The room is warm despite the open windows, darkness rumpled up and smelling of skin. Emily sits in one of the armchairs. She’s wrapped up in a coverlet, holding onto a glass of wine.

“So…why the Reaper?” She takes a sip. Wind stirs in her hair. “It’s not exactly original.”

“It has semiotic power.” He smirks. “The personification of death and its association with fate is a universal symbol embedded in the human cultural experience.”

A corner of her mouth quirks into a smile. “So in this case, originality is bad?”

“It’s not bad.” George reaches out and gestures with his fingers. Emily gets up and passes him the glass. “It’s just not as powerful. Think about stories.” He takes a drink. “Prince Charming, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella. Little American girls…” His eyebrows lift. “Actually, all the little girls in first-world countries with European colonial roots, they grow up with some variation of this story: the prince, he rides in on his white steed and rescues the peasant maiden from her dreary and awful life, and they get married, and it’s happily ever after. Now,” he goes on, sitting up and leaning over, handing back the glass, “these stories were told to little girls as a way for their underclass mothers to pretty up how the princes were always swooping down and raping the maidens whenever they felt like it.” He leans into the pillows and crosses his ankles. “So what you’ve got going on in the Prince Charming story is a double meaning, or the meaning beneath the meaning. It makes a big stain on the collective psyche. A bruise. You poke it and when the person goes ‘ouch’ all the subtleties get bypassed.”

Emily swallows. “That’s horrible.”

He shrugs. “So’s life.”

She tosses her head. “Whatever happened to branding yourself?”

“Too much work.” He tucks his hands beneath his head. “Besides, riffing on a trope is much more primitive. People don’t think. They just react.”

She leans back, holding the glass in front of her mouth. A slight smile twitches her lips. “Are you waiting for me to tell you how smart you are?”

He grins. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“Uh huh.” She sips.

“You gonna finish that?”

Emily unfolds herself from the chair and walks to the edge of the bed, bare feet maneuvering the bits of clothing strewn across the floor. She holds up the coverlet with one hand. She reaches out and balances the glass on his navel. He takes hold of the stem and lifts the glass to his mouth. He drinks the last of the wine, reaching over to put the empty glass on the nightstand.

“What are you waiting for?”

She hooks a hank of hair behind one ear. “For you to fall asleep.”

“I can go a long time without sleep.”

She takes a seat at the foot of the bed. “Me too.”

He reaches out and runs his hand over her ankle.

“So it’s just a name, then.” Emily draws her foot back, tucking it beneath the loose covers. “Not an identity.”

“Mmmm hmmm.” He tilts his head back and looks at her down the length of his nose. “You ever ask yourself why you wanted to be a profiler?”

“Yeah.”

He pulls a pillow down behind his head. “What’s your answer?”

“I don’t know.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“Here’s a newsflash for you.” She chuckles. “You don’t have to like my answer in order for it to be an answer.”

“That is not a fuckin answer.”

“Then why don’t you tell me since you’re so smart and all. Since you know me better than I know myself.” She tilts her head. “Right, George?”

“I know you’re a hybristophile with necrophiliac tendencies.” He sits up. “I know you’re smart enough to mess with all the tests you have to take in order to get into the FBI academy. I know that for everything I know about you there are three things I don’t.” He lowers his voice. “You ever kill anyone, Emily?”

“No.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, now.” He starts to smile. “You can tell me.”

“I am not a hybristophile.”

He spreads his arms. His eyebrows go up. “Oh, really.”

“Yes. Really.”

“So you ever want to kill anyone?”

“Everyone wants to.”

“But not like you.” He leans forward and traces the curve in her cheekbone. “Am I right?”

She pulls her head back and turns away.
“You know,” he says, caressing her knee, “I liked ‘oh George’ much better.”

“I’ve never killed anyone.” Emily pulls her leg back and tightens the coverlet around her breasts. “I recognize the difference between an urge and an imperative. I recognize the difference between fantasy and reality.” She looks at him. “I can control myself.”

“You can play with the matches without getting burned. That’s why you’re a profiler.”

“You ever ask yourself why you like killing people?”

“No. Killing is a fundamental pleasure. Like you said, everyone wants to. And everyone does. But not everyone does it like me.” He chuckles. “Killing isn’t even the point. That’s something you profiler types never seem to get. Unless, of course…” He looks her over. “You do.” He pauses. “Come here.”

“I don’t think so.”

He grabs the coverlet. She leans back but he hauls her into a mingling of light quick breaths. They’re both still, frozen in place, passing the same breath back and forth. The kiss evolves out of proximity, crossing spare boundaries, slow. The wine tastes different on his tongue. She pushes away from the familiarity of it.

“I’m going home,” she pants. “The magical mystery tour is over.”