I'm later than I planned as I drive to Lumen's apartment. The conversation I had with Vince is replaying in my head, the symmetry is startling.
"Dude, she's going to get me," he said, shaking his head and sitting down in the driver's seat of Angel's car.
"What? Who? Vince, what's going on?" I frown, noticing some blood on the hem of my khakis. Damn, this is why I wear dark trousers to a kill. Vince doesn't seem to notice what has distracted me; he's just annoyed at my distraction.
"Jesus, Dex, this is life and death here, man! Could you just focus?" His eyebrows are knotted and his usually smiling face is stern. I nod, tear my eyes from the smear of blood and look him in the eye.
"Sorry, Vince," I make my voice suitably humble. He nods, mollified by my expression.
"I was saying that Su Lin is gonna get me," he looks at me and clearly I'm supposed to know who this woman is, I have no idea. I raise my eyebrows and he sighs. "Su Lin? My ex? Dexter, are you so tired from the bedroom that you have no time for a friend?" I rub my hand over my face.
"Sorry, Vince, I'm just..." I blow out a breath and shake my head, implying a heavy night. Vince grins; I knew this tack would work.
"Hey, my friend," he puts his hand on my shoulder in an understanding way, "of all your buddies, I understand the repercussions of spending the night doing the horizontal mambo," he sniggers, "slappin' uglies, but I really need a bro here, right?" I briefly think about the fact that I have friends and try not to think of Masuka's descriptions of sex.
"I'm all ears, Vince." I nod. He looks down at his hands, they're shaking.
"So, Su Lin and I dated for a while. She's this hot Japanese chick, into manga, swords, you know, that Lolita shit," I have no idea but I nod. "And then I broke up with her. I met Tanya, you know, the chick I brought to Harrison's birthday?" The image of Vince escorting a tall, leggy blonde runs through my mind. I nod again.
"So, you think that this woman has decapitated a man because she thought it was you? Wouldn't she notice, Vince?" I frown and pull my mouth to the side, not wanting to stem his theory but seeing the obvious flaw in the idea. He shakes his head.
"Su Lin is a very passionate woman, Dex. She told me she would kill me with her katana if I left her, she might not have waited to see if it was me before she struck the first blow, maybe it was too late to stop." He sighs and shakes his head. "I gotta tell you Dex, I am scared." I pat his knee and he looks up at me. I realise this is a gesture I have picked up from the people around me, not something I would ever have done before of my own accord. I am changing.
"Look, Vince, if it's her, we'll find out. Deb won't have anyone running around Miami with a samurai sword. You're one of them, the team, they'll look after you." I point out of the window where Deb and Quinn and Angel are talking in the sunlight. Vince looks at me; his eyes are misted with tears. Don't cry Vince, please don't cry.
"One of us, dude, you're one of us too," he says patting the hand on his knee which I hastily remove. He mistakes the gesture for me not wanting to get emotional too. He nods and gets out of the car.
Vince is worried he has a killer girlfriend, I am happy I have a killer girlfriend. I think about this as I drive past the palms on Lumen's street. I smile to myself in the bright sunshine and turn into the parking lot under her apartment building. The station wagon is parked in its usual space.
"Calling for some afternoon delight, Dex?" Pete appears from behind his car. Is everyone fucking obsessed with my sex life? I sigh to myself and then plaster my 'happy Dexter' smile onto my face.
"A bit of a personal question, Pete!" I grin and jog past him to the elevator.
"Hold it for me, dude, I'm coming up!" He shouts and I veer to the stairs. I point to the doorway.
"Doing the run for my health!" I shout as the doors slide open and he gets inside. He nods and waves, no doubt thinking I am some sports freak. I really don't care what he thinks.
I make Lumen's floor without losing my breath and that makes me smile. I like being at the peak of my fitness and it's useful for my hobby. Sloppy serial killers get caught. I am still smiling when I knock on her door and Lumen answers.
"Hey," she smiles and steps back to let me in. "What are you grinning at?"
"Oh, just happy with my fitness levels recently." I don't even bother lying; don't even bother making things up for her. I grab her around the waist and pull her in for a kiss, she laughs.
"Well, Mr Morgan, I have to say that I am very happy with your fitness levels too. Although..." she stands back and I frown. "I do think you might want to work on your stamina." She grins, cocking her head and looking at me cheekily. I mock growl and make a grab for her.
"Can you guys at least close the door?" It's Pete again, grinning as he leans against the doorway.
"You're right, Pete, sorry," I walk to the door and push it closed in his face, "I'll be more thoughtful next time." I turn, Lumen is looking at me with her hand over her mouth but her eyes are laughing.
"What?" I ask, feigning innocence, "too rude?" She nods and comes over to me.
"A little," she says and then sighs. "But, he is annoying and we were busy..." She kisses me lightly on the cheek and grins. I grab for her again and she runs around the sofa, laughing and pretending to be scared. It reminds me of how I used to chase Cody and Astor, when they were little.
I make a feint to the left and she lets me catch her. I pull her against me and kiss her neck, my lips find the scar and I let it lead me down to her collar bone. She wriggles in my arms and I hold tighter. Suddenly, she stops wriggling.
Her breathing goes wild, panting, hyperventilating and she's shaking. It takes me a second to register what is happening and half a second to let go of her. She crumples to the floor.
"Lumen, it's me, it's Dexter," I say, scared to touch her now, angry with myself for not thinking of how she might react to the game we were playing. She makes a small sniffing sound and I can see her trying to calm her breathing. I kneel beside her and put out my hand, not daring to stroke her back but hovering because I really want to.
"S...sorry," she mumbles into the curve of her elbow, tucked into the tight ball she became as she got on the floor.
"No, no I'm sorry," I touch her lightly, just my fingertips and she relaxes and I press my palm against her. She turns her head, her face is white and her eyes red rimmed but she's trying to smile. "I should have thought... I should have known..."
"No, fuck!" She shakes her head, hits the floor with her palm and she's up, pacing the floor, hands clenched into fists at her sides. "Fuck!"
"What? What are you angry about? Me? God, I didn't know..." She whirls on me and grabs my face; instinctively I pull back from the blow I think is coming but she kisses me, hard on the mouth. She swallows my words as she works my mouth open and pushes her tongue between my teeth. I can't breathe and I can feel myself getting hard. This is not the moment Dexter, my brain says, but my body takes no notice.
Neither does Lumen. She pushes me down onto the floor, grabbing my shirt when I don't move fast enough. Once I'm there she unfastens my trousers, pulling them down in frenzy. She smiles grimly down at my erection and kneels up to pull at her jeans. I reach up to her, not sure what I'm going to do and she lies over me, grinding her hips against me, making me moan. She smiles again and it's a frightening expression.
"I don't want to be thinking of them, Dexter. I want to be thinking of you." She says it between her teeth, between the growling noise I am making as she presses herself against me. Swiftly she stands up, flicks off her shoes and takes off her jeans, her panties. Then she's back over me, her skin hot and her smell filling my senses.
She wriggles her hand between us and manoeuvres me until my hard cock is pressed against her opening. I am gasping, holding the floor for support as though I'm clinging to a ledge.
"I want to be thinking of you, Dexter. You, inside me. Making love to me, making me yours, making you mine." Each word is a movement with her hips until I am all the way in, feeling her tight and wet around me, holding me there. I lift my hands and stroke her hair and she lets me do this but then she grabs my hands and puts them under hers, each side of my head, as she leans into my thrusts. I can't decide whether she's angry with me for being a man or she's just showing herself that this is different. My hips are pushing up, not caring whether she's doing this out of spite or love or some kind of strange exorcism.
"We need to do this until I never associate any of this with them. I want it to be all yours," she groans, taking one of her hands and putting it between her legs. I look down and see her fingers down between us, bringing herself to orgasm. It sends a fire through me, she's not afraid; she's reclaiming her body through me. I lie back and let her do what she has to do, feeling her muscles tightening, feeling her take me, over the edge and away from her past.
"All yours, Dexter. All yours, always, just yours." She grits her teeth as she comes. Head down, shuddering over me and I follow her. I can't do anything else; this fierce, brave, determined woman takes me with her.
She falls against me and only then does she allow herself the luxury of tears. I stroke her hair and she puts her head against my chest and lets it all out. My pants are still around my knees and I can't really move to be any more comforting but it seems to be all she needs. I have no idea how long we lie like this on the floor. I let her take her time and eventually her crying subsides into little hiccupping sobs and she lifts her face from my, now wet, shirt.
"Sorry about that," she grimaces when she sees the mess, she must have been wearing mascara, the black smears on my shirt are matched by the smears on her face. I smile at her, hoping she understands the expression.
"Sorry for the part where you killed my shirt, or the part where you threw me on the floor and fucked me?" She smiles a half smile and I relax a little. "Because, you know, the shirt is a small price to pay..." She giggles and I smile wider and sit up, putting my arms about her.
"Sorry for being angry. I shouldn't be angry when we're doing that." She hugs me back briefly and then gets up, picking up her jeans and panties and walking into the bathroom. "Come and talk to me while I shower?" she says, over her shoulder. I struggle up from the floor, pull up my shorts and pants and follow her.
She starts the water and takes off her clothes, she's unselfconscious and I feel strangely proud that she is not scared with me. Most people I know would be terrified if they knew me at all, Lumen knows all of me and I'm the only person with whom she isn't even a little scared. She catches me smiling.
"What?" Her eyebrows are raised but her face still bears the marks of her tears.
"I was just thinking how amazing you are, how brave and strong. And how proud I am of you." I say it because it's in my head; it's what I do with her. She frowns.
"Brave? I wasn't very brave then was I?" She gestures with her hand to the lounge. I purse my lips and shake my head; I think she takes it the wrong way so I try to explain.
"No, you were brave. You got scared and then you made yourself deal with that fear head on, no surrender, no return. That's amazingly brave. You could run away from this, from me. But you don't." She folds her arms over her bare stomach. I watch the scars wriggle as her muscles move.
"I'm not running anywhere," she says and turns to step into the steam of the shower. I smile to myself. She puts her head back and lets the water run over her face. The water sluices away the marks of her tears. "It just makes me so angry that they've left these scars." She opens her eyes and looks down at her body and then at me.
"Not just the scars here, Dexter, the scars in my head." She pours the shampoo into her hand and works it into her hair vigorously. I know what she means.
"I know, but we can make them fade. We've already started. Every monster we get rid of fades a scar. Every time we..." I pause and think for the word because 'fucking' doesn't cut it. What we do is raw and intimate but there's something else. I feel my eyes widen as I say the words. "Every time we make love, we fade them a little too."
She is rinsing the shampoo from her hair and she opens her eyes as the bubbles float down her stomach. She leans forward and supports herself with her hand on the glass shower screen. Her other hand beckons me. I walk to her and she kisses me. She tastes soapy, clean.
"I love you, Dexter Morgan," her slippery lips murmur, as she presses them against mine. I can feel my heart pounding. Before I can think anything else, reason with myself or rationalise, I say the words that are in my head.
"I love you too, Lumen." She sighs and pulls back. She looks at me for a moment and then goes back to her shower. I sit on the toilet seat and grin like an idiot for about three minutes, she is humming as she washes.
I watch her, idly counting her scars and find my brain reconstructing their creation, it's a hazard of my day job and my night job. I wish I could look at her and not have a clue how they got there but each line whispers to me. 'Slicing knife, left handed', says one and 'belt buckle, swung from overhead', says another. I close my eyes against the voices.
"So, wanna know what I found out about Tina DiMarco?" Lumen is stepping out of the shower, reaching for a towel. I stand and hold it for her like a cloak; she steps into it and looks up at me. I nod.
"Well, Pearl from the kindergarten knows Tina's sister; they were at school together or something. Anyway she saw Tina and her sister last night; they were out celebrating Greco's release." She walks into the lounge again and sits on the sofa. I get a glass of water, waving the glass to ask if she wants one too, she nods.
"Oh, and what did Pearl say?" I pass her the glass and sit next to her. She puts her legs over my knees and I take the edge of the towel and start to dry her feet.
"Pearl said that she thinks Greco is a creep and Tina was defending him. Everyone's a bit scared to mention the baby around her because she completely lost it when Greco went inside. Pearl said she relies on him way too much, that he has some kind of hold over her, like a drug. Anyway, when Tina went to the bathroom, her sister told Pearl that Tina was hooked on Greco, he wasn't good for her. Pearl was agreeing when the sister said that Tina had even admitted that she was there when Greco hurt and killed Todd but she loved him so much she lied for him, she couldn't live without him." She is watching me and I am thinking.
"So, Tina's sister told someone this? It doesn't sound very loyal." I say, still staring into space.
"Mm, that's what I thought, but Pearl said that Tina's family have tried to get her to leave Greco. They've staged interventions, even got her a job out of town while he was in jail, but that she still goes back to him. I think the whole family are so pissed with her that they don't care what anyone knows. Maybe they think he'll get what he deserves if enough people know he did it?" I look at Lumen, her face is flushed and it's not from the shower. Her eyes are not puffy now, they are bright, alert.
"But the sister was out celebrating his release?" I frown and Lumen nods.
"They didn't want her seeing him alone, they're not leaving her side while they know he's out there." I nod slowly; I can't imagine what it's like to have a person you love chained to a dangerous addiction. The thought takes me to Harry.
"We can't just go off this, that's not the way of the Code," I turn to look at her but she's already nodding.
"I know, but it's the evidence we need to look deeper into things isn't it?" She cocks her head questioningly. She's right.
This chapter is a bit later than I'd normally post but my life has taken on some major constricting bc of work recently. Let me know how I'm doing, I appreciate all your comments! Thanks to Lostie17 for the Spanish for Batista and to VB for being every vigilant and supportive! Cx