Page 13 of Serial Killer Games

That fairground feeling, except we’re moving upward. “Me too. On the roof.”

When the doors heave open onto the top floor, she trails after me to the stairwell that takes us the rest of the way.

It’s chilly when we step out. The skyscrapers press close all around, and to our left is the dull, metallic glint of the harbor.I’ve been wanting to bring her here, wondering how to lure her up, and here we are. She deposits her phone on a rickety outdoor table that the janitorial staff keep up here for their smoke breaks.

It’s such a part of my routine, I light a cigarette without even thinking.

“Yousmoke?”

Fuck no, but a lit cigarette is an essential prop if I want to spend time up here.

“Aren’t you worried about dying from cancer?” she prods.

“I’m not going to die of cancer.”

I hold out the pack, and she hesitates for only a second. I light her cigarette, and she puffs prettily at it, but she doesn’t really draw. She holds it like a fifties movie star, hand cocked carelessly, her sharp fingernails scraping the air, the blue veins in her wrist a surprising glimpse of vulnerability.

“Dying of something else, then? I don’t think you worry much about your future.”

My heart beats a little faster. Shethinksabout me. “What do you mean?”

“Apart from the fact that you’re working a go-nowhere temp job? That you didn’t finish your degree?”

She’s put at least a few minutes of effort into rifling through my LinkedIn profile. I haven’t searched her online. It’s the main rule of my list that I have to harvest my data at the office, to prevent the muddling of the personal and the professional. I do have standards. But here she is, admitting she’s googled me.

I’m not enough to hold her interest, because she changes the subject.

“Look at this insect colony,” she sighs, panning the city view. She leans up against the concrete wall just a foot in front of me, hips pressing flat against it, and tilts her head to oneside in her vampire lover pose. I watch her like that. She’s dressed as she’s always dressed—covered from neck to wrist to knee in black, her outfit today a stretchy black pencil skirt and a soft black sweater that blots up the sunlight. The wind tugs at a few fine strands of hair escaped from the glossy knot on her nape. I could reach out and twirl my finger in those strands. She leans over the wall and looks down, down.

A cold current kicks up, and I stub out my cigarette and tug the black leather gloves from my pocket. I always have them on hand so I’m never caught short in moments like these. She turns just in time to see me pull them on.

“Oh, goody,” she says, looking up at me with watchful eyes. “You going to strangle me now?”

And there’s something about her voice as she says this, and the poison-apple redness of her lips, and the way she looked atmefor help just a few minutes ago. My body feels like a guitar string that was strummed. I vibrate. I resonate with whatever energy she puts out.

There’s a feeling she’s been stirring up in me these past weeks that I haven’t felt in a long time. It’s the desire to be in another person’s company. A desire to hold eye contact with another human being, a desire totouchanother human being—

She holds my eyes and leans sinuously against the wall, her arms folded across her chest, and then sheshiversfrom the November cold—and without really understanding how it happens, I’m suddenly standing just inches away from her. She smells like coffee and cigarettes and herself.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” she whispers, her breath steaming in the cold air between us.

I drift a little closer. “The gloves aren’t for strangling,” I say.

Her lips quirk in a sharp little smile, like she knew this all along. “They’re for pushing.”

She wraps her hand once, then twice in my tie, and pulls me in. I grip her by her waist and pick her up—I’ve never done anything like this before, so I’m almost surprised when it works—and I place her on top of the wall, the only thing keeping hapless humans from wandering off the edge of this building. Her bare knees press against me, and I wrap my hand behind one calf and hold her like that. Her face is now above mine, and she stares down at me breathlessly, lips parted, close enough to bite. I can see fine lines around the corners of her lips and the edges of her eyes—smile lines, though I never see her truly, properly smile. She turns and drops her cigarette over the edge, and we watch it fall toward the street below until it vanishes from sight, a little white pixel blinking out.

She turns back to me, eyes dark and fearless, and she wraps her little hands around my neck to hold on for dear life—or to choke me.

“Are you going to push me off now?” Her voice is a whisper, a little puff of air against my lips.

“Not today.” I slide my hands around to her back to demonstrate.

Her breath is warm when she pulls me in by my neck, and our lips brush. Her lips are warm, too—all of her iswarm, and it’s something I think I forgot about other human beings. They’re warm to the touch. I lean into her. A wet slide, and the tickle of her breath, and the softness of her skin. The kiss is like slipping into a steaming bath, and I’m thawing. My body flares to life at her touch.

I step closer still, until we’re as close as two people can get without breaking any public indecency laws. There’s a certain logic to the way we fit together that makes me wonder why Inever imagined doing this before. Her leg shifts against my hip, and my hand finds the smooth skin there. I wish I wasn’t wearing gloves. She doesn’t protest when my fingertips touch the hem of her skirt—

And then she bites my lip—gentle at first, and then slowly increasing the pressure until it stings, until I can feel my pulse in every part of my body—

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