“In a little while,” Jerry said.
“I might not be able to walk,” she told him.
He laughed softly.
“I’m serious. You ruined me. I might need a wheelchair.”
Gillian wished, now, that she had taken him up on the offer. She didn’t want to leave her suitcase in Fredrick Holden’s house overnight, and now Jerry was asleep.
But she had been lying there, peaceful and weary, his fingers toying with her hair, feeling too good, too full, too ruined to move—even the short distance toward his side of the bed so she could get away from the cool, wet place on the sheet.
We
She had been about to tell Jerry, but his hand moved. His fingertips slid and her breath snagged.
“Are you really ruined?” he whispered.
She took a hand out from under her head. She touched him. Then she rolled toward him, smiling, shaking her head, nudging him onto his back. Straddling him, she held his shoulders and eased herself slowly down. His warm thickness spread her, slid in deeper and deeper, filled her. She sighed and shut her eyes. She felt his hands close gently over her breasts.
All thoughts of going next door for her suitcase were gone.
When the thoughts came back, she was lying on top of Jerry. Her cheek was against his shoulder. She felt spittle at the corner of her mouth. Lifting her head, she wiped her mouth and saw a shiny area glimmering in the candlelight where she had drooled on his shoulder in her sleep. She rubbed it off gently with the heel of her hand. He didn’t wake up.
He’ll probably wake up when I climb off, she thought.
His arms had been around Gillian just before she’d fallen asleep, but now they were out to the sides, as if they had simply dropped onto the mattress when he’d conked out.
His legs were still straight together between her legs.
His penis had been inside her, and she could feel that it was still inside her, but not very far.
Pushing at the mattress with her hands and knees, she carefully raised herself.
She felt a pulling sensation.
Permanently stuck, Gillian thought, and smiled.
Though it still took a slight pull that stung Gillian and must’ve hurt Jerry as well, she freed herself without waking him.
Maybe I
Working her way slowly backward, she stopped when his penis was just below her face.
I could wake him up in a way he wouldn’t mind at all, she thought.
Just let him sleep. I can take care of this myself.
She kept backing up until her knees found the end of the bed. Then she climbed off.
Only stubs were left of the candles on the dresser and on the nightstands to either side of the bed. Gillian tiptoed from candle to candle, and puffed out each flame.
She entered the lighted hallway and followed it to the kitchen. A clock on the kitchen wall showed 2:38.
Lord, Gillian thought. How did it get so late?
She slid open the back door. The pool still shimmered pale blue in the darkness.
How did it get so late, indeed?
We must’ve been in the pool more than an hour after the Tarzan Jane business.
Gillian walked to the far side of the pool. Squatting there, she picked up her bra and panties, Jerry’s briefs. They were still wet.
She remembered how the garments had hit the concrete deck with sodden splats when they were tossed from the pool. And the feel of Jerry when she first embraced him naked in the water. And the sudden urgency, and how he had entered her and she had wrapped her legs around him and he had walked her to a corner of the shallow end and she had stretched out her arms and hung onto the edges of the pool until it ended fast with a quaking inside that made her cry out.
The memory of it left her a little breathless, a little aroused.
She stood up with the undergarments in her hands. Wringing them out, she walked to the pool comer where he had taken her, where he had held her for so long afterward and where she had finally said, “Now what’ll we do for fun?”Jerry suggested playing Marco Polo, a water version of hide-and-seek.
So they had played that game for a while, taking turns as the blind searcher, as the quarry. The hiding reminded Gillian of how it had been when she was a kid, but this time she looked forward to being found. The kisses. The touching. Which grew more intense as the game progressed until finally they climbed from the pool, rubbed each other with towels as they shivered in night air that had seemed terribly cold, and went inside to the bedroom.
The air now seemed warm. It’s because you’re not soaking wet, Gillian thought.
She went to the table. She draped the undergarments on the back of Jerry’s chair.
Her bandage was still on top of her piled clothes. She had nearly forgotten about the scrapes. The worst of the two had caused her a few pains during the night when Jerry touched it by accident or when it rubbed too hard against the sheet, but those had been only minor irritations, whispers in the noisy crowd of competing sensations.
She fingered the bad scrape. It felt dry, a little stiff, as if all that time in the water had leached out the wound’s moisture. So she left the bandage off. She stepped into her white shorts, fastened them at her waist, and put her blouse on. Buttoning it with one hand, she took the bandage into the kitchen and tossed it in the waste container.
She went to the bedroom. In the faint light from the hallway, she could see Jerry stretched out on the bed. He looked as if he hadn’t moved a muscle.
I could just leave the suitcase, she thought. We could go over in the morning. Jerry had said he would take a floating holiday—no pun intended.
I don’t want it hanging over my head, she decided. We’ll have better things to do when we wake up.
She walked back down the hall, moved carefully through the dark living room, and opened Jerry’s front door. She unlocked it so she could get back inside. Then she stepped out and quickly pulled it shut.
The grass was dewy under her bare feet as she crossed the lawn. She stayed close to the front of Jerry’s house. Fredrick’s driveway was empty.
What did you expect? Gillian asked herself. Did you think he’d come home while you were at Jerry’s?
It was a possibility. She knew that she would’ve heard his car pull into the driveway if he’d returned while she was in the pool. But Jerry’s bedroom was on the other side of the house. From there, she couldn’t have heard it. And she’d hardly been listening for it. And she’d been asleep part of the time.
But the car wasn’t there.
Fredrick Holden was still on his trip—maybe on one of his killing sprees.
Which will come to a quick stop, Gillian thought, once I’ve sent his scrapbook and a little anonymous note to the police.
She stepped onto his driveway. Its pavement felt warmer than the grass.
She glanced quickly up and down the block. Most of the houses were dark except for a few porch lights. She saw no one, and no cars moved on the street.
She came to the walkway that led to the front door. Its painted surface would be slick under wet bare feet, so she moved carefully even though the dew on her feet had mostly been blotted off while she crossed the driveway.
That would be just the thing, she thought. Take a slide and bust your keester.
No more than one crash and burn per day, please.
She climbed the stairs to the stoop.
She realized that she was gritting her teeth and trembling. The night was warm and she wasn’t even wet. So knock off the shakes, she told herself. What are you, scared or something? What’s to be scared of? Oh, nothing much.
