Part 24 (2/2)

When he came back to the main room, Susan was asleep on the couch. He didn't want to wake her; she'd been up for hours, worrying about him. So he put her legs up and turned off the light.

Before he went to bed himself, he went into the bathroom to take a quick shower. And while he was showering...

Susan, nude now, came into the bathroom. She didn't utter a word when she got into the shower with him.

Twenty-One.

Ah-no-prey-bee...

Ona-for-blood...

Gut shuddered.

The dream-words siphoned round his head. His eyes bugged open. He felt cold and hot at the same time; he felt drenched in sweat yet dry as pumice.

It was always dark in here, and the darkness was his nemesis. It seduced him with its comfort, then dropped the memories into his lap like freshly severed heads.

The darkness whispered the dream-words again and again as he lay helpless and churning...

But they weren't really dream-words, were they?

Ah-no- They were real...

prey-bee...

The hideous face, like a cracked mask, was always there, hovering in the dark. Day or night, asleep or awake-it didn't matter.

It was simply...always...there...

Gut shuddered fiercer this time.

He peed his pants again.

The screams were there, too. How could he forget them? And how could he forget what they'd done to Scott-Boy?

Christ...Scott-Boy...

”Fergive me, G.o.d,” he whispered.

It had to be G.o.d, sending demons after 'em for their sins. Gut knew they'd done terrible things, all the razzin' and dope-sellin', sellin' all that s.h.i.+t ta kids just ta turn a buck. Not ta mention all the rape and throat-cuttin'. He'd rucked plenty of guys for their green, and he'd laughed right along every time Scott-Boy busted some chick's coconut with that hickory pick handle of his.

We deserved it.

Yeah, that was fer sh.o.r.e. He and Scott-Boy, they had done some down-an'-dirty things all right, and now G.o.d was gonna fix their wagons fer it, an' He was gonna fix 'em so they'd never roll again. Tears streamed down Gut's blubber face, glistening like slug trails. Aw, s.h.i.+t, G.o.d, I'se really sorry fer all the razzin' we pulled an' all the splittails we f.u.c.ked with, an' all them poor folks we hooked on the dust so's we could git reg-ler scratch out of 'em. Yeah, G.o.d, I'se really sh.o.r.e's s.h.i.+t sorry fer it all.

It was a fine time ta get religion. But maybe G.o.d had fergiven him 'cos, if not, weren't He have let the same thing that happened ta Scott-Boy happen ta him, too?

Oh, yessir, Gut remembert what they up and done to Scott-Boy. One thing he remembert expressly was how one of 'em got ta whittlin' the flesh offa Scott-Boy's fingers like he was just plain whittlin' bark off a pine switch...

Gut's sweat turned rank as dead fish gone belly-up in a swamp. He felt grimy in his layin'-down-goin'-nowhere-sheer-f.u.c.kin' terror, like somebody had throwed him smack-dab in a s.h.i.+thole and made him roll around in it fer awhiles.

And the memory of the face hovered.

We give you this day your daily flesh.

Yeah, ol' G.o.d had sent demons.

Thing was, Gut reckernized one of 'em.

Yessir.

He sh.o.r.e's s.h.i.+t did.

Phil's alarm went off at 4 p.m., another unwelcome reminder of his queer night hours. He turned irritated in bed, then noticed the unfamiliar warmth of the sheets on the other side.

Then he remembered the rest- Susan...

She'd slipped into the shower with him. Neither of them said a word. Her gesture should've surprised him, but it didn't. It was nothing like that at all. Their attraction to each other was self-evident, so perhaps he even, in some unconscious way, expected something like this.

Oh, jeeez...

Beneath the cool torrent, they touched each other as if they'd been lovers for years. The water cascaded; her denuded beauty shone like a beacon. They alternately kissed, sudsing each other with the foamy soap. Their tongues frolicked, their hands strayed through bubbles over each other's flesh.

She was so soft, so wonderfully warm. Her b.r.e.a.s.t.s squeezed against his broad chest as she slipped her arms tight about his waist to desperately draw him closer. The cool water turned hot the instant it hissed against her skin.

Her skin felt like fine, warm silk...

It was a dreamscape of sensation and cool rain. Of timeless kisses and wet, caressing hands. Of undistracted love. Phil was aware of nothing else in the world but her. This was his only world right now, a world of her beauty and his desire, a perfect domain where the only inhabitants were the two of them, and where the only sounds were their ardent breaths, their moans, their gasps, and their sighs, and the endless hiss of the water.

Dripping wet, they hauled each other from the shower. They kissed and fondled and stumbled across the hot room and fell onto the bed in one another's arms.

She was beautiful. He'd always known that, but never in his life did he fully understand the meaning of the word until now. It was so much more than her body, so much more than her gleaming blue eyes, her damp silver-blond hair, her face. It was everything ineffable about their being together like this.

His pa.s.sion became palpable. His pa.s.sion delved into her, explored her every inch. His hands ranged over her perfect skin as a novice sculptor might touch a masterpiece. He touched and kissed and licked her everywhere, from her eyes to the tips of her toes, to her most secret and private places. Her ardor gave; second by second she opened herself to him.

But first, before he demonstrated his pa.s.sion most fully, she stopped him, whispered into the crook of his neck- ”Phil. I-I need-”

”What?” he asked, trailing his tongue up the sleek, damp slope of her throat.

”I need to know something...”

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