Hot Blood: Tales of Erotic Horror

ever had. It's like a curse — my sex life has never been as good.'

'She was just a kid, for Christ's sake, and according to you, a virgin!' Bill crowed. 'How could she possibly have been such a good lay?'

Jason tried to describe the way Carla performed. 'It never really occurred to me till now,' he said. 'Since she was my first, I had nothing to compare her with. I thought all girls could screw like that. But, brother, was I wrong!'

Jason slumped against the back of his hardwood chair, the alcohol beginning to loosen his nerves. 'There was something unique about the way she… you know… felt inside,' he blushed. 'It was such a tight fit and yet, once I was inside her, it was as if she wouldn't let go, like she had complete control of her muscles down there.'

Bill sipped his drink. 'Maybe it was a quirk of nature, like being double-jointed or something,' he said.

'It was so intense, the way she drained me, that I could seldom last longer than four or five strokes before I'd explode inside her. She was fan-tastic.'

Bill shook his head in apparent disbelief. 'If she was so great, why did you dump her?'

'I told you,' Jason countered. 'She was my first lay. I thought all girls could screw like that.' Growing uncomfortable, he turned his head and stared at the mirrored reflection of an attractive waitress leaning over the bar behind him.

'The strange thing about it,' Jason finally went on, 'I remember most of our relationship so clearly, and yet beyond a certain point it all seems different now — like my memory of her has been changed somehow. I used to get excited when I thought about her, like she was a fulfilled fantasy from the past, but since that damned phone call tonight, I feel mostly nervous… and afraid.'

Bill drained his mug. 'Why are you feeling this way now?' he asked. 'Hell, it's been twenty years!'

'Dammit, that's just it — I don't know why!' Jason growled. 'Everybody gets dumped at one time or another. Barbie Williams gave me the axe in college. She sure as hell didn't show me any mercy…'

'Hey, calm down, man,' Bill said. 'Don't get strung out over Barbie, too.'

Jason ran his fingers across the five o'clock shadow that sandpapered his cheeks. He leaned forward across the table and lowered his voice.

'Last night, sometime after the last dream, I woke up on top of Kathy. I had been kissing her neck in my sleep, stroking her thighs. We were about to make love. But in my mind she was Carla. I thought she was Carla, and it scared the shit out of me when I realized she wasn't!' Jason slammed an open hand hard against the table surface, rattling the mugs and ashtrays. 'I'm afraid I might be losing it,' he added. 'I've never been this way before: ' Nearby drinkers looked on in amusement as Bill leaned over to pat his friend on the shoulder.

'Hey, relax, Jase — relax,' Bill whispered. 'Take a deep breath and calm down.'

Jason drained the rest of his beer and loosened his collar. 'You know what else is so shit-kickin' strange?' he said in a voice that had turned strangely tranquil.

'What?'

'Right now, sitting here with you, I can see her in my mind more clearly than ever. It's almost as if her image was branding itself into my brain with a hot poker, and I can't get rid of it.'

Jason ordered another beer and stared at Bill through eyes that began to sting and feel swollen. Either the beer was getting to him… or something worse.

'She loved me,' he slurred. 'She loved me, but I didn't really love her. I told her I did. I promised her I'd be with her forever. I lied to her, just to get into her pants.'

'Hey, you were just a kid yourself,' Bill countered. 'And, besides, most guys do that at one time or another.'

'Does that make it right?' Jason snapped. 'She was a great piece of ass, so I used her. She trusted me and I took advantage of her.'

Bill shifted in disgust. 'Jason, you're a grown man, and this happened years ago. Why let your conscience bother you now? It's all behind you, and I doubt she's losing any sleep over it nowadays. You probably never even cross her mind anymore.'

'She was more mature than me. More serious,' Jason said, ignoring Bill's point. 'She wanted us to be together always, and I was only interested in sex. And when I got tired of her, I dumped her.'

Jason paused to wipe a sheen of sweat from his forehead. 'She cried. God, how she cried,' he continued, tears pooling in his eyes. 'She was still in high school, and I was a freshman in college. I never saw her after we broke up. Never returned her calls. I shredded her letters without even opening them. Hell, I was a big shot. A stud. Why did I need her anymore? I was ready to move on to someone else.'

Bill cleared his throat, then smiled. 'You're making too much out of all this,' he said. 'Why don't you just call Carla? Hell, all you need is to talk to her and get this out of your system. You'll feel a hundred percent better.'

Jason raised his brow. 'That's not a bad idea. But Kathy wouldn't like it.'

'She doesn't have to know. I mean, it's not as if you intend to ball your old girlfriend again, right?'

Jason hesitated, then slowly nodded. 'Good point,' he said. 'But Carla won't be easy to find. She's probably been married at least once by now. Her name's changed. Hell, she might even live in another state for all I know…'

'Take it one step at a time,' Bill suggested. 'Start with the telephone book. You can check with her parents, with mutual friends. It might take awhile, but you'll track her down eventually.'

Jason smiled. It was certainly worth a try.

He awoke the next morning exhausted again from loss of sleep, his eyes red and swollen, his body sluggish and unresponsive. Carla had clearly become an obsession, one he knew would have to be resolved soon.

At work he stayed secluded in his office and spent the day trying to locate her. He checked several possibilities in the telephone directory, but found nothing. Not even her parents were listed.

His efforts temporarily stalled, Jason considered how isolated his relationship with Carla had been. They had had no mutual friends. In fact, they had shared very little in common. Regardless, the difficulty of locating her seemed only to fuel his desire, and he was more determined than ever to find her. But maybe it had become more than just a passing fixation. Maybe he really wanted to fondle Carla's breasts again, to experience her extraordinary sexual prowess just one last time. At this point it was difficult to define exactly what he had in mind. He only knew that he had to keep searching.

After work, and an apologetic, excuse-ridden phone call to Kathy, Jason skipped dinner and drove directly to Carla's hometown in the next county. Much of the previously wooded terrain along the way had been cleared for new housing, and a country store he and Carla frequented looked long since closed, its doors and windows now boarded over. As he rounded the final curve toward her old driveway, he almost expected her to be standing in the yard, waving her usual warm hello — but instead was shocked to find her entire neighborhood erased by a recently completed interstate highway, its asphalt surface carving directly through the hill where Carla's house once stood. Gone also was the opportunity to inquire of neighbors as to Carla's current whereabouts. It was as if all traces of her existence had been wiped away.

Jason sat in anguish behind the steering wheel and rolled down the window. He imagined her old house at the top of the hill, her Dad's new cherry-red Chevy parked in the carport, her dog Buster scampering across the yard. With his head out the window for a breath of fresh air, the whisper of the breeze against Jason's face brought memories of another special place where he and Carla had spent countless evenings long ago. Without hesitation, he stared at the purple skies of the setting sun and floored the accelerator.

The old church was still standing, but badly in need of paint, and from its side extended the same dead end road that once served as Jason and Carla's private lover's lane. Jason backed the car over loose gravel to the end of the road, killed the engine, and doused the headlights, just as he'd done almost every Friday night twenty years before. A full moon crept from behind an errant cloud, illuminating the church steeple that spired above a cluster of pines. Moon shadows danced across the empty road.

With a rush, Jason could somehow sense it all again — the sounds and scents as they made love in the