Kiss The Witch Part 6

"Carlos, you're not helping."

Spinelli grabbed Carlos' forearm and shook it hard. "Don't talk about my fiancee that way, and stop thinking about her naked."

"Hey, don't get mad at me. Tony is the one that's going to be gawking at her all night, not me."

"What? I'm not going to gawk. You see, this is exactly the reason"

"Oh, here he goes again, telling me to keep my mouth shut."

"I didn't say"

"I want to come."

"What? No. Sorry, Dominic. You can't."

"If he goes, I go."

"Forget it, Carlos. n.o.body is going. Dominic, listen. This is a serious thing for the girls. You know how important witchcraft is to them. If not for witchcraft, Ursula would not even be with us. You know that. No one is going to gawk. There will be no touching, no hanky-panky. I swear. I imagine we will have the lights off, a few candles burning maybe, nothing more. We probably won't even be able to see one another."

"So you'll be groping," said Carlos.

I hauled back as though I might hit him. He didn't flinch. Spinelli started away angry. I put my hand on his shoulder and turned him back around. "Dominic, please. What do you say? You trust Ursula, don't you? Let her do this. It means a lot to her."

I could see Carlos getting ready to open his mouth, perhaps to lend his opinion on what it might mean to me, but a rock hard stare shut him down. Dominic's eyes rolled up to meet mine and he forced a thin smile. "Alright. But you have to promise not to even look at Ursula."

"Dominic, I don't know if I can"

"Promise me."

"All right, I promise. I won't look at her. If I have to walk into furniture and bust a toe, I will, but I won't so much as look at her. Okay?"

He nodded. "Okay."

"So we're good?"

"We're good."

"That's my boy." I looked at Carlos and st.i.tched my brows low. "You ready now, troublemaker?"

The phone rang. Spinelli picked it up.

"Where to?" Carlos asked.

"Out to Snow's house. If his car is in the driveway then he's probably home. I'll break the door down to get to him if I have to."

"Okay then. Let's roll."

We started out. Spinelli called back to us. "Guys, wait up." We turned. "Did I hear you say you were going to Snow's house?"

"Yes. Why?"

"It's not there anymore."

"Come again?"

"That was NCFD. Snow's house blew up about fifteen minutes ago. It's gone."

I looked at Carlos. His cheeks dimpled the way they do sometimes when he's thinking about food. "What do you say now? Still coincidence?"

I shook my head. "It's getting hard to believe it. I'll give you that."

"We still going?"

"Of course. You have somewhere better?"

He checked his watch. "It is noon."

"I suppose you're thinking about food."

"Well...."

I pushed him toward the door. "You're driving."

Howard Snow lived in the historic section across town, not far from the old cemetery where construction workers inadvertently dug up Ursula's bones while working on a road-widening project. I suppose the mention of the cemetery is what started us talking about her. Carlos asked me what I thought about her and Spinelli together. I told him I was happy for them.

"No. I mean, what do you think about them...you know, doing it?"

"Doing what?" I knew what he meant.

"You know what I mean."

"s.e.x? Is that what you mean?"

He smiled boyishly. "Yeah, that's what I mean. What do you think about that?"

I fed him a sour look. "Where is your mind?"

"Tony, please, you never thought about it?"

"About Dominic having s.e.x with Ursula?"

"Yes."

"No."

"How could you not? She looks just like Lilith."

"First of all, she may look like Lilith, but Ursula is definitely not Lilith. Secondly, I happen to know that Dominic and Ursula are not having s.e.x."

"So, you are not jealous?"

"Of Dominic?"

"Yes."

"No."

"He's jealous of you."

"What?"

"Seriously. He told me so. He said he thinks about you and Lilith doing it all the time."

"Ha. I have news for him. Lilith and I don't do it all the time."

"No, I mean he thinks about it all the time."

"Does he?"

"Yes, and he's afraid that if you like having s.e.x with one witch so much, then you will want to have s.e.x with two."

"That's ridiculous."

"Why, you don't like having s.e.x with a witch?"

I laughed at that, as my mind took me on a brief but paradisaic tour of necromantic bliss. "Oh, Carlos," I said, unable to shake the smile from my face. "If you only knew."

"So you do like it."

"Of course."

"And you never thought about having s.e.x with Ursula?"

"Well, maybe, but not because she's a witch."

"Why then?"

I shrugged some. How could I answer that? Did I even know the answer? Did it matter that Lilith and Ursula were identical on the outside in every way, save for the tattoo on Lilith's b.u.t.t, or that if I took away Lilith's hair-trigger temper, her condescending att.i.tude and confrontational disposition, that I might find beneath it all someone like Ursulathat I might find Ursula? Should the same physical attraction I find in Lilith not feed my desires for Ursula as well? If not by force of magic that I incline toward one, then I should naturally incline toward the other. Carlos questioned my thoughts regarding s.e.x with Ursula. What could I tell him? The truth was that I had thought about having s.e.x with her, but only while having s.e.x with Lilith. In that vein, I imagined Ursula nothing like Lilith at all. But for the pa.s.sion burning within her, Lilith could not be the incredible lover she is. Do I suspect that same pa.s.sion burns within Ursula, as well? Perhaps, yet I do not see it.

So sure, I thought about it. I can say that and know I love Lilith. I only wish sometimes she were more like Ursula on the inside and less like her on the outside. At least then I might not wonder.

"You know, Carlos," I said, after what may have seemed like minutes. "I'm not comfortable with where this is going. Look, I love Lilith, and I admit that our relations.h.i.+p is complicated, but that does not mean that I covet thy neighbor's wife, or in this case, his fiancee."

"I bet Dominic would love to hear you say that."

"I'll say that to him, if he asks me like a man."

"He won't do that. He respects you too much."

"If he respects me, then why is he worried about me sleeping with Ursula? He knows he can trust me."

"Maybe it is not you he mistrusts."

"You mean Ursula?"

"I mean Lilith."

"What?"

"Sure. You know how she's always getting Ursula to try new things. She is the shepherd and Ursula is her lamb."

"No, what you're saying is that she is a pimp and Ursula is her b.i.t.c.h."

"Tony."

"Don't Tony me. You give Ursula no credit at all for being her own woman. Not to mention you give me no credit either. Do you think I would sleep with Ursula behind Spinelli's back just toto what? Break her in?"

"I don't think that. Dominic does."

"Well then set him straight, why don't you?"

"Okay, I will. I'll tell him you think about having s.e.x with Ursula, but that it's not Lilith's idea."

"What?"

"I said I will"

"I know what you said. Why would you tell him that after what I just told you?"

"You just told me a minute ago that you think about having s.e.x with Ursula."

"No, you asked me if I ever thought about having s.e.x with Ursula, and I said I did. I don't think about it. I only thought about it."

"Isn't that the same thing?"

"No. It is completely different. Look, haven't you ever thought about having s.e.x with Ursula?"

"Sure. I thought about it many times. I mean come on. Have you seen her? She's gorgeous."

"All right then. Why don't you tell Spinelli that? Tell him how you want to have s.e.x with his fiancee."

"I'm not going to tell him that."

"That's right, and neither will you tell him what I said. In fact, as far as I'm concerned, this conversation never happened. You hear?"

He gathered the lines on his forehead and narrowed his sights to a distant point on the road ahead. As we made our approach down Howard Snow's street, he said, "Dominic and Ursula haven't done it yet?"

I pointed to a parking spot outside the cordoned off fire zone half a block from the house. "This will work," I said. "And no, they have not done it yet."