The Vampire Shrink

CHAPTER 13

I had no idea where I was.

Another beautiful day in Paradise had got all dressed up and started without me. The sun beamed almost directly overhead, making it about noon. I shielded my eyes with my hand, spun in a slow circle, and searched for the mountains to give me a sense of location. Denver is a consistent distance from various distinctive peaks, and I always got my bearings by checking my position in relation to them, as well as the ever-present downtown skyscrapers.

Turns out I was within walking distance of Devereux’s club. I never knew there was an old graveyard tucked away back behind Fast-Food Row. Well, you know what they say about learning something new every day . . .

High-pitched giggles drew my attention down from the horizon and I found myself gazing at a gaggle of little girls. They all held dripping ice cream cones. As the children surrounded me, one sticky-fingered angel said, ‘You’re funny!’ This caused another wave of gleeful laughter.

‘I’m funny?’

That was apparently hilarious.

Another sweet cherub said, ‘What are you doing in the middle of the parking lot? Are you dancing? What’s all that stuff on you?’

I looked down at myself and saw I was covered in samples of everything I’d found back in the death pit in the graveyard, including dried blood, which stained my hands.

With a gasp, I immediately leaped to the most drastic conclusion: that the blood was mine. I inspected myself, searching for wounds or cuts, anything that would explain the stains, but I found nothing. Since I had no recollection of what’d transpired during the missing hours – and at that moment I wasn’t up for exploring the disgusting possibilities – I gave myself permission to stuff the entire matter deep inside my psychological Do Not Enter zone.

A pretty little brown-eyed tyke ventured a couple of tentative steps in my direction, pointed, and yelled, ‘You smell!’

That was definitely some kind of cosmic cue. Simultaneously, anxious mothers scurried forth from everywhere, retrieved their children and whisked them back to the play area.

‘What did I tell you? Never talk to strangers!’ one mother scolded as she pulled her child away, tossing frightened glances back over her shoulder.

I raised my arm up to my nose and sniffed. Yuck. I did smell. In fact, I smelled worse than horrible. Just like that ghastly place. No wonder the moms had treated me like a carrier of the Black Death. I could only imagine what I looked like.

Wondering if my cell phone had survived the ghastly experience, I retrieved it from my pocket and hit the ‘on’ switch. It was as dead as the bodies in the tomb.

Shit! Perfect.

I fished in my pocket to see if the cash I’d put there the night before had survived my mysterious experience. I pulled out a handful of bills and coins. Even though I could’ve walked to Devereux’s club, the memories of the previous night left a bad taste in my mouth. I had no desire to make a return visit. All I wanted to do was go home, take off the toe-smashing boots and crawl into a hot bath.

I’d just spied an old telephone booth and headed in that direction to call for a cab when a police cruiser pulled into the parking lot and blocked my path. Either I really did look suspicious enough to draw the attention of a passing cop car, or someone in the restaurant had alerted the police to deal with the crazy lady.

Two very young officers exited the car and walked cautiously over to me. One looked like a computer geek and the other a football player. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t what I got.

‘Are you Dr Knight?’ the computer geek asked.

‘How do you know that? I mean, yes.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. No. I’m not all right. I just woke up in a coffin in a graveyard and I’m covered in substances I don’t even want to think about.’

‘Are you wounded?’

‘No. I don’t think so. Not physically, anyway.’

‘Is that your blood on your hands, Dr Knight?’

‘I don’t know.’ I held my hands out and inspected them again. ‘How do you know my name?’

‘An FBI agent working with the Denver PD put out a red flag on you, said you’d gone missing last night. Your photo’s been running on the local TV stations all morning. You must be an important person because we’re not usually allowed to act this fast on a missing-person report. It looks like you’ve had a rough time. If you’ll come with us, we can sort everything out and get you some help.’

He took another step towards me and scrunched up his nose as he approached. ‘Wow. Where did you say you’ve been?’

A quick visual communication passed between them, eye contact so covert that if I hadn’t been trained to notice such things, I’d have missed it. The look said ‘Potential Disturbed Person’. I knew that look well, having shared it with other professionals in various mental health settings. It was a shorthand code for a set of behaviours – behaviours that calmed the patient and encouraged cooperation. While I could understand why they might slide me into that category, I wasn’t willing to assume the role.

I was in no mood to be cooperative or polite. My brain had finally kicked back into gear. Along with the fear and confusion I’d experienced since waking up in one of the levels of Hades, I was also pissed off – pissed off at whoever had dragged me to this place, and pissed off at being manipulated. The officers clearly thought I was hallucinating about waking up in a coffin in a graveyard so I decided to cut to the chase.

I’d been abducted, brought to a maniac’s lair and who knew what else. Now was as good a time as any to take the cops on a tour of Horror Central. I pivoted and trotted back towards the entrance gate to the old graveyard.

‘Hey! Stop! Where are you going?’ the football player yelled.

‘I’m going to show you where I’ve been.’ I called on my last reserves of glucose and sprinted through the gate into ‘Capitol Hill Cemetery, an Historical Landmark’ with the cops close on my heels.

‘Dr Knight! You’ve obviously had some kind of trauma. You’re not thinking clearly. Let us take you downtown. Stop or we’ll have to restrain you.’

‘Restrain me, my ass. You’ll have to catch me first.’

If they were going to assume I was irrational, at least I could add some interesting fuel to the fire. I didn’t like being treated as an incompetent – even if they meant well – and I never had played nicely with authority figures. It occurred to me that the officers might not know the old graveyard was back there either, since it was well hidden. If that were the case, it was little wonder my story sounded even more fantastic than it would’ve anyway.

My run through the graveyard was really quite impressive. I managed to find my way back to the ramshackle mausoleum without falling, being obstructed by the city’s finest or turning an ankle. There was something to be said for adrenalin.

I heard one of the officers yell into his communicator, requesting backup, as they chased along behind me, dodging gravestones and statues.

‘Dr Knight! Stop! We’re only trying to help you!’

I skidded to a halt a few feet from the door of the death chamber and pointed. The police hadn’t expected the race to end so suddenly, and they barely managed to avoid crashing into me as they slammed on their own brakes.

‘There!’ I jabbed my finger towards the mausoleum. ‘Through that door is a stairway. There are dead bodies inside.’

The lean, cerebral-looking officer reached out and grabbed my upper arm and tugged gently, coaxing me to accompany him as he started walking back towards the cemetery entrance.

‘Come on, Dr Knight. No more games. Let’s get you back to the police station and you can explain everything to the detectives. We’ve been instructed to bring you in immediately. The orders came straight from the chief.’ He glanced at his partner. ‘Did you know there was a cemetery back here?’ The beefy guy shook his head.

For some reason, getting me back to the police station seemed more important than investigating my story, so I opted for drastic measures. I wrenched my arm out of his hand and leaped over to the door and pulled it open. The smell made my stomach turn. I doubled over and yelled at the cops, ‘Go on! Nothing normal can smell that bad. You at least have to check it out!’

Each officer raised a hand up to his face, covered his mouth and pinched his nose, trying to stave off the odour. The larger one gagged. ‘That is one god-awful smell. Maybe some animal died in there. Let’s take a look.’

I moved away from the door and put as much space as possible between me and the stench. I bent forwards, bracing my hands just above my knees, still trying not to vomit.

‘I’ll go down and see what we’ve got. You stay up here with Dr Knight.’

The thin cop went through the door and down the stairs. Only a couple of seconds passed before he yelled, ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph!’ and scrambled back up the stairs, his face gone pasty and his eyes wide.

‘What’s wrong with you, McCarthy? You’re pale as a ghost!’

‘Go down and see for yourself, Landers. A picture’s worth a thousand words.’

Landers went through the door. Moments later I heard a gagging sound followed by ‘Shit!’ He raced back up the stairs and out into the slightly fresher air just as the requested backup arrived. They covered their noses, too.

A few minutes later, I was leaning against a large statue of an angel, drinking from the cup of steaming McDonald’s coffee one of the officers had handed me while the new arrivals investigated the carnage inside the tomb. Finding something that grotesque had to be the worst part of police work.

McCarthy called for the officers whose job would be to get up close and personal with the contents of the gory scene. Then he turned to me and stared, appearing a little green around the edges. ‘I apologise, Dr Knight. You were right – there are dead bodies down there. I haven’t been on the force that long, but this definitely qualifies as the worst thing I’ve seen. Were you really in there all night?’

‘I guess so. I can’t remember. All I know for sure is that I woke up there this morning.’

‘This place is going to be swarming with experts any minute, so it would probably be best if you let us take you downtown, away from here. You know the media’s going to show up, too, and I don’t think you want to face the world in that condition.’ He pointed to my grisly attire and shook his head. ‘Do you have a psychologist to talk to?’

I snorted. ‘I’m not sure any of them would believe me. I’m not even sure I believe me.’

He signalled to a female cop who’d just arrived. ‘Take Dr Knight downtown.’ Then he studied me again. ‘I’m glad you were persistent.’

‘That’s a nice word for it.’

He walked away, talking into his cell phone.

Exhausted, my stomach churning, I followed the policewoman out of the cemetery and into her black-and-white. She opened all the windows, then glanced at me in the rearview mirror and said, ‘No offence.’ We pulled away just as the caravan of TV news vehicles arrived and I was grateful I didn’t have to try to string two coherent sentences together because I would have failed. I hoped the process at the police station would be quick, but suspected I was doomed to disappointment.

Thanks to the manic media circus camped out around police headquarters, I had to be smuggled in via the underground parking structure and secretly ushered in through an old fire exit. My fifteen minutes of fame had apparently caused quite a frenzy. My abduction had been linked with the murder investigation, and the vampire theme was simply too rich for the tabloids to pass up.

My experience of sitting at the police station was like having one of those dreams about being in high school again, the one where no one talks to you and everyone walks wide circles around you while they stare, point, and laugh.

None of the cops was laughing, but anyone who got within ten feet of me cringed, recoiled, and rebounded away, giving me a wide berth. They were shocked to find their nostrils assailed by smells better suited to battlefields than to a psychologist whose face had evidently been on television all morning.

As one officer so succinctly put it, ‘There just aren’t words for that smell.’

It didn’t take long for me to give my statement, because all I could remember was the last couple of hours. I didn’t know what’d happened prior to my waking up and I had no clue about who’d brought me there.

As it turned out, I didn’t have to worry about getting out of there quickly. In fact, taking my statement in the close quarters of the badly ventilated station proved to be such a challenge that my hosts eagerly arranged for me to finish up at the lab.

I’d expected to be headed off to the shower and outfitted with one of those delightful orange garments, but that didn’t happen. In fact, ever since I’d arrived at the police station things had been strange. I’d been the focus of several whispered conversations, each containing the words ‘the chief’.

Officers had escorted me to the lab and while I was waiting for a blood sample to be taken the double doors burst open and a heavyset, white-haired, fifty-something male strode into the room. Everyone around me froze in mid-action and came to attention. The new arrival signalled to the other officers, who scurried over to him immediately.

I would have just stared out the window, waiting for the bureaucratic huddle to end, if it hadn’t been for the fact that various faces kept turning in my direction. It was entirely possible that I was still in shock, but I wasn’t a complete vegetable. Clearly those people were talking about me.

For a brief moment before the older man left, all the eyes in the group turned to me.

What the hell was going on? What weren’t they telling me? I hadn’t had much experience with the police, but being treated like a leper wasn’t anywhere in my expectations.

The lab technician who’d been preparing my arm for the blood sample before the older guy arrived came back and I said, ‘Who was that?’

He kept his eyes riveted on his task and said, ‘Chief Cassidy.’

‘Why was he talking about me?’

‘There, all finished. The officer will take you back now,’ he said, ignoring my question completely. He wrote my name on the samples, gathered up his materials, and nodded to a uniformed officer standing by the door.

A different officer led me back to the detectives’ bullpen. I figured I was going there to answer more questions – not that I had any answers – and I mentally steeled myself for a long stay. I was surprised when they quickly said I was free to go. It appeared they were taking me home and that someone would come to my house later to pick up my contaminated clothing.

That piece of information drew several incredulous ‘What?’ responses from various detectives. I overheard one say, ‘She must have powerful friends. Nobody rousts the chief out before the crack of dawn to start a search for a missing person, much less persuades him to postpone an interrogation and override all the proper procedures.’

Powerful friends? I was sure they had me confused with someone else, but that didn’t matter. As long as this ordeal was over and I was being taken home, I’d claim to know the Queen of England. Hell, I’d claim to be the Queen of England.

In addition to everything else this situation was, it was humbling.

The pleasure of driving me home once again fell to the policewoman who’d brought me to the station, no doubt because the backseat of her unit was already tainted. I half-expected her to put down newspaper for me to sit on and, frankly, that wouldn’t have been a bad idea.

‘You’re Dr Knight, right? I’m Officer Colletta. I saw your advertisement in the paper. The one they were talking about on TV this morning. The one that says you’re the Vampire Psychologist.’ She examined me in her rearview mirror.

‘Yes. I’m Kismet Knight. I’m afraid to know what they were saying about me on TV, so I’m not even going to ask.’

She didn’t volunteer the information. Instead she said, ‘That must be an interesting job, being the Vampire Psychologist. I mean, what do you do, exactly? Are there really people who think they’re vampires?’ She lowered her voice and gave me serious eyes in the mirror. ‘Are there really vampires?’

I shrugged and shook my head. ‘If you’d asked me that question a week ago, I’d have said there are people who are disturbed enough to believe they’re vampires, and that it’s all mental illness and acting out. Now, after the things I’ve seen, all bets are off.’

‘We’ve had murders lately.’ She appeared almost magically able to keep the car on the road and watch me in the mirror at the same time. ‘Murders where the victims were drained of blood. Do you know about those?’

‘I heard something about that.’

‘Maybe the murderer is one of your clients?’

One of my clients? Well, thank you for raising a horrible possibility I hadn’t considered. ‘I sincerely hope not.’

She made a wrong turn so I gave her directions and we rode in silence the rest of the way to my house. As we pulled up in front, Officer Colletta said, ‘I’m surprised the cameras aren’t here yet. The media’s got your therapy office surrounded, as well as an apartment building listed as your home address. Maybe they don’t know about this place yet.’

‘I just moved recently.’ I thought about my old neighbours and felt bad that they were being subjected to the paparazzi, but happy for my own brief reprieve. Apparently, not everyone had seduced an APA employee – yet.

‘Yeah, well I don’t think that’s going to save you for long. Reporters are pretty resourceful. You’d better prepare yourself for a media blitz. You probably won’t have much privacy for a while.’

‘I’m afraid you’re right.’ I sighed. ‘Thanks for everything.’ She met my eyes again and saluted, touching two fingers to the visor of her hat. I hauled myself out of the cruiser and she pulled away.

I’d just stumbled up to my front door when I heard the screech of tyres and the slam of a car door. I assumed the news vans had caught up with me and was surprised to hear a familiar voice.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ Alan demanded, bounding towards me. His face was red, deep frown lines etched the skin between his eyes, and the veins in his forehead bulged. ‘I’ve been out all night searching for you. I told you to wait in front of the club. Where did you go? You look terrible. What’s that stuff all over you? And what’s that gross smell?’

He lurched away from me as if he’d received an electric shock.

As he yelled at me, the psychic numbness that had kept me from feeling the depth of the hideous experience receded, and I stood there trembling. The inner dam broke. Tears raced down my cheeks. I slumped onto the porch, tumbled over on my side, and started sobbing loudly.

Alan cursed under his breath.

‘Geez, don’t cry.’ He knelt down next to me. ‘I’m sorry, Kismet. I didn’t mean to be a jerk. I was just so worried. I heard on the police scanner that they’d found you, and then something about dead bodies. I guess I added up the numbers wrong and overreacted. I felt responsible for taking you to that club and for whatever happened to you. And now you stroll up to your front door, obviously in one piece, and I’m so relieved to see you and so pissed off at myself for putting you in danger.’

‘You didn’t put me in danger,’ I mumbled.

He sniffed the air. ‘We need to get you into the house and out of those clothes, because I never thought I’d say this to you, but you stink worse than anything I’ve ever smelled. Plus the media vultures will be here any minute.’

The professional part of me knew that I was sobbing because it was a natural physical reaction to the kind of trauma I’d experienced, but the little girl part was simply crying because it had been a terrible night and she wanted to be held on someone’s lap and rocked to sleep. She wanted to feel safe again. To feel normal again.

‘Let’s take these boots off out here, okay?’ He slid them off my feet and tossed them next to the porch. Then he pulled me up, put his arm around me, asked for my alarm code and opened the door.

I still couldn’t stop crying long enough to speak in full sentences, so I was grateful he was intent on helping me. Now that reality had melted through the defences I’d created to weather the nightmare, I was hanging by very thin threads and was happy to have someone running underneath me with a net. Hopefully the net wasn’t accompanied by men in white coats.

Still holding on to me, he helped me up the stairs to the bathroom and propped me against the sink while he turned on the water for my shower.

‘I’m going to leave the door open, if that’s all right with you, because after you’ve undressed and stepped into the shower, I’m going to take these clothes and bag them up for the forensics team. They’ll want to analyse all the various . . . substances.’ He shook his head. ‘I can’t believe the chief made them let you wear the clothes home.’

He really did look like he’d been up all night, and I was touched by the concern in his eyes.

‘Sure.’ I gave a limp shrug. ‘Leave the door open. That’s fine.’ I sniffled as I started to peel off my clothes without waiting for him to leave the room.

‘Uh, er, uh, yeah, go ahead and get undressed. I’m gonna go find that bag. I’ll be right back.’ He flew down the stairs.

Sometimes life gets very simple. Standing under that stream of hot water was the best thing I’d ever experienced. At that moment, not even chocolate or orgasms could top it on the list of wonderful things.

I washed my hair several times and used every good-smelling soap product I owned. I scrubbed my nails and finally just stretched out in the tub and let the water beat down on me. Bliss.

‘Kismet? Are you okay?’ Alan yanked back the shower curtain.

I stared up at him, unable to move even one muscle in response.

‘I’m sorry.’ He shifted his eyes to the side for a moment. ‘I didn’t mean to burst in on you like that. I couldn’t see you in the shower and I thought you might have fallen down or something.’

I didn’t seem to have any opinions about him opening the shower curtain or seeing me lying naked in the tub. Nothing was more important than continuing to enjoy feeling like a warm, limp noodle. I couldn’t get worked up about my nudity or anything else. I was so happy to be home – to be safe, clean. It would have taken an earthquake to jar me out of my Zen tranquillity.

Now that I smelled better, I realised I’d shared my aromatic carry-out with Alan, and he was less than springtime-fresh himself. Whatever had been on my clothes was now on his.

I raised my arm. ‘Give me a hand, would you?’

He pulled me to my feet, his eyes tracking slowly down my body.

I pinched my nose closed. ‘Anything strike you about your state of hygiene since you helped me upstairs?’

He glanced down at himself, half-grinned and scrunched up his nose.

‘I think you’d better add your clothes to the bag for the forensics team and step into the shower with me. That smell doesn’t work any better on you than it did on me.’

Really? Did I just say that? Since when am I so bold? What’s up with me? I must still be in shock.

His eyebrows shot up and then he shrugged. ‘How can I refuse such an enticing invitation?’ He sloughed off the fouled clothing and gingerly stepped into the tub, making sure he kept his back to me.

He had an astoundingly nice ass, firm, round, and begging to be palmed. I stood at the far end of the shower and watched the muscles in his back ripple as he soaped his arms.

After he’d washed everything he wanted to without turning around, he finally shifted his body and faced me, his compass enthusiastically pointing true north. My eyes feasted on the impressive erection and he stared at me as he lathered himself there.

I felt an earthquake.

‘Oh my,’ I uttered without thinking. I fought the urge to reach out and touch someone.

We admired each other in silence, eyes caressing where hands wished to be.

He turned off the water and ran his fingers through his wet hair, pushing the strands back from his face. His lovely purple-blue eyes sparkled mischievously and his cheeks were flushed. Moisture beaded on the muscles of his chest.

He stepped forwards, brushing my arm as he reached for the towels on the rack outside the shower. My skin tingled where he’d touched me and became the epicentre for waves of pleasure sensations. He handed me a towel, then slowly dried himself off and stepped out of the tub.

I stole another quick peek at his admirable erection and argued with myself about what I was thinking. I followed him, tucking the towel around me above my breasts, and moved over to the sink. I wiped off the mirror with my hand, leaned in and stared at my reflection. None the worse for wear, if you didn’t notice my spacey, glazed-over eyes. The normally clear-sky blue didn’t look so vibrant right then.

Alan made use of the extra toothbrush I produced and we stood side by side, silently gazing at each other in the mirror. I don’t let just anyone watch me take care of dental business.

I brushed my teeth, flossed and used every kind of mouth-wash I had in my medicine cabinet before I finally felt seminormal.

‘What do you need now?’ he asked.

Knowing exactly what I needed, I turned to him and met his kind eyes. ‘I want to curl up in my bed, under my covers, and I want you to hold me.’

The corners of his lips quirked up in an amused grin, which I interpreted as an affirmative. I grabbed his hand, led us into my bedroom, and pulled down the bed covers. I dropped my towel and slid between the sheets. Giving him my best ‘come hither’ smile, I patted the mattress next to me and sent a clear message. I wasn’t sure the Brazen Hussy part of my personality had ever had a chance to come out and play. She’d always been locked in the closet by Nerd Woman.

Wait. Do I have a Brazen Hussy part? Something has definitely juiced up my sexuality. Should I worry about that? Am I totally whacked? This is Devereux’s fault, I just know it.

He stood and gazed down at me, hesitating only a few seconds before he joined me.

Pushing thoughts of Devereux aside, I wrapped myself around Alan, finally feeling safe, and sighed. ‘Thank you for being here with me. You’re a good friend.’

‘A friend? You’re giving me way too much credit. I’m not having very friend-like thoughts at the moment.’

I met his eyes. ‘What kind of thoughts are you having?’ As if I didn’t know, even without the compass to point the way.

‘I’m-in-bed-with-a-beautiful-woman thoughts. But I know this isn’t the right time to be romantic because you need to rest and recuperate.’

‘It’s very sweet of you to take care of me.’

I didn’t want to think about where I’d been all night, or what might have happened, or the media frenzy that was waiting for me. I absolutely didn’t want to consider the probability that there really were vampires. And I especially didn’t want to think about what it meant for the world if there were hidden monsters everywhere. All I wanted was to be held, touched, connected to someone who wasn’t constantly probing my mind, without any expectations or rules or complications.

I brushed his lips lightly with mine and slid my hand down the muscled plane of his belly and along the warm, firm length of his erection. He moaned, grabbed a handful of my wet hair and pulled me tight against him as he closed his lips over mine with hungry need.

‘I haven’t even begun to take care of you yet,’ he breathed against my mouth.

Our bodies melted into each other as we took the kiss deeper, allowing all the emotions and tensions of the previous hours to find release through the firestorm of our mutual attraction. We kissed until every nerve in my body sizzled and burned.

He pulled away, his breathing ragged and his voice husky. ‘I don’t want to take advantage of this situation. Tell me to stop and I will.’

All I could think about was how good he felt next to me, how warm and sweet his mouth was on mine. And after the freak circus I’d experienced the night before, the pleasure of being with a normal male felt overwhelmingly right. Safe. Pure, primitive desire with no insanity attached to it. No fear.

‘Don’t stop.’ I ran my hands over his smooth chest.

He rolled me over onto my back and began to lick and suck my nipples as he trailed his hand down my stomach. His body was fever hot and his touch like liquid fire.

He brought his face up to mine. ‘Your body is beautiful. I’ve imagined this since the first moment I saw you.’

‘I’ve had some naughty thoughts about you, too.’

We kissed each other wildly, hands exploring. His erection rubbed against my leg rhythmically as he slid his finger into the hot wetness between my thighs. I arched my back and opened myself to him as a wave of ecstasy built inside me. He straddled me and licked his way down my body until his tongue finished what his finger had started. I screamed and dug my fingernails into his shoulders as he laved me over the edge. Quivering, I grabbed his hair and pulled him up onto me, aching for him to fill me, longing to be joined in that primal way. Wanting to give him what he’d given me.

Then there was loud pounding downstairs on my front door.

‘Dr Knight? Denver PD. Your door was unlocked. We heard a scream. Are you all right? Do you need help?’

Alan leaped up and ran into the bathroom.

I sat up in the bed and yelled, ‘No – everything’s fine. Stay where you are. I’ll be right down.’

Damn, damn, damn! That’s twice I’ve left my door unlocked in as many days, and both times I got interrupted in the middle of something delicious.

Still revelling in the spell cast by Alan’s magic mouth, the muscles between my legs contracted with desire as I breathed to recover myself. I heard the shower start in the bathroom and I was tempted to sneak in there so Alan wouldn’t have to finish without me. That thought provided an unexpected orgasmic aftershock and I forced myself to swing my legs over the side of the bed and stand up.

If only the cops had waited ten more minutes. Nothing about my world made sense any more.

I walked over to the closet, pulled on my pink terrycloth bathrobe, tied the sash and shuffled down the stairs.