A sweater and no drawers.Hell, it’s hard to stop glaring at what I just buried my cock in.Her bush is shaved into a shape.She notices me looking and cups her sex.Her other hand trembles as she picks up her candy cane striped panties.
“You have a wife.”
“Yeah, I have an Ol’ Lady who stopped being anything like one a long time ago.”
“That doesn’t make this right.”
“No,” I say.“Just makes it real.”
She turns away, but not fast enough for me to miss the tear she wipes with the back of her hand.
I want to reach for her.I don’t.
Outside, wind screams through the trees.
She walks to the window and presses her fingers to the fogged glass.
For a second, I think she’ll ask me to hold her again.Instead, she hums.Low and quiet, just a thread of melody “O Holy Night.”
Of all the damn songs.
It cuts through me like a blade made of memory… my mother’s voice, a church choir, a Christmas that ended with sirens.
I used to hate that song more than anything.
Now suddenly it feels like breathing.I drop the cigarette in an empty glass, cross the room, bend down and rest my forehead against hers.
She doesn’t pull back.
“Don’t,” I murmur.
“Don’t what?”She pouts.
“Don’t sing to me like that.”
“Why?”
“Because if you keep singing, I’ll start believing I still deserve saving.”
Her eyes shine in the half-light.“Maybe you do.But I’m not the one to save you, Humbug.”
We stand there, the storm fading to a hush around us, the world remade in gray and gold.I should tell her it’s over, that when morning comes, she’ll go home and forget me.Instead, I brush a strand of hair from her cheek.
“Get some sleep,” I say.“We’ll figure out the rest when the roads clear.”
She nods and crawls back under the covers.
Chapter 6
Carol
The storm broke sometime before dawn.
When I wake for the second time, the world is pale and too quiet.The power’s off again, so the room is cold enough to turn my breath to ghostly puffs.Here I am in nothing but a sweater and panties.Humbug’s side of the bed is empty although I crawled back in the bed and fell asleep, letting him spoon behind me.
For a second, I lie there, pretending the hollow in the mattress is still warm, pretending I’m not the kind of woman who sleeps with another woman’s husband in the middle of a blizzard.However, the scent of smoke and leather still clings to the sheets and pretending gets harder by the heartbeat.
Jolting out of the bed like it’s on fire, I pull on my skirt and my red coat.I step into the clubhouse hall.It’s quiet except for the slow tick of cooling pipes.A couple of the Executioners are sprawled on couches, dead asleep.I move soft, ghosting past, boots in my hand.
