Free Fated by S G Browne Page B

early-twentieth-century women that most mortal men had to pay top dollar for. It didn’t hurt my cause that she believed I was the heir apparent to the estate of millionaire John Jacob Astor IV, who wasn’t going to make it off the Titanic alive.
    Even before the cruise liner hit the iceberg, I knew what was going to happen, but Dorothy Wilde didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong until the stern started to rise out of the water. Wallace Hartley and the rest of the ship’s band weren’t the only ones who kept on playing after the waterline continued to climb. I won’t go into details, but let’s just say that as the Titanic was going down, so was Dorothy Wilde.
    But Dorothy had nothing on Sara Griffen.
    “Oh, my Jerry,” I say as Sara rolls off and onto the bed beside me, laughing and gasping for breath at the same time.
    “Jerry?” she says, grabbing a half-smoked joint off my bedside table and lighting it up. “Who’s Jerry?”
    I’m not aware I mentioned him until she says something. “Oh. Just this guy I know who reminds me of God.”
    “God?” she says, letting out a puff of smoke as she hands the joint to me. “Do you believe in God?”
    This is not the kind of postcoital conversation I want to have. Problem is, after good sex, I tend to open up like a penitent pilgrim in front of the pope.
    I really need to learn to keep my mouth shut after I have an orgasm.
    Fortunately, I can take a moment to gather my thoughts before answering while I take a hit on the joint. I hold it in as long as I can, hoping that maybe while waiting for me to respond Sara will change the topic of conversation.
    “Well, do you?” she asks again, turning her head on her pillow to look at me.
    I empty my lungs and look over at Sara—her lips moist, her skin slick with perspiration, her soft brown hair draped across her shoulders.
    “When I look at you, I do.”
    Funny thing is, that’s not what I planned to say. But it seems to do the trick, because she smiles and drops the conversation and sticks her tongue down my throat.
    An hour later, when we’re both gasping for breath again, Sara asks me if I remember meeting her on the subway.
    I stare at my mirrored ceiling and try to pretend I don’t know what she’s talking about.
    “A few weeks ago,” she says. “I got on at Houston Street and sat down across from you. You were wearing a Boston Red Sox cap and a T-shirt that said, ‘Fuck New York.’ ”
    Sometimes I like to wear something incendiary just to see how humans will react. True, it’s technically interfering, but I haven’t drastically changed anyone’s fate by doing it. Except this one time when I swung by the Tower of London during Henry VIII’s reign wearing a tunic that read, Your Wife Is a Treasonous Whore .
    Oops.
    “At first I couldn’t believe you could get away with wearing something like that on a subway in Manhattan,” says Sara. “But no one had the courage to confront you. You had this aura about you that no one wanted to mess with. Except instead of intimidating or combative, you had this expression of absolute boredom. Like you didn’t care what anyone thought.”
    Pretty much.
    “That’s what intrigued me so much about you,” she says. “I couldn’t take my eyes off you. Do you remember?”
    I nod. Damn afterglow honesty.
    “I knew it,” she says, rolling over on to one elbow and staring at me with her captivating eyes. “I could tell by the way you looked at me on the rooftop. You recognized me, too. But your recognition was deeper. As if you’d known me for much longer than a chance encounter.”
    I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to have to answer her, to tell her the truth. But I can’t lie to her. I can’t pretend I haven’t been following her around off and on since she moved in, trying to get up the courage to talk to her.
    “I’ve been stalking you,” I say.
    Probably not the best way to put it, but there you have it.
    She looks at me, not laughing