The second shock came when you recognized Ed Bannion as one of the brothers from the Plaza the night Kelly went through the window. Ed was the one on his knees behind you at the end, doing you from the rear. The one who bit you.
You masked your surprise then, but you nearly gave yourself away when Ed Bannion dropped the bombshelclass="underline" that your office had been invaded, your computer security breached, and that you had walked right past the culprit less than an hour ago without suspecting a thing.
You wander the bleached hardwood floors of Bannion's apartment while the owner uses the bathroom. You inspect the glass and chrome tables, the Italian leather sectional. The man has no taste. There's no theme, no harmony, no personality to the decor. These are just things he's bought. They have no meaning to him beyond the fact that they are considered the right things to have. It's as if he furnished the place with random snippets from the "Home" section of the Thursday
Times, An empty man living an empty life in an apartment filled with things, whose only passion has been the job which obviously bores him to tears now. Else why would he have tried the hair-brained stunt of breaking and entering tonight?
Taking over Kara Wade has engendered a Gordian knot of complications, but you aren't ready to surrender this wonderful body yet. You eye a set of carving knives jutting from a block of teak on the kitchen counter. Alexander the Great's abrupt and efficient method for unsnarling stubborn knots comes to mind.
You examine the knives, and choose the one with the longest, thinnest blade, then hurry into the bedroom and shove it under the bed. You're standing by the picture window when Bannion returns. He sways slightly as he crosses to the bar and begins to make himself another drink.
"Do you really think you should have another, Ed?" you say, kicking off Kara's shoes and moving languidly across the room.
You're thinking that if Bannion doesn't get too drunk, you might yet salvage something out of this night.
"I'm celebrating."
Gently, you take the bottle from Bannion's hands and put Kara's arms around him.
"You don't need to get drunk to celebrate. As a matter of fact, that could interfere with the kind of celebration I have planned."
You watch a flush creep up Bannion's cheeks.
"Wh—what kind of celebration is that?"
"The kind of celebration that happens when a very grateful girl is alone with a brave man she admires very much and finds very attractive."
"This isn't necessary."
"Yes it is."
You back up a step and pull off the sweater to reveal Kara's breasts.
"Do you like them? Touch them."
Bannion's mouth is hanging open as he stares at you. He seems paralyzed. So you lift his hands and place them on her breasts.
"That feels good, Ed. Rub them."
Bannion is getting into it now. Kara's jeans are the next to go. They're loose and fall to the floor when they're unbuttoned. You step back again and spread your arms.
"What do you think of this body, Ed? Isn't it glorious?"
"It's fabulous!"
"Yes, it is. And now I want to see your body, Ed. But only a little bit at a time." You kneel before him and unzip his fly. "We'll start with this area here."
▼
Ed was dimly aware that a small part of his brain was very upset, was shouting at him, in fact. But he couldn't make out the words through the fog. A warm fog, a haze of vodka lit by bright red glowing waves of pleasure rippling over him.
Kara was so much like her sister Kelly, so much like Kelly, she even gave head like Kelly, and now she was on her hands and knees on the bed, facing away from him, and he was standing behind her, sliding in and out of her doggy style. Almost a replay on that night in the Plaza a couple of weeks ago, except there was no black garter belt to hold on to, and Phil wasn't here and Ed had her all to himself.
Maybe it was because this was so much like the night at the Plaza that the worry-wart corner of his brain was so upset. But after all, Kara and Kelly were identical twins. Why shouldn't they be exactly alike?
Well, they weren't exactly alike. Kara's body was firmer, the flesh more taut, better toned. He thought that in a pinch, if given the choice, he might prefer Kelly's slightly thicker layer of padding, but either way it was a no-lose proposition.
Kara turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder.
"Do it faster! And harder! I want to come, damn it!"
A chill ran over his bare skin as she bucked her buttocks hard against him. Something about that sounded so familiar.
She turned her head again. She smiled.
"And this time, don't bite me."
The words struck him like the shock wave of an atomic bomb detonating on the bed. He felt himself shrivel. As he fell limp from within her, he backed away until his buttocks came up against the cold surface of the bureau. His mouth worked, trying to speak. How could she know? No one could know that but Kelly. Not even Phil knew that he'd bitten her. Ed had been ashamed to tell him.
She sat on the edge and looked at him. Her stare made him want to cover himself. He had been naked for a while, but now he felt like a specimen in a jar.
"Well, Ed Bannion," she said in a low voice that was almost a whisper. "What are we going to do with you?"
"Who are you?" Ed said, whispering as well.
"I've got many names, Ed. You've met me before, but I told you then that my name was Ingrid."
"No! That's not possible! You're lying!"
"Am I? You were with your brother. His name was Phil or Bill or something like that. You said you were in the textile business. You lied to me. That wasn't nice. And you bit me. That caused all sorts of complications."
Ed was frozen against the bureau like a child's tongue to a wrought iron rail in the dead of winter. The thing before him looked like Kara, and it used Kara's voice—though not the way Kara used it—yet it was not Kara. It knew things Kara couldn't possibly know, things only her dead sister could know.
"How—?" It was all he could manage.
She got up and began pacing before him, moving slowly, completely unconscious of her nudity. That such a beautiful body could be parading before him naked and fill him with only fear and loathing amazed Ed.
"How? That should be obvious, shouldn't it? I'm not Kara. I'm Dr. Gates, using Kara's body, just as that note said. And it's a wonderful body, don't you think?" She smiled at him, a deadly cold, bone-chilling smile. "Let me explain. Don't worry. I'll be brief."
▼
But it's so hard to be brief. You must keep reining in your narrative, forcing yourself to hold back a wealth of details as you tell Ed Bannion your story. Perhaps it's because you've never before had the opportunity to tell anyone your story. It has been bottled up inside for your whole life, fermenting like champagne, building up pressure, crying to be released. And now that Ed Bannion has allowed you to pop the cork, the story is gushing and foaming from you in an effervescent torrent.
"So you see," you say, forcing yourself to bring your truncated, expurgated autobiography to a close, "I have developed the perfect cover for my talent. Quite ingenious, don't you think?"
Bannion, still nude, still cowering against the bedroom bureau, says nothing. He has not been a terribly receptive or appreciative audience.
"Oh, and those files you discovered in my office computer? You were right. They were indeed boiler-plated. I dictate the original reports, Miss Carney types them into the computer, then hard copies are filed in the locked cabinets. But with my special patients, I change the computer files, giving them the typical characteristics of a Multiple Personality Disorder. That's in case anything untoward happens to them—as it did to Kelly Wade. If there's an investigation of her death and my records are subpoenaed, I'll simply print out an altered medical record that nicely explains the erratic behavior that caused her death. I've been at this a long time, Ed. I have all the angles covered. I've covered contingencies most people would never think of."