"And he'll love you," Howie whispered to her. "Because everybody loves you." She grew a little restless in his arms. "Want to go lie down, honey?" he said, Lifting her up and kissing her face. "Let's take you upstairs."
He tiptoed up, and laid Amy down in the spare room, so as not to disturb Jo-Beth. Then he went to take a quick shower.
It felt good to put his head under the cool water and soap off the sweat and grime of the day; so good that he sprung a hard-on without touching himself. He ignored it as best he could-shampooed his hair, scrubbed his back-but the water kept beating on it, and eventually he took himself in hand. The last time he'd made love to Jo-Beth she'd been four months pregnant, and the attempt had ended with her crying and saying she didn't want him touching her. It was the first indication of how problematic the pregnancy was to prove. During the next few months it sometimes seemed to him he was living with two women, a loving twin and her bitch-sister. The loving Jo-Beth didn't want sex but she wanted his arms around her, and his comfort when she wept. The bitch-sister wanted nothing from him: not kisses, not company, nothing. The bitch-sister would say: I wish I'd never met you, and say it with such conviction he was certain she meant it. Then the old Jo-Beth would surface againusually through tears-and tell him she was sorry, so sorry, and she didn't know what she'd do without him.
He'd learned to curb and conceal his libido pretty well during this time. Kept a stash of skin magazines in the garage; found a soft-core channel to watch late at night; even had a couple of wet dreams. But Jo-Beth was never far from his imagination. Even in the last two weeks of her term, when she was enormous, the sight of her remained intensely arousing. She'd known it too, and seemed to resent his interest in her: locked the bathroom door when she was washing or showering, turned her back on him when she prepared for bed. She'd reduced him to a state of trembling adolescence, watching her from the corner of his eye in the hope of glimpsing the forbidden anatomy; picturing it later when he was jerking off.
He'd had enough of that. It was time they were man and wife again, instead of shy strangers who happened to share the same bed. He turned off the shower, roughly dried himself, then wrapped the towel around his waist and went into the bedroom.
Thunder was rolling in, low and cracked, but it hadn't woken Jo-Beth. She lay fully dressed on top of the bed, her pale face silvery with sweat in the gloom. He went to the window, and opened it a crack. The clouds were bruised and fat with rain; it would only be minutes before they loosed their waters on the dusty yard and the dusty roof.
Behind him, Jo-Beth murmured in her sleep. He went back to the bed, and gently sat down beside her. Again, she murmured something-he couldn't make out what-and raised her hand from her side, grazing his shoulder with her fingers as she did so. Her hand moved on to touch her mouth, and then, as though her sleeping self had realized somebody was sitting beside her, returned to his arm.
He was certain she'd awaken, but she didn't. The faintest of smiles appeared on her face, and her hand went from his arm to his chest. Her touch was feather-light but intensely erotic. All the more so, perhaps, because her unconscious was allowing her to do what her waking self could, or would not. He let her hand dally on his chest, and while it did so he gingerly pulled at the tuck of his towel. His erection had raised its head, eager to be touched. He didn't move; didn't breathe. Just watched while her hand wandered down his hard belly until it found his dick.
He exhaled as quietly as he could, luxuriating in her attention. She didn't linger at his sex any longer than she had at chest and belly, but by the time her fingers had moved over his balls and on down his thigh he was so aroused he feared if she returned there he'd lose control. He looked away from her fingers to her face, but the sight of her troubled beauty only heated him further. He closed his eyes, tight, and tried to picture the street outside, the storm clouds, the engine he'd been working on yesterday, but her face kept finding him in his refuge.
And now he heard her murmuring again, the words still incomprehensible, and without planning to do so he opened his eyes to watch her lips.
It was too much. He gasped out loud, and as if in response the murmurs grew a little more urgent, and her hand, which had been trailing on his leg, began to move back up towards his groin. He felt the first spasm behind his balls, and reached down to take tight hold of his dick in the hope of delaying the inevitable a moment longer. But it seemed she sensed the motion, because her hand went to his sex, reaching it before he could stop her, and at her touch he overflowed.
"Oh God," he gasped, and threw back his head. He could hear her words for the first time "It's all right," she was saying. He could only gasp. "It's all right, Tommy. It is. It is. It's all right-"
"Tommy?"
He kept spurting, as her slackened hand worked his dick, but the pleasure was already gone.
"No," he said. "Stop."
She didn't obey him because she didn't hear him. She was gabbling deliriously: "ItisitisifisalhightTommyalirightitis." He pulled his hand off her, sick to his stomach, and started to get up off the bed. But she caught hold of his hand as he rose, her aim good despite her closed eyes. The gabbling ceased.
"Wait," she said.
His dick dribbled on, mindlessly. He was sorely tempted to straddle her right now; let her open her eyes and see it there, raw and wet. to say: It's me, Howie. Remember me? You married me.
But he was too ashamed of his vulnerability, of his sweat, and of the fear in him, tickling away in his belly even now. The fear that Tommy-Ray McGuire was close, and getting closer. Before reason could stop him he scanned the murky room, looking for some sign, any sign, of the DeathBoy. There was none, of course. He wasn't here in the flesh. At least not yet. He was in Jo-Beth's mind. And that in its way was a far more terrible place for him to be. Snatching up his towel to cover his nakedness, Howie pulled his hand away and retreated to the door, the rage in him gone already, become ash and nausea.
Before he could reach for the handle Jo-Beth opened her eyes. :'Howie')" she said.
'Who were you expecting?"
She raised her sticky hand, sitting up as she did so. "What's been going on?" she said, her tone accusatory.
He wasn't going to let her turn this around. "You were dreaming of Tommy-Ray," he said.
She swung her legs off the bed, scraping his semen off her fingers onto the sheet as she did so. "What are you talking about?" she said. There were red blotches on her neck and upper chest; sure signs that she too had been aroused. Still was, probably.
"You kept saying his name," Howie replied.
"No, I didn't."
"You think I'd make a thing like that up?" he said, his volume rising.
"Yeah, probably!" she yelled.
He knew by the' way she came back at him she was fully aware that he was telling the truth (she was only ever this vehement if she was concealing something), which meant she had some waking knowledge of her brother.
The thought made Howie want to weep, or puke, or both. He hauled open the door and stumbled out onto the landing. As he did so the rain began-a sudden tattoo against the window. He looked up: saw the purple black clouds through the streaming glass, felt thunder rattle the house.
Amy had woken and was sobbing in the spare room. He wanted to go to her, but heard Jo-Beth at the bedroom door, and couldn't bear to be seen in the light the way he was now, with fear on his face. She'd tell Tommy-Ray, for certain, next time she saw him in her dreams. She'd say: Come get me. You've got no opposition here.
He stepped into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind him. After a time, Amy's crying subsided. And a little while after that, the storm passed, but it left the air uncleansed, and the heat as smothering as ever.
Grillo? It's Howie."
"I didn't expect to hear@'
"Have you heard anything m-m-m-more about Tommy Ray?"