The God Particle Read Online Free Page A

her. She’s kissing him on the neck, on the cheek, tickling his ear with her tongue. Steve has no idea what time it is. He has no idea how long he’s been in this place. He wonders if he’s ever going to make it to the airport in time to catch his plane, in time to find his seat beside Serena and endure thirteen hours of ferocious silence. He wonders what Janine is doing back in L.A. Anna whispers into his ear, sometimes in English, sometimes in Russian, and he can alternate between one and two fingers if he wants, she doesn’t seem to mind, she even leans forward when one of his fingers creeps a little farther back. He thinks she invites him upstairs, because the next thing he knows they
are
upstairs, at the third-floor landing, staggering down a narrow hallway, floorboards creaking, passing by closed doors labeled with letter combinations like CA and CB and CC. Someone is arguing in one of the rooms, rapid German accusations he can’t understand, and then Anna leads him into CD, a tiny room with a single bed and one beaten chest of drawers. Her dress disappears. Her shapely form is nearly flawless. She undresses him quickly and then pulls him down on top of her.
    He finds her mouth with his, absently wondering if she’s going to produce a condom. Really he should insist upon it, has always insisted upon it with one-night stands and new girlfriends, but right now he can’t be bothered to ask. He just keeps kissing her and reaching between her legs with delicate hands. At some point they must turn over, because now she’s straddling his knees, taking him into her mouth, hair playing over his belly. But the plumbing down there won’t function properly. The alcohol that has erased his newfound maturity, that has led him into this third-floor room with a Russian prostitute, won’t let him cross the finish line. She works valiantly to stimulate him, and Steve tries to relax, because even through the cloud of vodka and champagne he is embarrassed for himself and Anna that neither of them can find success.
    Finally she gives up. Collapses next to him, panting and sweating.
    “Too much champagne,” she says.
    “Too much,” he agrees.
    “Or maybe you don’t find me pretty.”
    She may be paid to do this, but he feels guilty anyway.
    “You are beautiful, Anna. Alcohol always gives me this problem.”
    Steve thinks he dozes for a moment, he must, because a little while later he wakes up to voices. The bed is a sunken mess of old sheets and lumpy, foreign pillows. The wrongness of the moment is overpowering. And those voices, they’re in the room with him, and one of them sounds like Anna, except that her previously stilted German is now flawless. Who in the hell is she talking to?
    Steve is facing a window. A window that appears to be moving on some kind of curved path. When he turns over, the whole room seems to spin, and nausea blooms in his stomach. There is a man standing beside his bed. Short and muscular and glaring at him.
    “No,” Anna says in German. “He is a good man. Please do not—”
    The short fellow reaches for him. Steve shrinks instinctively away, turning toward the window, looking for his clothes. A hand grabs his shoulder. Jerks him back. Steve reaches again toward the window, straining to get away from this man, finding fistfuls of damp sheet. What the hell is going on?
    “Please,” Anna says. “Let him get dressed. He is not a bad man. He should not—”
    The man must be a bouncer, some kind of strong arm who throws out fellows who have stayed past their welcome. He grabs Steve by both shoulders now and pulls him back. Throws arms around his torso, wrenching him off the bed. The room spins faster. This is too much. He doesn’t deserve this.
    “Let me go,” he breathes. “I’ll pay her and go. Just tell me how much.”
    But the man doesn’t let go. Doesn’t respond at all, in fact.
    “Let me go!” Steve yells. He struggles to slide out of the man’s grip, and the two of them