kiss them..." And he did every 'if' without her saying he could. But then, Trissa never said he couldn't either. She supposed she should be fighting him off, but her hands seemed to clasp only at empty air until he guided them to touch his neck, to reach beneath the popping studs of his dress shirt to stroke his chest, to ruffle through his hair while he kissed her lips, insinuating his tongue between her teeth to tease her mouth. ß
"I won't hurt you, Baby. I'll stop any time you say. No one will know," came his easy promises as his hands ventured lower. Trissa became so amazed and intrigued that this should be happening to her, and that she had no conscious will to make it stop, to test his promise with a "no" that when his fingers reached their secret, magic destination, his words seemed to come to her garbled through a sparkling haze of heat.
A sudden dazzle of light in her eyes and a pounding on the window glass she at first mistook for the pounding of her heart brought the spinning world to a halt. All around her, Trissa heard the grinding of ignitions and the fitful rumble of newly started engines.
"You kids get home now. This here's private property. I give you two minutes and then I'm calling the cops!"
"Damn!" muttered Steven as he scrambled over the seat to get behind the wheel. Trissa had barely managed to reassemble her clothing and gather her scattered wits before she was deposited on her doorstep with a perfunctory kiss and an "I'll call you".
He never did.
Cole
The telegram was creased and finger-smudged from repeated unfolding and refolding, but Cole was sure he had never read the words himself until now. It was dated May 23, three months ago.
DUNCAN BREWER TRANSFERRED TO STATE MAXIMUM SECURITY PSYCHIATRIC FACILITY IN SPRINGFIELD STOP VITAL THAT I MEET WITH YOU IMMEDIATELY STOP
FITAPALDI
Three months. Mechanically, Cole began to pack, hardly aware of how he knew where the things he needed were stored in this unfamiliar apartment, in God knows what city. The telegram was addressed to Erie, Pennsylvania but the newspaper told him Cleveland and the date, if it was a local paper and today's. Maybe he was already headed in the direction of home. He had lost track of his intentions when he had lost track of himself.
It made little difference, a day or two, or a month or two, this city or that. Cole had misplaced more time, great precious chunks of it, on other occasions. He had gone to sleep in Philadelphia or Dayton or Terre Haute and awakened in Detroit or Chicago or Atlanta with no memory of the trips. He found it best to gather the fragments of life without searching for reasons. It was better not knowing what went on in those times and places between.
TWO FREIGHTERS COLLIDE OFF NANTUCKET; 20 FEARED DEAD
Cole read the first few paragraphs of the sea disaster story with its photograph of one of the doomed ships on her beam-ends moments before plunging to the bottom of the ocean, and another of a rescued seaman, round eyed with shock.
He thought it not unlike his own story with two lives colliding, one being sent to the murky depths of consciousness, the other left in startled awareness that some kind of life must go on. He had long since learned to handle such madness with a semblance of sanity. Cole was the only one to suspect the truth of it, that he was his father's son and probably insane beyond redemption.
He found a set of car keys next to the coffee pot. At least he had a car, a Ford this time. He never questioned whether it was stolen, or paid for, or bought on time. Some dab of self-preservation must remain in the dark cavern of his lost time to spare him that. The purchases made, decisions rendered, and actions taken during the blanks in his memory had always been easily reversible, at least any that Cole had found out about. Sometimes he suspected that the prospect of a long-term commitment was what returned him to himself. Cole had learned to be a master of escape and extrication.
He lifted the curtain and scanned the parking lot to see how difficult his search for the car would be. The worn condition of the keys and his obvious and chronic state of financial distress hinted that the Ford would be old. Spying but two likely prospects