A Singular Witness

Tokyo

The taxi dropped them off in front of a tall white building, each floor level marked by a round balcony.  With their bright neon signage, the balconies looked like soap bubbles floating up the surface of the skyscraper.  Quinn and Daniel took the elevator, the vague vibrating bass they felt about midway through the ride growing stronger as they approached the club located on the top floor of the building.

At the entrance, Daniel did a double take at the size of the man who stood guard in a stiff tuxedo, eyes hidden behind dark shades, his lips pressed tightly beneath a thin mustache.  The thick black lines of tattoos on his upper chest were faintly visible through the starched white fabric of his pressed shirt.  He looked at Daniel and Quinn, momentarily presenting a tablet so Daniel could scan his card to make payment, then opened the door for them as Daniel put the card away.

"I've never seen a Japanese man that big."  Daniel murmured to Quinn as they walked in, but his voice was drowned out by the wave of sound that broke over them as they entered the club.  He saw Quinn smile as she pushed forward into the crush of bodies on the dance floor, losing sight of her as she was swept under a gyrating current.

Quinn found herself pressed against a Japanese man with an intense expression that looked to be in his mid-twenties.  He nodded toward the bar, taking her hand in the same motion, and she followed along behind him.  He ordered two drinks, both bright green and glowing in the low black lights of the bar.  She asked him what the drink was, and he answered in Japanese.  Laughing, she drank without caring.

When the drinks were gone, he practically carried Quinn back out on the dance floor.  Pressing her face into his neck, it occurred to Quinn how good the sensation was, of another person's skin against her own.  Remembering Daniel, she looked around for him, and spotted him sitting at a low table on the upper level of the club with a lithe girl leaning in so close, she was almost in his lap.  Daniel was watching the dance floor, and his eyes narrowed when they met Quinn's.

Quinn extricated herself from her partner and stalked up the stairs to the table where Daniel was sitting.  He looked up at her as she approached, pulling the girl beside him in closer.

"Feeling good?"  He asked Quinn, his voice tight.

Quinn looked from Daniel to the girl beside him, and sliding in on his other side she kissed him full on his mouth.  Rolling over on her roughly, he grabbed at her lower lip with his teeth, and the girl he'd forgotten before Quinn even walked over stood up, cursing in a foreign language, and walked away.

As brave as she'd been in the taxi on their way back to the hotel, Quinn suffered a moment of shyness when they arrived in Daniel's room.  She had noticed the bulge in the front of his pants before on occasion, but always quickly turned her attention elsewhere.  Tonight though, Daniel's erection no longer struck her as an awkward anomaly of the male anatomy; it was full of force and meaning, each moment for her slowed, penetrated by Daniel's presence, which took on the weight of inevitability.

He walked over to her and gently tugged her close, one hand on her hip while he slid the other into the hair at the back of her neck.  He took a deep breath; his nose buried in the notch of her collarbone, and trembled.  

"You're electric." She whispered.

################

Daniel's alarm sounded the next morning and he rolled over, feeling under his sheets for Quinn, and realized he was alone.  He suffered a fleeting panic that he'd dreamed what occurred the night before, but it dissipated as the memory flooded his mind and warmed his body. 

He let the hot water steam in the shower, and smiled to himself looking down at the faint scratch marks across his chest.  He lifted his face directly into the stream of water, which ran over his shoulders, and formed little rivers that raced down his body toward the drain.

Quinn was already sitting at the breakfast table with the rest of their group when Daniel arrived.  Aside from avoiding direct eye contact, she acted as though nothing had changed.  Daniel noticed she'd ordered coffee and an energy drink. 

Ali gave Daniel a long and knowing look, but did not voice what his expression made plain.  Instead, looking from Daniel to Quinn, he said, "I've been trying to decide what day would be best to tour the Natural History Museum.  The game developers want to include activities as bonuses; like strolling through the Natural History Museum in Tokyo, for example.  I think today is as good as any, so unless you object, Sonia and Jeremy will get the two of you wired, and we'll wrap up this little bonus feature today."

Quinn shrugged. "Sure; sounds great."

She and Daniel were uncharacteristically quiet as Sonia and Jeremy prepped them for the day, which if anything, seemed appreciated by their two more technical counterparts on the team.  Once they arrived at the museum, and it was just the two of them again, Daniel broke the silence.

"So are you going to talk to me at all today?"  He asked, facing Quinn.

The color rose in her cheeks, "It depends on what you want me to say."

"About last night?" 

She closed her eyes briefly.  "I don't know.  I don't what to say..."

Daniel nodded absently as they walked slowly through a corridor in the museum.  "Do you remember that field trip we took to the Natural History Museum in town when we were in middle school?"

Quinn groaned.  "How could I forget?  Toby not only read everything at each exhibit, he even added information he thought they'd overlooked when they put it all together."  She laughed, remembering.

Daniel shrugged.  "I just remember how we all hung out at that huge bronze statue of a mammoth, laughing at the little kids that played around it.  It was anatomically correct, so of course the one part little kids could reach was the scrotum.  It was seriously a different color than the rest of the statue, all polished up bright and shiny from kids hanging on it.  We thought it was the funniest thing in the world back then."

Quinn bit her lip.  "It sounds like we were on different tours...I do remember the quote though, that was engraved on the wall by that statue."

"You remember a quote on the wall?"  Daniel asked, incredulous.

She nodded, "It was from 'Deserts on the March', by Paul B. Sears.  He said, 'Science has the power to illuminate, but not to solve, the deeper problems of mankind.  For always after knowledge come choice and action, both of them intensely personal."