It's Raining Men

I put my elbows on the bar. “All right, here’s the deal. Me and one of my roommates—did I mention I’m a sex demon in the fourth circle of hell?” I said, rushing my fence. “I’m a sex demon in the fourth circle of hell. We had this brilliant idea. Chase all the good men out of an entire neighborhood. Then clean up.” To her confused expression I explained, “Lots more women for us. We would look good compared to the available mortal dickheads.”

She closed her mouth long enough to swallow. “Go on.”

“It took six months to set up, and then we ran it for a year. You should know how well it worked,” I added gruffly. I took a swallow of Scotch courage.

“And then?” She seemed a lot more cheerful.

I shrugged. “And then the Regional Office and the Home Office had their big five-year accounts reconciliation and some programs got cut and some assets got moved and, long story short, we got caught in the machinery.”

Chloe squinted at me.

Now I got it. She wasn’t swallowing a word of this. Thanking hell, I spun the bullshit faster. “And now I’m on work release.”

She laughed delightedly. “Go on. This is fascinating.”

“I’m glad you’re amused,” I said grumpily. “I should have known, of course, that you were liable to get snared in our net, but I guess I’d hoped you would wise up, or at least take a breather from your lifestyle of dating sons of bitches.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” She flapped a hand. “Moving right along.”

I shrugged. “So, yes, there’s a conspiracy, and it worked pretty well, but now it’s officially over.”

Her mouth twisted. “Tell that to Reynolds. The putz.”

“Reynolds is in the past.”

She was smiling. I felt a little better now. More like the idiot I really am than the total bastard I pretend to be.

So I spun some more. “The good news.”

“There’s good news?”

“Of course. The good news is, you’ve been selected for victims’ compensation.” Yeah, that sounded about right. The sort of thing those bureaucratic morons Above and Below would do. “As compensation for your suffering this past year and in recognition of the damage to your peace of mind, for a limited time only.” I smiled my snakiest smile. “For you, it’s gonna start raining men.”