CB: Cat and Mouse, -XVII-

Royal Flush. His hand.

"Ok, so what were you doing on that casino?"

I bite my lower lip. I did agree to this after all. I glance up at him, to see if he's serious. The look in his eyes in the flickering television glow says that he is. I should've kept this little obsession to myself. Crossing the two, that with him, I mean, never does any good. Crossing disciplines rarely does, for anyone, least of all me. "Casino?" I ask, and I can hear myself stalling.

"Where we found you, two years ago." He continues to look across at me evenly.

"I owe a lot of money," I say, glancing over at the commercial that's on. There are a lot of them, it seems. No where to turn to there. I look back at him and finish what I plan to answer of his question. "Ricardo, the guy who owned it, caught me and knew that, so he used it against me." I look away from his eyes. Something about them is too prying. I don't want to be any closer to him right now… not like this…

"That wasn't an answer," he says in a soft voice.

"You want to know more, win another hand," I say, glancing at him challengingly. To his credit, he doesn't shrink from it.

"Deal the cards," he says, looking across the spread out cards on the bed and into my eyes. And he doesn't argue with my decision. Pushing me, but not too much, I guess. I can handle that. I gather the cards up quickly, afraid to look at him all of a sudden. I know this feeling. It's the same one that I got when I looked at Julia across her cigarette.

I bet this is how she felt when he asked her all the same sorts of questions he's asking me now. I bet she felt just as scared of answering them… of having someone know her that well.

He reaches into the pocket of his jacket, I see out of the edge of my vision, and scoops up a pack of cigarettes, politely offering me one.

But then, maybe she was a different type of person than I am.

I take the cigarette, shuffling the deck.

Maybe Julia was comfortable with this sort of personal space invasion.

He flips open his lighter, and instinctually, I breathe in to catch the fire on the tobacco. He lifts his cards. He sets two down, and takes a cigarette for himself, eyes watching me so closely that I'm half afraid to breathe.

I keep the cards in my hand, and deal him two.

Four of a kind. Queens. My hand.

I'm not.

"So, ask." He leans over and offers me the ashtray from the bedside table. In response I nod slightly and tap the ashes from my cigarette into it before reaching down to scoop up the cards from between us.

And I ask the first thing that comes to mind. I think it's what he wanted out of this. Honesty. Spontaneity. "Was she comfortable with you asking so many questions?"

"She?"

I glance at him over the cards as I gather them up again to reshuffle. He taps the ashes from his cigarette into the small plastic ashtray and lowers his eyes a moment. He knows who I mean. He has to.

"Not really." He pauses, taking a deep breath. I can feel the expansion of his chest as he does so, and the warmth of the cigarette that he stubs out in the ashtray finally. "She got used to it after a while."

I'm tempted to ask another question, "Go ahead," he says before I think to. I glance up at him. "I know there's a second half to this question."

"Does it mean you'll answer?"

"Go ahead and ask it."

"That's not an answer." He takes out another cigarette and lights it, puffing it and glancing up at me, just as pointedly as I did him. This game of poker is much more complex than just cards. I swallow the lump in my throat. "Does that mean… do you think…" I start, twice. The words are wrong.

He sits patiently, watching me with waiting curiosity.

"And me?"

For a long moment there is nothing. The silence and the flickering light of the television in the darkened room. The glow from outside, the one coming through the drawn shades, is fading and the room feels closer, more intimate. He doesn't say a word, and the colored glow on his face looks like some modern art piece.

"Well, aren't you going to answer?"

He blows a puff of smoke towards me, leaning forward to put his face through it, and there's a smile on his lips as he opens them to speak.

"Deal the cards."