Free Playing God by Kate Flora

sound with her tongue. "Don't be a booby, Joe. I gotta live with these people. I can't just sit here and dish out everything I know, not with them already thinkin' I'm your snitch, if not your lady friend. I'm trying to think how to do this."
    He rubbed the back of his neck wearily. "Sorry."
    Her face lit up. "You're the only guy I know ever says he's sorry."
    "Look. Alana. I'd love to sit and gossip over coffee, but I'm beat and I've got a million things to do before I get some rest, so can you please hurry up?" A giant vise was squeezing the base of his neck.
    "Oh, hell, Joe. Sure. Anything for you. You know that new girl, popped up a couple months ago, young kid with shiny black hair, kind of bouncy, like she's still a cheerleader or something? Name's Lulu?" He nodded. Rubbed. Couldn't ease the pain at all. "Well, her pimp set it up. I don't know who the other girl was. Somebody he recruited. Lovely blonde bitch who could put all the rest of us out of business."
    Cold day in hell, he thought. "You know whether Pleasant asked for it or whether this girl, Lulu, suggested it? She was the other girl?"
    "He asked, is what I heard, but that might not be true." Ignoring his second question, she came around the table and pushed his hands away. "Here. Let me do that. You want something? Advil? Aspirin? Tylenol? Demerol? Tylenol with codeine?" Her fingers dug into his shoulder muscles, strong, hard fingers, finding the tension and pressing it out. Traveling up his neck and massaging the muscles at the base of his skull, up into his hair where the skin felt tight. "Take off your sweater and unbutton your shirt," she ordered. "I can't do anything through all these clothes."
    "I'm fine."
    She backed away, leaving him hungry for those searching fingers. "Sheesh, Joe. You're so far from fine I can't even measure the distance. Not that I was ever much good at math. Here's the deal. You come in the bedroom, lie down and let me do something about that headache, and I'll talk to you. Otherwise..." She put the heels of her hands together, open like a vee, then snapped them shut. "I clam up." When he didn't respond, she said, "You can keep your pants on. Protect your virtue. Saving yourself for marriage. Sheesh. Someday you're going to take some lady to bed and get out six years later."
    "We can talk here."
    "Then you'll be talking to yourself."
    "Alana. You know I can't—"
    "Can't what, Copman? Let a friend give you a backrub?" She left the room.
    She'd cooperate if he'd just play her game. Reluctantly, he heaved himself up and followed her into the bedroom. She'd thrown a pink scarf over the lampshade and was lighting a scented candle. "Jesus, Alana, it's only a headache."
    She handed him Advil and a glass of water. "Take two." He did as he was told. A rarity. Then she stripped off his sweater, unbuttoned his shirt and helped him pull it off. "You keeping your gun?" He nodded. "Suit yourself. You always do. Lie down on your stomach. Here. Let me get these pillows out of the way." The bed was piled with frilly pillows, the whole room pink and girlish. Monuments to a girlhood she'd never had.
    She straddled his body, the warmth of her bare thighs against him. There was a gurgling and the smack of palms rubbing together. "Oh, Jesus, Alana. Not massage oil."
    "Shut up." He felt the heat of her hands and the icy tang of mint on his skin. Her hands spreading and smoothing, kneading his muscles, working his back up along the edges of his shoulder blades, hurting him as they pulled the soreness out. Working and reworking the hard spots until he actually groaned. She slapped his shoulder lightly. "Good. Let it go, Joe."
    "Talk to me."
    "Not yet." Her fingers walked up his neck and tangled themselves in his hair, finding all those tight, tight scalp muscles and soothing them, then moved down his back, working out from his spine across the bands of muscle, traveling down to his lower back. Kneading it, pressing it, soothing it. He wanted this to go on