[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"You have a girlfriend?"
He hefted the box out of the freezer, looking at the girl again.
She was kind of cute. No ... cute wasn't exactly the right word. Exotic ... yes, she was exotic. She had very pretty dark eyes, heavy
lidded, as if she were sleepy, and smooth lips which she licked as she unzipped her puffy jacket.
"Look, I'm working right now, okay?" He tried to sound firm but he was preoccupied with the open front of her jacket, with the
impressive curve of her breasts beneath the black sweatshirt she wore, and with the tingly feeling that had already been stirred in him
by the marijuana. He put the box down and added, "I've been down here too long already."
"Oh. So you aren't waiting for your girlfriend."
"No. Um, you've gotta go now. Really." He was sounding less convincing each time he spoke.
"Out there? But it's so cold."
"Go inside. Get some coffee."
"It's packed in there. Besides, I don't have any money. I'm stuck here." She slipped her jacket off and tossed it onto the crate behind
her. On her sweatshirt, red letters stretched taut over her surprisingly large breasts: EASY BUT NOT CHEAP.
He thought about it a long time. Yes, he could get into trouble. But no one ever came down to the basement besides Kevin and he did
have a break coming. He could even take it early.
"So you want to stay down here a while?" he asked.
Her eyes brightened a little. "Could I? I promise not to touch anything and I won't make any noise. I'll just sit down here for a while,
that's all. I could use the rest."
The marijuana was making him feel a little more sure of himself than he would have been otherwise and he nodded slowly as he
looked the girl over. What skin he could see looked silky; she wore no bra and when she moved, her breasts shifted slightly beneath
the black material. She was probably seventeen, maybe eighteen. Yes ... exotic. In spite of his boldness--he usually found it difficult to
stare so shamelessly at women--he was nervous inside, jittery, and his mouth felt dry. The condition worsened as he let his mind
wander through the possibilities.
Kevin had never been with a girl before, never touched a girl. He was too busy saving his money to spend it on dinners and movies
and whatever else people did on dates. But this would be different. This would be free.
"Okay," he said, going back into the freezer. He got the second box of cheese, brought it out and put it on top of the first and pushed
the freezer door shut.
"I can stay, you mean?"
"Yeah."
"Oh, jeez, thanks, I really--"
She stopped when he stepped in front of her and, trying hard to bury his nervousness, said, "But what do I get for letting you?"
She stared at him expressionlessly a moment, then smirked again. Her tongue flicked out over her lower lip, there and gone in a
flash, like a snake's. "Well..." She looked him over then held his eyes with hers. "What do you want?"
"I let you stay here and I get to ... spend my break with you."
"Okay. Yeah." She lifted a hand and brushed her fingertips lightly over his throat just below his jaw. Kevin almost flinched, but
resisted. "Yeah, you come back."
As he lifted the boxes and started upstairs, Kevin felt her watching him, felt those heavy lidded eyes on his back. Half way up, he
turned and looked down at her.
She was watching him, sitting on her coat on the crate, legs spread; her elbows rested on her knees, arms dangling between her
thighs, long fingers twitching. She was smiling.
"I'll leave the light on," he said.
"No, that's okay." It was nearly a whisper. "I like the dark."
As Kevin started back up the stairs, she added, "Take your break early."
His thoughts were so concentrated on the girl that he completely forgot to relock the window. In fact, he was so preoccupied that,
later, as he hurried from table to table in the restaurant, he didn't even realize that he was ignoring Jenny completely, as if she weren't
even there...
[Back to Table of Contents]
CHAPTER 8
Jon watched his dad grow smaller.
As he told Jon about the night he'd taken a sickly girl into his sleeper in Missouri, about the black truck she'd gotten into and the man
who'd driven it away, Dad hunched farther and farther forward until he seemed to be curling into a ball behind the wheel. After a long
pause, he continued:
"After that, when I realized this was not going to go away, when I realized what I was, I--"
"What do you mean, what you are? What're you--"
"Just let me finish, Jon. I made arrangements for the divorce right away and let your mother have everything. Well, almost everything. I
had my lawyer wire me some money from my savings account, enough to live on for a while." He seemed to think about that a
moment, then chuckled coldly, muttering, "Enough to live on. Hmph. Anyway, I left her everything else. I knew I wouldn't need it. I sure
wasn't going to go home. I didn't want to expose any of you to this ... to me. I still didn't understand it and didn't know how to handle it.
But I knew I was different. I noticed changes in myself, weird changes, in the next couple of days. Like, breathing ... I caught myself not
breathing sometimes, just not taking in any breath. I realized I could go for hours without a single breath. Now, I have to make a
conscious effort to breathe. It just doesn't come naturally. And sunlight. I couldn't stand the sunlight, Jonny, still can't. And when I tried
to eat food or drink anything, even water? I got sick, deathly ill. But I still felt hungry, I craved ... something. I got bad ... weak, shaky,
cold. I finally stopped one night at a hospital in Kansas and went into the emergency room. There was a boy there. He'd been hit by a
car and they were just taking him in. He'd bled a lot. All over the waiting room. It was on the floor, one of the sofas. I could smell it the
second I walked in and I just went ... crazy. I dropped to my knees and put my face down on the floor and just started licking it up.
Rubbed my face all around in it like some animal. The receptionist started screaming and a doctor ran out and just ... stood there.
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]