I can only claim Mirella and any other original characters; Eve Levine and all other Otherworld characters belong to the talented Kelley Armstrong.
"Mirella is this a date?"
"Why? Does it feel like a date?"
Mirella knew perfectly well why it felt like one, or at least in theory she should have. We were sitting in a restaurant that was well out of our price range with only a bottle of Malbec and a fucking monogramed napkin between me and my absolutely not out on a date with, it's one hundred percent platonic what was the word the waiter had used? Lady friend. That's right my lady friend.
"You tell me, you're the one wearing a tight leopard print dress. "
For all my snarkiness I wasn't fairing much better, because a leather miniskirt and a pair of heels that I'd almost killed myself in were not really helping my cause at all. Neither was the fact that I just so happened to be wearing an obscenely sexy, black lace something or other thong from the semi annual sale at Victoria's secret that had made my twenty-minute subway ride cruel and unusual punishment with the way it kept riding up.
"It's ocelot print."
"Mirella I think you're missing the point here."
"It figures you'd accuse me of that particular indiscretion."
"Don't change the subject."
Mirella raised her eyebrow in that strangely elegant sexy way she did right before she had fractured my nose on principle for breaking into her apartment. And if I thought it was sexy I was merely appreciating her features on an artistic level. That little flip in my stomach was nothing. Or maybe gas? Yes, Eve Levine was not suffering from a sexual identity crisis because this all boiled down to an acute case of flatulence. All I needed was some Maalox and the looks Mirella was shooting at me over her wine glass would dissipate into nothing. The way I watched the way her fingers flexed, the curve of her neck. The way I watched her walk into that restaurant in that dress and how it had made me want to puke into the ridiculous sequined evening bag I'd brought with me, because goddamnit I felt as nervous as a 12 year old boy hiding in the bathroom with his mom's Victoria's Secret catalogue while his older sister screamed about needing the shower. So I did what any reasonable person would do, I drank.
"Do you want it to be, Eve?
"What?"
"A date, do you want this to be a date."
I answered her, honestly. "I don't know"
She shrugged.
"I think you're having some kind of allergy problems, your face is red."
I felt my neck sweat. She noticed everything, even when I'd had coffee in her apartment following my failed break-in attempt, I felt like Mirella's gaze was stronger than a fucking electron microscope.
"I, it's not allergies it's you actually. You make me red and nauseous. Like I need Tums and a vodka soda all at once."
She raised her eyebrow. It had been a shamefully long time since I'd been on a date, but I foolishly assumed that I could handle what had become a defacto lesbian outing. Apparently not.
"I mean in a good way."
"Your bedroom talk needs work Eve."
I rolled my eyes.
"Not all of us can have European accents Mirella, you could sit here and talk about tampon absorbency and it would still sound sexy."
Because she took her time with her words. They were precise and packaged even if they weren't always pronounced correctly. They were elegant. She was the perfect balancing force to everything I associated myself with. She was hard in places I was soft and vice versa. Because I liked the way my name sounded. It stayed there, the v sleepily resting against the roof of her mouth. She smiled at my comment, an easy soft smile, but there was a glint to it.
"Ah, so now I sound sexy."
That comment resulted in a lung full of Malbec and ten seconds of loud awkward coughing.
"Listen Eve maybe I'm lucky because I've gotten to a point I think, in my life, where I don't have any problems admitting that I'm attracted to you. Ten years ago, I would've done some self flagellation over it. But you're alluring, and I'm unattached. I don't see why it has to be complicated. You have nothing to be nervous about. This, it's just wine and food, nice dresses and- "
she shot a cursory glance at my attire "low cut silk blouses. We don't have to call this a date if that word is going to make you dry heave all night."
My shoulders loosened and I relaxed.
"What kind of flagellation?"
She played with the edge of the water glass before she spoke.
''The kind that comes from obsessing all the time about what everyone else would think. I almost did it so long that I started to forget what I was like before everything.''
I'd be lying if I said that I naturally exited the womb not giving a damn about what other people thought about me, but the truth was that at one point I had. It was always dicey, juggling what you wanted to be with what people expected from you. A war of attrition that left behind a lot of collateral damage, regardless of the winner.
"What changed?"
"You can't tell your child to be themselves at any cost, when you're letting other people, strangers, run you."
Mirella was fortunate, she was most likely skirting around her covens rules, tight roping on a razor thin blade like I'd been but the difference was she was doing it without appearing to break a sweat. With blood wards, and sexual tension directed towards female cat burglars.
"So whats you're deal. The background I ran on you wasn't very telling. Average coven, way below your skill level if you ask me, and they aren't exactly making a ton of social calls."
The last part was an understatement. From some of my contacts I'd learned that Mirella was the odd woman out. You'd think a group who is all about the protection of women, and feminine bonding would be less judgemental. But people have a way of transforming when they feel threatened.
"You tell me. Eve Levine"
"You're Italian."
"Mostly."
"But blood wards, not even Italian covens do them."
Her lips twitched. ''That's more than what 98% of our colleagues know. Go on.''
She was going to make me work this out. It had been awhile since I was faced with someone who offered me challenge. In the mediterreanean region Greece, Italy, and Albania had the longest history of spell casting but predictably Greece held on to the ancient rites and had a distinct dislike of latin spell books. The glimpse I'd had of Mirella's library quickly ruled out that possibility. Everything about her magic spoke of isolation, spells and practices that probably hadn't had revisions in centuries which really only left me with one option. ''Albanian.''
She smiled. "Order me the lamb" she stood just then, barely pushing the chair out, and as I watched her back I saw it there. The dress had a plunging, barely there back and I could see it etched out in sprawling ink over her tanned skin. I closed my eyes and tried to force away the sounds of bread baskets and wine bottles. I touched the back of my palm and the image was clear as day. I was tracing every inky outline, her back bare to me. And I just traced, my imagination filling in the gaps that her dress had left veiled in fabric. This time the whole design was there and I started from Mirella's shoulder to the top of her thigh. Eve. In that drawn out way of hers. My fingers moving back her hair. It was so simple, benign, Disney rated compared to the thoughts I'd had about Kristoff or anyone else I'd been attracted to. But Mirella's appearance with that quiet boldness of hers made it seem so illicit that she found me sitting there at the table flushed and mute.
"Eve?"
I reached across the table and lightly touched her wrist.
"Mirella, I think this is a date, but I need to go slow. "
"Anything you want Eve."
The rest of our dinner was surprisingly normal. I didn't know what going on a date with a woman, this woman who I'd tried to rob would be like. We talked about our kids, how we grew up. She made me laugh. Mirella had a strange sense of humor and she didn't change her affect but she made me laugh in that odd way of hers. When the check came I swiped it from her and there was no protest no objections just a gleaming smile and a tap to my shoulder.
"Desserts on me Eve."
I was doing relatively fine until she said that, then my head started swimming worse than my first hangover when I was 16. I followed her out of the restaurant and she touched the small of my back.
"Eve, I'm not going to maul you on the street. I'd like to, But I promised you slow, yes?"
"Right, but slow is relative Mirella."
"Mn it is isn't it."
That's what I'd been afraid of. What her version of slow was. Yet all the same I was so curious that it went against any desire for self preservation. It was also one of the better dates I'd been on. We went to her apartment.
The kiss happened in the kitchen. Her heels had long been kicked off and banished to a corner behind the couch and I could still feel the champagne effervescent in the tip of my nose. And it was nothing like a movie no cheesiness or hesitations, because Mirella was as she always is: subtle and explosive. And the non-kiss happened in the very spot right there next to the toaster; the natural pause in a sentence. For the life of me I couldn't tell you who'd started it. But it really didn't matter, because I'd remembered the important things: what it was like to feel the edge of the counter at my back, and the arching of my feet, the humming in my chest, and nothing else.
"I like your version of slow Eve Levine ."
I smiled.
"I was planning to make you dessert but getting naked might be less trouble."
I laughed, her face was serious but with Mirella all her jokes were in her eyes. She was a master at being feciscous. I propped myself up on the counter and just watched her. She was fascinating for no obvious reason. I watched the way she walked, the way she bit her lip while she was waiting for the stove to light. And then I went to work, and we made dessert in amicable silence. I made coffee as my contribution and as elegant as Mirella was there was no candlelit living room with acoustic music and roses. She handed me my food and my paper napkin and we sat side by side on her kitchen counter sharing a plate of sautéed pears with chocolate and honey.
"What no mood lighting?"
She stole a piece of food from my side of the plate.
"I didn't think it was your style. You like, honesty. For things to happen organically, even if that would ruin a fantasy."
"I think you're right."
She shrugged "I'm always right."
"Can I ask you something?"
She nodded and drank the rest of her coffee like a vodka shot. For some reason I was embarrassed by my own question. I was afraid of it. Of letting any inkling of what I had imagined in the restaurant out. That image had become so personal that I felt my face heat up at the thought of just mentioning it.
"The tattoo on your back, what is it exactly, the whole thing I mean."
"Come look."
And she stood in front of me and held her hair back, away from her zipper, wordlessly giving me all the permission needed. Yet I hesitated, I stared at that tiny black metal monster and held it between my fingers until the YKK mark was all but tattooed to my thumb. Then I dove in and pulled. She shrugged out of the straps until they rested in the creases of her elbows. The bulk of it was on her side with the wings spilling out onto her back. Some type of bird, the type you'd see on a flag. There were other things, a paragraph in Cyrillic, an odd looking symbol. I didn't analyze them, I memorized them with my eyes the tips of my fingers, my palm. Lips. I committed all of them to memory and I traced and drew invisible lines between her shoulder blades. Eve. And she said my name like I'd imagined she would. Eve. In that drawn out way of hers. And I traced and traced until the fabric slipped away. And then I walked to stand in front of her, the buzzing kitchen light overhead as my own metronome. We said nothing. But then the kissing and everything.
Fingers, hair, tattoos, scars. May I? Can I? And I should've known that Mirella would be in charge of everything. But I didn't give a shit that she'd played she knew I was going to end up like this, in her kitchen, reflected on her microwave door crazy and breathless. Because she had to have known. She had to know when she handed me that pastel paper towel and the grimoire that she was going to burn me up inside out. 600 Kelvin. 1000 watts. She knew. When she made me coffee, when she did every goddamn thing she did. The soy milk sugar espresso Malbec.
All of it was purposeful, she knew I'd follow her to her room that I'd stop and touch the wall on the way there and let her take my heels off. That I'd stop hearing the lights and the sirens but I'd never stop feeling that electrical undercurrent that made my blood vessels feel on the verge of bursting. That I'd be completely vulnerable and say her name and not care what I looked like. That in the end I'd almost laugh at the irony that my idea of going slow meant spending the night and whispering to no one in particular. "Slowness is relative isn't it?"
Only to be answered back with a kiss to my neck, and a bite on my ear. Drowning. The bangs brushed out of my face, hands wandering down my side. Unraveling. Pins and needles in my fingers. A breeze floating through the window, stale and smoggy. Mirella, everywhere.