Stone Shadow

South Oak Cliff

Eichord had a yellow legal pad in the seat beside him as he drove toward Donna's residence, and he popped the cap off a felt-tipped pen with his teeth, driving with one hand and trying to print with the other.

When he got to a stop sign he looked to see if he could read what he'd been writing on the pad and he saw:

1. Judge?

2. Court order?

3. Interior?

4. Houtcheson?

5. Exterior teams? Other?

6. Ukie/danger?

7. Noel/danger?

8. Joe H./APB?

9. Hosp. records?

10. Demon

But it was printed De Mon, and a DEMON was a DEtection MONitor device, one of the few pieces of sophisticated “wizardry” that he was willing to put much trust in. It was night eyes.

He uncapped the pen again and printed:

11. Randy Vincent?

12. New drug?

This was something Mandel had alluded to. A possibility he didn't want to overlook.

And then he folded the piece of paper, tucked it away, and put the iffy, murky, and entirely bloody mess out of his mind for the next few hours.

She liked his flowers, she said, and he thought she looked very pretty and told her so, and without a trace of malice she suggested they have something cold to drink before they go, and he said fine, and the idea was to pick a movie from the listings in the paper, and she brought each of them a glass of very fresh and very chilled orange juice, which was wonderful, and she told him she liked to squeeze some fresh juice every day and he said whatever it was he said and they just sort of relaxed and sat side by side looking at the newspaper listings and talking softly and sipping their juice and then they put their juice down and he leaned over as if to kiss her and you know how it is sometimes when you start to kiss a stranger and the noses aren't quite right it's something you don't think about but that first time the faces have never been that close and the other person's nose and mouth feels funny at first but this felt very natural except that when he kissed her she appeared very demure and it was just a gentle and exploratory kiss but she opened her mouth so wide when she kissed him it kind of surprised him and he responded and the soul kiss was deep and long and then another and then the papers fell to the floor along in there somewhere Clint and Charlie and Sally and James and Goldie and Michael and Kathleen all sliding to the floor in a wrinkled pile and his hands were touching her and she didn't stop him and oh my well now this woman was so soft and cushiony and sexy and warm and time passes as it has a way of always doing and she is over him, and the clothes are down there with Michael and Kathleen and all of them and straddling him with her long hair falling loose around her face and down on the porcelain skin and then the hair is swinging loose all over them and it feels like corn silk against him when it touches and her large full breasts with big erect nipples hard as fingertips jiggling as she moves back and forth astride him, his hands holding her gently at first by the waist and then dropping down on her hips and moving her back and forth in a soft but strong and steady rhythm of new lovemaking a sliding and persistent heat of bodies moving together against a background of such quiet noises the sound of their flesh and a faint click as a refrigerator makes some ice in another room and a faraway traffic sound and the faster breathing and a sheen of perspiration and it feels so good and she says

“I'm"—and a whimpering noise—"I'm almost there."

“Yes,” he said, giving the word three syllables.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh. Ah.” A lover's conversation. Almost.

Almost. Oh. OHHhhh. OHHHHHHHHHH.... OOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I'M COMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMINNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGG,” she tells him.

“Yeah. Come on. Cum,” he tells her.

“UUUUMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM."

“AHHHH."

And she laughs out loud at him as about five cubic centimeters containing around a billion spermatozoa go making a night deposit in the hot, wet vaginal vault.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAA,” she tells him, “not bad,” laughing, leaning over and kissing him on the mouth like she means it. And she holds him tight, locked in her arms and covered in her sweet-smelling silky hair and soon there was a soft rocking again as he grew inside her and stiffened in the hardening liquid fires and she rode him across the finish line in a screaming, whimpering wild wet slippery climax and a big kissy finish and then for a while there was just gentleness. And it appeared that both of them had slaked their thirst and it was a soft and easy time of contented cuddling and he whispered to her that she was his high-school hayride fantasy and she asked him if that was because she reminded him of wet straw and dripping eggs and they both agreed that this beat any movie they could have gone to and they agreed that each preferred sweet romances to hot glances and that they preferred cuddly hellos to mean good-byes and they had a long and intimate discussion about such things and then much later they both decided they would further explore the nature of desire.