She smiled. “What do you call a lesbian dinosaur?”
I laughed, already thinking the joke was funny. “I don't know, Anne, what do you call a lesbian dinosaur?”
“A lickalotapuss!” She began to laugh at her own joke.
I couldn't help but laugh too, even though I wasn't sure what dinosaur she was supposed to be referencing. “I am not a lickalotapuss,” I said after my laugh ended.
“Figures,” Anne said, still laughing. “How about a Bi-rannosaurus Rex?”
I laughed at that one even harder. “I don't know, I've never met the right lickalotapuss.” I remembered the offer I had in high school to join in on a threesome with a couple. I totally would have for the girl, but the guy was kind of a creep so I backed out at the last minute.
“Well, I guess I can deal with thinking of you as a Bi-curious-rannosaurus Rex,” she said.
“Listen, Anne, I-”
“No, don't sweat it. I just figured that if you were going to be coming around the coffee shop a lot more often that I should make a move now rather than pining away. Trust me when I say that I appreciate your honesty.” She looked up at me with those big eyes, and I could tell that she was a completely honest person herself. “I'd love to just hang out with you some time, if you're going to be in town more often.”
I nodded, somehow feeling completely at ease with her. “Give me your number.” If I was going to be with James, I would need a friend here in Boston, and I had a feeling that Anne was just the girl for the job.
When we got to James' apartment building, the doorman nodded to Anne. Either he knew her or James had called ahead. Up at the apartment, Anne pulled out a key to James' apartment and unlocked the door.
“I didn't see James give that to you,” I said.
She shrugged. “Several of us have keys to his place. Apparently, he's not too worried about theft.”
“Yeah, but surely any CEO is going to be worried about theft, right?”
Anne gestured upward, up to the corner of the room behind the TV. A small webcam pointed down to take in the whole room. Right in the center of the camera's field of view was the couch.
The couch where I just happened to play with myself a couple weeks ago.
It was hardly a breach of privacy, I was in his home. But I still felt a little violated. And this was just the camera I could see. Who knew how many other cameras he had?
Had he recorded us having sex?
Had he watched me playing with myself?
Did it turn him on?
Anne must have noticed me thinking about these things, so she snapped her fingers. “Hey, I doubt he has a camera in the shower to check out his sister, so you don't have to worry about that.”
I shot her a brief smile. “You're right. I'm still surprised that he is so lax about security, though. A person could copy the contents of a hard drive before he could stop them. They'd get caught but it'd be too late to stop the information from getting into the wrong hands.”
Anne shrugged again. “It sounds like you're putting too much thought into it. Regardless, I've never snooped around, but I've never seen a desktop or laptop computer here.”
I tried to think back. I definitely saw him working on one right before he told me I had to go last time, but where had it been the rest of the time? With him?
It wasn't really important. “I guess I'll just drop my bag here in the living room and we can go.”
“You're probably going to want to put it in the guest room. Once the after-party begins, people are going to be all over the place here.”
“The after party is going to be here?” I remembered him saying something about an after party but I didn't remember him saying anything about it being here. That of course meant that people would be here until the early hours of the morning, and there would be no sneaking off for a midnight tryst. I sighed loudly just thinking about how sexually frustrated I was going to be by the end of the night.
“Yeah. Here, I'll show you to the guest room.” She led the way into the apartment. I really wanted to put my stuff in the master bedroom, but I guess I had to play the game while Anne was here. We stepped in and I noticed how sparsely it was furnished. I laughed. “Where do you think the camera is in here?”
She laughed. “There doesn't seem to be any place to hide it. I'd help you tear the room apart to find it, but I do have to get back to work eventually.”
I nodded, then dropped my bag and we headed back for the coffee shop.