Talking About Sex...

“Tonight we welcome Dr. Janice Astorbrooke.” Katie’s voice drowned out whatever Suzanne might have said. “Dr. Astorbrooke is the author of Thrusting Skyward: Sexual Symbolism in Architecture.”

Jess ground a millimeter off his back molars as he gunned the Jag through an amber light. As if the Kama Sutra tip hadn’t caused enough trouble, now he had to listen to a discussion of high-rise buildings as phallic symbols. He could smell it coming. Katie must have combed the Internet looking for this crackpot.

“Let’s get right to it, Dr. Astorbrooke. Surely on your way here you noticed what’s happening next to our charming little studio. A pit that large means a foundation for a very tall building. Forty stories, to be exact.”

Dr. Astorbrooke had the deep voice of a heavy smoker. “Katie, as long as we allow men to design buildings, we’ll see structures climbing ever higher. At forty stories, this one is modest.”

“Well, we are in Tucson, not Manhattan,” Katie said.

“I’ve noticed you have precious few tall buildings, but you have some, and the motivation is definitely the same, whatever the size.”

Jess braced himself. He wasn’t going to like this.

“And what would that motivation be, Dr. Astorbrooke?” Katie sounded so sweet. So deadly.

“Compensation for sexual inadequacies.”

“Watch out!” Suzanne yelled.

Jess slammed on his brakes and barely missed hitting the car in front of him. “Sorry.” The apology came automatically as his brain continued to deal with what he’d heard. Sexual inadequacies? Shitfire. He was making damn good money building a viable office complex. He sure as hell wasn’t compensating for a goddamn thing.

“Absolutely fascinating,” Katie said. “So it’s a bit like driving powerful cars?”

Katie couldn’t know he had a Jag. But he winced all the same.

“Like that, but even more revealing, Katie.”

Suzanne laughed again, an eardrum-piercing sound. “I just realized something. That’s your building she’s talking about, isn’t it?”

“My company’s constructing it. I didn’t design it.” Way to go, hotshot. Blame the architect. “But I like what the architect has done,” he forced himself to add.

As Dr. Astorbrooke launched into a detailed explanation of her theory, Jess noticed that Suzanne kept glancing at his crotch. Hell.

At long last Katie broke for a commercial. Jess had never been so happy to listen to an ad for Jack Furrier’s Western Tires.

“You’ve built several high-rises around town, haven’t you?” Suzanne’s tone indicated she was definitely on a fishing expedition.

“It’s our speciality.” Yeah, he liked working on tall buildings, but it didn’t mean anything sexual. He liked sex. He was good at it. Sex was one thing and work was another. Two separate subjects.

“And why did you make it your speciality?”

“I like the challenge of multistory buildings.” He wasn’t about to go into his fascination with steel girders or his love of Erector sets when he was a kid. That would be misinterpreted for sure. If he had to say why he liked working on tall buildings, he might admit that he liked the power and prestige implied in them. He’d had very little of that as the son of a mom working the cash register at Target and an absentee father perpetually on the run from the law.

“So what do you think of this theory?”

“I think it’s bull.” He stopped at a red light. He could have made it through another amber, but he wanted to demonstrate that he was in complete control and this discussion hadn’t rattled him at all.

“Of course it’s bogus.” Her voice had a new quality, a decidedly sexual quality. “You’re obviously a very virile guy.”

Damn it. What if she thought he should prove it to her? He looked over, and sure enough, she seemed ready to rock and roll. He had no such inclination.

With a sigh he drove through the intersection and into a turn bay that would take him back in the direction of her apartment. “Suzanne, you’re an amazing person, but—”

“There’s a reality-show quote if I ever heard one.”

Guilty as charged. He’d heard it on one of the Bachelor shows and filed it away for future use. Apparently it only worked on those shows. “Okay, bad line.” He sat in the turn bay waiting for traffic to clear while he tried to come up with something better.

“You’re taking me home, aren’t you?”

He sighed. “I just don’t think you and I are meant to be.”

That sounded equally lame. He was no good at dishing out rejection. Sappy as it sounded, he didn’t like to hurt a woman’s feelings.

“You were fine until sex came into the conversation.”

He hadn’t been fine. He’d been faking enjoyment. Apparently she couldn’t tell, though, and he didn’t want to make things any worse by explaining that.

Suzanne tossed her head. “Maybe this Dr. Astorbrooke is onto something, after all.”

He’d have to take a blow to his manly pride. It was either that or say something hurtful to Suzanne. It wasn’t her fault they hadn’t clicked. “Maybe she is.”

“I guess you’d better take me home then. I’m not in the market for someone with inadequacy issues.”

With a great sense of relief, Jess pulled into traffic. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”

“You could get counseling.”

“Yeah, maybe I should.” He managed to hit a bunch of green lights and had Suzanne at her doorstep in no time. A handshake later, he was back in the car.

In a roundabout way Katie had done him a favor tonight, but he wasn’t giving her any credit for that. She was out to get him, and he planned to put a stop to it.

Primed for battle, he headed for KRZE.

KATIE PETERSON ESCORTED Janice Astorbrooke out of the studio during a commercial break for Cialis. After the good doctor left, Katie returned to the studio to tidy up in preparation for Jared Williams, whose program Sports Nuts filled the ten-o’clock slot. As she gathered her notes, she basked in the glow of accomplishment.

The walls of the small adobe building she loved might quiver from the rumble of earthmovers during the day, but she’d gotten in her licks tonight. She felt like a warrior defending her turf. This was her house, even if she didn’t own it.

She’d understood why her grief-stricken grandfather had sold it after her grandmother had died when Katie was in high school. She’d understood why her suburban parents hadn’t wanted it either, although losing her grandmother and the house in the same year had been very tough to take. She’d hated the feeling of having no control over major events in her life. When the construction had been proposed and she could see the building was threatened, she’d vowed to do what she could to save it.

Dr. Astorbrooke had been a real asset to her campaign. Judging from the number of callers during the second half of the show, the topic had stirred up plenty of controversy, which was Katie’s bread and butter. Boosting the ratings even higher while taking potshots at Harkins Construction made for a fine evening’s work.

At ten on the dot Jared ambled into the studio. A tall, lanky guy with glasses, he loved his wife Ruth and weird sports statistics, in that order.

Katie got up and turned the microphone over to him. “Did you catch any of my show?”

“Absolutely.” Jared grinned at her as he sat down and reached for the headset. “Just for the record, I have no urge to construct tall buildings.”

Katie laughed. “I didn’t think so. Ruth seems like a very satisfied woman.”