Maybe he sensed it, because he turned his head back so that I couldn't see his face. All I could see was all that long, auburn hair. Even in the dim light, it was an incredibly rich color. The darkest auburn I'd ever seen that was still truly auburn and not brown.
I smoothed my hand through his hair. It was like heavy silk, warm to the touch. Of course, that could have just been the room. The fan swept over the bed, ruffling the sheets, passing like a cool hand over my back. Nathaniel's long hair stirred in the fan's caress, the sheet over his thighs blowing like a hand had moved them. He shifted as the fan passed over his bare body. Then stillness. His hair, the sheet, everything utterly still while the fan made its circuit. It swept back, spilling over everything in reverse; the pink sheets, Nathaniel's hair, my chest this time, blowing my own hair back from my face, then past us, and the heat wrapped around us like a suffocating hand.
The breeze from the window had died. The white curtains lay like a painting until the small fan spilled over them. I knelt in the hot room with the only sound the whir of the fan and the small tick it made every time it came to the end of its cycle.
I stroked the hairbrush through his hair, and the stroke ended long before I got to the end of the hair. I'd had hair down to my butt once upon a time when I was about fourteen. But Nathaniel's hair was knee length. If he'd been a woman, I'd have said his hair fell like a dress around him. The hair lay in a soft, silken pile beside his body so it wouldn't brush the wound. I lifted the hair in my arms, and it was like holding something alive. The hair poured through my hands with a sound like dry water, a rushing noise.
I had enough trouble taking care of shoulder-length hair. I couldn't imagine the amount of effort that just washing it must take. I was either going to have to divide the hair to either side and actually get up and move from side to side, or sweep the hair back behind his head so it spilled across the bed. I voted for that.
I pulled his hair behind his back and spilled it behind his head. He moved his head as if snuggling into the pillow, but other than that made no movement and said nothing.
"How you doing?" I asked.
"I'm fine," he said. His voice was soft, neutral, almost empty.
"Talk to me, Nathaniel," I said.
"You don't like it when I talk to you."
I leaned over him, smoothing the hair back so I had a clear view of his face. "That's not true."
He turned his face enough to look up at me. "Isn't it?"
I leaned back from that direct gaze. "It's not you talking I mind, Nathaniel. It's your choice of topics."
"Tell me what you want me to say, and I'll say it."
"I can tell you what not to say," I said.
"What?" he asked.
"Don't talk about p**n ographic movies, sadomasochism, sex in general." I thought about it for a second or two. "That hits the usual things you say to piss me off."
He laughed. "I don't know what else to talk about."
I started combing his hair across the bed. The stroke was firm and flowing, then I actually had to pick the hair up to finish the stroke. The fan hit me with an armful of hair, and the hair spilled around my face in a vanilla-scented cloud that tickled my face and neck.
"Talk about anything, Nathaniel. Talk about yourself."
"I don't like to talk about myself."
"Why not?" I asked.
He raised up enough to look at me. "You talk about yourself."
"Okay." Then I didn't know what to say. I just suddenly couldn't think of where to start. I smiled. "Good point, forget I said it."
The phone rang, and I gave a little yip. Nervous? Who me? It was Dolph. "Anita?"
"Yeah, it's me."
"Franklin Niley, unless it's a different guy with the same name, is an art dealer. He specializes in mystical artifacts. He's not picky about how he gets them, either."
"How not picky?" I asked.
"He's based out of Miami. The cops there would like to tie him to at least half a dozen homicides but don't have enough proof. Every town he visits on business, people disappear or turn up dead. Chicago P.D. nearly got him on the death of a wiccan high priestess last year, but the witness went into a mysterious coma and hasn't come out yet."
"Mysterious coma?" I made it a question.