State.”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“Ok. Sorry for bringing it up. That’s my fault. I’m too eager sometimes. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“I know.”
“I’m frightfully sorry for bringing up a bad subject. I only want to help.”
She looked at Dorian with pity. It didn’t feel good.
“I don’t need help right now.”
“Grief is tough. You’ll go through the stages, and the quicker the better on these things. That’s why I’m here for you.”
“I know.”
“Ok, lecture over.” She patted the table with both hands. “Sorry.”
“No problem.” Dorian fished for a way to change the subject. He wanted to tell Tara everything, but it wasn’t a good idea for her or him. He needed to talk about something else, or it would all blubber out. “So what’s your favorite movie?” he managed.
“Ah. A hard question. Favorite movie?” She took a long drink from her beer as her eyes stared straight at Dorian until he was sure they were drilling through him. “My favorite movie is Star Wars. The first one.”
“You’ve been cheating. That’s practically number one on I-M-D-B.”
“I-M-D-B?”
“Internet Movie Database. IMDB. It has every last thing about every movie ever made. You would go crazy for it.” He took a drink. “Let’s play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s a game where you need to find a connection between an actor and Kevin Bacon. But you have to do it through a series of movies and/or actors. Ok?”
“Ok.”
“You know who Kevin Bacon is, right?”
“Yeah. Hang on though. It’s my round. Explain when I get back.”
Two fresh beers appeared on the table. Dorian felt numb, but mamaged to launch into a slurred explanation. “So for example, you say ‘Kate Beckinsale’. So I go. ‘Ok. She was in Much Ado About Nothing with Michael Keaton. In turn, he was in She’s Having a Baby with Kevin Bacon.” He nodded, looking for understanding. “So that is two degrees of Kevin Bacon because there are two actors from Kate Beckinsale to Kevin Bacon. Get it?”
“Ok. How about Kevin Kline? Two Kevins.” Tara laughed.
“Well, let me think.” He took a deep drink, the beer feeling good. “Here goes. Kevin Kline was in …” His brain felt fuzzy. “Ok, let’s start somewhere. He was in Chaplin. Ok, so, then…Marisa Tomei, right, was also in Chaplin. Ha. Then, she was in My Cousin Vinny with Joe Pesci of course. And he was in JFK with Kevin Bacon. That’s a Bacon number of three.” He smiled, holding onto his beer tightly. “Your turn. So, Jennifer Aniston. That’s a fairly easy one.”
“Oh shit.” He wasn’t sure if her words were slurred or not, but he was sure his were. “So, Jennifer Aniston was in Picture Perfect,” she said.
“And?”
“What do you mean ‘and’? Kevin Bacon was in Picture Perfect too. That’s why you said it was easy.”
“He was? No, I was joking. I thought it would be tough.” He laughed.
“You bet.”
They kept playing and drinking. Dorian grabbed the table, catching himself from sliding under, but knocking an empty beer glass spinning across the table.
“I’ll help you,” Tara said, and came around to his side of the booth and sat down. With surprise, Dorian realized they were holding hands. Had he done that? He squeezed her hand to test it out. She squeezed back. “So who’s the next actor?”
There he was, looking into her big shiny eyes, right next to him. He needed to stop the swaying for a moment. So beautiful and delicate, her face. He should touch her little pointed nose, run his finger along her jaw and up onto her cheeks.
Her mouth spoke, smiling, her lips pouting ever so slightly as she formed words.
“The next actor is—“ Dorian said, and leaned forward. “—I need to whisper it.” His mouth stroking against her hair and ear. He felt her mold into him. “The next actor is Sylvester Stall-own-eh.”
She pulled back laughing. “Is that how you say Stallone in Italian?”
“Yes,” he said. And he leaned forward again, his mouth pushing up gently against hers, feeling the soft silk of her lips. He opened his mouth slightly, her body against him. As he gently kissed, the room fell away leaving a soft tongue, the taste of another person. The feeling lasted a long time, until he gasped for breath. “Wow,” he said. Tara giggled.
“Another round?” she said. “I like the way the previous ones have gone.”
“Sure.” He wasn’t sure about the alcohol, but he didn’t want anything to end.
“I think it’s yours.”
“Got it.” He stood up, accidentally tossing a chair to the ground, then clumsily picking it up again. He looked around. No one seemed interested.
He returned with two beers. “I think this will be the last round for me.” He focused his eyes on Tara for as long as he could. “You’re beautiful,” he said. She made him feel good, he thought. She loved movies. She had been a friend of his sister’s. Not to mention, he didn’t ever get girls, especially not like this.
“You are a pissed little boy. But thank you again,” she replied.
“Thank you grandma,” Dorian said.
A little later, they stumbled in Tara’s door, holding on to each other to prevent falling. Inside, Tara steered Dorian to her bedroom where they collapsed to the bed, kissing. She pulled his t-shirt over his head while he pulled her jacket off. They kissed again, Dorian welcomed her body. He pulled her blouse apart button by button and kissed her belly-button. She unbuckled his jeans and pulled them down. They tumbled as she slipped the jeans over his feet. Twisting backward, Tara reached into a drawer and pulled out a condom.
“I have everything we need,” she said as her hand touched his underwear.
“Do you really make love so quickly?” he said.
“What?” Tara replied.
“Nothing.”
“Do we make love so quickly? This is Britain, sweetheart. Getting pissed and shagging is the national pastime.” Dorian pulled back, shocked. Tara put her hand on his and kissed him softly on the lips. “I was joking. It’s alright. Come here.”
Dorian couldn’t say no any longer. His entire drunken being wanted Tara.
Dorian rubbed his head as he twisted out of the rumpled pillow. He could feel a throbbing ache in his temples. He looked around the room, momentarily disoriented. The sun shone in the window. Under the sheets he saw that he was naked. Next to him, Tara slept soundlessly. The previous night jumped back into his consciousness. He looked around the floor, spotting his underwear. Guiltily, he jumped out, and pulled them on before climbing back under the covers. What had he done? He tried to fall asleep again, but all he could do was toss and turn. Giving up, he braved his headache and went into the bathroom. He showered, scrubbing and polishing away the night before until his skin shone red. He was clean again. He really didn’t want to go out there into the bedroom again.
He pulled a towel off the rack, dried himself and wrapped it around his waist and stole into the living room, where he climbed under the blanket on the couch. Within moments he was asleep.
“What are you doing here?” Tara said.
Dorian felt himself being shaken gently. “I’m sleeping.”
“I know, but why aren’t you in my bed?”
“I didn’t want to disturb you.”
“Stop joking around. Of course you weren’t disturbing me. I like you next to me.”
“Maybe I’m not used to love-making with someone I met two days ago.” He rolled over on the couch.
“Here, let me sit,” she said, helping him up. She wrapped her arms around him. “There. Make it all better. Welcome to London.” She kissed him on his temple.
“I have to get online, talk to some people.”
“Well, let’s have a little breakfast. Then I’ll go running and to class.”
“Ok.”
“You really are cute,” sh
e said, but there was a bit too much pity in her eyes.
USER Code ENTERS CHANNEL
Striptz: welcom back Code. no been seen you for a bit.
Code: busy is all
Early Bird: u’alll bizy all the time. and everyone weird. what happening code?
Striptz: don’t be stupid. ev’thing normal
squelch: fuck u!!!! Ready to kick ass.
Code: Bird, what do you mean weird?
Early Bird: dunno about rest o u. I see threats.
Albu: spit it out. we’ve all seen it. over on the downloading channel they say that servers are disappearing. people not talking. we’ve seen a little of that. i’m going move my rig I think.
Code: are you serious? that bad?
Albu: look at what happened to you.
70mm: bunch of fraidy cats.
nil8: no doing nothin’ yet, comrades. the oliver stone tonight. time to gear up. Woo hoo!
squelch: I’m in all the way. ready to win.
Code: with me back, u going to have serious trouble big guy.
squelch: bought a new DSP subunit. improves pixes and speed at same time. busted!
nil8: you’re suffering from your prostate, not your pixes squelch
Code: I’m squared away, ready to go.
70mm: happy hunting
Code: going to do some other stuff. will be lurking.
Albu: like usual.
USER Code IDLES
Dorian clicked to a different window. He had to find a new host for his movies. He needed to reload the backup. Maybe that compromised server at AT&T was the best place, or should he use the one at GE? Much weaker firewall there. It would still be tricky to get the data in and out, but that’s what he had to work with. He tapped a few commands, logging into the servers. Clearly AT&T had a lot of free disk