It is the last fiery gasp of summer 2009, and it is too hot to move. I am a child of the desert, of the dry Bakersfield heat, and ninety-five degrees is almost comfortable, but humidity makes me sweat; it makes me sticky; it makes me miserable. I throw my shirt across the room and sprawl in bed, over the covers. The fan beside my bed sweeps its meager breeze up my chest, across my face, and I close my eyes.
By the time I caught my breath, Rio was laughing quietly to himself, still holding my hands as he watched me in his half-shy, half-knowing way. “What’s the matter?” he teased. “Never kissed a boy before?”
I licked my lips, tasting the memory he’d left behind. “A couple times, just to try… but it was never like that.”
His eyes lit up at the compliment, and he leaned forward, whispering against my cheek. “You like me that much?”
“Maybe.” I closed my eyes again, letting myself nuzzle back and slip my hands around his waist.
One day, long ago, in an era now lost beneath the sands of time, a fledgeling wizard by the name of Snickt remembered the stories his grandmother once told, of her grandfather, a hero and a decorated soldier in the Great Rebellion. Growing tired of his studies, he went into the attic and opened the chest of his great-great-grandfather’s things. His ancestor must have been a modest man in his old age, for he was no ordinary soldier, nor even any ordinary hero; young Snickt recognized in that chest the armor and weapon of Feared Erdrick the Kingslayer, the greatest terror of his generation, and indeed of any living memory.
They said that he was part demon, that he had slain even great and noble silver dragons and forged armor from their hides. When finally the last of the old royal line lay exterminated at his feet, they said, he had spat in disgust, turned away, and walked into legend.
And it was true. Even now, the Rebellion turned into a new royalty for over a hundred years, Erdrick’s armor still glittered, bright with malice and enchantment.
In the second room Snickt visited, even before the first combat, he found a chest with a fully-loaded Wand of Wishing. He wished for blessed scrolls of charging, blessed +2 silver dragon scale mail, and blessed fireproof +2 speed boots, then recharged the wand and made some more wishes, for a blessed rustproof +2 helm of brilliance, a blessed +2 Magicbane, and +2 blessed fireproof gauntlets of dexterity. For storytelling purposes I decided that this should be his “starting” equipment.
The fabled Magicbane gleamed in his hand, elemental chaos black. Blood rushed in his head, and he heard the voice of Anhur calling to him.
“Serve me,” it said. “Go forth into the Dungeons of Doom. Bring to me the Amulet of Yendor and you shall become more powerful than Erdrick even dared to dream.”
And Snickt knew then his destiny. For nearly a week he prepared himself and said his few goodbyes. Then, one evening, he looked up at the bright, full moon for the last time, and he slipped into the unending, subterranean night. (Warning: Spoilers ahead!)
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.
It begins, of course, with a kiss, with the faintest press of my lips between her eyes, and then another, just below the line of her hair. My hand splays across the small of her back, and I hold her there, hold her closer, wanting the moment to last forever. She’s intoxicating, warm and comforting, and her scent fills my lungs, her soap and shampoo, her skin and her hair, a drug wound up tight around that primitive, pleasurable part of my brain.
The scent is called Jacqueline, and I have missed it for far too long.