A Fine Cast of Characters - J. Dane Tyler [51]
“Well,” I said, “it’s not much, but this is home.”
“It feels familiar to me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that.
She looked over one shoulder at me. Her eyes glowed that weird way when the light caught them just so. I wondered how the dim lamps did it the way the magnificent moon had.
“Where is the bedroom?” Her voice was husky with lust.
By the time dawn’s first traces paled the sky, we were emptied into each other again. We spiraled toward sleep, our limbs tangled and wet. I slept most of the day again. I awoke to water running in the bathroom.
I went to pop my head in and check on her, but she’d locked the door. I staggered on still weak knees to the kitchen and got the Chinese. I brought a plate for her too, and a bottle of soda. The water stopped in the tub, and her soft humming drifted through the door. It was a sweet melody I wasn’t familiar with. It was old and innocent, like the songs of days gone by, full of hope and romance and tenderness. I set her food on the nightstand and devoured mine. I should have waited but I was ravenous.
I don’t know when I fell asleep to the sound of her gentle humming, but soon the long lost melody lulled me to oblivion.
When I woke, the clock hands showed an hour passed. I wound the alarm out of habit. I got up and wandered into the hall. The bathroom door was still closed. I tried the handle, but it was locked.
I knocked, not too hard, so I wouldn’t startle her.
I waited. Silence.
I knocked again, more firmly. The bathroom is tiny with a pedestal sink, a single cabinet with a mirrored door hung above it, and a claw-foot tub. There’s nothing else in the room except the commode, between the sink and tub.
I knocked again. My heart beat faster.
Nothing.
I turned to get the skeleton key from the china cabinet drawer downstairs when the water sloshed in the tub.
My tension eased, and I went back to the bedroom to wait for her.
I drifted off again before long, spent from our lovemaking.
I woke up as the day waned. The golden light tinted the world in amber tones. I opened my eyes and listened.
The house sat silent.
I got up and listened in the hall for her. Only silence carried to my ears. I strained them into the quiet, and they rang with the effort. Nothing.
I went back into the bedroom. Her food was untouched, the soda unopened and warm, the condensation dried from the bottle.
I went back to the bathroom and turned the knob.
Locked.
I was stricken with the sudden image of her, pale blue and gray, laced in wet, dead seaweed, ocean-bottom scavengers feeding on the soft flesh in her mouth.
I shook my head to clear the hideous vision and knocked again, hard, loud, rattled the door in its frame.
I jolted when she tore it open, a look of adrenaline-fueled fear on her face, brow furrowed.
“What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” She stepped out and looked past me down the hallway toward the stairs. “Is everything all right? You look frightened.”
She put her hand on my bare chest and I gasped. It felt like meat straight from the refrigerator. I shrank from her touch involuntarily and my back hit the plaster wall, my hands going to the spot she’d touched.
Her hand went to her mouth. “Oh! I’m sorry! My hands are cold, I didn’t mean to—”
“You’re always cold. Why are you always so cold?”
She tipped her head, brows furrowing again. “What do you mean?”
“I mean your skin, your flesh, it’s always cold. What’s wrong, are you sick or something? Why are you always so cold to the touch?”
Her ire swelled a blush to her cheeks. “What are you accusing me of?”
“I’m not accusing you of anything, I’m just asking—”
“You didn’t think me cold in bed. Or last night.” Her words scraped through locked molars and her jaw muscles twitched. “Why is it when you’re getting pleasure you don’t find me cold?”
“You’re not cold then, that’s why,” I spat, more vehement than I intended. “I’m only concerned, that’s all!