Five Stories for the Dark Months by Katherine Traylor Page A

second round?”
    “No.” He shook his head, finally
realizing what had happened. “No, no, no. This can’t be right.” He
staggered from the bed, and saw his phone abandoned in the center
of the hardwood floor. He picked it up, but its screen was thick
with dust, the battery long dead.
    “No—you didn’t sleep well?” Her
voice was mocking. Following him from her nest, she twined herself
around him as he searched for his clothes. Her fingers trailed down
between his legs and began to toy with him. He moaned.
    “Or,” she
whispered, pressing the words against his throat with lips and
teeth and tongue, “perhaps you mean that you—” (squeeze) “—don’t want to try
again?”
    As Paul sank to the floor,
collapsing around himself in a miserable lust-soaked heap, Helen
laughed. “Pity,” she said, stepping away with a little kick to
Paul’s side. “I had thought you rather enjoyed
yourself.”
    Paul’s face was slick with tears as
he stared up at her. “Please,” he said. His voice was small and
hopeless. “I need to go home.”
    “Home? All right, but you must
know you may not have one anymore. A night can pass so quickly,
sometimes—hours feel like minutes, and years—well, they feel like
hours.”
    She turned away, and began to pace
around the room, clearly waiting for him to go. They were in a
small studio, he thought—a round, bright room that felt like the
inside of a tower. After a minute, not knowing what else to do,
Paul took a few deep breaths and began pulling on his
clothes.
    As he found his
shoes behind a row of potted plants, he began to wonder what he
might say to Wendy. An hour could be explained—even two or three,
if he were very careful—but an entire night? And what had he been
thinking—what had ever possessed him to go home with a total
stranger? He felt like some dark, unknown part of himself had been
in control the night before—surely he’d never have done… what he
had done… of his own volition?
    “Are you quite finished?” Helen
was waiting by the door, looking impatient. “I have things to do
today, so I think you should be going.”
    Paul advanced on
her, suddenly furious. “What the hell did you do to me?”
Remembering the strange, sweet drink she’d given him, he said,
“What was in that cup? Did you drug me?”
    “I gave you nothing, my dear fool,
that you did not ask for first.” Helen batted her lashes and made
her face stupid. “Oh, miss, may I try it, please? Let me walk you
home?”
    He raised his arms, and for a
second was sure he would strangle her—but Helen stepped between his
hands and laid a chaste kiss against the corner of his mouth.
Immediately, his anger left him.
    “Why?” he said sadly, lowering his
arms.
    “That’s enough now,” said Helen
gently. “It’s time for you to go.”
    Paul let her lead him to the door,
like a tired child being taken off to bed. He felt as if the world
were ending. What would he do when he went outside? How could he go
back to Wendy, after what he’d done? How could he approach her,
with the scent of another woman’s body on his skin—with the prints
of Helen’s nails across his back?
    “Let me stay with you,” he said,
suddenly grabbing her hand. “Please. I’ll do whatever you want—just
let me stay for a while!”
    She laughed. “A man who would
betray his wife and child, and go home with a stranger? Please be
serious, Paul—I’d never be able to trust you.”
    He was opening his mouth to
protest—though what he’d say, he didn’t know—when he saw his
reflection in a mirror that hung beside the door.
    The man behind the glass was a
gaunt, weary, ugly stranger. He looked a bit like Paul, if Paul
were ten years older and had lost most of his health and vitality.
His back was hunched, his face creased and drawn. His hair was thin
and graying, and his clothing looked about to fall apart from the
buttons outward.
    Paul swallowed. “Who is—” Then his
voice dried out, like the last