Bring On the Night (17 page)

I watched him go into the bedroom and shut the door. Then I went to my CD rack, faced with that desert island
question: If I could only listen to one album the rest of my life, which would it be?

Nirvana’s
Unplugged
concert, the first thing Shane and I ever listened to? No, I wanted something for me alone. Red Hot Chili Peppers’
Californication
, my favorite CD in the world? Nah, too upbeat for the occasion. I needed something that would make me feel strong.

I pulled out Liz Phair’s debut,
Exile in Guyville
. I was ten years old when it came out. I shoplifted the cassette from a used record store—not to avoid paying for it, but because my parents would have thrown it away if they knew I had it. I’d listen to it late at night under the covers with my Walkman. It made me believe I could do anything, and I didn’t have to be perfect or well behaved. It made me happy to be a girl.

At the sound of the first solo guitar chords of “6’1",” I knew I’d made the right choice. I stood in the center of the room, eyes closed, feeling my resolve grow with every measure.

When the maracas faded and the second song kicked off, I looked around. Dexter wagged his tail at me from the couch, where he had stretched out with his head on his paws.

I plopped down next to him, and he wriggled his upper body into my lap. I stroked the soft thick fur on his face, tracing the old battle scars he must have gotten in his regular dog days, before the Control made him what he was. Then I nudged Dexter until he sat up, groaning, so I could wrap my arms around his neck and broad chest. He rubbed the side of his head against my hair, hugging me back.

“I swore I’d never leave you. But that might change. You have to be a good boy for Daddy. Don’t let him be sad, okay? I mean, he can be sad, but not enough to—” I didn’t dare voice the thought, not even for Dexter. “Give him someone
who needs him,” I whispered. “Give him something to live for.”

Dexter licked my ear. I took that as an okay.

I extricated myself from his long legs and went to the breakfast bar for my laptop. I poured a second cup of tea from the pot Shane had made and carried it and the computer back to the sofa. Dexter resnuggled as soon as I settled in.

I logged into the Web sites of my banks, offshore and onshore. With a series of clicks and passwords, I transferred all but a few dollars from my accounts—enough to keep them open—into the joint checking account I shared with Shane.

Then I wrote e-mails to Lori, David, Franklin, my dad, Luann, and my foster parents, and saved them in my drafts folder. Shane would send them In the Event Of.

Thinking of him sitting here alone tomorrow, hunched over my computer releasing my last missives, made my chest tighten and crumble. The tears came again, drenching my cheeks. Dexter licked them away, making my face even wetter.

When the music faded, I turned off the power on the stereo. Then I told Dexter to stay.

“You had two minutes left,” Shane said as I entered the bedroom. “Good choice of album.”

I stripped down to my camisole and underwear. “I want to take a shower, so I won’t smell bad if I go to the hospital.” The phrase “Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse” flashed through my mind as I stepped onto the smooth, cool threshold of the master bathroom.

He got out of bed. “I’m not waiting for an invitation.”

“Good.”

Shane’s mouth met mine with an achingly familiar urgency. My fingers tightened on his shoulders as he pressed me back against the doorjamb. He bent his legs, and one of his hands descended to my thigh, lifting it up and around his waist. We kissed harder, our bodies straining against each other.

Finally he moved his mouth to my ear. “Get in the shower.”

I reached for the hem of my camisole to pull it over my head.

Shane caught my hand. “Keep it on.” He led me to the tub and helped me step over the side. “For now.”

Soon he stood naked outside the tub. “Hold still.” With the shower attachment pointed at the tub’s floor, he turned the water to a steady trickle and checked the temperature. Once the steam began to rise, he angled the soft spray on my top, soaking the thin cotton layer and turning it heavy against my skin. My nipples hardened. He leaned forward and suckled me through the cloth, as if he were thirsty and I was the only source of water.

Shane rubbed the trickling showerhead lower, soaking my panties. He climbed into the tub with me and got to his knees.

He brought his head between my thighs and stroked me with his tongue through the wet material. My knees shook, and I arched my hips against him. He ran the showerhead up and down my legs, slowly, the warm water setting my nerves on maximum tingle. I moaned and clutched at the slick wall behind me, trying to memorize each sensation.

With his other hand, Shane drew down my panties and tossed them away. He lifted one of my feet to rest on the side of the tub, then handed me the showerhead.

When he tasted me, his groan echoed against the walls. His fingers explored my depths, moving with fascination, as if it were the first time he’d ever touched me instead of possibly the last. I sent the water rushing down the back of his neck and watched it stream over the lean muscles of his shoulders and torso.

A sudden rising ecstasy shot through me. I dropped the showerhead. It clattered on the porcelain surface, and its leaping, pulsing spray was the last thing I saw before I closed my eyes and succumbed to the pounding orgasm. When my legs grew too weak to hold my weight, I dropped to my knees.

Shane picked up the showerhead, then tilted my head back. “Close your eyes.”

I obeyed, and shivered when the warm water flowed over my scalp, trickling to the back of my shoulders. Then his mouth was at my neck, teeth grazing, then nipping without fangs, never breaking the skin.

This could be our last chance
. But I still didn’t want pain and blood between us.

Unless it was the only way to save my life. I clutched his back, biting my own lip to hold in my plea.

Shane stood and reattached the showerhead to the hook so that it flowed over both of us. He started to rejoin me on the floor of the tub, but I stopped him. I wanted to give him everything, maybe one last time.

As hard as he was in my hand, he stiffened further when I took him in my mouth, deep and tight. He responded instantly, rocking his hips, palms braced against the wall above my head. The water streamed over his back, soaking my hands as they grasped the tightening muscles of his ass.

“Yes,” he breathed. “Oh, God. God, God, God…” The way he intoned the name of the deity he loved and feared so
fiercely threatened to make me a believer again myself.

Finally he went still, sighing my name. I let go of him, and he leaned back, tilting his head into the rush of water.

Shane helped me to my feet, then peeled off my wet top and tossed it over the shower curtain rod. As I shampooed, he lathered my body with soap, his hands coasting warm and slippery over my skin.

I rinsed my hair, then returned the favor, cleansing every inch of him. By the time I finished, he was fully aroused again. Our slick flesh slid together with a heat that told me we weren’t nearly done.

The water, on the other hand, was out of heat. Shane shut it off, then stepped out to fetch my favorite fluffy red towel. He wrapped it around both of us and kissed me again as he dried my back. When we were still damp but not dripping, he helped me out of the tub and led me into the bedroom.

As we stood next to the bed, I gazed up at him, his wet hair glistening in the soft lamplight, flat against his head, giving him a boyish, vulnerable look.

“This isn’t the last time,” I told him.

He wiped a rivulet of water from the side of my face, then let the towel drop at our feet.

We didn’t speak any more that afternoon, not even to say what we wanted to do. We didn’t need words when we could read each other’s bodies so well.

I was right—that wasn’t the last time. Neither was the next time, an hour later; or the next, a half hour after that. We made love in an endless cycle of kissing, touching, and fucking, until the clock told me the sun was on its way out.

I got dressed and dragged my exhausted body up the fire escape to the roof of our building. One last sunset, maybe, a gift to myself.

The red orb flared as it descended below the horizon. Tendrils of scarlet and tangerine spread themselves across the sky, like the fingers of a child’s brightly colored glove.

“Good-bye,” I whispered to the vanishing sun. “Thanks for all the great tans in the summer, and for warming my car in the winter, and the free vitamin D.”

As if in reply, the last rays burst into sharp beams against the clouds. My own personal laser show.

A breeze tousled my hair, which was still a bit damp from the shower. I drew my jacket tighter across my chest, expecting a chill.

Instead, a wave of heat broke over me, curling up from my feet as if I’d been standing over a subway grate.

I glanced around for the source of the hot air. The panorama of building tops blurred, their lights swirling and spinning. It was like looking out from the center of a merry-go-round.

“What the—”

The pain hit me like a steel spike to the temple. I stumbled, fingers splayed, lungs too cramped to scream. I thudded to my hands and knees, the fine-gravel surface jabbing my palms. If I’d been near the roof’s edge, I would have fallen and splatted on the sidewalk. But at least the pain would have ended.

I began to crawl.

The railing of the fire escape protruded above the roof’s edge. I kept my eyes on it, though craning my neck sent imaginary foot-long needles into my skull. The roof felt ice-cold against my burning palms.

“God, please…” If I could get down… somehow… then maybe thirty steps to the front door. By then it might be twilight already, and Shane could drive me to the ER.

Wait. That wasn’t right. I was supposed to… what?

I tried to remember, but the pain bent my thoughts into origami angles. Had to lie down… but not yet. Somewhere else.

I reached the fire escape, where my elbows and knees gave way. I rolled onto my side, pressing my face into the rusty but blissfully cold iron surface.

The chill cleared my thoughts long enough for one name.

Jeremy.

I slapped my pockets for my cell phone. It was in the left one, the side I was lying on. Figures. I rolled onto my back, and the motion made my stomach pitch and twist. I closed my eyes until the nausea swept on, then shoved my hand into my pocket.

The moment my fingers brushed my ribs, the itching began. “Ungh!” I forgot everything but the need to scratch. It obliterated the ache in my head and the sick in my stomach.

Whimpering, I raked my nails over my belly, but the itch spread around my waist to my spine. Desperation gave me the strength to arch my back against the fire escape rail, trying to rub off the millions of tiny pins pricking my skin.

My skin. That was it. Too much skin. My nails could only scrape. But a knife could flay it off. We had knives in our kitchen.
How do I get to the kitchen?

Go down.

I rolled so that my head was over the edge of the stairs. Too weak to stand, I grabbed the railings on either side and pulled.

I slid down headfirst, belly-flop style. Each stair jarred my ribs and breasts, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered but finding the knives. And ice. And—

I hit the landing and flipped onto my back, helpless as a
turtle. Breathing hard, then hardly breathing, I stared at the darkening sky, which slowly, gracefully, turned to black.

“Ciara, can you hear me?
Ciara!
”

I tried to open my eyes, move a finger, or anything to let Shane know that his voice had reached me, that I could feel his cool hand on my face. But the darkness pulled so hard.

A sharp motion jerked my body to the right. The sound of squealing tires forced me awake, but I couldn’t open my eyes.

I made my lips move. “Where?”

“We’re in David’s car,” he said. “I called him as soon as you left the apartment to see the sunset. I had a bad feeling, I thought I was being paranoid, but thank God. He and Lori found you on the fire escape.”

“Lori?”

“I’m right here.” Her voice came from my right, from the front passenger’s seat. Beneath my head, something shifted. Shane’s leg.

He smoothed the hair out of my face. “We’re taking you to the ER. They’ll give you some fluids and try to get this fever down.”

The ER. What’s an ER? Something scary. Instinct tried to tell my fever-fuzzed brain why that was a terrible idea. It dug for dormant associations.

They canceled the show
ER.
You don’t want to be canceled, do you?

It wasn’t canceled
, I told Instinct.
Its time had come. Maybe my time has come, too.
I snuggled into Shane’s lap.
To everything, turn turn turn, there is a season…

Yes,
Instinct said,
and now is the time of the season for
living.

“Living”? I thought the line was “loving.” Did I get that wrong, too, the way I always thought the guy in the Radiohead song “Creep” was a widow instead of a weirdo?

Instinct went for the direct approach.
WAKE. THE. FUCK. UP!!

Shane spoke, interrupting my interior dialogue. “David, I’m staying with her every minute, I don’t care what they say.”

“Fine, but you get back home or to the station before sunup. I’m not losing you, too.”

“Do you want me to call the station?” Lori said. “Let them know what happened?”

“Thanks,” David said. “Ask Jeremy to do Shane’s midnight show.”

Jeremy.

“Stop the car!” I screamed.

David slammed on the brakes, spiking the pain through my lurching body. “Shit, you scared me. We can’t stop.”

“But I have to throw up!”

“Throw up on the floor. We’re almost there.”

“Please.” I made my voice as pathetic as I felt. “Just for a sec. Won’t make a difference.”

I felt the car drift, then rumble as it hit the shoulder of the road. Shane lifted me to sit up, and I tried to siphon his immense strength with the nonexistent power of my mind.