woman at Picacho Peak and the ones on Diana Ladd and had used them as part of the evidence that sent Andrew Carlisle to prison for the second time. Andy had talked about that constantly, about how once a woman's breast was exposed to him, he was physically incapable of not biting it.
'So what's the problem here?' Mitch had asked one day, when he was feeling particularly brave and when he felt as though Andy had beaten the subject to death. 'Didn't your mother ever nurse you?' he had asked. 'How come, when you talk about tits, it's only in terms of mangling them or biting them off instead of using them the way God intended?'
'What my mother did or didn't do is none of your damned business.' Andy said the words in a way that made Mitch's blood run cold. He knew at once that he had stepped over some invisible line, and he sincerely wished he hadn't.
'Sorry,' he said quickly. 'I didn't mean to insult your mother. It's just that sucking on a woman whose boobs are overflowing with milk can be a beautiful thing. I thought maybe you might have tried it.'
'No,' Andy had responded. 'I never have.'
'Damn,' Lori muttered.
Half-asleep, Mitch rolled over on his side to face her. 'What's wrong?'
'Mikey didn't eat,' she said. 'He already fell back to sleep. He barely touched the one side, and I'm soaking wet on the other.'
Mitch reached out and cupped Lori's swollen breast in one hand. She was right. The leaking milk had soaked her nightgown from armpit to waist.
'If you'd let me, maybe I could take some of the pressure off.'
'Never mind,' she said. 'I'll go get the breast pump.'
'No, don't,' he said. 'Let me do it. Please. It won't hurt anything. Mikey won't know.'
Lori didn't answer right away, but she didn't move his hand, either. Finally she sighed. 'All right,' she said. 'I guess it would be all right, just this once.'
There was no need to unbutton the gown because she slept with it open. Mitch did have some trouble unfastening the nursing bra. He had seen her do it, of course, but watching it done from the inside out wasn't the same as doing it from the outside in and in the dark as well. At last, though, he ran his hand over her damp naked breast. The distended nipple lay erect and inviting beneath his grazing fingertips.
'If you're going to do it,' Lori said, 'don't take all night.'
Whenever he'd had the chance to watch Lori nurse, he'd observed the strange mixture of anticipation and dread with which she greeted Mikey's clamping his hungry lips over her nipple. Sometimes she'd make a sound that was almost like the sigh of satisfaction Mitch's grandmother used to make after taking a sip of too hot coffee.
Raising up on his elbows, Mitch leaned over and clamped on. As his lips closed around her nipple, he felt her body tense and instantly afterward go limp as the sweet, hot milk shot into his mouth. It gushed out at him, shooting all the way to the back of his mouth, teasing his tonsils, almost triggering his gag reflex, but he fought that down and concentrated on sucking, on draining her without ever gripping her with his teeth.
There was more milk inside her than he expected, but at last that one was empty. He sat up to find that in the dark she had deftly unfastened the other side, and now, giggling, she pulled him down onto that one, too, holding him by the back of the neck, pressing him against her, groaning with pleasure as his now aching jaws relieved the pressure on that sore breast as well.
Ever since they had brought Mikey home from the hospital three weeks earlier, Mitch had been intensely curious about the process. For weeks he had begged Lori to let him taste her, but what had never crossed his mind was that the process might pleasure her as well. The fact that she was enjoying it almost as much as he did unleashed months of pent-up sexual deprivation. When he let go of her nipple, she was still laughing so hard that at first she didn't seem to notice that he was prying her legs apart. But she did notice.
'No, Mitch,' she said. 'It's still too soon. The doctor…'
By then Mitch Johnson wasn't interested in what the doctor had said or in what Lori wanted, either. He desperately craved the solace her body had to offer. He craved it and he took it. He had barely shoved himself home when his aching need exploded inside her like a burst of Fourth of July fireworks.
Afterward as he drifted in a mellow haze, he realized she was crying. 'What's wrong now?' he asked.
'You raped me.' She didn't say it loud, but he knew she meant it.
'No, I didn't,' he said. 'You wanted it as much as I did. You were asking for it.'
'You raped me,' she repeated dully. 'I told you no and you did it anyway.'
'I did not rape you,' he declared. 'How could I? You're my wife.'
As far as Mitch Johnson was concerned, the subject was closed. In Tucson, Arizona, in 1975, Lori Kiser Johnson didn't try pressing charges because she knew they wouldn't stick. What she did do, however, was far more effective. From then on, she never said yes to Mitch again, not when it came to sex. Oh, he did get a piece of tail now and then, but only when he took it. And there was never any response. She lay beneath him whenever he did it, dry and unmoving, letting him inside her because she didn't seem to have any choice in the matter, but making sure neither one of them enjoyed it.
Considering that turn of events, it was hardly surprising that a few months later Mitch was out in the desert shooting hell out of a bunch of wetbacks. As frustrated as he was, who wouldn't?
As Mitch turned left on Coleman Road, he saw a huge cloud of dust come roiling up out of the desert about a half mile away. A moment later a helicopter emerged from the cloud and set off toward town. That struck him as odd-worried him a little-but clearly it had nothing to do with him. Two miles down the road, behind a locked gate, the Bounder sat in undisturbed, solitary splendor exactly as he'd left it.
When he stopped the car, he got out and stood for a moment listening. The only sound was the steady thrum of the air conditioner. He had created an extra duct that ran through the storage unit. It was hot, and it wouldn't have done to have Lani Walker baked to a crisp or suffocated before he had his chance at her.
He stood there observing the Bounder and the vast tract of empty desert around it. He was almost sorry to leave this place. It had been good to him, had allowed the creative juices to flow. But it was time. He had other places to go, other fish to fry, including the stupid-ass second lieutenant from Asheville, North Carolina, who had led his platoon into a Vietcong trap and permanently fucked up Mitch's knee.
Like it or not, it was almost time to abandon the desert. Mitch had already called his landlord to say he was moving and had notified the power company, telling them to shut off the juice as of Wednesday. His would be a planned exit. There would be no question about him deciding to leave after all the shit hit the fan.
If anyone had seen him standing there, they might have thought he was simply admiring the landscape. What he was really doing was seeing how long he could keep from opening the door. Would she be awake or not? Her reaction to the drug had been so pronounced that he worried now that she might still be groggy. That would be too bad. The moment she saw his face, he wanted her to know. Anything less than that wouldn't be enough.
It had been fun toying with Diana without her having the foggiest idea of what was really going on. But with Lani it was different. Diana had said she was a smart girl, and Mitch Johnson desperately wanted that to be so. He wanted her to be smart enough to realize what was happening. To Mitch's way of thinking, knowing in advance, foreseeing the possibilities and dreading them, were the only things that would place Lani Walker any higher on the evolutionary ladder than the dumb little bird he had crushed in his fist years earlier.
Finally, taking a deep breath, he walked up to the door and put his key in the Bounder's custom-made dead bolt. Then he opened the door and stepped inside.
'Honey, I'm home,' he called as he pulled the door shut behind him.
While Candace was in the bathroom getting ready to go to dinner, Davy paced the room. It wasn't just the ring. It was everything. There was a hole in the pit of his stomach. His palms were wet. Sweat was already soaking through his clean shirt. And the only thing he could think of was that something was wrong-terribly wrong-at home.
Finally, feeling numb, he picked up the phone and dialed. His mother answered, sounding annoyed or sleepy, he couldn't tell which.
'Is Lani there?' he asked.
'She's not home from work yet,' Diana said. 'And she's supposed to go straight from work to a concert with Jessica Carpenter. Why, is something wrong?'
'No,' Davy mumbled. 'I just wanted to talk to her.'
