In the Forests of the Night (ePub)

From The Forests of the Night:



And she passed me the bottle, after which I took a swig and poured the rest into her glass, then went to the cellar for more-returning with a Woodbridge Mondavi Red Blend to find her swaying to "Upside Down" by Diana Ross (playing from a battered little CD player I hadn't even noticed she had) and letting a white strap of her halter slip-like a linguini, I thought, and sat down.



"Don't thing I haven't noticed it," she said, slurring slightly, and added, "I see the way you look at me."



I uncorked the bottle and filled my glass. "You're a very beautiful woman," I said-and sat the bottle between us-too hard, I think. "And a talented one. What would you expect?" I watched as she shimmied and did a little pirouette. "And I'm enjoying the conversation-more than you could know. You move beautifully, by the way. Like a cat."



And then she attempted to spin again but only stumbled suddenly and fell smack into my arms; at which we just looked at each other, she with her boozy, breezy smile and me with an apparent moral dilemma: i.e., should I make a pass at her, like I wanted to, or should I just put her into bed and tuck her away safe (as though she were a simpleton, perhaps, or even child) like, say, John-Boy Walton might. A dilemma I answered by taking her head in my hands and kissing her-heatedly, hot-bloodedly, restlessly-what a friend of mine used to call a "come to me" kiss; because she was no child. And I was no John-Boy.



And then we went to her room and lay together; drunkenly, sloppily, unspectacularly, and after a while, I dreamed: of lightning permeating everything and rain pounding the roof like nails, like hail; of wives and friends and girlfriends and my father-most of whom I hadn't seen in years; of small, predatory dinosaurs, deinonychuses, with dark skin and wet backs-who held vigil around our bed like cultists, like priests, and who trilled, softly, faintly, as though they were meditating. As though they were communing.