And then the universe went haywire. Morgan’s eyes bulged as he experienced being penetrated even as he moved into Felicity. Simultaneously, Felicity could feel herself thrusting, impossibly, with an organ that she did not, could not possess.
Their two bodies snapped apart, like magnets of the same polarity. Morgan found himself on his back, panting, his fingers digging into the bed. He turned to see Felicity in similar condition, a look of pure horror on her face.
“I…you…” Felicity’s mouth moved but she clearly had little control of what came out.
“What the hell?” Morgan asked, staring straight up. “I could feel everything you felt. I…Jesus, is that what it feels like?”
“Lordy, my thoughts exactly,” Felicity said. She focused on the ceiling until the room stopped spinning and her breathing returned to a normal pace. Thoughts ran around the inside of her head too quickly for her to keep them from spilling out.
“Guess we must be mentally closer than we thought,” Felicity babbled. “My God, I’ve never felt so, so violated. Must be our brains are on the same wavelength or…hey.” While she talked, Morgan sat up and swung his feet to the floor. Felicity rose behind him and gripped his shoulders. “Hey. Please. Don’t go away. Not now. Maybe we can’t have it all for some weird reason, but we can still, you know, I mean, stay together. That really shook me. I need holding.” His shoulders felt like two smooth stones in her hands. Thick cords stood out on his neck. Because she was chilled to the bone, she had only seen her own needs. Now she suddenly realized how devastating it had all been for him. In a way, she realized, the experience tapped into every man’s deepest fears.
Hearing the odd tone in Felicity’s voice, Morgan began to consciously relax. It was finally striking him how rattled she must be. He turned, clumsily wrapping his arms around her.
“Sorry, Red,” Morgan whispered. “Guess I didn’t understand what was happening in your head. Look, why don’t we just get some rest?” More relaxed, the two bodies squirmed under the comforter. Felicity snuggled into the safety of Morgan’s shoulder, enjoying the rough dryness of his skin, absorbing the man scent of him.
“I could love you,” Felicity whispered shyly. “You could be the brother I never had.”
“Well, I never wanted to be your brother exactly, but I guess I’ll settle for a friend. I can always use one of those.”
24
Just before dusk, the tall thin man with the ice blue eyes stooped under the yellow police tape. Stumbling over broken brick pieces, he walked up to the detective standing over the body. The detective looked at his neatly pressed white shirt, tie, and light blue suit, and accepted his card. After reading it he smirked and shrugged his shoulders.
“Okay, so no surprise, you’re an attorney,” the detective said in a nasal Yonkers accent. “But the name don’t ring any bells.”
“No reason it should,” Paul said in his even, accent-free voice. “I represent the owner of this building. When he hears about violence in the South Bronx, he gets curious. When he heard it happened next to his building, he asked me to check it out.”
“Tell him he better either relax or buy property in a better neighborhood,” the detective said. “Actually, this one looks pretty routine. Spanish guy, around thirty. Took a good shot in the face. Broke his nose. Some scratches too. Then I guess they got sick of playing around and shot him. Probably over drug territory. Either that or a jealous girl friend. Believe me, there’s nothing odd or special about that.”
“How many times?”
“Eh?” The detective’s mind was already elsewhere.
“You said he was shot,” Paul said, keeping his voice polite. “How many times?”
“Oh.” The detective lifted a note pad and scanned, as if looking for some nonessential bit of information. “One bullet. Nine millimeter. Through the heart, low and inside.”
“Powder burns?” Paul stared down at the corpse’s face, showing no emotion.
“Nope. Wasn’t that close.”
“But he wasn’t running I see,” Paul said, squatting down. “That’s an entry wound in his chest.”
“Hey, who are you, Columbo? Why don’t you go chase an ambulance or something?”
Paul responded to the policeman’s ire with a smile. “You’ve been very helpful, detective. Mind if I check the inside of the building while I’m here?”
“Help yourself. Just stay out of my people’s way.”
“Oh, I always try to do that,” Paul muttered under his breath. He stepped up the outside stairs and entered the darkened hall. He noticed the broken light bulb hanging above him. With his automatic held close to his right thigh he climbed the stairs, avoiding the broken ones. At the top he examined the body in the hall, sitting up against the wall. It was J.D. Griffith, a merc and a gunfighter. He knew the man only by reputation, but that reputation was excellent.
The apartment door was ajar. He pushed it just enough to slip through and pushed it almost closed behind himself. Once inside he drew a penlight from his jacket pocket and quickly checked the room. To his seasoned eyes, scattered shell casings and bullet holes in and around the tattered couch told a story. Not far away he found a splotch of blood on the floor behind the easy chair. It was too red to be the result of a bullet wound. Blood from a shallow cut, he thought, or from someone’s mouth or nose after a blow. Further in he found the fat man Stone had saddled him with. No need to touch him to know what had happened. The left side of his neck was torn, and a hole above his left eye was crusted over with dried blood.
“Amateurs,” Paul muttered. His contempt for them was so often justified. Pocketing his light, he slipped out of the flat and down the stairs into daylight. Across the street he got into his brown, two door mid sized Chevrolet and pulled away. He would let the police discover the mess upstairs on their own.
A block away, he was still shaking his head at the incompetents who turned up in his profession. He had offered the fat man and his Mexican friend a chance to step up, to play in the big leagues. An error, certainly, but perhaps not a waste. Natural selection had cleared the field of two men who did not belong there.
And he learned that he had certainly underestimated this Morgan Stark.
25
What a wild nightmare, Morgan thought. He had been trapped in a circuit of sensory overload. He had experienced the sex act both as a man and as a woman does, simultaneously. For a man who had not known fear in years, it was as close to terror as he could come. Thank God it was over.
But when his eyes popped open he realized his dream had been reality. His cheek was pressed into a soft stomach. His right hand rested on a creamy thigh. The rest of the visible world was varying shades of blue. The sheet he was on, the comforter he was under, the walls, the ceiling, the carpet, all blue. Images of the rest of the previous evening returned, and he remembered where he was.
“Finally awake, sleepy head? About time. Must be a couple of minutes after six.” Felicity was sitting up, propped against two pillows. His head was in her lap and the fingers of her right hand were in his hair. With her left she scanned the Sunday New York Times. A pot of coffee sat on her nightstand, next to a plate of Danish pastries.
“Morning,” Morgan smiled up at her. “Do you ever look at a watch?”
“Never,” Felicity said, holding a Danish to his face. “I just have this weird time sense. Now bite this.”
The smell of fresh baked pastry awakened his hunger. He filled his mouth with the Danish, which was warm and just short of too sweet. He sat up and Felicity handed him coffee. It was hot, black and strong. Perfect. How did she know?
He could not remember the last time he had just sat in bed with a woman. She looked so comfortable and relaxed – comfortable with her nakedness, comfortable with him. He had to admit that he was pretty relaxed too.