Cheater
Rio started… happening, I guess… in my life, a few times a week, sometimes with Jacqueline, sometimes alone. Maybe he’d always been there, curled up in that particular way of his, and I’d only just started noticing. Either way I was always happy to see him, and he always had some new, unpredictably wonderful fascination to share.
One night at Pilades, he slid up beside me and took a seat on the edge of my table, smiling just a little too much. I tried to ignore it, but he tugged insistently at the top of my newspaper, like a kitten who’s done something endearingly naughty and very much wants you to know. “Hello again,” he said, practically singing with happiness. “The Times? That’s a very good paper. I approve. And I have something to show you.”
“Rio, you are a strange, strange human being.” I folded my paper back together, shaking my head. “What do you want?”
Still smiling, he stuck out his tongue at me, then nodded over to the pinball machine. “I think she likes me.” The Billionaire’s Club listings began to scroll, glowing orange in the dim corner of the room.
I ran over to look. The first score wasn’t mine anymore. Three letters laughed back at me. R. I. O.
He’d beaten me by exactly a hundred points.
“You beautiful fucking bastard.” I glared at him as he padded over, his hands clasped innocently behind his back. “I gotta fix this.”
Rio dug through his pockets and handed me a fistful of quarters. “I thought you would,” he said, smiling a little wider. “I wanted to watch you play.”
The machine loves me. Most machines do, but there’s something particularly about this one that scratches me in just the right places, something about its ramps and lights and all its moving parts that mixes with the synthesizer and pulls me into its frantic, exhilarating logic. I tried to ignore Rio as he leaned against the wall behind me, watching, waiting for me to sink into that magic place between thinking too much and not thinking enough, between playing the game and letting the game play you.
It took me a few dollars to get there. Most of the time it’s not so hard, but before Rio walked into my life, I held a hundred thousand points over anyone else on the board. Having competition makes it harder, but when it’s just right, that’s only part of the thrill. I felt the machine coming to life beneath me, brighter, louder, and more seductive with every snap of the paddles. He wasn’t going to beat me; I would make sure of that.
Over the noise of the game I heard Rio thinking aloud, half amused. “Jacqueline says you want to fuck me. Or maybe she said you want me to fuck you. I forget exactly.”
I choked, missed a beat, and hit the paddles a quarter-second late. My last ball drained, five thousand points low. “Cheater.” I glared at him.
He ran his fingers through his hair, leaning close to offer me an innocent little smile. “I was just saying, you know. It doesn’t mean anything, unless you say it does.” Those beautiful blue eyes caught the lights from the machine, gleaming in the darkness, daring me to answer.
I pushed him away without the satisfaction. “Gimme another quarter, asshole.”
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