Chapter 7: Seven

Elsa felt wet. Like an ice cube sitting in its own juices, she felt like everything was too hot around her. Her skin was too hot. The coat was even hotter. Lucas was too hot. She needed to shut her eyes and let it all out. But not in front of him; she bit her lips.

This was familiar. It’s been seven years, but the kiss of Delight always spread through her limbs like this. It was going to climb into her womb and spread her thighs with heat and fill her mind with dreams she hadn’t wanted in years.

I’m taking you to my place. All she could do was moan and imagine him pressed against her in the privacy of his bedroom. 

Fight it. Fight it. You’ve done this before. She dug her nails into her palms as the car lurched to a stop. He hurried out and rushed to her side, and before she knew it, he was on top of her, clicking open her seat belt and scooping her up in his arms, just like he’d done before.

The world spun as she saw bar signs and brick-faced houses. A car honked down the road, but she couldn’t focus on anything except for Kramer’s hardened chest and strong arms.

She barely noticed as he tiptoed across his living room. They moved slowly across the carpeted floor; she was vaguely aware of a leather couch and a flat screen, but none of that seemed as important as the man holding on to her. Would he fuck her? Her mind was torn between lust and pride.

“Almost there,” he whispered, his breath falling to find her. She reached up with her fingers and touched his scar, wondering if a lover had bitten him or something.

Elsa threw off the coat as soon as he plopped her onto his bed. Then she grabbed her outfit, ready to tear the white fabric to shreds and spread her legs and moan for him when Lucas caught her hands and shook his head.

But he’d stared at her ass. He’d kissed her back. How could he not want this too? Elsa closed her eyes as he pulled her into a hug.

“It’s alright. Just shut your eyes. You’re safe now.”

No. No. No. No. Baba will get me. He always found her whenever she’d snuck off with the product. And then he’d take off his belt and…

Elsa swallowed, feeling the tears balling up behind her eyelids. “He’s going to get me,” she whispered. “Please help me.” 

She struggled in his embrace, hitting his chest with her hands. Just as she was about to strike him with her head, she realized he was rubbing her back.

Shutting her eyes, she lost consciousness to the sound of his voice.

You’re safe now, Elsa.

 

When she woke up, she didn’t know what to think. Everything smelled like sweat and musk, heavy like the air after sex. Alarmed, she reached down and felt between her legs.

No. She took a deep breath. No one had sex last night, at least not with her. So why did she feel exhausted?

Elsa tried sitting up, and the room, the strange room she’d never been in, swerved to the left, forcing her to shut her eyes and take deep breaths. The night leaked into her mind: Mr. Bovver’s limp body, the submarine, being in Lucas’ big arms, the exchange on the car… the Delight.

She tore off the beige covers, revealing the white outfit she’d worn for the French. It was still intact. But where was her coat?

A door banged open outside the room, and her hand flitted down to where she would have hidden a weapon on her hip. But there was no knife to grab. She glanced around the room. Clothes on the floor, a dresser with a stock sticking out of one drawer, and a shuttered closet. There was nothing she could use.

Pressing her ear against the wooden door, she heard footsteps that seemed to come from a few rooms down. The sound of plates and the clinks of spoons and forks came up to her, and she eased her breath. It had to be Kramer.

There was a sweater on the floor, and she reached down and picked it up. A gray hoodie with no words, but it covered her up to the thighs fairly well. 

When she got to the kitchen, Kramer sat in a small chair reading a paper on a small table in a miniature sized kitchen. There were three bowls set on the table and a box of chocolate cereal towered over them.

“Good morning, Mrs. Chung.” He smiled at her, but it disappeared as she sat down and grabbed the box. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, shaking it over the bowl. For not touching me. For not taking advantage of me. For helping me.

He opened the fridge and pulled out a glass container of milk. “Would you like some?”

She nodded and watched him pour. Is this what normal felt like? “Do you have coffee?”

Lucas shook his head and made a face. “Can’t stand it.”

Elsa nodded slowly, not sure how that was possible. But she was too hungry to say anything else and plunged a spoon into the bowl. “Is your daughter around?” The kitchen was clean; there were a few colored drawings magnetically tacked to the bridge. One of them showed three people: a large pink bulge that was surely Kramer, a slender dark woman with curly strands of hair flying in all directions, and a smaller version of the lady in the middle. They looked happy.

Pointing at the drawing, Kramer smiled. “That’s her right there. I dropped her at school already.” 

“I see she takes after her mom,” Elsa said, suddenly thinking how other people compared her to her own mother. But that only brought about painfully blurred memories and her father’s stern face. She swallowed another spoonful of soggy cereal.

Kramer stood up and walked around to her. “You need to tell me everything, now. What happened last night? Why did we kill your French handler?”

Elsa licked her lips, remembering how she’d pulled him in for a kiss. How his stubborn lips had dissolved against her own. “I killed him because he was trading with Japan.”

“They’re in on this too?”

She nodded, munching on more food. “Baba worried about certain information being exchanged, and wanted me to grab the list.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a leather-bound book. “You meant his?” He spread it open. “I’ve been trying to figure out what it was all morning. But it’s nonsense. There is no language like this.” Each page was stacked with figures and curves and boxy lines.

“Of course not,” she said, taking it from his hands. “It’s in Baba’s own coded language. But it contains a list of all our agreements, our assets, and business allocations.”

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Kramer nodded, stroking his chin. “It was your purchase of loyalty?”

“Yes.”

“And he betrayed that by welcoming your enemy into his business?”

“Good job figuring that out, Mr. Kramer.” She reached for the bowl and drank the chocolate milk with a slurp. “Delight can only be sold where Baba decrees.”

“Was that what he used on you, last night?” He pulled a glass out of a cabinet and filled it up at the sink.

Taking the water, she said, “A small dosage. He must have been using it on me all this time, and I never noticed because part of the agreement meant sleeping with him anyway.” The sex must have concealed the effects.

Kramer blinked. “You fucked him?”

“I made business with him,” she said, downing the water in one go. “And now he’s dead. And Baba wants a new market. He wants New York.”

“And that’s where I come in?”

She nodded and stood up. “I need to get back to my café.”

“Mrs. Chung, I promised my daughter she could meet you.”

She froze and whirled around. “Now why the hell would you do that?”

Kramer’s face turned pink. “I told her you were a ninja.”

The scowl formed on her face before she could help herself. “I’m no good with children.”

“I figured,” he said, stepping towards her. “Someone as beautiful as you can’t be perfect at everything.”

They stood an inch apart. Elsa focused her eyes on his chin. It kept her steady. “Well, what is someone like you doing in this business? You seem like a good father.”

Before she knew what he was doing, he wrapped his arms around her. “Maybe there should be more people like me then.”

“You need to stop, Mr. Kramer,” she said, gritting her teeth. Her arms hung uselessly as he held her. Was this because of last night? Did she seem helpless now? She longed for her knife.

But he felt warm. And safe. Even if the kitchen were small; even if he lived in an apartment. He smelled more like home than anywhere she’d ever been before. He smelled like cereal and milk.

“You seemed so scared last night.” He put a hand on her head.

“I’m not scared of anything.” She felt it again. The tears. But why?

“I know,” he said, “but you seem so sad.”

“Give me back my knife,” Elsa whispered as something hot spilled down her cheeks. Her arms raised themselves slowly, circling around his broad back. “I can take you down in twenty different ways.”

“How about this way,” he said, lifting her up and placing her on his table so that her feet dangled on his either side. He pushed himself between her legs. “How about cementing our partnership?”

Elsa’s hands climbed up his back and cupped his face. She squeezed his sides with her legs and then stretched up and kissed him. This felt so real, she thought. He tasted like warmth and cinnamon; she felt warm and safe. No more drugs, no danger, no man slipping a disgusting hand up her legs. Only his rough tongue wrestling with her own. Kramer was home.

No. She pulled away and pushed him back. Then she grabbed her spoon, pushing the bowl onto the floor with a clatter, and held it against his neck. “Who are you?”

He was breathing hard. He put up his hands. “I told you, I’m your new partner.”

“No. Why would someone like you, someone so kind and… and…” She blinked and stepped away from the table, and he turned around to face her. “Why are you in this shit?”

Kramer’s face went grim. “My daughter was dying.”

“What?”

“She doesn’t know. But the cost of the treatments… I went to China to see a specialist. And your father approached me.”

“No,” she said, feeling the heat rise to her face. These feelings… it had to be the Delight. This had to be the Delight. It was still in her system. 

Her Baba was there. In her bedroom. She was crying. He took off his belt and raised it in the air. As she screamed that she loved him. And that she was sorry.

Elsa took a deep breath. “I’m going to go. Where’s my coat.”

Kramer pointed behind her to a rack by the door. She grabbed her coat and pulled it on, slipping her hands through the sleeves and letting the spoon drop to the floor. Her phone was in her pocket. 

“Come by the café in three days. Same time as before. Same way.” She pulled out Lin’s name. Then she turned back, eyeing the drawing on the fridge and the large man who stood in his kitchen staring at her with the same intensity. “I’ll see you then,” she said, and left his apartment, feeling the heat lodging deep within her womb.

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