whisper, eying the plastic women with distrust. Zoe punched me in the arm, already fully undressed. She flipped her hair back over a bare shoulder, leaving an image that, if I happened to have a penis and a fondness for women, would have been kept in my room next to my sock drawer.

I think the world was out to turn me lesbian. I was a guy with a huge libido in a past life, I swear to god I was.

I got naked and but on a towel in the same second. Zoe smiled at me, wrapping a towel around her like a dress.

“Well hello, gorgeous,” she said in her best New York accent. Her mother being from New York, it was pretty damn good.

“Stop patronizing me.”

“Whatever you say, hottie.”

“Bitch.”

“Love you, babe.”

I went in with a pessimistic view, the plastic women filing in around me, but an hour and a gorgeous male masseuse later I left feeling a lot better. Zoe had, as expected, gotten the number of hers, while
I left without even the name of mine, but they got quite an amusing experience while I told Zoe about the previous day's events with Ana.

She nearly got her back broken she was laughing so hard. I blushed furiously. Thanks, Zoe.

My day off ended naked in a secluded hot tub with Zoe, who was lounging back in front of a jet. I'm not going to lie, at first the feeling of being naked in a hot tub freaked me out a bit. Water was going places I didn't feel it was supposed to go. About this time Graves messaged me and I explained the situation, and he quickly replied asking for the address.

I laughed with Zoe, and we lounged back. Male free, worry free, and clothing free. It was surprisingly relaxing.

“So, you freaked out yesterday?” Zoe asked. Her tone turned more serious, and I knew she was talking about when I was with Graves.

“Had the dream again, yeah.”

“Did you tell him?”

“No.”

She chewed pensively on her lower lip, kicking lightly in the water.

“You're going to have to tell him, you know.”

“I know.”

“If you don't you might lose him.”

“I know.”

“He's worried about you.”

“Dammit, I know Zoe.”

We were silent for a long time. I could feel the tension coming back, and I slipped under the surface of the water so that only my eyes and ears remained exposed to the air. Bubbles popped out around my face and rose to the surface, breaking on the spinning water.

“You really want this to work, don't you?” she asked. I cast a glance around before pulling my head up. I leaned heavily against the wall of the hot tub with a sigh.

“I don't know. I think so. I'm just still pissed as all hell about the drug thing. I know I shouldn't be, but I am. He's great. I care a lot about him. I just... I don't know.”

“You have every right to be pissed off, Ari,” Zoe replied. Anger flashed across her face, and I watched it flicker in her blue eyes. “I would have killed him.”

“Fuck, Zoe. What do I do?”

“Either get out or fix it. You've gotta do one or the other.”

Get out or fix it.

That's an ultimatum.

I was still thinking about it when we got dressed, and I was trying to forget when we were getting in the car. Zoe drove quietly and I stared out the window, thinking.

My phone buzzed with a little jingle that startled me out of my pensive state. I clumsily pulled it free of my pocket and glanced down. A knot twisted in my throat and I clicked on the receiver, quietly saying, “Hello?”

“Hey babe, how was your day off?” Graves asked cheerily. “We never got to talk today, want to meet at the coffee shop in an hour or so?”

I hesitated for a moment. “Sure.”

“And day off?”

“Fun. It was fun.”

“Good. I'll see you soon, okay babe?”

“Okay.”

“Hey, Murph. I love you.”

“Love you, too.” But I still don't know if I trust you.

I hung up the phone with a heavy sigh.

Get out or fix it.

This is some scary stuff.