The Deviant Underground (Time Bandit) by Elisabeth Roseland Page B

out, however, the weird stuff.
    “Oh, god.” Kathryn rolled her eyes. “Can you believe that asshole showed up?”
    Charge jumped in. “What I can’t believe is that you used to go out with that asshole!”
    “That’s what I tried to tell her.” Susan punctuated her sentence with her utensil.
    Kathryn felt ganged up on. “Okay. Okay. Yes, I made a mistake.” She joked, “Despite my attempts to prove otherwise, I am not perfect.”
    “That’s for damn sure,” Susan retorted.
    “Hey. No comments necessary from the peanut gallery.” Kathryn took another sip from her rapidly disappearing, third glass of wine. “Anyway, so yeah, he shows up and is all like ‘I’m so sorry, baby,’ and I’m thinking, You asshole. That bitch threw you out, and now you think you can come back over here? You’re fucking crazy. And you have the nerve to try to step to me when you clearly see that I’m standing here with my new man who is such an upgrade over you that it’s not even funny?” Charge laughed. He seemed to be enjoying Kathryn’s colorful retelling of the incident.
    Susan leaned in across the table. “So then what happened?”
    “Then, he made a serious mistake,” Charge said. Susan raised her eyebrows. He continued, “He called her his woman.”
    Susan’s eyes grew wide. “Oooo. What did you do?”
    “Then,” Kathryn resumed control of the tale, “Charge got so mad. I could see it all over his face. I thought he was going to kill him.”
    “Oh, I thought about it.” Charge finished his glass; it was his third, or possibly his fourth.
    “I know. I could tell.” Kathryn said. Charge reached over and grabbed the almost empty third bottle of wine on the table. He refilled everyone’s glasses. Kathryn continued. “Charge was all, ‘She’s my woman. Back the fuck off!’” Kathryn took another drink. “It was very sexy.” She winked at him.
    Susan looked at her, expecting more. “And that was it?”
    Kathryn shrugged lightly. “Um, yeah, basically. Then Charge . . um . . .” she stumbled, not knowing what to say, “. . . scared him off.”
    Susan smirked at him. “And how, exactly, did you do that?”
    Charge smirked back, took another drink, and said, “I have my ways.”
    Everyone around the table grew silent. Kathryn became uneasy. She changed the subject. “This cake is great, Susan. How did you get it so moist?”
    She thought she noticed Susan and Charge exchanging a glace, but with her head swimming with wine, she couldn’t be sure. Susan then turned her attention back to her. “A couple of tricks—room temperature eggs, real butter softened to room temperature, no over mixing. Would you like another piece?”
    “Yes, please.” Kathryn was relieved with the dessert conversation.
    “I’ll get it for you.” Charge got up to reach for the cake that was on the counter behind them. In doing so, his arm swept Kathryn’s almost-full glass of wine completely off the table.
    Kathryn gasped, and everything in the kitchen stopped. Susan had a frozen look of shock on her face, her eyes glued to the spot where the glass used to be. Her mouth was open as if she were about to say something. Charge was in a half raised position, getting ready to exit his seat. He had begun to look over his shoulder at the glass that was now suspended diagonally in the air about two inches off the edge of the table. The red wine leapt from the glass like a crimson fountain; Kathryn would have taken a moment to admire the beauty of its form if she hadn’t been so panicked. She quickly plucked the glass out of the air and placed it back on the table away from Charge’s elbow. After checking to make sure that it was out of reach, she unfroze the room.
    “Watch out!” Susan shouted. Her warning was immediately followed by silence as a confused look crossed her face.
    Charge was now looking at a wine glass that was no longer there. Instead, it was sitting upright on the table again, almost a foot away from where