David Wiltse - Bone Deep

" She waved her hand again. "Help me."

"Cheap."

"Is it cheap? Yes? How much does it cost?"

"Thirty dollars for a 'short stay.'

"A short stay? Zat is us?"

"That's us. We have three hours, then they come rapping on the door to get us out."

"Three hours? Thirty dollars? For a place such as zis? it is outrageous. Zere is not room enough to walk, ze sheets haf holes… zere is not even a clock. You must not pay so much, it is outrageous for such a… room."

"Tacky. The word is 'tacky."

"

"Tacky. Yes. So tacky… Do you agree? Do you like such a place?"

"I'll go anywhere to be with you," he said.

"Oh, you are so sweet. Ven I first met you, I did not know how sweet you are."

"You couldn't tell by looking at me?"

She shook her head, taking him seriously. "You do not look sweet. You look..

"Tacky?"

"Now you are joking. You are funny, too. You also don't look funny ven first I see you… I said that wrong. You also did not look funny ven first I saw you. Is that right? I "Your English is teffific," he said. He lay on his back, studying the ceiling as long as she lay beside him, careful to keep his eyes on her face when she lifted herself on an elbow to look at him. The trick was to give the victims just enough response so that they thought he was actually participating in a conversation. It helped to shorten the process if most of his comments were compliments, it brought their attention back to sex sooner. They all seemed to need this pretense of their having a "relationship." It usually came, as it had with Inge, the second or third time they were together. They liked to believe that they saw qualities in his soul that drew them together, and that he responded to them in the same way. Even the young ones wanted to think it was meaningful in some particularly feminine way. For his part, he thought the sex was meaningful enough. It helped if they weren't shrews, but it didn't really matter too much. He could tolerate a couple of hours with any woman, even a harpy, as long as a good portion of the time was spent in sexual activity. He had known some harpies who were rather good at it, as a matter of fact. They converted their innate anger into a kind of physical restlessness that was quite arousing. Conversation with some of the older ones could be amusing.

They liked to gossip about people he knew in the community, and often they said things about other women that he could use later. Inge herself had come to him from one such referral, when another lover had mentioned lnge's employer and then Inge, saying the young all pair seemed lonely. It was enough to make him aware of her, enough to keep her in his mind so that when the opportunity arose he was prepared.

Inge leaned over him now, her breasts dangling 'Onto his naked chest, her heavy blond hair falling around his face like sunshine.

"You are so quiet," she said. "What are you thinking about?"

He realized he had tuned out for a moment. "I was thinking about you," he said.

"What vere you thinking about me?" She smiled, timidly, hoping.

So pathetic, he thought. Why are they all so needy of sweet talk?

"I was thinking how happy it makes me to be with you," he said. He put his arms around her, his hands in the small of her back.

"Yes? Truly? I make you happy?"

He lowered his voice and looked directly in her eyes. "You make me very happy. I need you in my life."

She was moaning as she kissed him. She lifted his hand to her mouth, sucked on his fingers as she rolled her eyes toward him.

He smiled at her, then slowly let his eyelids fall as if sliding into ecstasy. He made a small groan, encouraging her to continue. He liked it when the victims were aggressive-up to a point. At the end, he was in control. It was better for both of them. They sometimes wanted him to lose himself completely, to abandon self-mastery and technique and give himself to them in a rush of desire. Some of them thought that being wanted that much would give them power over him, and that that would be better than letting him bring them again and again to the heights of their pleasure, but he knew better, he understood that while they could satisfy him, only he could satisfy both of them. Inge licked the skin where his fingers connected and Captain Luv was surprised at the strength of his reaction. He took a mental note to use it sometime.

It puzzled him how someone as young as Inge knew about sensual pleasures that he had not yet discovered.

She moved farther down his body, working on him with her tongue, teasing and licking between his legs. He made his breathing louder so she would be encouraged to continue, and thought about his problems with the bodies. The discovery of the burial site was troublesome. There was nothing to connect it to him, he was sure of it, and it had been just bad luck, not poor planning. No one could anticipate a fluke of nature-the river had never been that high in human memory.

She took him in her mouth, groaning loudly with pleasure. This time when she rolled her eyes at him, he lay as if happily dreaming, eyes closed, head tilted to one side, panting shallowly through his mouth.

Inge could not smile with her lips, but in her heart she beamed.

Afterwards, she felt him shiver as he lay next to her. She knew he was still thrilling to her, she had never known a man so responsive, so open and vulnerable. He had such power, such authority-and yet he was so sweet. Inge knew she was a lucky girl to have him. She had forgotten her first impression of his appearance; to her he was now the strongest and most handsome of men.

He let out an enormous sigh.

"It is called le petit mort, " she said. He did not respond; his eyes were still closed, but she knew he wasn't sleeping. She assumed he did not hear her.

"Ze French, zey call it le petit mort. What you are feeling now. Ze little death."

"Death?" he repeated, sounding baffled. As she looked at him he opened his eyes and for a second she felt he did not know where he was. Then he came to himself and grinned at her. "Death, huh? If that was the little death, what do you suppose the big death is like? You want to try for that?"

Inge didn't know what he meant, but she smiled at him. It made her happy to see him grin.

The mania had come upon him as he was in the throes of his climax, surprising him by its timing, giving him no chance to act. He trembled with the strength of it, its urgent demand shaking him to his core. He waited for the climax to pass, half expecting the mania to expire with it, half hoping it would not. But the mania gripped him even more strongly just as his body yearned to succumb to postorgasmic lethargy.

He felt it in his stomach, a palpable presence, spreading to his chest like a huge and growing, living vacuum, an expanding emptiness within that cried out to be filled. There was only one way to fill the emptiness, only one way to make himself whole again. Some portion of his soul resisted, briefly, but was overcome, and with a letting go that felt as if his heart were screaming with relief he gave way to the mania, let it take him and do with him what it would. As he shivered next to her, his entire being was filled with a rage to serve the mania, all except that portion of his brain which never, ever shut down, never, ever gave over control to anything. That portion of his brain watched carefully, warned him of dangers, advised about fingerprints and blood samples and semen specimens, kept an eye on the time, listened for anyone outside, protected him. The rest of him was pure Captain Luv, Captain Luvvv at his ultimate worst-or best.

Here come Captain Luvvv, he exulted to himself, struggling to keep the laugh from bubbling through his lips. He gwine operate on you, girl.

She had said something about death and he chortled deep within himself.