Dance Of Desire by Sweet and Special Books Page A

some gym or something. That they’d hit it off, right away. Guess Mr. Amazing Hot Sexy Guy is wandering off the path already and Jimmy’s gone from feeling his oats to getting the full-on crazies joneses for his new man.” She lapsed into silence a while, as if she’d forgotten something. “I think he thinks we’re detaining his lover in our beds.”
    Cassie made a wry face but Karen was too tired to answer it with her own. “You do know he’s crazy, right? Not to be judgmental or whatever.”
    “Preaching to the choir. You haven’t seen a cat out here, have you? Ever since I moved here, my cat keeps hiding under furniture like she’s hiding from stuff and, last night or two, she’s high on top of other stuff, instead, like she’s trying to see what’s coming before it gets her. She darted out this morning, and I haven’t seen her since.
    “Then, again, maybe I wigged her out. I had some crazy wild sex the other week myself with my own amazing, hot, sexy guy. That man fucked me sore, in the best way. But, this week… I woke up the other night with the screaming meemies. And I don’t drink or do drugs.”
    She glanced at Cassie with a look of embarrassment. Like she had not planned to say too much. Then she realized Cassie had no clue what she was saying.
    “Screaming meemies. Nightmares. Been having these intense, super horrific nightmares, lately.”
    Cassie scrunched her face. “M-Me, too.”
    “Huh. Strange. Wonder if it’s like that girls’ menstruating-in-sync stuff, except it’s nightmares.”
    “I-I wouldn’t know. Do… Do you have any bruises?”
    Cassie thought she saw Karen flinch, but then the woman shook her head. “Yes, but that’s creepy. Impossible. Or…” She looked up at their residence. “Maybe, we’ve moved into one of the places like they have in horror movies and the place is eating our brains and doing… things… to our bodies,” she teased.
    Cassie’s eyes went wide with surprise. She hoped Karen would do a stagey movie ghoul’s laugh. What she had said was absurd. She didn’t, thankfully, so Cassie said nothing, although she got an impression that Karen wanted her to say something. She’d already asked about the bruises and Karen had already said she’d had kind of rough sex, so bruising…
    Cassie couldn’t think more than that. Having two of them experiencing this was terrifying.
    Then Karen sighed. “If you see a striped tiger cat, Cassie, grab her for me, if you can. She’s been zipping about all spooked. God, I am so tired all the fucking time! I just want to sleep like a normal person again.”
    They both started in. But Karen paused with her foot on the step of the building’s threshold to look up at their building again.
    “Are… are you coming?” Cassie asked, hopeful that she’d have company part of the way in, especially if Jimmy was lurking in the halls somewhere.
    Karen nervously shifted on her feet, almost like she might be considering running away. But that was a weird thought to think about your super. “Nooo. I-I’m gonna go for another cup of super-caffeinated coffee, I think, before I turn in.”
    Karen turned on her heel and walked away from the building she managed, as if her heels were on fire.
    “But, the coffee shop’s…” Cassie’s sentence trailed off as Karen nearly ran out of sight of home.
    She took a deep breath or two. Or three. Then she finally turned and stepped inside alone. Maybe she was ill because the halls seemed to be longer, more silent, and far emptier than she’d remembered. If she were ill, that’d put the difference in perspective. Even the elevator’s quiet rattling and stomach-unsettling motion was wholly disturbing.
    A sudden, dark movement in the hall out of the corner of her eye had her jumping, afraid it was Jimmy or one of the horrible things from her dream. But it was a striped cat frozen in place, watching her with its wide-eyed fixed stare, until it slunk away a few steps before darting out