Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

world of spermshooting where, like a worker drone in the hands of the queen bee, you bop till you drop and, yes, he could go this way any moment, in fact he was on death's door and, yes, don't stop, it's to die for, you're killing me, and seismic was the word that came to mind, and he felt the earth move, and his heart shuddered as the tremor split the world in half and the last drops of his life force shot into the room and covered them in yech nasty hot sticky stuff and, spent, he gave up the ghost.

'You're sweet, you know that?' she said after a minute or so of snuggling. She had the wisdom of silences. He made no noise or movement. She smiled and he could feel his dead body starting to warm again, just at the shape of that luscious, edible mouth of hers. What a face.

She got up and went back into the bathroom. He could hear her running water. She came back out wearing his silk bathrobe, even managing to look sexy and cute in that, and the sleeves were rolled back, and she was carrying a damp cloth, and she began cleaning up the mess he'd made in the bed, and he made his first noise as the wet cloth touched him:

'Nnnnn.' Just a soft whimper escaped from his lifeless, inert body. Dead on the bed.

'Don't worry, honey,' she purred to him as she leaned over, 'Jackie's gonna kiss it and make it well.'

'NNNNNNN,' he moaned in agony/ecstasy, and she laughed.

'But next time we're going to take our time, aren't we?' she chided, as she laughed into his mouth.

'Mmm.'

'Three, four minutes, anyway. No more of the old thirty-second Vesuvius,' she teased him. 'Deal?'

'Three or four minutes?'

'Yeah,' she said.

And somewhere in all of that he decided that she'd given him the secret of life. This was what it was all about.

He thought about her, hard and hot now, and had to fight to yank his mind back to the present and calm down enough so that he could hit his approach shot to the green.

In a few minutes they'd reached the clubhouse, he'd bid a hasty goodbye to the guys, changed into some mocs, and was on his way to the burbs.

Warren Childress parked and tipped the parking attendant, Pedro, who always gave him special attention.

'I might be a while,' Childress said.

'Hokay,' the small man said in a downbeat, meek voice. He was usually a bubbling little bantam kind of guy and Childress looked at him as he moved toward the elevator.

'You doing all right, Pedro?' Conversational. Just asking.

'I don't think Missy up there now.'

'You don't think Missy —? Oh. Did Miss Jordan go out?'

'Missy gone,' he said.

'How long has she been gone — do you know?' Misunderstanding him.

'Leave yesterday. Missy gone.'

'What the hell are you talking about, Pedro, my man? Talk to me.'

'I don't know nothing,' Pedro said, shrugging and moving to the expensive car. 'Luis say Missy go. She move out.' His eyes were downcast as if he was ashamed for the way Childress had treated this lovely lady to make her leave. What the hell was this shit?

'You're mistaken, I'm sure,' Childress said, but his thumb was on the elevator button.

He rode to three and got off, striding briskly down the hall, the thick carpet muffling his footsteps.

Room 305. Right side of the hall. He slipped his key into the lock, felt the familiar turn of the mechanism, the give of the metal, the door opening. The furniture he'd picked out for the apartment looked just the same as always.

'Jackie? You here, doll?' His voice loud and metallic in the apartment, the silence of no response even louder. He walked through the room and opened the bedroom door. The bed was stripped of linens, a bare mattress, his first stab of shock. He flung open the clothes closet. Empty. Drawers. Nothing. Into the bathroom. Bare. Only a few used containers scattered about and in the medicine cabinet. The apartment screamed at him and he was suddenly very afraid.

He went over to the phone to call the apartment house management whom he paid directly, but the telephone was dead. She'd had it disconnected. He looked in the kitchen. Some food in the fridge, a few things in the cabinets. She'd left in a hurry. He was getting frantic. He went through the whole place looking for a note — something. Not a word. What in the hell was going on? Jackie would never leave like this.

Warren got the car and drove over to the management complex. Yes, Miss Jordan left yesterday. She had turned in her apartment key. Said we could go ahead and rent it out for the first of the month — she was leaving. She didn't leave a forwarding address — said she'd be in touch when she was relocated. No — there was no message of any kind for you.

He phoned the doorman and the garage attendant who'd been on duty when she left. Had she left in a taxi? No — took her car. Some luggage. That was it. She had been vague about her destination. She hadn't responded when they'd told her how sorry they were to see her go — she just smiled, Luis the garage man told him. Smiled? He had to get out of there. He couldn't breathe.

He sat in the car debating whether or not to go to the police. There would be questions. Problems. He couldn't chance it. Maybe it would be better to call them anonymously later. Where had she gone?

No, there hadn't been any messages for him at the office. He started the car and drove home, blindly, mind buzzing with the possibilities. Another man? Illness in the family? She'd been so happy when they'd been together last time. Jackie loved him. She couldn't just pick up and leave. Something had happened to her. Should he call the hospitals? The word abortion nudged him for a second.

He knew that his worst fears were right — that something had happened — when he pulled into his driveway and saw two official-looking guys standing there waiting. They walked over and were standing beside the door when he got out of the car. They had the smell of cops, or private heat.

'Mr. Childress?' the first one said, a rough-looking man who seemed out of character in a three-piece business suit. Warren's heart started hammering; he feared something awful had happened to Jackie.

'Yeah?'

'We represent Mrs. Childress. May we see your keys, please.' The hand outstretched — no question mark in the statement.

'My keys?' he started.

'Hand your keys over,' the other man said. In a thickening fog, he handed his key ring to the first guy.

'Do you have duplicate house keys and car keys, Mr. Childress?'

'No.'

'The house keys have been changed,' the first man told him. 'Step this way, sir.' They escorted him to an unmarked Pontiac, and Childress sat in the back seat. The second man sat in the front. 'You guys going to tell me what this is all about?' 'We're employed by Mrs. Childress's attorneys, sir. They'll be in touch with you as to the details of the divorce.' The words stabbed into him like sharp knives.

Lois got the house. The Corniche. The neo-Impressionists. The CDs, of course. He was getting to keep whatever he could pull out of the agency, but he was to immediately «relinquish» the monies that Jackie had told them about. Jacqueline Jordan, whose fucking deposition was one of the sharp knife wounds that left him bleeding as the man spoke. When he was through, the man tapped a small envelope that lay in the seat between them. Something rectangular, about an inch thick. 'You can keep this. Mrs. Childress said it was a little souvenir for you.' He said it without any irony.

Warren picked it up and looked down into the envelope, knew what it was the moment he saw the TDK T- 120HS on the top of the box. A copy of a videocassette. Shot from the clothes closet, he supposed.

They let him out at a cab stand, opened the trunk of the Pontiac and unceremoniously plunked his luggage beside the first cab. They didn't ask him if he had cab fare, even — they just pulled out. Hell, he'd never tumbled a hooker he didn't slip fifty bucks to for a taxi.

He got into the cab and the driver loaded his luggage, getting in with a grunt of effort, turning and saying,