The California Roll Part 6

"That's bulls.h.i.t," I said. "What do I care if a couple of baked rockers fork over some of daddy's extra green?"

"Well, what do you?"

Good question. A question so good that it almost bought me a beer. But I knew if I went down that road I'd be waking up on the floor again tomorrow, no nearer to an answer than I was right now. I shredded the beer mat instead.

One thing you get used to in the grift is thinking in layers. Like, if the mark tells you something's bothering him about a deal you're on, you peel back the thing he thinks is bothering him and get to the one underneath. This is why their "I'm not sure my wife will let me invest" "I'm not sure my wife will let me invest" really means really means "Please give me a reason to trust you." "Please give me a reason to trust you." Peeling back your own layers is harder, because as a grifter you're just naturally more devious than normal people, plus, everyone tends to put up more resistance when it's them looking at them. But Mirplo had a point. If I wasn't going soft on the mark (which happens to every grifter from time to time, no matter how hard we try to keep empathy at bay), then what, really, was toasting my cheese? Peeling back your own layers is harder, because as a grifter you're just naturally more devious than normal people, plus, everyone tends to put up more resistance when it's them looking at them. But Mirplo had a point. If I wasn't going soft on the mark (which happens to every grifter from time to time, no matter how hard we try to keep empathy at bay), then what, really, was toasting my cheese?

Allie, of course. Allie on whom I not only wanted wanted to go soft, but to go soft, but had had gone soft, if you think about it: soft as runny brie, soft as a bunny's belly, soft as the downy fur I imagined lay between her ... gone soft, if you think about it: soft as runny brie, soft as a bunny's belly, soft as the downy fur I imagined lay between her ...

Stop it, Radar! Get a f.u.c.king grip!!

Mirplo and I spent an hour backpredicting everything that had happened between Allie and me since we'd met. The results were not pretty: Radar Hoverlander, a man of independent means and ways, was being led about by the nose.

Or not exactly the nose, a point Vic underscored by shifting into his "Uncle Joe" persona, a booming sportscaster type who belted out his words a full octave lower than, and utterly unrecognizable as, Vic's normal, reedy voice.

"She's got his d.i.c.k in her hand!" boomed Uncle Joe. "His pants are up, his belt is buckled, his fly is zipped, but his d.i.c.k is in her hand!" in her hand!" Normally, I found Uncle Joe quite funny. Not now, though. "She shoots, she scores!" Normally, I found Uncle Joe quite funny. Not now, though. "She shoots, she scores!"

Uncle Joe aside, the evidence was hard to refute. Just look at how I'd played every choice Allie had offered me so far: She wanted to flirt at a party; I flirted. She wanted a ride home; I drove. She wanted a meeting; we met. Mentor for Grandpa? Check. And then a big, fat, lively, major league snuke that stood to net some serious green. In the midst of which her cold feet suddenly want company.

Only they don't get it!

For the first time, Allie hears Radar say no. Result? Tears and wet violence. And how does this make Radar feel, really? Bad. Really bad. Bad enough to displace his feelings to grift guilt, which is fully ridiculous: The mark always gets what the mark deserves.

My half of the night's earn was still sitting on the bar, minus the cost of drinks, which Vic had conveniently taken from my end. I s.n.a.t.c.hed up the cash and jammed it in my pocket. So much, at least, for that.

As for the rest, all I had to do was peel back the bottom layer and look at it with unblinking eyes: To say no to Allie Quinn was to feel remorse. Like Pavlov's dog ringing his own bell and kicking his own a.s.s.

Well, that was easy enough to fix. All I had to do was stop saying no.

No, I mean keep keep saying no. (G.o.d, now I'm Freudian slipping.) Keep saying no. Just stonewall until the vexing vixen gets frustrated or bored and goes off to shop for another Hoverlander to land on. saying no. (G.o.d, now I'm Freudian slipping.) Keep saying no. Just stonewall until the vexing vixen gets frustrated or bored and goes off to shop for another Hoverlander to land on. Stop playing her game, Radar! Can't you see she's in your head? Stop playing her game, Radar! Can't you see she's in your head?

Just say no!

I bought Vic a beer for his road and headed home.

Where I found Allie waiting on my doorstep.

The night had turned cool, and she sat with her arms wrapped around her bare knees in a TV attempt to keep warm. It made her look about twelve years old.

She made a proposition no twelve-year-old should make.

Long story short, I found I couldn't say no.

it's tricky when grifters make love.

I t's tricky when grifters make love. t's tricky when grifters make love.

Even in the best of circ.u.mstances, the sack can be a hotbed of deception. "Of course I came." I "love "love it when you do that!" "No, it wasn't too rough ... too soft ... too short ... too long." "Honey, making love to you is exactly like the baby bear's porridge, just right." Oh, please: The lies we tell each other. And that's just in the name of not brutalizing one another with the truth. it when you do that!" "No, it wasn't too rough ... too soft ... too short ... too long." "Honey, making love to you is exactly like the baby bear's porridge, just right." Oh, please: The lies we tell each other. And that's just in the name of not brutalizing one another with the truth.

Now put two notorious a prevaricators in bed together, where people are supposed to be vulnerable and real with each other, and watch the walls of false intimacy fly up. First thing you both do is buy into the useful fiction that it's just a friendly f.u.c.k, a h.o.r.n.y idea that one of you had and the other couldn't refuse. But you both know that's not true. One has an agenda hidden so deep it may never see light of day. The other fancies himself such a c.o.c.ksman that, by d.a.m.n it, he can bone bone the truth out of her. (I'm laughing at myself right now. What can I tell you? s.e.x makes everyone stupid.) Next, deny the fact that when clothes come off, things change. And I'm not talking about the physical flaws revealed. Everyone suffers that. The mole on your a.s.s that you hate. Your outie navel you always thought was kind of a turnoff. The Dopey tattoo that seemed like such a good idea at the time. Maybe your six-pack abs are more like a pony keg. Maybe "objects in T-shirts are smaller than they appear." Thanks to p.o.r.n, we all know how gorgeous gorgeous can be. In real life, it's never that way. You con yourself that your partner will forgive a few imperfections, while secretly fearing she'll realize it's the truth out of her. (I'm laughing at myself right now. What can I tell you? s.e.x makes everyone stupid.) Next, deny the fact that when clothes come off, things change. And I'm not talking about the physical flaws revealed. Everyone suffers that. The mole on your a.s.s that you hate. Your outie navel you always thought was kind of a turnoff. The Dopey tattoo that seemed like such a good idea at the time. Maybe your six-pack abs are more like a pony keg. Maybe "objects in T-shirts are smaller than they appear." Thanks to p.o.r.n, we all know how gorgeous gorgeous can be. In real life, it's never that way. You con yourself that your partner will forgive a few imperfections, while secretly fearing she'll realize it's all all imperfection. Well, buck up, bucko: She's conning herself the exact same thing about you. imperfection. Well, buck up, bucko: She's conning herself the exact same thing about you.

When it comes to s.e.x, rest a.s.sured, we're all in the same bed.

But for Allie and me to get naked together was to make a statement that all lovers make but grifters simply can't make and mean: "I trust you "I trust you. I trust you not to judge me, belittle me, laugh at my warts-and-all all. I trust you to gentle me if I need gentling and to rea.s.sure me with your words and not-words. I trust you to witness me at my most vulnerable and exposed and ... approve. Just approve. And when it's over, I'll trust you yet more, trust enough to risk falling asleep beside you, nestled in connection, spooning in the cherished belief that, for once in my ragged, unworthy life, someone as gloriously approving as you could risk falling asleep beside me, too." For normal people, maybe this works, but for grifters, it's bad mojo. It should never be done.

All of which I forgot the instant Allie threw me down on my bed, sprawled across me and stuck a tongue of pure electric fire down my throat. My tongue fought back, and for a while it was tongue war. With no clear winner in sight, we reached a rough accommodation, taking turns taking the swirling, darting lead, while our hands went looking for something to do. At first it was all safety zones: head and neck and knee and back. Then we discovered each other's a.s.s, and that was a party of sorts. She ground her pelvis into my groin, where, as with the tongue, she met a certain form of resistance. By mutual military maneuver, our hands soon opened a second front in front. I cupped a breast through a bra, while Allie came this close this close to touching my erection through my jeans. to touching my erection through my jeans. * *

I rolled her over. Her cinnamon hair sprayed a halo on my pillow. Color rose along her neckline, and her lips looked bee-stung, red and full. Her eyes were likewise wide-huge, with pupils big and black enough to fall into. She wore no makeup, and the flush in her cheeks brought out freckles I hadn't noticed before. In her METRO RETRO T-shirt and kilt-style skirt, she looked so schoolgirl I suddenly felt illegal.

She read some of this in my face, and uttered the word "What?" in a manner part naif, part tart.

"This is a bad idea," I said.

"I couldn't agree more," she murmured. Then she grabbed me and pulled me down to her, her tongue making the nonverbal statement that she could, in fact, agree a whole lot less. A stronger man than I might have found the power to resist. I'm not sure that such a man exists.

Now it was all hands on deck, a frank exploration of each other's body parts-or at least as frank an exploration as layers of fabric can allow. So then it was time for that awkward thing where you try to take off your clothes without looking awkward. Trust me, no man can pull off taking off his underwear and not be at least a little bit dorky. You're fine over the hips, maybe even the knees, but once that cotton puddle is down around your ankles, even a s.e.xy striptease will take a turn for the self-conscious. It helps if you can both laugh then; with tension that thick, you just have to.

Allie had the s.e.xy striptease wired, right down to the self-conscious way she laughed as she bounced up off the bed and did a little hippy-hippy shake thing at once so coy and so knowing that it made every part of me tingle. I tried to play it cool, just lying there with my hands behind my head, but my body betrayed me; I was so taut, I tw.a.n.ged like a bowstring. Allie pirouetted her bra off, holding it against her chest as she twirled, until centrifugal force worked its magic and I could see what I'd (recently frequently, I suddenly realized) pictured: that objects in T-shirts can be even more perfect than imagined. Her eyes reached out to mine for approval. I mustered a reverent, "Wow." Then her skirt and panties were somehow made to vanish, and she stood before me, naked, in a state of grace. Part of me recognized that she might even now still be playing me, still easing me in. But then she hopped on the bed and straddled me. Then I truly got eased in, and just didn't care.

People can fake it when they f.u.c.k. Girls fake better than boys. Grifters fake better than most. You can fake the sighs and moans, the rising crescendo of imprecations to divinities. You can even fake the sticky stuff if you're good, or at least fake the value you place on that. So, yeah, you can fake the union of bodies, sure-but not the meeting of minds. Because when the connection is there, it's there there. Undeniably. Inarguably. And you know it is, because you hit a groove, a real one, with organic pulse and tempo. Everything works and nothing is forced. Time slows and stretches till your whole world is reduced to the metronome of your bodies in synch, a perfect human piston delivering shots of combustion over and over again until you're both dripping with sweat, slick with the glisten of it, over all the parts that pa.s.s between you. You antic.i.p.ate each other's change of pace and position as if the thing that links you is not pole and hole but some laser bridge between brains. You lick the sweat off each other and the taste is at once foreign and familiar, like this is the body your body has been waiting for all its life. You sense its chemical root; on top of everything else, it just smells smells right. Then all is lost: lost in a rhythm and cadence that can't possibly be anything but the real deal, a sweet union so urgent, so unguent, that it just wants to go on and on and on but also wants to end right. Then all is lost: lost in a rhythm and cadence that can't possibly be anything but the real deal, a sweet union so urgent, so unguent, that it just wants to go on and on and on but also wants to end right f.u.c.king now! right f.u.c.king now! You hear her screams, m.u.f.fled by the pillow she's shouting into, and you know that the force that's overcoming you has overcome her, too: a force as old as animals, as new as ten seconds from now. Then a switch trips, and signals jet up and down the length of your spines, and the thing wells up inside you as your bodies race to keep pace, and it wells and it wells until there's no place left to hold it, and in that brief frozen moment you realize this isn't just s.e.x, it's a line that cleaves You hear her screams, m.u.f.fled by the pillow she's shouting into, and you know that the force that's overcoming you has overcome her, too: a force as old as animals, as new as ten seconds from now. Then a switch trips, and signals jet up and down the length of your spines, and the thing wells up inside you as your bodies race to keep pace, and it wells and it wells until there's no place left to hold it, and in that brief frozen moment you realize this isn't just s.e.x, it's a line that cleaves before before from from after after, or no, not a line, a cliff, a cliff you poise on, cling to, then joyfully leap from as everything inside both of you just suddenly unspools and you come and come till your muscles melt and your bones dissolve and your eyes roll up in your head and you drop.

And your shocked limbic systems look around themselves and ask, What the f.u.c.k was that? What the f.u.c.k was that?

An eternity later, I looked over at Allie. She lay on her side, asleep. A drop of sweat hung from the tip of her nose, poised to fall. My tongue flicked out and s.n.a.t.c.hed it, like a hummingbird sucking up G.o.d's own nectar. In her somnolent murmur, a silent spit bubble formed and broke on her lips. Maybe everyone is innocent when they make love Maybe everyone is innocent when they make love, I thought. Maybe s.e.x makes everyone new Maybe s.e.x makes everyone new. Then I was gone in sleep, too, and the night took us both away.

I woke before dawn in a panic. woke before dawn in a panic. What did I do?! I let the enemy inside the gates and then fell asleep! What did I do?! I let the enemy inside the gates and then fell asleep! I sat up with a start, half expecting to see burning curtains and a benzene-soaked Dear John note. Or at least Allie gone, vanished into the night, off somewhere laughing at my pliancy and plotting her next duplicitous move. I sat up with a start, half expecting to see burning curtains and a benzene-soaked Dear John note. Or at least Allie gone, vanished into the night, off somewhere laughing at my pliancy and plotting her next duplicitous move.

But no, there she was. Still in bed, still asleep, her deep, regular breathing punctuated at odd intervals by tiny, adorable snerks. I reached out to stroke her breast through the sheet. She took my hand and rolled with it, pulling me down in behind her. With my nose against her neck, I inhaled the scent of her shampoo and fell asleep again.

Next thing I knew, it was full daylight and Allie was blowing coffee steam across my face. I opened my eyes to see her perched on the bed beside me, fully clothed, two hot Java Mans in her hands.

"Drink," she said. "We need to talk, and I bet you're witless before coffee."

I have to admit this was true, and would admit also to a frisson of disappointment at seeing her so up and about, so manifestly dressed dressed. What, no second act? No morning after the night before? Was I really just a h.o.r.n.y idea she had? Was it really just that's that with that that's that with that?

I sat up and started to get out of bed but, weirdly, bashfulness balked me. Allie shot me a smirky look, like, really? really? and averted her eyes. I jammed to the can, relieved myself, brushed away morning mouth, then returned to the sanctuary of my blankets, huddling there with the modesty of a Hasid on honeymoon, swigging my coffee and waiting for the caffeine to kick in. and averted her eyes. I jammed to the can, relieved myself, brushed away morning mouth, then returned to the sanctuary of my blankets, huddling there with the modesty of a Hasid on honeymoon, swigging my coffee and waiting for the caffeine to kick in.

"Okay," Allie said at last. "Cards-on-the-table time." I held my breath. Half of me antic.i.p.ated just additional Allie Quinn Brand Quality White Noise. The other half dared to dream that her decision to sleep with me had somehow erased her insidity and rendered her real. The other other other half of me just wanted to drag her back under the covers and screw the day away. I told that part to shut up. Such thoughts at this time could only be distracting at best, counterproductive at worst. Though I noticed Allie making no effort to deny me the view up her skirt. Was this a bit of Lorelei bait or the careless immodesty of a newly minted f.u.c.k buddy? It's a measure of exactly how twisted up I was that I couldn't even begin to guess. "You know how I told you we have to stop the Merlin Game?" she asked. half of me just wanted to drag her back under the covers and screw the day away. I told that part to shut up. Such thoughts at this time could only be distracting at best, counterproductive at worst. Though I noticed Allie making no effort to deny me the view up her skirt. Was this a bit of Lorelei bait or the careless immodesty of a newly minted f.u.c.k buddy? It's a measure of exactly how twisted up I was that I couldn't even begin to guess. "You know how I told you we have to stop the Merlin Game?" she asked.

"Yes," I said, mime-wiping remembered hot coffee from my lap. "Seems we had some disagreement there."

"And do we still?"

"It's risk versus benefit," I said. "I look at this play, I see plenty of benefit, not much risk. Tell me where I'm wrong."

She sighed what I at that moment mentally dubbed the Allie Sigh, so rich with regret you could almost taste it. "Radar," she said, "I haven't been entirely honest with you." Now there's there's a news flash. Seriously, did she not think I knew? "And," she added, "I know you know it, too." a news flash. Seriously, did she not think I knew? "And," she added, "I know you know it, too."

Oh.

She shifted on the bed, and the upskirt shot went away. I felt an immediate nostalgia for it but forced that from my head. "The truth is, my grandfather's not really the problem."

"He's not freaking out about the grift?"

"It doesn't matter whether he is or isn't," she said testily. It was the first time she'd acknowledged the slightest seam in her story, and it came off like a crack in her cool. "You speak of risk versus benefit. Okay, let me spell out the risk. I think we've been pinged." Her use of this word was another revelation, for pinged pinged is grifter code for "discovered" or "found out," like a submarine will ping another sub with its sonar. In saying we'd been pinged, she confessed at last, and in a way she knew I could not fail to understand, to being in the game. This was not news, but her admission of it was. Maybe our roll in the hay had kicked her candor into a slightly higher orbit after all. In any event, I let the lingo pa.s.s unremarked. There would be time for going back over who knew what when. Right then I just wanted to know who she thought had made us and why that was a big deal. is grifter code for "discovered" or "found out," like a submarine will ping another sub with its sonar. In saying we'd been pinged, she confessed at last, and in a way she knew I could not fail to understand, to being in the game. This was not news, but her admission of it was. Maybe our roll in the hay had kicked her candor into a slightly higher orbit after all. In any event, I let the lingo pa.s.s unremarked. There would be time for going back over who knew what when. Right then I just wanted to know who she thought had made us and why that was a big deal.

Allie explained (and I use the word explain explain advisedly, since all or part of this alleged explanation may have been pure isingla.s.s) that some suit-and-sedan types had visited Milval's office, asking pointed questions that pointed, well, right at me. advisedly, since all or part of this alleged explanation may have been pure isingla.s.s) that some suit-and-sedan types had visited Milval's office, asking pointed questions that pointed, well, right at me.

"You think they're closing in?" I asked.

"I think they've closed. I think they're just waiting for you to burn down the house before they make their move. Radar," she said, "so far, we haven't crossed the line. We've sent a lot of unsolicited investment advice to people who may or may not have forwarded it to authorities. But we haven't taken a penny yet. We can still walk away."

"Walk how, exactly?" I asked.

"Just part company." She patted my knee through the sheet. "Part friends, of course."

"Of course," I said, patting her knee in kind. Meanwhile, I mentally replayed her recent plays, fiddling with the pieces till they clicked. First had come the false negative, delivered the other day outside Java Man: We have to quit for dotty Granddad's good We have to quit for dotty Granddad's good. That dog didn't hunt, but she knew it wouldn't. She was just softening me up for the next lie in her lineup-a lie she had to believe I'd believe, given that she'd given me "a woman's ultimate gift" and all. (Could she really go so far as to bed me, just to validate her words the next morning? Of course she could; that's how grifters roll.) Now she was playing the threat card, trying to scare me out of the picture with her "honest" admission that the feds or whoever were after me. Why? Simple. So that she and Hines could burn down the house without me and keep all the earn for themselves. It was, I had to admit, a pretty play: Ease me in, squeeze my expertise, spook me, then ease me out.

But would it work? After all, I'd been running tech on the project from the start. All the false webworks, the offsh.o.r.e accounts, the laundry line back to the States-all that stuff was on my computer and in my head. They couldn't trigger the burn without me, could they?

Well, could they?

"Allie," I asked, "who is your grandfather, really?" This was a fairly risky card to play, as it openly accused her of lying. After all, if Milval Hines wasn't her eccentric gramps, then who could he possibly be but an ally in the grift? Maybe someone ghosting my tech, ready to take over in case I bailed. I didn't really expect Allie to tell me the truth. I just wanted to see if she'd stick to her story or shift to a different line of defense.

She nodded, her lips tightly pursed, as if to cop to my unstated charge. "I told you: Cards on the table," she said. "He's the mark."

The mark? Now that Now that was was an imaginative inveracity. In order for Hines to be the mark, he'd have to be a completely guileless but exceedingly rich investment counselor that she'd found and mooked into playing a role. But to what end? To weevil into his bank account? Then why did she need me? Perhaps she'd promised that they'd burn down the house without me, but now she's changing teams. an imaginative inveracity. In order for Hines to be the mark, he'd have to be a completely guileless but exceedingly rich investment counselor that she'd found and mooked into playing a role. But to what end? To weevil into his bank account? Then why did she need me? Perhaps she'd promised that they'd burn down the house without me, but now she's changing teams.

"The mark, huh?" I said. "Okay. How do we flip him?"

"No, no, no, Radar, you're not paying attention. I told you: The heat is on. We've got to shade and fade."

"You'll forgive me," I said dryly, "if I don't share your sense of crisis."

"What do you mean?"

"Let's just say your credibility's not at an all-time high."

"Oh, you stupid a.s.s, why do you think I slept with you?"

"To get me to believe you."

"So why don't you believe me?"

"Because I'm a stupid a.s.s?"

This earned me another coffee bath, plus a rant of some substance. "Radar Hoverlander," she said, "if that's even vaguely your real name, which I doubt to several orders of magnitude, you're so far gone in the grift that you can't even see the truth anymore through your paranoid haze. You think I screwed you to mook mook you? G.o.d! I screwed you because I don't want to see you get hurt and I couldn't think of any other way to get over that moat you've dug around yourself. you? G.o.d! I screwed you because I don't want to see you get hurt and I couldn't think of any other way to get over that moat you've dug around yourself.

"How long have you been alone, Radar? When was the last time you ever actually let someone in in? I'm talking about really in. In here." She patted her chest, twice, with the flat of her hand. "Not just the ..." she groped for a phrase, and arrived at (the admirable, I thought), "penumbra of persiflage you call the real you!" By now Allie was really worked up. She stormed around my bedroom, hands and arms flying. She looked like an actress going over the top on an audition piece, and I wondered if that's what this was: her audition for the part of Radar's girlfriend. Suddenly I wanted to believe her. Not only that, I wanted to unwind her, backpredict her, find out who she was, how she got here, and where she got that tremendous talent of hers. In the moment, I dared to dream that we could actually get down to the place where maybe we could trust each other, if not as lovers, then at least as partners in the grift. And if I was wrong? If she really was using me to serve some other end, so what? The Merlin Game was just about money. But Allie was one of a kind. Lies and all, she was a keeper; I wanted to keep her.

Instead, I stepped on a land mine.

"Look," I said, "first of all, my name is my name. It says so right on my driver's license." She snorted; I'd have snorted, too. "Second, where do you get off slagging me for being a closed shop? You haven't been a paragon of honesty yourself. Now, suddenly you're telling me the truth?"

The trouble with too far ...

"Why should I believe you?"

... is you never know you're going ...

"Up till now, the only thing open about you-"

... till you've gone.

"-was your legs."

"f.u.c.k you," she spat. "Just f.u.c.king, f.u.c.king f.u.c.k you." She s.n.a.t.c.hed up her shoes and ran out into the living room. I heard her fussing with them out there. Then I heard the front door slam, then silence.

I lay in bed a long time, inhaling the oddly conflagrant mixture of coffee and s.e.x that lingered in the sheets. Was she right? Was I really nothing but a penumbra of persiflage? More to the point, had I just driven off the s.e.xiest, most intelligent, most exciting woman I'd ever met? Worse, had I driven off the only woman with whom, against all foreseeable odds, I could be open and honest and true?

The tap of regret opened, and the moat that Allie'd spoken of filled pretty d.a.m.n quick.

Eventually I got up and got dressed. I went out into the living room, hoping that somehow Allie's earlier door-slam had been a bluff, that I'd find her sitting on my couch, arms crossed in silent fury, waiting for me to come to my senses.

Nope. No Allie. Allie was gone.

As was my laptop.

Replaced by a sc.r.a.p of paper with a scrawled address.

Good times.

*In fairness to my erection, it did its best to meet her halfway.

allie's allies.

B am! Bam! Bam! am! Bam! Bam!

Thirty minutes later I'm pounding on the door of Allie's high-rise Hollywood apartment. I didn't bother trying to disguise my rage. Couldn't have if I'd wanted to, I was that irate. Allie had stolen from me. Stolen! Stolen! She'd taken She'd taken private property private property and just walked off! Who and just walked off! Who does does such a thing? Not that it'd do her any good, apart from dissecting my browser history to see how my taste in online p.o.r.n runs. It's not like I'm likely to leave pa.s.swords cached. At the end of the day, all she pinched was a giant paperweight. such a thing? Not that it'd do her any good, apart from dissecting my browser history to see how my taste in online p.o.r.n runs. It's not like I'm likely to leave pa.s.swords cached. At the end of the day, all she pinched was a giant paperweight.