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JULIA

He stops.

“And that was it?” I get up on an elbow to face him. “You were a screwdriver after that?”

“Yes.”

“So that kid was like a magician?”

“Magicians are human. That boy… not human. Not a boy either. He was acting like a man. That couldn’t have been his body.”

“You think he was a demon?” This started out as some weird fairy tale I was ready to poke holes in, but now it’s dangerous. “What if he finds out you’re you again? Wait, you said there was a demon in a spider.”

“Different one.”

“How do you know?”

“I just know.”

“What do you know about the talking rat? Also a demon, right? It possessed the rat then left it. That’s obvious.”

“It was thirty years ago.”

I get out of bed and put on my pajama bottoms. I can’t stand the idea of not doing something about this immediately.

“So I’m counting, how many demons escaped that crate? That you know about? Plus the one possessing the boy?” I go into the living room for my clipboard and a pen.

When I return, he’s sitting up, back to the headboard, sheet covering him below the waist. God, he’s so fucking gorgeous. Have I been trying to turn him back into a screwdriver all night? What a waste.

“Why are you shaking your head?” he asks.

“Nothing.” I flip the top pages to the blank one under my punchlist. “We need to deal with the shit in front of us first. We have to get you out of here.” I write that down, then start a sublist. “That means at least getting you a pair of pants, then past the gate, into town, and on a boat.” I write it down.

“You’re coming with me.” He seems concerned I’ll send him alone.

“Of course I am.”

“Before this party he was talking about.”

I tap the eraser on the paper and chew the inside of my cheek. “During. They’ll be paying real close attention to who’s coming in, not who’s leaving.”

“No, no, no, Julia.” He slides out of bed, holding up his finger to me. “You’re not going to his fucking orgy.”

“I’ll say I’m going. Let Duke think he doesn’t have to worry about me. Soothe his dumbass.”

“If he touches you, I’ll kill him.”

“Good idea. They can try to put a screwdriver in prison.”

He smiles and I melt. I hope he never fits in my toolbox again.

Turns out, he’s hungry again. With a towel wrapped around his waist, he finishes the apples and the macaroni and cheese I make him.

Wearing my last condom, he fucks me against the counter.

He still doesn’t turn back into a screwdriver.

With my head resting on his shoulder, I notice the sky’s turning a dull blue.

Like I said, I’m a regular-schedule, early-to-bed-early-to-rise, eight-hours-a-night kinda girl—but I’m not even tired.

In a post-orgasm haze, I hold onto Caspian while he kisses my neck and shoulders. He tells me I’m perfect. I decide to believe him for now.

“Am I better than your purple W?” he asks.

“What?”

“The sex toy. In your night table. It’s shaped?—”

“Ohhh. Right.” I’m coping with the fact that he knows about that when my phone dings. I start to get it, but he stops me.

“If I’m not, I can be.”

“Not what?”

“Better than that… thing .”

The Lily triple-action has advantages he doesn’t. One is, it doesn’t have a man’s ego or ambition. The other is, of course, the triple action.

“Don’t compare yourself to an inanimate object.”

I realize too late how much of a blatantly stupid thing that was to say to this particular man.

My phone dings again.

I figure, at this hour, it’s gotta be spam. But it dings two more times and it’s almost as attention-seeking as the way Caspian’s waiting for an answer.

“I’d take you over my Lily W-shaped toy any day.”

He decides to believe me and helps me off the counter. I go into the bedroom for the phone.

“Shit,” I say when I read Tonya’s text. “She’s here. I thought I had time to tell her not to come.”

Turns out, the first boat doesn’t leave San Pedro at 4:30. It arrives at 4:30.

“Be good,” I say when I’m halfway out the door. “Be quiet. Stay hidden. Okay?”

He kisses me. “I don’t turn stupid when you’re not here, Julia.”

It’s the crack of dawn. Sunburned Bruce is nowhere to be found, but a guy named Manuel is in the little house by the golf carts, watching a telenovela on YouTube.

“She’s such a bitch,” I say in Spanish, pointing at the blonde on his screen.

“ Una maldita cabrona .”

“I’m Julia.”

“Manuel. Kinda early to be walking around, no ?”

“Yeah, so my partner’s at the Avalon dock. Can I borrow a cart and a trailer?”

“Maybe.” He checks my name against a clipboard list, finds Tonya’s name, asks for my driver’s license, and hands over the keys. Easy peasy. I don’t even need a flathead or tire patch kit to get it going.

Before I get to town, I imagine telling Tonya that, despite very clear rules and restrictions, there’s a man in our guesthouse. And also, he’s naked. Because he’s a screwdriver.

Who would believe that?

Fuck this.

With the cart pulled over, I open my phone. “Okay. What did he say?”

Caspian Cavallo. 1994. What should I expect from that? He turned into a hand tool before the internet had every single human’s name in it.

If he’s telling the truth.

“Dock D. Long Beach.”

There is a Dock D at the Long Beach port. Whoop dee doo.

What else?

How was it all so specific and so vague?

I put words together in the search box and just pray.

Enzo Giancarlo PlayStation Long Beach.

Dock D foreman 1994 Long Beach.

Mont Blanc Pens 1990s fell off truck

Apparently, there was a market for stolen Mont Blanc pens in the 1990s, but there’s nothing that proves fuckall.

Tonya’s going to kill me. I can’t bear to think of the look on her face.

Kelly Long Beach Port 1994 crow mafia

“Sorry, Caspian, but everyone knows it exists.”

I hit Search.

Including results for Kellie Long Beach Port 1994 crow mafia

Wait. What?

A blog post from 2002 comes up. MY SPOOKY STORY. It has just one comment from someone named Erin. It says, “Honey, you need to call me.”

I read it faster than my brain can process.

There are no names, but it’s all there, minus the part about getting fucked on the desk.

Her bosses were mafia. There was a ton of shit waiting to get fenced.

A crate. A crow that turned into a pubescent demon.

A silver box. Four disappearing men and two more who took the crate and told her to clean up and keep her mouth shut or else.

Scrolling back, I find out about Kellie. Her husband was wounded in Vietnam.

“Shit.”

I go back and read every word. Everything checks out.

Did I not really believe it before? Because now I really do.

Tonya’s at the dock alone, leaning on a three-foot high metal box.

“Babygirl,” she says, rolling the box to the back of the mini-flatbed, “how long were you going to keep me waiting?”

“Sorry, I ran into an issue.” I flip open the ramp and we push the box up to the bed.

“What kind of issue? Was it JJ?”

“No, actually.” Shit. I’ve totally prepared myself to explain why there’s a naked man in the guest house, but now I don’t know where to start.

“It’s… not complicated so much? It’s really simple, but…

” I look around for some inspiration. All I see are closed tourist traps and a boat taking an early-morning spin around the bay.

Caspian has to get off this island without making a scene.

In my head, I put the tasks in order and find overlap. Explanation and clothes can happen at the same time.

“But what?” Tonya hitches her knapsack over her shoulder. She’ll have a few days’ worth of clothes in there. She’s taller than I am, and a little wider in all the right places, but she’s not into stretchy knitwear. She won’t have anything Caspian will fit into besides a bonnet and socks.

The guy driving the boat spinning around the bay pulls into an empty space and runs his fingers through a mop of dark, windswept hair.

Yes. This is how we knock two things off the punchlist.

I slide back into the cart’s driver seat. “Get in and I’ll explain.”

“Fine.”

“But I need you to just believe me. Don’t question it. Just believe it because you know I’m sane, then I’ll show you proof.”

“Oh, shit this is gonna be something.”

“It is.” I hit the go pedal. “Hold on for it.”

I don’t steer the cart up the hill to Duke’s Orgy Estate, but onto Pebbly Beach Road, talking so fast I barely have time to breathe.

I tell her everything. I start at defiling my screwdriver—which doesn’t seem to surprise or bother her at all—backtrack to the helicopter/beach dream, pick up where I left off, and tell her about the real man appearing between my legs, where she stops me.

“Wait. I’m sorry. What?”

“Let me finish.”

“Honey, that sounds like assault.”

I go through all the proofs. The way he knew my dream. The utter lack of clothing. His story, which totally checked out.

That’s when I look at Tonya for the first time since starting the story, which is really short if you pretend it’s normal. She doesn’t believe me. Or at least, she’s holding judgment.

I stop across from Awesome Parasailing and hand her the phone with the blog post.

She reads a bit. Looks at me. Reads a little more. Looks at me again. “How do you know he didn’t build his story out of this old post?”

Damnit, she’s so fucking smart.

“Because I know. It’s just… the crazy explanation is more plausible.”

She takes a deep breath. “Is he hot?”

“So hot,” I say. “You’re concerned.”

“Maybe you’ve been too sane for too long.”

“Doesn’t that prove I’m telling the truth?”

“Promise me, when we get back, you’ll see your therapist again.”

“She helped me with anxiety, okay? Not delusions.” Shit.

I said the word delusions and now Tonya has a nice box to put Caspian in.

Well, I’ll fix it by giving her more boxes.

“I never hallucinated, heard voices, believed in woo-woo shit, or made things up. I didn’t then, and I’m not now.

” She’s got this look that says it’s as good a time as any to start any one of those things.

“Just meet him,” I say. “And if you still think he assaulted me, we’ll cut his dick off. ”

“Deal.” She hands back my phone. “What’s on the punchlist?”

“Get him clothes.”

“Uh-huh.” She scans the street. All the stores are closed this early. “And then?”

“Get him out.”

“And?”

“Get him on the ferry.”

“What about his friends or whatever? You gonna fuck them too?”

I hadn’t thought about that. Are they staying in my toolbox or nah? What am I going to do with four naked men? I can’t afford to feed and clothe them unless they know how to spackle and sand. Which could work. Suddenly, the possibilities for business expansion bloom like a rose garden.

“Julia?” Dan calls as he walks in from the dock, carrying a tackle kit and bucket. I wave to him.

“Who the holy-hot-motherfucker is that?” Tonya whispers.

I punch her arm. Tonya’s last two partners have been girls. But she’s pan and she has eyes to see.

“He’s about Caspian’s size and all the stores are closed,” I say.

“What are you gonna tell him? You’ve got a naked screwdriver in your bed? He’s not gonna be the sucker I am, and I know what I said when I said I’d believe you, but I’m not even the sucker I said I was.”

“Hey, Dan.” I get out of the cart and start with a lie. “I didn’t realize it was so early.”

“You wake up wanting to get scared at eight hundred feet?” He smiles.

“Nah. Not into heights, really.”

“We can do six hundred feet.”

“Wow. You’re this close to selling me, but, ah, so…”

“I’m Tonya.” She gives a short wave, since Dan doesn’t have a free hand to shake. “Don’t mind her, she’s just rude.”

“Sorry. This is…”

“Dan,” he says to her. “Nice to meet you.”

“Right. So, this is awkward,” I say.

“Not really,” he says, walking toward Awesome Parasailing.

“Did you catch anything?”

“Threw it back. Come on. I got a pot of coffee going. I hope you don’t mind using chemical creamer. The milk issue, you know.”

The office behind Awesome Parasailing is as clean as an operating room and as uncluttered as the kitchens at IKEA.

It’s also barely big enough for three adults, until Dan pushes open the back wall, which is actually a barn door that opens onto a tiny backyard space lined with a row of sheds.

We sit on crates, and I make up a story as he makes us coffee.

“So, you need a set of men’s clothes,” he says, handing us cups. “For you.”

“Something shitty is fine. And it doesn’t matter if it fits. I’ll return it clean.”

“You need it for this… ‘party’ up at the Duke estate tonight?”

“Yes.”

“You know.” He clears his throat and drinks his coffee. He’s stalling. “That house, I wouldn’t… not any woman I know… I’m not saying you can’t take care of yourselves… but what goes on up there… it’s not cool.”

“I’m aware.”

“And them wanting you to dress like a guy? I don’t love it.”

“It’s what I want,” I say. “I promise. It’s better protection, if you know what I mean.”

“I don’t really.” He looks at Tonya. “Do you trust this?”

“Not one bit.” She shakes her head. “Her though? I trust her.”

He turns to me. “They bought off the cops here. So you’re not undercover. You a journalist breaking a story on these ‘parties’ or something?”

“If I was, I wouldn’t tell you.”

His smile is wide and bright. For a split second, I forget about Caspian. I could really flirt this guy into anything right now. I could be humping his leg before we even have to clock into work. But the moment is fleeting. I have a screwdriver to rescue.