Three shirt deal

Chapter 31

Slowly, gray images started coming out of the mist. SILvery silhouettes that shimmered like freshly-minted buffalo head nickels. A white-haired fatherly presence I couldn't quite remember peered down at me, his craggy face etched with curiosity.

Chooch and Alexa floated up like gray-white ghosts. I felt nothing. I was a spectator in a dark theater, watching this parade of colorless tintype people that kept changing into new forms from old memories. I saw the old Huntington House group home where I first knew loneliness and despair. Some of my foster parents came and looked down at me-welfare thieves who took money, then threw me back when I became too much bother. The people in these pictures would appear, sometimes move or even speak, coming to life for a minute, before being pulled back into the mist, getting smaller and weaker until they were gone. Then another image would arrive. Snapshots from my past. I watched, but was strangely detached as if this had all happened to someone else.

Then Secada was holding me, looking down, her dark eyes filled with love. Her lustrous hair hung in sheaves, framing both of us. She reached out and caressed me, pulling me near. Unlike the others, she was rich and colorful, close and warm. Her naked breast and strong arms caressed me. I felt safe. When she leaned down and kissed me, I suddenly began responding.

"Querido, listen to me," Secada whispered.

"I'm listening."

"I tried to keep my promise. But this attraction is too strong. I cannot be tu otra-your other woman," she whispered.

"I know."

I found her mouth and smothered it with kisses.

First, I felt a warmth, and then, without warning, a sudden searing pain. It started in my heart, then spread quickly across my chest, crippling my entire body. Far away I heard alarms and buzzers.

"Don't hate me, querido," Secada said.

"We're losing him. Get the crash cart!" a distant voice shouted.

And then the fog was back, swirling around me. This time I could taste it, burning in my throat like acid bile.

"I tried to keep my promise," Secada said, disappearing behind a new gray mist. As she faded, she whispered softly, "I tried. I really tried."