Witch Water

Instead, he’d gained a better vantage point for the intent he’d failed to admit to himself.

He was standing at the highest point of Witches Hill, spying on the town with the looking-glass. The drone in his head amplified. He could not turn away from what he was doing…

In the glass’s viewing circle, he scanned the Travelodge pool, which now wobbled extra-dimensionally blue with its underwater lights. Mostly children waded about but several attractive mothers accompanied them. Fanshawe found that a ring on the glass would zoom the image surprisingly close. Oh, God… One woman’s breasts filled the circle now, water droplets glittering in her cleavage. Through the wet bikini top’s baby-blue fabric, he could see the darkened plugs of her nipples. Fanshawe swerved the glass, to another unknowing mother climbing out of the water. The contrast of this one’s black bikini against the luxuriant white curves of flesh left him breathless. She turned, standing still to talk cheerily to someone in a lounge chair; Fanshawe exploited this as any competent voyeur would, and scanned her entire body from her neck to her toes.

He raised the looking-glass then, to the upper-level windows…

Time turned to a smear along with Fanshawe’s free will. He only vaguely noticed his watch beeping, signaling eleven p.m. From this point on, he floated on a squalid euphoria, as myriad images found their way into his famished psyche; it seemed as though the looking-glass itself were injecting the hot crush of glimpses deep into the substance of his brain, like marinade into the middle of a rump roast: shapely women in underwear or less striding across rooms; a melon-breasted college student stepping out of the shower; a man and woman having rowdy intercourse on their bedroom dresser-top, and a half-dozen more, all commingling into a single, inflamed kaleidoscope that existed solely to stoke Fanshawe’s idiosyncratic lust.

He couldn’t imagine how long he’d stood there sampling so many visual delicacies; time didn’t exist, only the most vivid, lascivious succession of images. When he’d exhausted the Travelodge windows of everything his eye could pilfer, the drone in his head swelled, and he moved the hoary spyglass to the Wraxall Inn.

Silence shrouded him. Had the incessant night-sounds ceased, or had his craving shut them out? Indeed, like last night’s dream, all he could hear were his own heated breaths and the quickened thuds of his heart.

And through the elaborate windows of the inn, Fanshawe’s smorgasbord marched on, a visual feast the likes of which he’d not experienced in over a year. People are naked a lot, his thoughts broke through his fever, when they don’t think anyone can see… He started at the top floor, then slowly moved the glass one window at a time from left to right. The window of the corner suite stood dark—of course, it was his own—but next to it a slightly overweight woman with robust curves and shining blond hair stood nude before her open closet, hunting for the desired nightgown. Eventually she turned, showing all that plush, soft flesh and the exorbitant substance of her bosom, just as Fanshawe zoomed in to scrutinize in every detail. Oh, Christ… On the next floor a window displayed a bed that was empty until a clearly excited male suitor approached with his nude girlfriend or wife—her feet wagging aloft as she silently giggled— dropped her into the middle of the bed, then slid briskly on top of her. The man’s mouth moved from one nipple to the other; evidently, he was biting, for the woman’s back arched, and she clenched, but the look on her tense face was one of pleasure, not discomfort. The man disappeared for a moment, only to return with handcuffs and a blindfold, but after applying these things to his lover, he turned off the lamp, leaving only ghostly television light. More pay-dirt, thought Fanshawe, for deeper along the floor, a shimmering sight slammed into his eye: a svelte woman, nude, on her belly with her legs wishboned. Her skin shined from an obvious application of oil, while another naked woman, just as shapely, straddled her and slowly massaged her back. Fanshawe’s hands shook when he crudely zoomed the glass close between both women’s legs. The motherlode, he thought.

When the sultry masseuse leaned for the bottle of oil, he caught the sides of her breasts, like a model in one of the classier men’s magazines, but he also saw enough of her face…

Harvard, he realized. And they’re about to…

—after a few moments, the masseuse hopped up, laughing, then quickly closed the curtains as if her partner had casually mentioned that it might be a good idea. How’s that for some bum luck? Fanshawe thought, frustrated and now painfully aroused; he grew light-headed when he considered what he’d be missing. But at least the pair of lovers seemed to have recovered from their gory shock on the trails.

Now his crude excitement left him disordered. I’m such a scumbag! he yelled at himself, but only continued to manipulate the glass. Through a careless curtain gap, he zoomed in a young brunette wearing only panties; she stood before a narrow, full-length mirror, and seemed to be grinning at what she saw: wide hips and a flat stomach; long, sleek legs; small breasts that swooped upward, topped by dense nipples. The woman’s grin deepened; next, she drew her hands up her abdomen, cupped her breasts, then began to vise each nipple between forefinger an thumb…

Fanshawe made an aggravated fist with his free hand, his self-disgust simmering. Scumbag… Pervert…

He moved the viewing circle past several dark windows on the second floor, then stopped when the last of them went alight. He held the glass fast, waiting, heart thudding. No movement revealed itself, yet Fanshawe seemed to sense that patience, as far as this window was concerned, would be well rewarded. The room appeared smaller than the others; he thought he detected heather-green carpet, then walls papered in flowery, neutral tones. In a split-second, then, a shape strode past. Fanshawe only made out jeans and a light top, but he knew it was a woman.

Patience, patience, he insisted.

The shape returned, and a hot breath suddenly seemed trapped in Fanshawe’s chest. Now the woman was bereft of jeans and top, and was skimming off her panties and bra. Of all the women he’d spied on tonight, this woman possessed the most exorbitant curves. But her back was to him. Was she getting something from a closet?

He couldn’t tell, and the lower angle blocked all detail of her from the shoulders up; he could only tell her hair was not blond but lighter than brunet.

It was then that she turned, offering a delectable side-glance. At once Fanshawe’s wooziness doubled. The woman’s breasts were heavy but high, her waist fatless. A tuft of butterscotch public hair showed. Next, she turned only a trifle, such that Fanshawe could see the large, dark circles of her nipples and the jutting papillae. He zoomed only to be astonished to near disbelief. These optics are incredible.

It was uncanny how closely the looking-glass could bear in on an image. Just then, the unknowing woman’s nipple nearly filled the viewing field. Every detail was there before his eye, the stark demarcation of the nipple’s rim against the white flesh of the breast, even the finest hair follicles, and even the papilla’s lactation ducts. It was akin to microscopy… But—

Was she about to lean over?

Fanshawe backtracked the zoom to bring the entire window back into frame.

Yeah… Contact lenses…

The woman was leaning slightly, finger on one hand widening her eyelids while those of her other hand slipped out the lenses. It was during this pose that Fanshawe received his most vivid shock of the night. The woman was absolutely voluptuous, and now he could see her face.

It was Abbie.

The sudden noise spun him abruptly around like someone caught by surprise on a barstool. He’d heard a dog growl.

He stood frozen, staring into the clearing. What he noticed first was the old rain barrel, but it almost looked as though it were shimmering. Some aspect of the moonlight seemed to over-substantiate details much in the same way as the looking-glass. Everything he saw—the high grasses and wild flowers, the small stones on the ground, and even the dirt’s grit—looked excessively crisp. As for the barrel, even from yards away he easily detected the pits and water-damage grooves of its body beneath its protective coat.

But as he might expect, there was no dog.

Not this shit again.

It hadn’t sounded as precise as when he’d heard it earlier that day—just before the scream. It only took a few moments for him to feel sure there was no dog, but remembering how Eldred Karswell’s body had been found didn’t afford much relief. What IS this? he wondered, close to being angered. I’m hearing growling dogs, for God’s sake. But there’d be other evidence of a dog in the