the absolute darkness, so Bobby could see nothing of Julie as they clung
together. However, he “saw” her through his hands. As he reveled in
the smoothness and warmth of her skin, the elegant curves of her
breasts, the discovery of angularity precisely where angularity was
desirable, the tautness of muscle, and the fluid movement of muscle and
bone, he might have been a blind man using his hands to describe an
inner vision of ideal beauty.
The wind shook the world outside, in sympathy with the climaxes that
shook Julie. And when Bobby could withhold him self no longer, when he
cried out and emptied himself into her the skirting wind cried, too, and
a bird that had taken shelter in a nearby eave was blown from its perch
with a rustle of wings and a spiraling shriek.
For a while they lay side by side in the blackness, their breath
mingling, touching each other almost reverently. They did not want or
need to speak; talk would have diminished the moment.
The aluminum-slat shutters vibrated softly in the huffing wind.
Gradually the afterglow of lovemaking gave way to a curious uneasiness,
the source of which Bobby could not identify. The enveloping blackness
began to seem oppressive, as if a continued absence of light was somehow
contributing to a thickening of the air, until it would become as vivid
and unbreathable as syrup.
Though he had just made love to her, he was stricken by the crazy notion
that Julie was not actually there with him, that what he had coupled
with was a dream, or the congealing darkness itself, and that she had
been stolen from him in the night, whisked away by some power he could
not fathom, and that she was forever beyond his reach.
His childish fear made him feel foolish, but he rose onto one elbow and
turned on one of the wall-mounted bedside lamps.
When he saw Julie lying beside him, smiling, her head raised on a
pillow, the level of his inexplicable anxiety abruptly dropped. He let
out a rush of breath, surprised to discover that he’d pent it up in the
first place. But a peculiar tension remained in him, and the sight of
Julie, safe and undamaged but for the scabbing spot on her forehead, was
insufficient to completely relax him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, as perceptive as ever.
“Nothing,” he lied.
“Bit of a headache from all that rum in the eggnog?”
What troubled him was not a hangover, but the queer, unshakable feeling
that he was going to lose Julie, that something out there in a hostile
world was coming to take her away. As the optimist in the family, he
wasn’t usually given to grim forebodings of doom; accordingly, this
strange August chill frightened him more than it would have if he had
been regularly subject to such disturbances
“Bobby?” she said, frowning.
“Headache,” he assured her.
He leaned down and gently kissed her eyes, then again, forcing her to
close them so she could not see his face and read the anxiety that he
was unable to conceal.
LATER, AFTER showering and dressing, they ate a hasty breakfast while
standing at the kitchen counter: English muffins and raspberry jam, half
a banana each, and black coffee. By mutual agreement, they were not
going to the office. A brief call to Clint Karaghiosis confirmed that
the wrap-up on the Decodyne case was nearly completed, and that no other
business needed their urgent personal attention.
Their Suzuki Samurai waited in the garage, and Bobby’s spirits rose at
the sight of it. The Samurai was a small sports truck with four-wheel
drive. He had justified its purchase by pitching its dual
nature-utilitarian and recreational-to Julie, especially noting its
comparatively reasonable price tag, but in fact he had wanted it because
it was fun to drive. She had not been deceived, and she had gone for it
because she, too, thought it was fun to drive. This time, she was
willing to let him have the wheel when he suggested she drive.
“I did enough driving last night,” she said as she buckled herself into
her shoulder harness.
Dead leaves, twigs, a few scraps of paper, and less identifiable debris