Jeff Gelb: Hotter Blood: More Tales of Erotic Horror

He was getting one of those headaches, danger-sign headaches, playing this game of cat-and-mouse. He ignored it, concentrating on her, on ways he might get to know her, become… intimate with her.

In one of those little shops Edelman found the second miracle.

The moon was full, framed in the open window of Edelman's small living room. He sat in a chair positioned carefully in the long rectangle of pale white light spilling across his battered brown rug. Naked. Not even a wrist-watch. Breezes from the park cool on bare skin. The city shedding the heat of the day.

He breathed slowly, evenly, despite the headache squatting just behind his eyes, the foolishness he felt. He could have picked up something for the headache at DeVere, during his visit that afternoon. But he'd had more consuming matters on his mind. Now, he hardly even remembered the stop, or its purpose.

He reread the old book open across his thighs. He'd recognized the title in the bookstore she'd gone into, on 68th just off Columbus. He was amazed to see it. David Sinclair — Edelman's favorite fantasy writer until he'd actually met him at the Dallas Fantasy Fair — never wrote a story without mentioning it in some context. Edelman never knew it was a real book.

Nocture , it was called, The Book of Night Journeying . He'd thought that a silly phrase. "Is it about going to the bathroom?" he'd asked once, trying to sound worldly at a club meeting.

It wasn't. It was about miracles. It was about power . Odd that the clerk in the store had not known what she had, what she was letting Edelman purchase.

Edelman read the fine, narrow print — surprisingly easy to read in the moonlight — listening to the clock on the mantelpiece, waiting for the last chime of midnight.

The clock chimed. One — Two — Three —

Edelman stood up. Four — Five — Six —

A long stride toward the window. Seven — Eight — Nine —

Step up onto the ledge. No one on the street looking up at the naked man. No one pointing. No police whistle blowing. Ten — Eleven — Twelve —

A long, deep breath. Whisper the words from the book. Heart pounding, he stepped off the ledge.

It was like stepping onto a firm mattress; some give, but he did not plummet to the pavement three stories below.

The book had not lied. Standing naked in midair over Central Park West, Edelman wondered how he could ever have believed the words in those fine, tiny lines, but…

The book had not lied ! He was a phantom — yet something more than a phantom. Real in one sense, unreal in another.

He looked up, turning to face the side of the building, to see the windows of the topmost floor. Her windows. The motion caused him to rise. He drifted up. A little faster than the elevator, past windows dark and light, four, five, six floors. He stopped outside her bedroom window. He knew the layout of the apartment on the top floor, knew in which room she'd be sleeping.

The window was open. He stepped onto the ledge, into the room, into a rectangle of moonlight very much like the one in his own room. It fell on a pale, uncarpeted floor. The room was large, spare. The decor was not as Edelman remembered, not at all the Richardsons' style. It was just the sort of room he'd imagined for Rachel. Low dressing table of modern design against the wall to the left. Rest of the room dominated by the huge double bed. Mosquito netting draped about the head of the bed, box spring resting on the floor, without legs. Sound of an air conditioner whirring — Odd , he thought, with the window open .

She was nude on the bed. Uncovered. Indirect moonlight bounced from the white walls, played elusive luminescence over the hills and hollows of her form. Dark hair spread over white pillow, perspiration a subtle sheen over her naked body. Edelman felt his phantom form responding as surely as flesh and blood. His manhood rose.

He crossed around the foot of the bed, knelt down to look at her sleeping face. Beautiful. More beautiful than he'd ever dreamed. Skin tanned, without the pale swatches a bathing suit would leave. Breasts full, lolling on her chest as she lay on her back, undulating slightly with each deep breath. Nipples small, dark coral.

Edelman looked down the length of her: smooth, hard muscle of her solar plexus; carefully trimmed and shaped V of pubic hair. She lay with one leg drawn slightly up and over the other. Moonlight threw deep shadow down the long muscle of her thigh.

He reached out a hand, touched her face. Smooth under his palm. Again the book had not lied, the sensation as perfect as if it were his true physical self occupying this space by her bedside.

He stroked her face, ran his hand along the curve of her jaw, the muscles of her neck. Drew a fingertip down the line of her sternum, tracing the valley between her pectoral muscles. Cupped her left breast, reaching across her chest to lift it in his hand. Ran his thumb over the nipple, saw it stiffen.

Just like the book says! She can feel me, respond to me, but she won't wake up. Because I'm nothing more than a dream to her . He bent to kiss her, certain he felt her lips respond to his, so slightly in sleep.

He dropped his face to the closer breast, caught the nipple between his ghostly teeth. It hardened. He bit down on the firm flesh. She moaned, stirred.

Edelman climbed onto the bed, draped himself down the length of her. He shifted his legs, forcing hers apart. He sank into the valley of her thighs, reached down between them to guide his member up into the parting of her pubic triangle.

Over the next few weeks she began to look tired, Edelman thought. As the book promised, he was able to use her in any way he wished, and in her deep sleep it seemed to him she sometimes reacted, moving with him, responding to his touch, his thrust. Sighing when he gave her pleasure, whimpering when he gave her pain.

He used her in every way his imagination could conceive, rolling her about on the big bed, taking her now from this angle, now that. One night he brought some lengths of cord and tied her, binding wrists to ankles. She moaned in discomfort when he mounted her thus restrained but did not awaken.

He used all parts of her, all openings. He rejoiced in it, growing bolder, cruder as he came to understand his mastery of her body. He could use the perfect, pouting mouth in any way that pleased him. He could squeeze and twist her breasts until tears flowed from her closed eyes. She did not awaken.

He turned her on her front one evening, took the same lengths of rope he bound her with to beat her buttocks. She twitched and yelped with each stroke of the cord, but she did not wake.

But she was looking tired. When he saw her in the lobby — strange now to see her dressed, awake, conscious of him — she looked drawn. Dark circles under her eyes. He smirked to himself, and asked, "Are you all right, Miss McNichol?"

"Oh, er, sure…" She looked at him, as if trying to focus or — Edelman felt a passing chill in the pit of his stomach — to remember something. Something about him. But she only said, "I guess I've been sleeping badly. And every morning there's a… smell in my room. Like a hospital smell. I was thinking about having somebody come and look for a gas leak, but all the appliances are electric." She shrugged. The explanation of her condition clearly made no more sense to her than to Edelman.

Still, he was puzzled by her reference to hospital smells. He lived with such odors all day long at work, but according to the book there should be no such effect. He would have to double-check.

That night cold fury exploded under his heart as he stepped into her bedroom.

The slut was not alone!

There was a man in bed with her. Young. Dark. Long hair — longer than hers — falling in wavy ringlets over the pillow. Body — a sculpted thing, muscles in perfect array, shaped and hardened by careful exercise.