I look at the adoring people around us. Oh fuck. I can't just introduce him to my mom cold turkey. I whip out my phone and text.
* * *
CARLY: Mom, I will be there in 20 with a friend.
CARLY: Wear all the quartz you've got. You're going to need it. XOXO
7
For as long as I can remember, my mom's had her little psychic shop tucked away in downtown Chicago. It's little more than the size of a closet, with a sky-high rent for an old, outdated shop in an equally old, outdated building, but somehow my mom makes it work. Fortunes and Futures manages to pull in people despite the hokey name, the equally hokey beads and neon signs that hang in the tiny window, and the fact that it's probably all crap to some degree. I've never believed, much to my mother's chagrin.
Today, though? I'm willing to believe.
Even getting over to the shop today was an adventure. By the time we got back to my apartment building, Kassam and I had people following us. I wanted to go upstairs and grab a few things from my place, but I didn't trust the weirdos not to follow us to my door. Instead, I headed straight for the parking garage, got in my car, dumped all my abandoned crafting stuff out of the passenger seat so Kassam could sit down, and drove over to my mom's shop. In the car, I cringed every time we made a traffic stop, wondering if someone was going to try to jump in, or if other drivers would be pulled in by Kassam's magnetic presence through their cars and we'd somehow end up with a caravan over to my mom's store.
"You're a real pain in the ass," I tell Kassam. "You know that?"
He just laughs. "Can I help it if hedonism is the most pleasurable of all flaws?"
"CAN you help it? Can you rein this shit in, even a little?" I find a Park and Pay and steer my car inside, slapping the ticket onto the dashboard with practiced ease.
Kassam shakes his head. "Would that I could. Even hedonism grows tiresome over the years. I would prefer to be cursed with it more than anything else, but it does not mean I do not wish for normalcy. I would like to be able to stop thinking with my cock. I would like to be able to put on human clothes and not get lost in the feel of the fabric against my skin. I would like to watch humans eat and not feel the need to taste everything myself." His lip curls, just a little. "I do not even think the gods are supposed to eat, yet I stuff my gullet every chance I get."
I don't know if I feel bad for him. He seems miserable, but of all curses, it doesn't seem like such a shitty one. "Yeah, well, feel bad for me. I'm the one stuck with you."
His smile broadens. "I am glad you are," he says softly. "And I am sorry if I am a burden to you." He pauses. "Actually, I am not sorry. So far I have found you to be a very enjoyable companion." He reaches out and strokes my arm, fingers sliding over my skin in a sensual way that leaves no doubt in my head that he's Hedonism.
"You're thinking with your dick again, aren't you?" I murmur.
"Very much so." Kassam licks his lips and regards me. "We have enough room in this cart. You could straddle me. It would not take long." His sexy eyes grow hooded with desire. "And I would make you feel very, very good."
God, I have no doubt about that. But I also have enough mental control at the moment that I'm not about to get freaky in a parking lot near my mom's store. "They have cameras recording everything we do here," I tell him, and resist the urge to rub my crystals. Focus, focus, focus. "We're not doing anything here."
"Somewhere else, then?"
"Later," I tell him, and a tiny part of me is disappointed that I'm so responsible. "We need answers before we get all distracted, okay? I don't know if these crystals stop working after a while and I need to do what I can before my brain fogs just from being around you."
"Why does it matter?" he asks, his hand gliding down my arm to take my hand. "What is your plan? To send me home? That will come at the cost of your life, and I am not ready to see that yet, my light. If I have to stay here for a time, I shall." He shrugs. "Time is all a god seems to have. Endless, endless amounts of time."
"I don't want to die," I say. "And if there's a way around it, I want to find it. I also want to find a way to shut this"—I wave a hand at him—"hedonism off."
"Why?"
"So you can make your own decisions instead of being led by your cock? So we can think clearly and figure out what exactly has happened between us and why you're here? Are you supposed to be accomplishing something in my world? Is that why you're here and not in yours?"
Kassam sighs and leans back against the headrest. "I think what I am hearing is that you are not all that interested in straddling me."
"Not right now!"
He takes our joined hands and guides mine to his cock. It's rigid underneath his sweatpants, so big and delicious that I don't snatch my hand away immediately. "But I want you."
"Is this Hedonism speaking?"
Kassam chuckles, the sound slightly weary. "Always."
"Just come on," I say, and get out of the car.
He must be starting to get a hang of door handles, because Kassam is able to exit the vehicle on his own. He moves to my side, his hand automatically seeking mine. I take his without thinking, and the moment I do, I stagger on the sidewalk with the force of the orgasm that rolls through me.
"Goddamn it, Kassam," I whimper, clinging to his arm as all my muscles lock up in pleasurable distress. "You don't play fair."
"I do not. Remember…I am a naughty god."
I wrench my hand from his. "Can you behave for just five minutes?"
He shrugs. "If I must, but I will not enjoy it."
"You don't have to enjoy something every moment of every day," I grumble, but when he just arches a brow at me, I realize how stupid that sounds. Right. Of course he does. According to him, he's Hedonism.
We cross the street, me holding a handful of Kassam's shirt to guide him. It's a silent refusal to hold his hand after the stealth orgasm, but he seems more amused by my actions than anything. I guess if you're Hedonism, you're hard to offend. You're just always having a good time. I know this area of town like the back of my hand, thanks to multiple visits to my mom's shop, and long before I see the neon sign of the hand with an eye in the center, I can feel the warmth of my mom's presence pouring over me, helping me relax.
Mom will know what to do. She might not believe that her daughter's gotten mixed up with a god—not at first—but Mom always has an answer. She'll help me figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do here. I could desperately use some guidance.
I open the door to Mom's shop—Fortunes and Futures—and the scent of incense wafts over me. Her store is empty, but that's not surprising. Mom's store always seems deserted, but she has some die-hard regulars that pay the bills. It's not unusual for one of her customers to come in and spend several hundred dollars on crystals in one swoop, plus she does her readings. The store itself is small, with one wall full of crystal bins and shelves, and another wall covered in occult books of all kinds. I wince at the seashell collage she has hanging on the wall next to a terrible painting I did, both of them missing components to be completed. The seashell collage needs a border, and the painting has a big thumbprint at the edge where I got impatient for the paint to dry, and that I promised to cover up with a tree or something.