The first thought this destination version of Steve had when he woke up was that it was completely ironic that after all of Kayla’s worry that he might not be there when she woke up that he was the one who was there and she was the one who wasn’t.  A strange sort of relief washed over him when his eye met the closed bathroom door and realized she was still there.  And the fact that he was relieved renewed the anxiety he’d felt since the moment he’d met her.  It wasn’t just that she was the woman of every man’s dreams, and it wasn’t even that she was coming on so strong with such genuine seeming feelings for, of all people, him.  It was that she was making him feel something for her.  She was the enemy, because she was Bo’s sister – that’s what he kept telling himself, this is a woman to tacitly steer clear of as an extension of Bo.  But the fact was that he didn’t feel that way.  That his heart was now pumping with something that felt good and exciting was all wrong.  He had to get rid of her.

Steve sat himself up from his slumped position in the chair and was momentarily confused by the blanket that was no longer on his bed and was now covering him.  The red wool had that new sturdiness that hadn’t been broken in yet, but it certainly did right by him during the cold Chicago winter.  This crisp spring morning wasn’t quite as cold, but it didn’t stop Kayla from shivering in the night.  He’d studied her closely after she’d fallen asleep before giving up and covering her with the blanket.  Now it was covering him, and it didn’t get up and spread itself over him by itself, Kayla must have returned the favor overnight.  Steve gave the bathroom door a lopsided grin and let out a nervous giggle as he rubbed the brick red fringe between his fingers. 

“Glad you’re all rise and shiny, baby, because we’re getting you to the bus station.  When silence met him, he started messing with her.  “Aw, don’t be like that, now, I didn’t mean to hurt those pretty, little feelings of yours.  Do you need me to say good morning Sweetness?  Ok, good morning, Sweetness.  Know why it’s good?  ‘Cause I’ll be gettin’ my room back.” 

Steve stood up and felt the muscles that weren’t so happy with the position they’d formed in the chair for the last several hours.  “Thanks for the tuck-in, baby,” he said with the deep stretch in his voice, “that was awfully considerate.”  He sauntered over to the bathroom door.  “Nice silent treatment.”  Steve fluffed up the pillow and began making up the bed from where she’d left it.  “Baby, come on, now, you almost done in there, ‘cause I’m not used to sharin’!”

Silence.

Steve did an about face on the attitude.  “Kayla?”  He silently told her inside his head to please answer him.  When she didn’t Steve threw caution to the wind and opened the door.  The bathroom was empty.

His feet took him to the door of his room faster than he was cognitively aware, worry creeping into him at an alarming rate that did nothing to diminish those pesky feelings he’d realized he was having for her.  “Kayla!”  Steve threw open the door to go find her as she came practically sprawling in.  His worry eased the moment he saw her, which only ratcheted up his blood pressure.

“Get in here!”

“Steve, what’s wrong?”  Kayla bobbled the coffees balanced on the box of doughnuts in her good hand as he roughly pulled her into the room by her arm.

“Did I say you could leave this room without me?  Huh?!”

Kayla was completely perplexed.  “Well, no, but you didn’t say I couldn’t, either.  What’s the problem?”

“Well, now I’m sayin’ it, you don’t go out there without me!”

Kayla stuck out her hip, because she couldn’t cross her arms.  “I just left the hotel for a couple of mintues.”

“A couple of minutes is all it would take for Ray to get his hands on you.”  He stage whispered this so that his anger was clear but so that Ray wouldn’t overhear if he was listening, which Steve figured he was.  “Now don’t you leave my sight for one second, do you hear me?”

Kayla smiled knowingly.  Steve didn’t know what was going on in her head, but Kayla was completely fascinated with how funny history really was.  It was like the events of Stockholm were trying to find a place to roost and attempted to play over again here in this situation. 

“And just what the hell are you grinning at?” 

“You’re worried that something will happen to me.”

“Yeah, what was your first clue?  You think I took you in last night for my health?  If anything happened to you I’d have to answer to your brother, and, baby, I was done with him years before I started with you.”

Kayla’s face fell a bit.  Not so much with history quite repeating itself, after all.  Not entirely, anyway.  Still, it felt awfully familiar, the memories from when she’d gone down to the hotel lobby without him strong within her.    Familiar … but not the same.  Still, his reaction was encouraging.  He may not love her, but he was feeling protetive of her, of that she was sure. 

Kayla’s own feelings were not as straight-forward as she expected them to be.  Her investment here was very real, and she felt an indescribable sense of responsibility about it.  Everything about this Steve fascinated her and brought out her nurturing, sympathetic nature, but at the same time, she was terribly disappointed that her Steve wasn’t here when she’d returned with breakfast.  Why she would have expected him to have arrived by now didn’t make a ton of sense, the gaps in their arrivals were completely random.  Maybe expecting him to jump in by now was just wishful thinking, but if she was being honest with herself, she’d know it was simple desperation to see him since he hadn’t shown up or called that last night of the previous timeline.  The distance she felt from him on that last series of jumps all the way to that moment felt soul-crushing.  They came through it, but that fight was bitter, and despite their strong  love, they weren’t over it.  Because they weren’t over Emily.  So, it was a wide gulf between them right now.  In that moment while this 27-year-old Steve sat with resentment in his eye for her sheer presence, Kayla swallowed down the lump in her throat knowing that her husband was lost in time somewhere.  She missed him desperately.

Kayla’s disappointment was all over her beautiful face.  His words had hurt her again.  He didn’t want to hurt her, he just wanted her to leave.  Now would be the perfect time to hurt her some more so as to once and for all disabuse her of any intention of staying.  Instead he led with his stomach.  “So, what do you got there?” he asked nodding to the box.

“I found a doughnut shop down the street,” she said quietly.  “I thought I’d bring us some breakfast.”

“If you were hungy I would have gotten you something.”

“You were sleeping so nice,” she said somewhat aloofly, “I know that chair couldn’t have been comfortable, and you took such good care of me last night, and I … I just—didn’t want to wake you up.  And you didn’t eat hardly a thing last night, so you must be hungry.”

Steve studied her a second.  “I might be.”

“Yes, well.  If you decide you are, then I have doughnuts.”

After another moment, Steve nodded slightly toward her hand and asked quietly, “How’s the wrist?” Kayla shrugged.  “That’s not an answer, is it hurting or what?”

“It’s sprained, so it’s going to hurt for a little while.  The ice last night helped with the swelling, it’ll be fine.”  She poked at it appraisingly with her fingers and furrowed her brow. 

Steve picked up the Tylenol bottle from the dresser where he’d left it last night.  “How many?”

Kayla smiled appreciatively.  “I can manage the bottle.”  He handed it to her, and she took another four for pain, though she wished she had an anti-inflamatory.

They ate in silence from their usual spots, during which he noted no move on her part to pack up.  She’d be no help in the getting rid of her plan.

“You and I had a real good conversation while you were out getting this nice breakfast, baby.  I did all the talkin’.  Wanna know what I said?  I said that it was gonna be a bright sunshiny day where you get your bus back and I get my room back.”  Kayla digested that valiantly and no less silently than she ate her doughnut.  “You hear what I just said, Sweetness?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Then if you’re done eatin’, you can get packin’.”

Kayla looked out the window.  “I don’t know, I kind of like it in Chicago. I was thinking I might stay a while.”

“Naw, baby,” he laughed nervously, “I see what you’re doin’ here.  I don’t know why you’re doin’ it, but I see it, and it stops. You’re goin’ home.”

“No.  I’m not.”

“I thought you said you’re a nurse?”

“So?“  She was getting testy.

“Well, isn’t Nurse Brady being missed at her job right now?  Or are you one of those freelance nursey types?”

Kayla uncrossed her legs and sat at sudden attention.  “Mrs. Horton!”  The mention of Kayla’s job made her remember that she needed to call Alice when she got settled.  If she didn’t do it today, Kayla was sure her benefit of the doubt would reach its limit and a call would be made to her parents.  Kayla did not need to worry about that mess at the moment.  Steve first, navigating life here later. 

Steve rolled his eyes, positively exasperated.  Kayla could plainly see that her husband was getting really tired of asking who, what, and why.  She ignored it, made an immediate beeline for the phone on the dresser, and started dialing.

“What are you doing?”

“I have to call my friend, let her know I’m here.”

“I know you’re not callin’ Salem, baby,” Steve insisted.

“Yes, why?”  That rotary dial was slow.

“’Cause I don’t have call pack, that’s why, what the hell’s the matter with you, makin’ long distance calls like that, I can’t even call all of the 312 area code without payin’ extra for it.” 

Kayla had forgotten when she was.  She closed her eyes and hung up the phone.  Get your head on straight, Kayla.  I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.  “I can pay you for the call.”

“I don’t want you to pay me for the call, I want you to get on the damned bus.”

New priority.  Call Mrs. Horton, deal with the bus later.  “Fine, just—I need a phone!  Why can’t I just use this one?”

“Well, ya see, I’m not so into paying bills, so if there aren’t any charges, I don’t have to pay them.  I’m a real catch that way.”

Kayla balked.  “That makes no sense, call pack or not, we always used to have a basic bill every month.”

It unnerved him when Kayla said “we” or talked in the past, and right now she was doing both.  In any event, she was persistent so he gave up.  “Look, Frank downstairs has a line into the main switchboard, it’s a really old system, here, none of the new technology.”  Kayla almost cracked up, because that technology was a dinosaur.  “He makes sure he’s got his nose in everyone’s personal business, listens in more than he doesn’t.  He’s probably not in his hole for the day yet, dude’s not a morning person, but it’s better to play it safe, because believe me, Sweetness, he sees you as fresh meat.  You don’t want his kind of trouble.”  Neither Frank nor anyone else was at the desk when she came back with breakfast, the lobby was empty, but she had to admit, he seemed sketchy from the word go. 

“Has he hurt other women that way?”

Steve huffed an unpleasant laugh.  “Wrong kind of meat, baby.  He’s gonna wanna shake you down for cash and will use anything he can find out.  He doesn’t listen in on my calls so much, I ain’t got nothin’ to shake out.  You’re different, he’s already watchin’ you.  Got it?  So, don’t use this phone.”

Kayla nodded.  “I thought you meant he has something else on his mind.”

“No, that’s Ray.”

Kayla recalled the conversation from last night but chose to keep that to herself.  Her instinct told her to probe him and see what he’d say.  “He seemed like an odd bird, but kind of old and harmless.”

“He’s not.” Steve said firmly. 

“I can take care of myself, trust me, the worst he could do is hit on me.”  Steve worked a muscle in his jaw.  

“No. That’s not the worst he could do.”

“He’s older than my pop. I think I could take him.”

“Think he’s just a sweet old man?”  She thought he was a creepy old man, she didn’t need any convincing.  “Don’t turn your back on that psycho.” 

Steve’s show of protection was like a shot of hope.  Kayla smiled tentatively.  “That’s why you were worried when I wasn’t here.  You were worried he was hurting me.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, I was worried that Bo was about to come up here and put out my other eye.”

Her smile vanished.  For so many reasons.  “I need a phone.”

“There’s a payphone at the bus station.”

“I came in at Union Station.”

“Well you get your pick of ‘em over there.”

“No, I need a phone right now.”

“There’s a payphone on the corner, baby!”

“I thought I’m not allowed to leave your sight, make up your mind!”

“You think I like babysittin’ you, little girl, you’re the one crashing the party!”

“You’re just gonna keep calling me that, aren’t you?” she spat indignantly.  Steve just glared at her then finally looked away. 

“Look,” he said uncomfortably as he adjusted his patch, “you get packed, and in ten minutes I’ll walk you over to a place I know with a free phone.  Then we’re done.  Off you go to Union Station.”

“I’m not leaving the city.”

“Fine,” he droned out snidely, “you don’t have to leave, but you can’t stay here.”

Kayla stuck out her chin impatiently.  “Why ten minutes, why can’t we just go now?”

Steve lifted the tank over his head and threw it on the bed.  His body was so much thinner than she was used to.  He wasn’t skinny; in fact his body was hard with rippling muscles that would have turned her on if she was in another state of mind.  He just didn’t have an ounce of fat on him; evidence that he lived sustainably, not with joy. 

“’Cause I take a shower once a week whether I need it or not, and today’s my day.”  Kayla laughed.  It was such a good sound.  Musical and sweet, it brought color to the muted colorlessness of Steve’s room.  He liked it and found himself smiling.  “I don’t know why you’re laughin’, baby, I can smell me from here.”

“I can’t smell you,” she chuckled with humor.  Her husband was funny.

“I’m tellin’ ya, I’m good for a week, but if I blow it I turn into a pumpkin.”

“I dunno, something tells me that you’re exaggerating by a factor of seven.”

“You stallin’ so you can check out the goods?”

“No, no,” she held up her hand, “far be it from me to stand between you and your weekly date with the soap.”

“’Cause you can look all you want.  Just stop when you get to the neck so you don’t get nightmares.”

That shut Kayla’s good humor right down.  “Don’t say that about yourself.”  She stood up and went to him.  She thought he’d back away, but he didn’t.  “There is nothing above your neck that isn’t exactly as handsome as everything below it.” 

Steve was so affected by the tenderness in her tone that when she reached her right hand up to palm his face he was too moved to stop her.  She stroked her thumb softly over his scar, and a lump formed in his throat from the unmistakable affection he was feeling from her.  He wanted to hold her to him, let his bare skin feel more of her warmth.  Instead he very slowly reached up to pull her hand down from his face.  He didn’t say anything to her, but he held her eye as he stepped back.  Something seemed to pass between them in that small moment.  Then he dropped both his eye and her hand and went into the bathroom. 

“Kayla,” he said before he closed the door.  She looked up.  “Don’t leave the room or use the phone.”

She nodded.  “Thank you.”

“You wanna thank me,” he said with something almost like disappointment, “get packed.”

Kayla’s heart rate shot up when Steve came out of the bathroom with a towel secured around his waist. His skin still glistening with water.  His hair was slicked back again, which weirdly annoyed her.  The rest of him didn’t annoy her at all.  He saw the look on her face and smirked arrogantly.  She’d changed into dark blue jeans that fit her curves like a glove, and a long-sleeved, yellow, cotton top with thin, horizontal navy stripes.  She’d made the bed and now sat against the headboard with her legs crossed.  He watched her try to be cool and unaffected as he stepped to his dresser and pulled out a pair of jeans and navy blue tank top.  He tried to be cool, himself, with that neck of hers exposed by the wide boat neckline of her shirt.  If he wasn’t careful, his arousal was going to show.

“This ain’t no strip tease, baby, if you wanna watch, just say so.”

“I’ve seen it all before,” she replied playfully. 

Steve walked right up to the end of the bed.  He put his hands on the top of the towel where it was tucked in and stared down at her bawdily.  “You done packin’,” he asked with a velvet sexiness.

Kayla eyed her open bag beside her, then met his aggressive eye again and licked her bottom lip.  “Careful what you wish for.”  Steve didn’t blink.  Kayla swung her legs off the bed walking around it to where he was standing and smiled again before she disappeared back into the bathroom.

Steve let out the breath he’d been holding, willed his penis to behave, and got dressed in a hurry.  When she came back out she wasn’t so bold.

“Ah … my jeans still aren’t dry from when I washed the mud out of them last night.”  Steve sighed and put his hands on his hips.  He knew what was coming next.  “Couldn’t we just get me to that phone and then come back and check them?”

“You should have hung them on the fire escape,” he admonished, though she was surprised that he didn’t sound more angry.  She shrugged, and Steve ran a hand through his hair.  “You’re nothin’ but trouble, you know that?”

“Sorry,” she bit her lip.  She was so damned cute Steve had to force himself to control his smile. 

“Give ‘em here,” he said, then took the jeans from her and laid them just outide the window beside the camping stove.  Then he turned back to her with resignation in his eye.  “Come on, let’s get you that damned phone call.”

The desk was still empty when they left the Hotel LaSalle.  She looked at him questioningly when they passed up the payphone on the corner but he kept her walking.  She knew he liked her, but there wasn’t any investment, so that didn’t mean much.  She was worried that her Steve wasn’t there yet.  If he didn’t jump in soon, then she was going to run out of excuses to keep herself with him.  The buildings they passed in the next three blocks were beautiful and full of character that she knew Steve appreciated, so she appealed to that, the smallest connections her only real chance, here.  

“Is that City Hall?”

“That’s what it says.”

“It looks so old.”

He didn’t make much of her chit chat before his quick pace brought them to the open air of Daley Plaza.  “Oh!  That’s the Picasso!”  This was genuine, Kayla didn’t realize where they were, and so when the iconic bird-like sculpture sitting watch over the Loop came into view, she really wanted to go see it up close.

“The thing’s a platypus, baby.”

Kayla knew that Steve was simply hurrying them to get this phone call overwith, but she was honestly curious to take a look.  She was still antsy to get to Mrs. Horton before her absence was made into a huge mess, but she continued on with this little detour first. 

“I think it looks like a half bird half lion.”

“Or with the new math, they call that a griffin.”

Kayla smiled up at him.  “You know your mythology.”

“Nah, I’m not the educated type.”

“You sound pretty smart to me, because I had no idea that’s what it was called.”

“Street smart, baby, not mythology smart.”

Kayla knew better.  “I wanna get a closer look.”

“No, we’ve gotta keep movin’ if we’re gonna get you—Hey!”  Kayla had made a run for it across Washington Street straight into the plaza.  “What the hell are you doin’?!”

“Getting a closer look!”  She shouted and waved him over.  “Come on!”

“Dammit, Kayla!”  Steve dodged the cars in true Chicago style before catching up to her by a huge, cement planter full of pink and yellow spring flowers at the edge of the plaza.   The street was very crowded with Thursday morning commuters on their way to all manner of jobs located within these skyscrapers surrounding them, and Daley Plaza was swamred with people headed for the courthouse.  

“What’s wrong, you opposed to a little culture?”

“Yeah, I’m real f*ckin’ opposed!”

“Why?  Let’s look at it.  Just for a little bit.”  Steve was about to give her attitude, but she took his hand in hers and pulled him with her as she backed up toward it.  “Just for a little bit?” she repeated.  Steve let out a reluctant sound.  Her eager spirit was breaking him down.

“Yeah, ok,” he gave up.

“Thank you!”  She pecked him on the cheek with those plump lips of hers so quick he didn’t realize it had happened until it was over and she was trotting toward the sculpture. 

Steve rubbed his fingers over the scar that didn’t end where his patch began.  It was the third time she’d touched his face with her lips or her hand.  It didn’t seem to faze her at all.  He didn’t get why, but he couldn’t deny that every time she came into contact with him that way, or even when she touched his hand, he felt warmth.  It was like sunshine peeking through breaks in the clouds inside of him.  He was going to have to make really sure she stopped this, because the last thing she needed was him dragging her down.  For right now, though, he couldn’t help himself.  He wanted to be with her.

Steve joined Kayla directly under the long snout of the immense structure.  50 feet of brown steel loomed overhead, the object it depicted never made entirely clear and remaining open to interpretation as much in 2009 as it was now in 1983.  The round eyes set inside a canoe-like brow at the top and matching nostrils at the bottom made it hard to interpret it as anything but some kind of creature; it was everything else that made you scratch your head.  Enormous slabs in the form of an M sat behind the would-be face, like thick pools of hair gracefully framing it to nearly the bottom.  A sunburst of cylindrical dowels fanned out from the abstract, vertical main support to hold the massive back “hair” portion to the “face” portion, the effect being a complete mystery.

She stepped up on the raised ledge that supported the entire sculpture and craned her head all the way back.  This was genuinely interesting for her.  She’d been to Chicago several times, but she’d never inspected the various sculptures that dotted the downtown area.  “Ya know what, I think he does kind of look like a platypus.”

“Ya like those beady little eyes, do ya?”

“Oh, I don’t know, they’re kind of soulful, I think.”  Then she stepped back down again and cocked her head to the side.  “Wait a minute, it might be a horse.  Or an Afghan.”  Steve snickered.  “Platypus?”  Then he laughed.  “What?” she laughed back. 

“It’s not an animal,” Steve said.  “You gotta—”

“You’re right, I see it now, it’s a kiss!”

Brief pause.  “Uh … no …”

“Yes, it’s a kiss, look at this here,” she pointed to the top of a vertical structure extending from beneath the duck bill/horse muzzle/lion’s snout, all the way to the ground.  “Ya know that picture of a vase but the negative space around it is a whole other picture of two people kissing?” 

Steve knew exactly what she was talking about.  “You mean figure-ground?  Doubt it.” 

Kayla looked at him slack-jawed.  “It has a name?”

“Yeah, dude in Denmark thought it up.”

“You’re kidding.”

“No, Denmark loves their figure-ground sh*t.”

“I … always thought you just knew Sweden.”

Steve grew uncomfortable.  It was another example of her knowing him and him not knowing her, and he didn’t like it.  “Bo has a big goddamned mouth.”

His hatred for Bo was still fresh here, and it fomented nothing but hate for himself.  She had to be more careful.  “I’m sorry, I … I just didn’t know you were—I mean, I’m impressed.  You’re very versed in art. 

“There you go again, acting like our daddies set us up to keep the kids’ pedigree acceptable.”

“Ok, smart guy, suppose you tell me what you see if you’re such an expert, ‘cause I’m telling you, that’s a kiss.”

“Baby, trust me on this one.  It ain’t a kiss.  Why don’t you take a real hard look at it.”  Kayla craned her neck in about six different directions, climbed the incline of its steel base, jockeyed for position with the other touristy types trying to do the same thing, eventually realized that the vase image was sculpted upside down, and now she was thinking way too hard about this.  Steve finally elaborated with the most unbelievably cocky look on his face.  “It doesn’t matter, the whole thing’s a front.”

“Huh?”

“It’s a costume baby.  A mask.  Misdirection.”

“The … figure-ground part?  Or the griffin platypus thing.”

“The whole thing.”

“I don’t get it.  A front for what?”

He snickered at her then let it rip, eager to see her reaction.  “A pussy.”

Kayla narrowed her eyes, an expression in direct opposition to the wide open eyes of the Picasso sculpture’s deer-in-the-headlights look.  “A pussy,” she repeated disbelievingly.

Steve’s pulse increased.  “Wouldja listen to that dirty word comin’ out of that sweet mouth,” he teased. 

“Still think I’m a little girl?”

“Nope, you got me there.”

“Ok, for the sake of argument, let’s say this is a serious interpretation …”

“I am serious, baby,” he huffed rather amiably.

“… and you really think you see a vagina there.”  She had no problem saying that word in his presence, it didn’t rattle her in the least.  To Steve, however, hearing her say the word vagina was like watching a sex scene while on your first date.  A little goofy and a little naughty.  His pulse raced a little more, and he was completely amused.

“That’s just it,” he spread his arms out and widened his eye as if in shock, “it’s not there.”

“You just said—”

“Didn’t I say it was misdirection?   This thing is three-dimensional.  You know that, right?”  Kayla cocked her head at him in annoyance.  She hated when he patronized her.  He laughed.  “You’re not lookin’ at this from the right side, baby, this ain’t the end that matters.  Everyone looks at it from the front, standin’ right where you’re standin’, expecting to figure out what it is, when really they’re looking at the wrong end.  You need to walk your pretty little legs around to the other side and look at it from the back. 

“There’s more in the back?” she asked doubtfully.

“Let’s just say the truth is in the back.”

“There’s a vagina back there?”

“Yeah.”

“Behind the platypus.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Well then,” she said in a provocative voice Steve hadn’t heard on her yet, “Let’s get a look at this pussy you’re so fond of, then.”  Steve’s reaction to her was written all over his face.  She smiled slyly with the knowledge that she could keep up with him.

Rather than cut through to the back, Kayla motioned for Steve to move aside, which he was more than happy to do.  She then strolled her way around the square perimeter, one foot after another like a gymnast on a balance beam, her arms out for balance.  Steve followed closely behind.  “You fall on that wrist again you’re on your own, baby.”  Kayla looked briefly over her shoulder and smirked but kept going.  It was a very large platform of continuous bench space, so it took a minute to get dead center behind it.  When she hopped off, Steve watched as her hair bounced with her.  She looked up right away, but Steve hopped down and dragged her backwards by the shoulders.  She let him until they were practically under the eaves of the courthouse a good 20 feet away. 

It didn’t take long before Kayla gasped.

“Oh-oh,” Steve teased, “Someone’s gettin’ an eyeful, isn’t she?”  Kayla was speechless, she really was.  Steve took in the stunned look on her face and let his own break into the kind of wide smile his wife would have appreciated if only she were looking. 

“Oh my God.  It does look like a vagina.”

Kayla continued to stare, her mouth open in real amazement.  Steve couldn’t help it, he guffawed and clapped his hands and doubled over until his sides hurt.  Kayla heard him, but she was still too amazed with the accuracy of the description to chide him.  “Now that you’re lookin’ at it right, you still see a sweet little kiss?”

Kayla shook her head as she continued to gape up at what was basically a giant maw in the center of the back of the structure.  With the initial shock wearing off, Kayla became far more scrutinizing.  Steve watched her study the iconic artwork and was impressed with her fearlessness.  She paced back and forth as she took in not just the orifice, but the entire structure from this vantage point. It could not have been more different from the back than it was from the front, and she could not deny that even to her, every bit of it resembled a giant female crotch.  The focal point was obviously the vaguely heart-shaped opening that draws the eye downward with its striated steel rods forming a sloped tunnel to that abstract, vertical support – what Kayla had initially interpreted as a kiss.  Not from here, however.  The waves and ripples of the narrow band of steel that formed those abstract puckers of a lovers’ kiss, from back here, could only be the delicate folds of the vagina’s inner labia, begging to be parted to the secrets within.  From the front, the massive planes of curved steel set like mirror images on either side of the long face now revealed themselves to Kayla as the outer labia, swollen in sexual arousal, completing the entirety of what she could only assume was Picasso’s appreciation of the vulva.  Even the sloping bottom of the Picasso, which now crawled with people of all ages perching themselves for photos wasn’t as it seemed anymore.  On this new canvas Kayla only saw the spread apart legs of a woman ready to receive her mate.  Kayla had never heard a hint of a peep of controversy about The Picasso.  But it sure seemed to her that it was … well … exactly what Steve said it was.

“You were right.  It’s a great big vagina.”

“I told ya, baby.”

“A vulva, actually.”

“Whatever you say,” he chuckled.

“Like giant.”

“You could drive a truck up there.”

The visual on that alone made Kayla crack up.  “You could drive a truck up there?”

“Pablo musta’ liked his women loose.”  Kayla gave Steve a slow look that said she couldn’t believe he’d just said that.  Then all she could do was bust up laughing, some more, because what else could she do, it was hysterically funny.

Steve’s smirk loosened into something so natural and playful that he couldn’t help how much he felt the warmth start inside him.  He’d started out trying to ruffle her feathers, but that his interpretation, language, and laughter when she got her eyeful did the opposite infused him with excitement.  His head was still trying to get rid of her, but his heart had diverted from that plan and was enjoying her presence.

“Ok, just don’t call him Mack, he’s a Peterbuilt,” she giggled, making a reference to Pixar’s movie, Cars, which wouldn’t be on his radar for decades.  Steve cracked up, anyway, her wit was clever. 

“There’s gotta be a tucking company named Pablo!”

They were laughing so hard at how hidden in plain sight this was that Kayla had to wipe the tears out of the corners of her eyes.  She looked around and was amazed that people all around them were either walking into or out of the courthouse, but no one was observing the explicit figure from this side.  Steve was right about this, too, all the observers were in front of the enormous statue; they were the only two people viewing it this way.  She felt oddly conspicuous, like she’d gone to school naked and wondered if anyone was about to notice.  But it was just business as usual, other than the two of them laughing like morons.

“I don’t get it,” Kayla said, “how is no one noticing this?”

“Told you, it’s by design.  Big front.”

“Literally.”

Steve snorted.  “You just don’t quit, do ya?” 

They spent a short time debating if Picasso had done this on purpose or if it was just the most unfortunate coincidence ever.  Steve’s knowledge ended here, so it was a whole lot of conjecture-based opinion, but the discussion came easily, and the comfort level was high enough for both of them that they’d naturally found themselves a spot on the raised bench.  Kayla forgot for a long moment where she was, and Steve forgot for that same long moment that he was trying to ditch her. 

It took a while, but they did eventually fall into an awkward silence.  When Steve next spoke, he was back to the plan.  “So, you got your eyeful, baby.  You can call that research.”

Kayla rose to the occasion.  “Really?  Research?”  Steve  raised his lip in a lusty, daring leer.  Like the fist in the bar, this move meant to alienate her was something she had the advantage on.  “Oooh.  I see.  You’re saying next time I go down on a woman I can remember this statue and decide how hungry I am?”

Steve did not see that coming.  His crotch was now as aroused as, apparently, this giant one above him was.  But there was something about her that spoke to him, because her spunk made him want her even more than just her beauty and erotic words had.  Whatever it was, he was still fighting against it.  “Slurp, slurp, baby,” he replied smoothly.

Kayla backed away and stood up, though the smile on her face told him she was nothing more than non-plussed.  “Wow,” she mumbled to herself.  “When you get here you’re going to be really sorry you missed this little conversation.”  Then she looked up again.  “Not so little,” she whispered.

They walked slowly to the curb, but before Steve could get Kayla back on track to this free phone that seemed a lot less important to her than it had 30 minutes ago, she did a double take.  There was another sculpture there.  Directly across the street from The Picasso, she’d already passed it without realizing it.   Steve saw her renewed excitement and exhaled derisively.

“Oh, come on, baby, we gotta get movin’, I got things to do today!”

“That one a disguise, too, or is she is all woman?

“How do I know, I look like an art critic to you?”

Kayla folded her arms.  “You sure sound like one,” she smiled.

“Maybe I just know a,” he lowered his voice and whispered her word scandalously, “vulva when I see one.” 

Kayla raised an eyebrow, and again her husband marveled at the fact that he just couldn’t seem to shock her no matter how crude he seemed to get.  “Ya know what I think?” she said matter-of-factly.  “I think you should give yourself a little credit and give this one a crack, too.”

Steve took her in through his narrowed eye and silently let himself think about it.  The statue she was referring to had been renamed Miro’s Chicago by 2009 but now was called The Sun, the Moon, and One Star.  It was only a year old, he didn’t know a thing about it, and he found himself wanting very much to do exactly what she said and go check it out.  With her.  “Don’t you have a phone call to make, little girl?” Calling her that continued to get a rise out of her.  Good.

She had no idea why this nickname bothered her so much, but it really did.  Grin and bear it, Kayla, it’s not going to stick.  “Yes, let’s go look at that one, then I’ll go make it.”

“What happened to being in a hurry?”  His better judgment was slipping as he shuffled his feet and put his hands on his hips.  Then he dropped his gaze, and she could actually see him relent to himself.  “Well, are ya gonna stand there, or are ya gonna make another run for it?”  The smile Kayla gave him was warm and happy … and it pleased him that his willingness to do this put a smile on her face.  This is not a date, he insisted to himself as he headed across the street with her. 

This sculpture could not have been more different.  Still quite looming at nearly 40 feet, this one took up far less real estate horizontally.  It was also, without question, utterly feminine.  From the much softer materials to the splashes of colored tile in the ceramic surface to the obvious shape of a woman in a long, belled skirt, her arms outstretched, this was a lovely representation of maternal warmth, acceptance, and affection.  Kayla immediately felt something very honest and kind about her.  Her flattened head was done in contrasting bronze that was already oxidizing into a pale green.  Her nose was abstractly cast above her eyes in a long beak, and a very tall headdress grew out of the top of her head like a fork with four thickly tapering tines.  Kayla thought the vaguely Mayan feel of the head was a beautiful complement to the gentle female curves below.

Steve watched Kayla step up the two small raised platforms that supported the Miro.  “Did Picasso do her, too?” Kayla asked as she looked up to the top of the bronze, head portion of the sculpture.

“I dunno how many women he did, Sweetness, this one just went up, I was in the joint at the time.” 

Kayla ignored the double entendre.  “Mm,” she said lazily.  “Which one.”

“Which one what?”

“Which joint?”

Steve huffed.  “Ya know I’m talkin’ about jail, right baby, not the kind to get you high enough to look this lady in the eye with?”

Kayla gave him a sideways glance then shook her head.  “I’m so much older than you think I am,” she chuckled humorlessly but not without a compassionate tone.  “You were in jail.  Not shocked.  I’m asking which one.”

Not shocked?  What was it gonna take?  Maybe he should tell her he had a raging case of herpes.  Though after his first encounter with her and Candy he figured that wouldn’t work, either.  Finally he just gave in with his own long exhale of surrender.  “Right here.  Cook County Jail. 

“What for?”  She already knew it was for the theft listed on his rap sheet, but she was interested to know what he stole. 

“She makin’ ya ask all these questions?” he asked leaning against her sand colored skirt.  “She telling you all kinds of little secrets?”

“Good point,” she smiled at him we should go see if this one has a secret, too!”  Kayla placed her left palm on the pebbly surface of the statue but immediately recoiled from the acute throb the sprain caused with her wrist in that position.  Steve involuntarily stood at full attention like a reflex.  It wasn’t a conscious choice, he just suddenly found himself … concerned … and fascinated as she tried to cover it up.  He watched as she actually swallowed down the pain and tried to hide it.  But it was too late, he saw it pass across her face.  And all he wanted was to make that pain go away.  She started to make her way around the Miro, but Steve came up behind her and placed a steadying hand on her hip before she got going. 

“How ‘bout you stop playing Nadia Comaneci and just walk normal, ok, this isn’t a balance beam, I don’t have time for you to fall and crack your head open.”

Steve’s hand on her hip almost paralyzed her.  In a wave of heartsick yearning that nearly bowled her over exactly as this Steve feared, Kayla’s eyes misted over.  He didn’t see them, and she swallowed it down just as she’d done for the pain in her wrist, but she felt it, and she would have given anything in that moment for Steve to know her. 

“I’m fine,” she laughed with a lingering discomfort to her voice that Steve attributed to having been touched. He didn’t stop, though.  He liked touching her this way.  He hadn’t wanted to kiss a woman in a very long time.  He’d slept with plenty of them, but this one he wanted to kiss – and he wanted her to kiss him back. 

Steve dropped his stabilizing hand when in only a short series of seconds, unfortunately, they’d arrived at the back of the Miro.  There they discovered that, indeed, there were rewards to be had if you thought enough outside the box and went to the back of the sculpture.  The sun and moon could be derived easily enough from the front – there was a brass sphere at the neck of the sculpture, and there was a large circular, red, tiled indentation on the front left – but there was no real star.  That was visible as a large asterisk carved into the small of her back, easily missable unless you looked.

“It might be the original tramp stamp,” Kayla laughed.  Steve didn’t understand this 21^st century reference, so she explained it to him, and he laughed, too.  He didn’t know anyone with a tattoo in the small of their back, but he could definitely imagine it.  Somehow he didn’t think that was what the sculptor intended.  “Ok, so what did he intend?” she asked.

Steve was drawn to the maternal structure.  He put his hands on the star, but rather than make a lewd joke, his face took on a serious quality as he traced it with his fingers.  Kayla watched him take her in and followed him when he walked back around to the front dragging his hand tactilly behind him across the pebbly surface.  Unlike at the Picasso, no tourists shared this area with them.  It was a far smaller, very intimate space nestled between two very tall buildings.  It was, frankly, completely out of place here, literally a serene park surrounded by concrete. Kayla was enjoying Steve’s contemplation … but his silence became suddenly burdened, and before she knew it, Steve looked troubled.  Sad.  Like a sudden splash of cold water to the face, she realized what was happening.  Because this wasn’t the first time the two of them looked at sculptures together.

Oh, baby. 

This Steve was 27 years old.  He’d been abandoned over and over, and he hadn’t worked any of that out yet, not the least of which being the abandonment by his own parents.  Kayla knew her husband even if he didn’t know her.  She knew him so well that she knew he had a lump in his throat the size of a baseball that he was fighting against.  And she knew that this beautiful piece of art was bringing back memories of another maternal figure cast in bronze that he’d seen as a five-year-old on a college campus in LA. 

Steve jumped when Kayla’s hand gently appeared on his shoulder.  He had both hands on the concrete skirt above the red indentation.  He glanced at her over his shoulder but didn’t shoo her away.  “Do you want to talk about it?”  Steve shook his head tightly.  It was taking all his control to keep his tears from showing in his eye; he was glad that it was his bad eye that was closest to her at the moment.  She wished he would open up to her, but she knew without question not to push him right now.  So, she let her knowledge be enough.  His memories of the statue he used to call “The Fat Lady” were bubbling up to the surface – striking something tender in him.  She wanted to hold him, but this simply wasn’t their relationship right now.  Instead, she sent her soulmate as much love as she could with her touch, then she let her palm slide down from his shoulder and began to step away from him.

“You don’t have to go,” he said very softly.

Kayla’s heart leapt.  “I … I was just … going to wait for you … on the bench,” her wish to give him some privacy implicit in her understanding tone.

Steve didn’t look at her; his hands had not moved from the structure.  “You don’t have to go,” he repeated. 

She didn’t have to be told a third time.  Kayla came in beside him and wrapped her right arm around his shoulders.  His faded denim jacket was crisp and new, and she realized that it was the same one he’d have years later when she’d meet him in 1986; by then it would be well-worn.  For some reason this gave her own feelings of homesickness some succor.  Kayla squeezed Steve’s shoulder in support, and she was so very pleased when he put his own hand up to hers in acknowledgement.  A few moments later, Steve disengaged himself from the Miro, as well as his wife’s supporting embrace. 

“Bet you pegged me as a guy who could care less about sculpture,” Steve said as he secured his patch.

Kayla shook her head.  “There’s more in this life you care about than you let on.”  Steve didn’t react. 

Without another word, they finally picked up where they’d left off and continued their walk due east.  Kayla still had no idea where they were going.   When she asked, Steve simply said “free phone.”  She went back to worrying about how to keep herself there instead of Union Station once the phone call was taken care of and her jeans were dry when they stopped in front of a small drug store. 

“There’s a phone here?”

“Pit stop.  That wrist is hurting you.”  He was right, it was.  “You got money for an ace bandage?”

She smiled, because he was still taking care of her and didn’t even know it.  “Yes, I think I could manage that.”

“Good, ‘cause I’m tapped out until later.”

“What’s later?”

“Twenty Questions is over, baby, just get in there and get the bandage, then I’ll wrap it.”

“You know how to wrap it?”

“Man of many talents,” he leered.

Steve Johnson, you’ve been holding out on me all these years, trying to get me to take care of you!  Only she found out very quickly that that wasn’t the case.  He wrapped her hand in the bandage, but it wasn’t exactly a textbook wrap.  Kayla undid his handiwork and told him to cool it when he began to balk.  “How about you rise above that great big ego of yours and watch, you’ll learn something for next time.”  As soon as she said it, she snapped her head up and looked at him with regret.  There would be no next time.  There would be no future for this learned lesson to be applied.  Because as soon as her Steve jumped in, this one would cease to exist, never to be seen again when the timeline went dormant.  Suddenly she felt very melancholy, a small sound tight in her throat.  This Steve was not going to last, and the guilt within her was very confusing.

“Jesus, what’d I do?!  Did I hurt ya, baby?!”  The look in his eye was genuinely concerned, and Kayla’s heart soared as she forced herself to push past the truth of his existence. 

“I-I-I’m fine, it’s just I think I really need to get to that phone call b-b-before it’s too late.”

Steve swayed back and forth in his place and agitatedly plowed a hand through his hair.  “Well, get to the learnin’, then, so we can get this thing done.”

Kayla re-wrapped her own wrist, and Steve watched astutely.  When they next made eye contact, she saw something there.  It wasn’t big enough to be investment, but it was enough to be a very tenuous connection. 

Minutes later they they arrived at their destination, and Kayla was really confused.  “I don’t get it.  Why are we here?”  He was walking at a very brisk pace, and she had to walk in double time to keep up.

“For your free phone, that’s why.”

Marshall Fields on State Street was the mammoth cultural icon of a department store that no longer existed in 2009 because it had become a Macy’s, but here in 1983 it was all Fields, and it was bustling with shoppers.  She’d only been here once before in this timeline, when her entire family took a rare overnight trip here as a child at Christmastime to look at the festively decorated windows and have lunch in one of the fancy restaurants.  Years later her mother told her that her grandmother had paid for that trip, which made sense once she got to 1979 and saw how tight things were for them.  In her own lifetime, however, Kayla had been here one other time as an adult during a medical conference in the late ‘90’s.  Now that she was here with Steve in 1983 when the intention was to make a phone call using a free phone, Kayla was baffled.  But she followed him, anyway, because if there was one thing that never changed it was her trust in him.

“Would you slow down?”  He’d made it to the grand staircase that loomed over a sea of makeup counters, which Kayla couldn’t help but pine to look at with an eye toward nostalgia.  But this wasn’t a trip to the museum, much as it almost felt like it, and Steve was moving so fast that she was beginning to get annoyed.  “Steve!”

“What!” he shouted down to her from his position half a flight ahead of her.

“What is the big rush suddenly?”

“You wanna call your girlyfriend, don’t you?”

The vision of Alice Horton as a “girlyfriend” almost made Kayla laugh out loud, but she was still trying to catch her breath.  “Yeah, but you’re about to lap me, can we just take these steps one at a time?”

“No, I’ve got sh*t to do today, so step on it.”  Steve’s disposition had turned on a serious dime. 

“Are you mad at me, again, or something?”

“No, I just wanna get it overwith.” 

“Get what overwith?”

Steve stared at her for a beat.  “Nothin’.  Come on, it’s on three.”

Kayla wasn’t sure what the hell was going on with him and why he’d suddenly turned back into the jerk he was from the bar last night.  Whatever it was, she had to fix it or he was going to make it very hard for her to come up with any more excuses to stay.  “I’m sorry.”

“For what?” 

She was now following him through a clothing section where every single mannequin that didn’t look like Madonna looked like it should be on the cover of Vogue.  Bold stripes, huge graphic lips, black mesh, and high-waisted acid-washed jeans.  It was ‘80’s heaven.

“For whatever it was I did just now to upset you.”

She sounded so sweet.  So real.  This beautiful girl was apologizing for hurting, annoying, or otherwise offending him, and she didn’t even know why, she was just blindly accepting that she had and she was sorry.  To him.   A man who didn’t deserve to walk down the same path.  Yet, here she was, never once seeming to notice that he wore a patch over his eye, didn’t have a thing to his name, and wasn’t remotely in her league.  Steve stopped near the escalator where a worker had just come out of an unmaked door.  Kayla eyed the escalator, hoping they took that back down.  He faced her and fingered a strand of her hair before backing off and shuffling around nervously.

“I’m not mad at you.  You didn’t upset me.  I just think it’s time we got down to business and went back to the original plan.  Get you a phone, then get back to my place, pick up your stuff, and head you back to the bus.  This is what I look like when I’m real focused like.  Ok, Sweetness?”

Oh my God.  He doesn’t want me to go.  She knew as soon as he got it all out, that tone in his voice was regret.  He was upset, alright, because he liked her.   And he didn’t want her to leave.  Oh, thank goodness.  It unnerved Steve to the core when Kayla suppressed her grin.

“Ok,” she relented far too quickly for Steve’s liking, because in less than a day he’d already figured out that she was a stubborn thing.  “So, why are we at a department store?”

“There’s a locker room through that door, we’re just gonna wait here a second.  Someone owes me a favor.”

Kayla took Steve’s hand in hers.  It was so warm.  “Thank you for using your favor on me.”  Steve opened his mouth to say something, but before he could, someone called to him.

“Patch?”  Kayla turned toward the female voice.  “When did you get out?”

Steve dropped Kayla’s hand fast.  “Hey Pixie Stick,” he smiled.  “How’s the fancy job?”

“Very fancy, and that’s how I’d like to keep it, so what are you doing here?”

“Nice way to thank me, Pix.”

The young black girl in her 20’s was probably older than Kayla was right now, and she was very, very pretty.  She fastened a white apron around her waist and smoothed out the rest of the black waitress’s uniform before darting her head around to see who might be watching.  “You’ve gotta make this quick, I’m supposed to be setting places upstairs for the lunch crowd.  Who’s the stray?”

“Excuse me?” Kayla snapped.

“Excuse me?  Excuse you, honey.”

“Down, ladies,” Steve warned while shooting Kayla a warning glance.  Kayla fumed.  “Kayla Brady, Dixie Green, former stray.”

“Hey!” she whispered indignantly.

“Dixie Green, Kayla Brady.  Almost former stray.”  Steve went on before Kayla could chide him, too.  “Pix, look, we need a phone.”

“Do I look like Ma Bell to you?”

Steve turned on the smarm.  “You look like a girl who owes me a favor, so how ‘bout you show a little appreciation.”  Kayla was truly surprised when the girl actually looked somewhat scolded. 

She tried following the conversation, as the girl led them through a door that was clearly for staff only.  Admittedly, she found her focus trying to wander to the nostalgia that surrounded her.  It didn’t take long to determine that Steve had done her some kind of big favor, and he was basically calling it in.  Whatever it was, Dixie was really shocked that this enormous favor was being returned as a simple phone call.  But she did come through by leading them to her manager’s office.  She told them to hurry it up and that if they got caught to leave her name out of it.

Kayla didn’t like this at all.  The last thing she wanted to do was get someone fired.  “Look, I-I-I … don’t want to get anyone in trouble, I can just use a payphone, there were a ton of them downstairs.”

“Girl, you be buggin’!” Dixie threw at her.

“Jeez, I cannot keep up with the slang,” Kayla whined.

“You wanted a phone, I got you a phone,” Steve hissed.

“I never said it had to be free, you did!”

“You wanna pay that long distance charge, you be my guest, baby, show me your roll of quarters, you’re gonna need a few of ‘em!”

“You should have just let me use the one in your room!”

“His room?”

“I told you, you use that phone you’ll have Frank all up in your business.”

Kayla threw up her hands, “I just – I didn’t know we’d be getting her in trouble!”

“If you don’t lower your voices you will be!”  Now, look, I have to get up to 7 and work.

“Now come on, little girl, we’re here, so make the goddamn call!”

Kayla relented, thanked Dixie, who replied with a, “not even,” which she ignored.  The girl then gave Steve a little push before smiling at him and telling him to stay cool.  Kayla felt a weird mixture of jealousy and appreciation as she dialed.  Thankfully, Alice answered quickly.  Kayla assured her that she was just fine out here in Chicago and that she’d found Steve.  She had to get kind of cryptic with him in the room, lest she freaked him out with talk of him not needing to call her after all, but she got her point across.  She had a harder time explaining how long she’d be here and when she was coming back to work.  She wanted to say never, but for all she knew they were going to be here for years again.  Or hours.  It was infuriating.  She tried to skirt it, and when she hung up, she could tell that Alice was less than satisfied, but it was the best she could do.

Kayla’s next call was met with protests by Steve, who said he’d promised her one call and that this was not a free-for-all, but Kayla shushed him, and he went back to watching the door. The truth was that Kayla hadn’t planned on making this call, but she realized after hanging up with Mrs. Horton that there was really no way around it.  When Caroline Brady answered the phone she was fit to be tied.  Kayla thought ahead and called the fish market line, limiting the subject matter that either of her parents would be willing to discuss in front of customers.  Sure enough, her mother was practically mum.  Kayla was very brief and direct.  She said she had a friend she had to help and that she didn’t know when she’d be home.

“You sure as hell do,” Steve piped in, but Kayla mouthed for him to shut up.

“I’m an adult, mom, I know what I’m doing.  I’ll check in with you in a few days.”  Steve was seething.

Kayla hung up and called in sick to the hospital for the rest of the week.  The moment she was done Steve hightailed them out of the offices, back to the sales floor, and to the escalator.  “What the hell was that, Kayla?”

“What the hell was what?”

“All that bullshit about,” he switched to mocking mode, “’not sure when I’ll be home,’” and “’I’ll check in with you in a few days.’”  Kayla sneered at his tone.  “Don’t tell me, baby, you hate it when I do that, right?  Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yeah, that’s what I said,” she spat back at him as good as he could give it.  

“We are goin’ back, getting your crap, and then it’s back to Salem and my former best friend.  You got me?”

It took three flights of the most beautiful and ornate escalators, which they rode in silence, to get to the bottom floor.  Kayla insisted on using the restroom, and Steve told her not so nicely to hurry it up.  She tossed him a really evil eye before retreating for the bathroom, leaving him to wait for her by a costume jewelry counter.  The place was enormous.  Lilttle couches, beautifully carved sinks and … dingy stalls.  A very strange combination.  She would have loved to spend time roaming the entire place, but this was not the nostalgia hour, Kayla had to regroup.  The morning started out pretty dismally, but then they’d had a really good time together.  Steve even let his guard down for a brief moment at the second sculpture.  This phone call, however, was a disaster, and she was starting to feel desperate.  She knew something in him was clicking, that he was starting to feel something for her – or his soul was starting to work its way into him somehow.  But he was fighting against it, and she wasn’t sure how she was going to make him let her stay.  She just had to pray that her primary Steve would jump in.  “Please, God,” she whispered, “now would be a good time.”

When she came out, Steve was having a conversation with the sales clerk behind the jewelry counter.  And it was not a good conversation, either.

“… really.  You expect me to believe that?”

“Yeah, baby, I do,” Steve replied to the woman in a tone Kayla knew well, “I expect you to believe that.”  He was pretending he didn’t give a damn when in reality he gave quite the damn.   

“Mm-hmm, well, if she ever comes out, I can just tell her you went that way,” the woman pointed.

“You got a problem with me hanging out with your fine jewels here?”

“Yes, I do.  You’re loitering.”

“I’m not loitering, baby, I told you, I’m waiting for a girl in the bathroom.”

“I’m sure.”

“You wanna go in and check yourself?”

“Sir, we both know that no one in that lounge is with you …”  Kayla’s mouth dropped.  “… and we also know that there is nothing in this store that would interest someone like you.”  And now she filled with red fury, too.  “You are scaring my customers away, so you’d better leave before I call security.”

“Excuse me,” Kayla said haughtily from beside Steve.  “Why, exactly, are you talking to my husband this way?”  Both the sales clerk and Steve looked at her with serious shock.  Kayla went on before either of them could reply.   “I was just in the restroom for a moment, wasn’t I honey?” she said to him.

“Ye—uh, yeah,” Steve stammered and adjusted his patch.

“We were having a perfectly nice morning on our day off.  It’s nice to have one of those in the middle of the week.  It was a beautiful day, and then I come out and find you insulting my husband on the one day he can kick back and relax.”  The sales woman had turned beet red, but Kayla didn’t relent. She was furious that this woman could so blatantly judge him this way.  “Just what is it about him that you think is so terribly scary to your customers?  Huh?  How ‘bout you tell me what makes you think it’s ok to treat him this way?”  The woman was silent.  “Cat got your tongue?”

“N-no.”

“Then out with it.  Why is he a second class citizen?”

“I … well, his …,” the woman pointed to his face.  And Kayla almost had kittens right there.

“I know you’re not pointing to his patch.”  Her voice had dropped half an octave, and even without the benefit of having known her for 23 years, he knew this was bad.

“Kayla, let’s go.”

“No!” she fairly shouted.  “No!  It’s vile!”

“Please, Kayla, let’s just get out of here.”

“Ma’am, I didn’t know!”

Steve cocked his head at the woman.  “Didn’t know what?”

“That you could really be with her.”  She said it with all the contrition in the world – like the offense was that she didn’t believe him and that a woman like Kayla could actually want him, rather than because what she’d said directly to his face was repugnant and bigoted.  That, apparently, sailed right over the woman’s head.

Kayla got deadly silent now and leaned over the counter.  “This man has more decency in his little finger than you will ever have to show in your miserable life.  And, I am with him.”  Then she turned to Steve, wrapped her arms around his neck, and kissed him with a passion that at this time he’d literally never felt in his life.  He hadn’t kissed a woman on the lips in years, and this was one hell of a welcome back, blowing all of those previous kisses out of the water.  There wasn’t even any tongue involved, and he still felt it all the way into the tips of his toes.  Steve let his hands rest on her hip and shoulder and couldn’t believe how good she tasted.  When Kayla pulled out of the kiss she felt very alive with the effect she was seeing in him, but it was secondary to the shock she was seeing in the sales woman.  “Take a picture, it lasts longer,” she spat.  “Old, washed up biddy.”  Not exactly the harshest words in the English language, but given the venom with which they were spoken, they were clearly the fiercest of insults.  With that, Kayla made a beeline for the front, revolving doors with Steve hot on her heels. 

When they got outside, it was pouring rain.  Neither of them wanted to stand there and get wet, but Kayla was too offended to step foot back inside, and Steve was too amped up at her mind-boggling show of … what the hell was that, anyway, defending his honor?  They looked upon each other with equal parts heat and accusation, and this time it was Steve who kissed her.  In fact, he couldn’t get his lips on hers fast enough.  The cool, Spring rain poured down on top of them as their lips ate at each other with pure abandon.  When Kayla’s tongue insisted on entrance, Steve opened for her and met it with his own.  Steve’s body was on fire, his heart pounding so hard he could feel it trying to break through his chest.  Kayla’s own heart soared when she felt his hand cradle the back of her head.

“You taste so sweet, Kayla,” Steve moaned into their kisses, “you taste so sweet.”  He held her face in his hands as he suckled her lips, and Kayla wrapped her fingers in his hair.  He didn’t feel the same, this was not the body she was used to.  But his kisses never changed, they were always tender and hot and filled with something genuine.  Steve pulled away from her and pierced her with his stare as he palmed her wet hair off of her forehead.  No words were exchanged, just utterly connected looks. 

“Steve,” she finally broke the silence, whispering with such feeling.  Like she knew all his secrets and loved him for it.  This time when he kissed her he knew he was in trouble.  That he was falling for her – that he had fallen for her.  That he had to get her out of his life and save her from himself.  He had to get her on that bus.

Five minutes later they were still kissing as passionately as when they started, and the 11:07 bus for Salem had left Union Station without her on it.

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