Swimming Without a Net Read Free Page B

need to drive her to her apartment in his new Lexus hybrid ($75,000, after rebate).
    “It’s just twenty minutes by subway. I’ll be fine.”
    “Oh, come on. Leather seats!”
    “I’m all atingle,” she replied. They were walking past the restaurant toward the Park Street T stop. “Really.”
    “Then how about something for my trouble?”
    “Nope.”
    “Leather seats!”
    “Go away,” she told Number Four.
    “Aw, come on! I took the whole afternoon off for you.”
    It was true; it hadn’t been dinner, it had been lunch. Dr. Barb had given her the day off, which should have instantly roused her suspicions.
    “And I’m pathetically grateful. Good night.”
    He reached out and seized her arm. “Just one kiss,” he said, breathing clams and garlic in her face. “And maybe a hand-job.”
    Fred blinked. It wasn’t that she was inexperienced, or a prude. She just hadn’t met an asshole of this magnitude since she, Thomas, and Artur had killed Dr. Barb’s ex-husband last fall.
    She smiled at him. She wished, in that moment, she’d inherited the sharp teeth of her father’s people instead of the flat grinders of Homo sapiens. “I’ll be happy to give you a hand-job,” she said.
    “Great!” He yanked her by the elbow toward the cemetery outside the T stop. “C’mere, we can have some privacy.”
    “No need for that,” she said, effortlessly extricating herself from his grip, seizing each of his thumbs, and popping them out of their sockets.
    He didn’t scream so much as whinny, and bent forward to cradle his odd-looking thumbs between his thighs.
    “Thanks for dinner,” she said, stepping around him and already fishing for her T card.

Three
    Fred saw the lights on in her apartment and stomped up the stairs. This time she’d give Jonas a piece of her mind, as well as Dr. Barb, never mind that the woman was her boss. Enough was enough! Clam globs in her face, garlic breath, sexual harassment. And it wasn’t even Wednesday!
    She unlocked her door and shoved it open, and was momentarily startled to see the happy couple sitting stiffly on her couch as opposed to grooming each other or, worse, getting to third base.
    Standing just inside her doorway were two strangers. One was a young man—early twenties?—with startling orange hair ( jack-o’-lantern orange) and matching eyes. Beside him was a petite young woman of about the same age, with dark blue hair and eyes that were even darker, the way small sapphires almost looked black in the right light.
    She knew at once they were Undersea Folk, and mentally she groaned. Apparently the high point of her day was going to be dislocating Number Four’s thumbs.
    Before either stranger could speak, Jonas leapt up from the couch, said (too heartily), “Good, great, you’re here, we told your friends we’d wait with them, but now you’re here so we’ll be going, see you, good-bye.”
    “Good-bye,” Dr. Barb managed as Jonas dragged her out the door. “Young lady, whoever does your hair is doing a magnificent—”
    Jonas slammed the door.
    Fred surveyed the mermaid and merman. “Hit me,” she said at last.
    The two exchanged puzzled glances. “Those are not our instructions,” the man said. “I am Kertal. This is Tennian. We were sent by the High King.”
    “Well, I didn’t think you were here to take a survey. Something to drink? Some chips?”
    “No, thank you,” the woman—Tennian—said in a soft, lovely alto. “You are Fredrika Bimm, of Kortrim’s line.”
    “If Kortrim is my bio-dad, you’re right. But I prefer to think of myself as being of Moon Bimm’s line. That’s my mother,” she added helpfully.
    “Yes, His Highness has told us of your lady mother,” Kertal said. He towered over her and had the ropy muscles of a long-distance swimmer. Which, of course, he was. She was having a terrible time not staring at him. Both of them. Their coloring was so extraordinary! It was odd to be in a room and not feel like she had the