90, Courtship
“If reincarnation is real, then you must’ve been a pile of elephant shit in your last life!” Bullets flew over special agent Alexi Blacktide’s head as she stayed crouched behind a dirt filled concrete retaining wall for cover. “This is the dumbest fucking idea of all time!”
“Elephant shit, huh? That would make sense.” Special agent demolitions expert Dale O’Connor was crouched next to his girlfriend as the gun fight started getting chaotic. Sounds of hot lead shattering against the concrete wall drowned out their ability to have any kind of meaningful conversation. During a brief lull in the noise, he added, “We can’t all be Cleopatra in a past life. Or can we? I don’t know how reincarnation works, actually.”
“God dammit, honey!” Blacktide held her hand gun tightly with both hands as she instinctually waited to shoot back.
“I’m serious. I’ve always had this strange feeling that I had Egyptian tits once. Cleopatra was Egyptian, right?”
“Shut the fuck up!” Blacktide was not in the mood for her boyfriends normal casual bullshit.
“Or I was an Aztec princess. I feel like maybe they were Mexican titties, not Egyptian.”
“Fuck off!” As per usual, Blacktide’s killer intuition took over. She popped up from her hiding place and pointed her gun perfectly at two of their shooters. She’d dropped back down behind cover as the two shooters fell lifelessly backwards. “This is not the time!” Blacktide yelled.
More bullets whizzed in their direction as O’Connor felt his chest. It was the rock hard, chiseled physique of a Norwegian god, but he had some strange premonition that he had fed babies with his nipples at one point in one of his former lives. In his usual dry tone, O’Connor tried to justify his comments. “Well I never even thought about reincarnation until you brought it up.”
Blacktide dragged out the word, “Honey!” as she grabbed his shirt and tried to pull him down. He didn’t budge. The man was crazy strong, and Blacktide had discovered how strong he really was when she started sleeping with him three months earlier. Currently she couldn’t drag him down and it made her even more mad. “Just fucking go down, would you?”
Without skipping a beat, O’Connor’s sarcasm took over. “I’ll always go down when you tell me to, dear.” In her anger, Blacktide tried to slap him but his face disappeared as he dropped to the ground like she’d asked.
The two of them were in a Moscow warehouse filled with bad men, hard drugs, stolen cash and illegal heavy armaments. The bad men had discovered the Americans snooping around the warehouse and were now ruthlessly shooting at them, but as per usual, the members of Team Whiskey were notoriously difficult to kill.
“I can’t believe I actually let myself get charmed by you, asshole!” Blacktide yelled. Her instincts were telling her to stay under cover for a few more seconds before firing back.
O’Connor was emotionless as he asked, “And how, pray tell, did I charm you?”
Blacktide popped up and killed two more bad guys before dropping back down. “You told me I was beautiful when you woke up in that hospital bed!” Blacktide grimaced and said with a strain, “I can’t believe I fell for your bullshit!”
Shrugging nonchalantly while staying down, O’Connor said, “Well you ARE beautiful, Lex. Like, crazy beautiful. What’s wrong with having a boy that thinks you’re fucking hot?”
“Because you used me to do this stupid hare brained mission of yours, asshole! You know I’d have never supported the idea of you coming to Russia with how fucked up you’ve been!”
Two weeks earlier, O’Connor had been in a shootout in the mountains of Colombia outside of Bogota. While under the intoxicated effects of magic mushrooms, he’d shot and killed three Russian thugs and wounded a fourth. The wounded Russian was a man named Gosavich, a corrupt thug working for nefarious oil company employers. Gosavich and O’Connor had both shot each other in the arm. Gosavich escaped while O’Connor passed out in the grass.
When O’Connor awoke, his girlfriend Alexi Blacktide was furiously cleaning his wound and cussing him out. He’d said, “I love you,” to her for the first time ever in their relationships as he lost consciousness. Blacktide desperately wanted to hear those words again, but when O’Connor awoke in a hospital bed, his first words were to Sergeant Schuman saying that he needed Porter to give him a ride to Moscow. When he looked at Blacktide, he smiled and simply said, “You are beautiful.”
That was it. Blacktide wanted to hear O’Connor tell her that he loved her again, but all he said over and over is that he had to go to Moscow. When Blacktide asked why, he’d answered, “I need Connorvich’s help.” When pressed further, all O’Connor kept saying is, “Just get me to Moscow. I can’t be who I want to be until Connorvich helps me.” It was cryptic and atypical for O’Connor. Blacktide knew that he always said what he meant and meant what he said. She reluctantly agreed to help O’Connor if she could join him. “Hell yes,” was all O’Connor would reply, “it’s awesome hanging out with you. Just get me to Moscow. My future depends on it.”
Mikayla Doniak, Alexi Blacktide and Dale O’Connor all got a ride from pilot Porter to the Russian capital a week later. O’Connor had been eating as much meat as he could eat and slept as much as he could sleep, considering he was flying halfway across the world. After another week of heavy eating and lots of rest in a Moscow safe house, O’Connor had decided it was time to go drink at a bar with his girlfriend. As fate would have it, the two of them walked into a random bar and saw his old Russian demolitions expert drinking buddy, Connorvich. The universe always put them together without them planning on how to meet each other.
Connorvich had rosy cheeks and a drunk smile. “Comrade! You are een Moscow! I have dream ‘bout you. I know why you come to me.” Connorvich smiled and nodded at Blacktide.
“Then you know I’m motivated,” O’Connor replied.
“Da,” Connorvich said before swilling a shot of vodka. “But I need your help weeth sometheenk, yes? You help me, I help you. Yes?”
“Absolutely,” the American replied.
Connorvich asked O’Connor to take out a rogue group of Russian mafiosos who were peddling drugs and guns to bad people. The mafia knew Connorvich’s face, but O’Connor and Blacktide were unknown. Their anonymity was necessary for the mission. O’Connor agreed instantly to Blacktide’s protests. Connorvich gave the info of the mafia’s warehouse to the Americans and now they were in a shootout.
“I didn’t use you, Lex. You told me you wanted to come,” O’Connor said dryly.
Blacktide jumped back up and dropped the last two bad guys dead with two perfectly placed shots, then dropped back down to cuss O’Connor out. “You said you wanted me to come!”
O’Connor sat up and dusted himself off. “Yup. You’re my favorite person to hang out with.”
“You like hanging out with me? What in the fuck is that supposed to mean?” Blacktide was irrationally angry at their current situation but she was taking it out on O’Connor in regards to their relationship.
“I think it’s a pretty cool thing to like hanging out with someone. You’ve become literally my favorite person on Earth to hang out with.” O’Connor used the sleeve of his shirt to wipe off his nose and added, “Far and away, my favorite. And I’m not saying that just cuz you’re fucking me, Lex. Naked or not, I feel really good when you’re around.”
The compliment caught Blacktide completely off guard. She wanted to be mad but her brain felt scrambled. “So…” she couldn’t find the words to be mad but her female programming couldn’t let go of the fighting spirit just yet. “Like, you just want to come to Russia to hang out?”
O’Connor stood up and looked around. Six bad guys lay dead and bullet holes riddled the area. “Russia, Mexico, America, yeah, everywhere, Lex. If I go to the moon someday, I hope we’re hanging out.”
His passionless tone drove Blacktide crazy. She wanted him to show more emotion but she knew it wasn’t his style. “Fuck!” she yelled in frustration, throwing her hands up in the air.
“Let’s blow this popsicle stand and get out of here. I told Porter I’d buy some ice cream on the way back to the safe house.” Without waiting for his girlfriend, he walked over to a crate full of weapons. O’Connor pulled out a small pry bar and used it to pry open the nails that kept a piece of plywood over the crate. “I gotta warn you though, Lex, Russia doesn’t have the same flavors of ice cream that we have back home.”
Blacktide had ejected her half empty clip and replaced it with a full one. She was still fuming from being mad about being caught in an unexpected shootout so she wasn’t about to play the role of the pleasant girlfriend. “Why in the fuck do you think I give a shit about ice cream?”
The lid popped off of the crate and O’Connor smiled widely. “Bingo,” he said to himself, then turned to Blacktide and muttered, “Because you can pretend to be mad at me all you want, but you know you’re gonna cram some of that delicious frozen yum yum down your pie hole.”
The stupid joke got Blacktide to smile, but then it pissed her off that she smiled. “Frozen yum yum, huh?”
O’Connor set the plywood lid off to the side and reached into the crate. “Quit trying to be mad at me, Lex.” He pulled out an explosive piece of ordinance that weighed over twenty pounds. “We’ll blow this fucking place up and eat ice cream as we listen to Porter talk about how orgasmic frozen sugar milk makes her feel.”
Frozen sugar milk was too much for Blacktide as she snorted in laughter. This pissed her off even more because she was too full of adrenaline to want to laugh with her boyfriend. “Fine!” Blacktide yammered, trying not to give O’Connor any indication that he was making her want to giggle. He saw her frustration and gave her a shit eating grin. “God dammit, Doc!” Blacktide yelled, “I don’t need your cocky shit!”
“You just said cock,” O’Connor replied dryly as he walked to the corner of the room with the explosive. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small metal thing that looked like it was the size of a silver dollar. He set it on the explosive and it stuck to the metal shell magnetically, then set the softly set the explosive down in the corner of the room.
The junior high dick humor was the exact thing Blacktide needed to get mad again. “You’re fucking immature!”
As O’Connor reached into the crate and grabbed another explosive, he corrected his girlfriend. “No,” he said slowly as he heaved the heavy ordinance out of the the crate, “I’m fucking you.” As he carried it to the opposite corner of the room he looked over his shoulder and said, “Wait, hold on, did no one tell you that we were fucking?” He pretended to look confused. “Huh,” he said to himself.
O’Connor was too stupid to realize that sometimes women just need to be angry, let the emotion pass, then be ok again. The worst thing a man could do, especially a man who was a lover, was to make sex jokes when the woman was angry. Blacktide’s blood boiled. “You can fuck yourself then, pal! Or wait! Did no one tell you that I’d stop fucking you if you were being a fucking douche?”
Being oblivious to female behavior and emotional needs, O’Connor couldn’t help but keep joking. “All the fellas at the gay club say that I can come-bi anytime.” He chuckled lightly to himself as he set the explosive by a large pipe. He grabbed another silver dollar looking thingie and it magnetically stuck to the large explosive. “Get it. Come, bi?” He stood up and walked back to the crate as he tried to explain, “Like bisexual? They said I can, come, bi, anytime! Ha!”
Seriously dumb homoerotic humor was the norm for the men on Team Whiskey, so Blacktide shouldn’t have been upset or caught off guard by this unbelievably stupid joke. For whatever reason, her blood was boiling. “Hurry it the fuck up so I don’t have to listen to your fucking useless bullshit and then you can go suck all the men off that you want, god dammit!”
Always playing it cool, O’Connor was emotionless. “I’ve never had a woman tell me to hurry before.” He cracked another immature smile as he pulled out another explosive. Without knowing it, Blacktide was about ready to explode. “This is the last one,” O’Connor said, referring to the logistics of what he was doing. Blacktide’s brain was scrambled with anger so she said nothing. As O’Connor plopped the last magnetically attached silver dollar looking device to the bomb he said dryly, “Let’s bounce and let her blow.”
Another shit eating grin crossed his face as Blacktide realized he’d said something immature again. “God dammit, Doc!”
O’Connor walked up to Blacktide smiling. His grin got wider and his whiskey stained teeth glistened under the warehouse fluorescent lights. “You really are my favorite person to hang out with, Lex.”
Blacktide was full of anger. “Well fuck you! I hate you!”
O’Connor laughed. “Well that sucks for me, you know?” He raised his eyebrows and said, “Because I love you.” He smiled and used his head to gesture towards the door.
Blacktide’s heart had sunk at hearing the words she knew she wanted to hear. She was too mad to say them back, but she wanted to so badly. She remained silent as O’Connor grabbed her hand and pulled her willingly to exit the building.
At that moment, the two Americans heard loud yelling Russian voices coming from a hallway inside the warehouse. They picked up their pace and jogged out into the cold Moscow night. O’Connor didn’t let go of his girlfriends’ hand until they were a hundred yards away from the warehouse.
When they stopped running, O’Connor pulled out a device from his pocket and put his other hand around Alexi Blacktide’s waist. “This is my second favorite thing to do in the world.” Before Blacktide could catch her breath and ask what he was doing, he pushed a red button on his remote control. As the sound of the explosion erupted from inside of the warehouse, O’Connor leaned in and said, “But this is my favorite.” He kissed Blacktide on the lips in the style of the French.
All of Blacktide’s anger disappeared as the warehouse went up in flames. She kissed O’Connor and her body surged with electricity. He’d told her he loved her and she knew she loved him, but she was too insecure to say the words back to him. Now, she wanted to tell him that she’d run away with him and spend the rest of their lives together intertwined, man and woman, feeling this exciting feeling forever.
As their kiss ended, O’Connor looked Blacktide in the eyes. She wanted him to say something passionate, something romantic, anything to make this feeling last forever. “Lex,” he said with a big smile, “let’s go find Connorvich and tell him that the mission is complete.”
Part of the roof collapsed on the warehouse as Blacktide felt her heart collapse into her stomach. She was just a girl who wanted so badly to be swept off of her feet, but for whatever reason, she couldn’t communicate her deep needs to this idiot whom she’d fallen for. “Oh, what, so you just want to go find Connovich now? What the fuck!?”
“Yup,” O’Connor said as he pulled away from her. “I need his help.” He looked around to try and get his bearings, then said, “Our car is parked that way. Let’s go.”
Blacktide folded her arms and said, “Why in the fuck should I join you so you can just go drink with your Russian drinking buddy?”
True to his oblivious form, O’Connor felt confused. “Wait, what? Don’t you want to go?”
The Moscow night was chilly but Blacktide felt a renewed fire on the inside. She wanted to be told she was beautiful. She wanted to hear that she was loved. She wanted to be the most important thing in his world, but he couldn’t give this to her. “You want to hang out with your buddy instead of me?”
The statement was absurd and incorrect, but O’Connor couldn’t process the female brain so he had no idea what to say. He decided to say the truth. “Lex, I want to hang with YOU as WE go see Connorvich.” He urged his girlfriend to walk with him. “I need his help. I’ve already told you, I can’t be who I want to be until he helps me!”
“Jesus, Doc! What in the fuck do you need his help with that’s so, fucking, important, god dammit?!” Blacktide was confused, needy, and she wanted connection to her boyfriend so badly, but it was all coming out angry.
O’Connor was still passionless as he answered, “I had a vision while I was in ceremony.”
This was not what Blacktide wanted to hear. “Oh great! What the fuck! So you were on drugs and you had a vision!”
“Yup. And it moved me,” O’Connor said with no emotion on his face.
Blacktide was incredulous. “Oh! So you were moved?! Oh gee, please, do tell me what your vision was!”
For the first time, O’Connor looked angry. Blacktide took notice as O’Connors’ face twisted up in a snarl. “I saw Harvey. He told me I have to ask Connorvich for help because he and I have to kill Gosavich together.” His snarl got even angrier.
Blacktide was in the mood to fight and didn’t back down. She mocked her boyfriend. “Oh, so you need a drunk Russian to help you kill a bad guy who you think is a dark wizard! Gee! Thanks Harvey!”
Blacktide had never heard O’Connor truly angry before. The growl in his voice intimidated her. “YES, ALEXI, I can’t kill Gosavich alone. Harvey was clear that I need Connorvich’s help.”
The sarcasm was mockingly thick as Blacktide said, “Oh, well now! Harvey was clear, was he?”
O’Connor was experiencing anger in a way he’d never experienced. “As long as Gosavich lives I can’t be who I want to fucking be.” His eyes didn’t blink and his anger was pure fury.
Natural born killers love a good fight, and Blacktide didn’t back down. Her head went mockingly side to side and she spoke with pure sarcasm. “Well gosh, honey! Who is it that you want to fucking be!?”
Every muscle in O’Connor’s body flexed and his eyes were huge. Blacktide could see the reflection of the warehouse flames in his eyes. “I CAN’T ASK YOU TO MARRY ME UNTIL GOSAVICH IS DEAD, AND I WANT TO KILL HIM AS SOON AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.” O’Connor growled a primal growl. “I WANT TO BE YOUR HUSBAND, LEX.”
The words shattered Blacktide’s reality. Husband. He wanted to marry her. All his honest words suddenly made sense from the past two weeks. He loved her. She was his favorite person to be around. He wanted to be with her everywhere. For whatever reason, the fool believed he had to kill Gosavich before he could ask her to get married.
Her own eyes got big and started getting watery as he turned and stomped away towards their getaway car the car. She tried to call out to him to apologize, to tell him that she loved him, but her voice was suddenly dry. Her feet felt like cinder blocks.
Without stopping walking towards their car, O’Connor turned his head and said, “I’m not fucking leaving without you, Lex. I’ll sit in that car all night. But the sooner I can get to Gosavich, the sooner I can be who I want to be.” He picked up his pace to walk to the car and tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths.
In the distance, a woman who was a hardened killer of bad men and had never before needed any man to fill her heart or validate her worth stood frozen as she suddenly realized that she was madly in love with an idiot coworker who was incredible at his job and was the perfect sacred masculine to unlock the sacred feminine she’d always had deep within her soul but never known and now desperately wanted that part of her to be set free.
