To The Bone

Chapter 12

When Monks woke up, the house was dim, with the only light coming from down the hall. He was still on the couch, covered with a blanket. Memory of the earlier hours began to return, and then, the fear that Martine had gone home.

But she was still here, a small mound in his bed, buried under covers in the now cool night. He put a hand on her lightly to assure himself and heard a slight pause in her breathing before it evened out again. Omar, the big Persian, was curled at her feet, looking almost half her size. There was the sense that he had been posted as a guard while the other two were out taking care of nightly cat business.

Monks went to the bathroom to urinate, rinse his face, and brush his teeth, then back to the kitchen to put out fresh spoonfuls of cat food in their bowls. He turned out the light. The green LED numbers on the microwave clock said 1:08 a.m. The previous day's events were flickering through his mind like a videotape now.

He stood in the dark room, grappling with the urge to start drinking again, to blast on through the night, to reach that feverish black edge between this reality and a further one that lured, promising that it was realer still. He had been there many times, but not in several years.

He walked back down the hall to the bedroom. When he undressed, he realized, with surprise, that he was half-hard. He lay down beside Martine and touched her small breasts, an exploratory caress, not sure how welcome he would be.

But she stretched luxuriantly, then turned and cupped his tightened scrotum, hefting it curiously, as if judging its weight. Her hand moved to stroke his shaft, using the inside of her wrist, then pricking it with her fingernails.

Her touch was exquisite. He adored her. He tried to concentrate all his being on her, knowing that this would soon be gone, too.

And yet some lewd uncontrollable part of his mind kept playing the image of Eden Hale as she had been in that film, luscious, intense, braced on hands and knees and wide open to the ramming bursting need of men.