Hopper House (The Jenkins Cycle Book 3) by John L. Monk

realization had an ugly head, it would have reared it. She had no idea what a ride was. That was my word for what I’d been doing for so long, because I hated the word possession.
    “When I arrive in a new body,” I said, “it’s my ride. See? Like I’m driving in a car. Only, it’s a person’s body, and I’m the driver. It’s a metaphor.”
    Rose laughed. “I know what a metaphor is, you little do-gooder. You really call them rides?”
    “Have to call them something.”
    She bit her lip, clearly amused. “How do you deal with the giggle factor?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “If you’re like me,” she said, “that means you only ride people of the same sex as your original body. You ride men .” She held up her hands defensively. “I’m not judging. Nothing wrong with riding strange men. But doesn’t it make you want to giggle? Just a little bit?”
    As if proving the point, Rose giggled.
    “It doesn’t make me want to do anything,” I said, offended. “You don’t understand. When I come into a ride, I—”
    Rose covered her mouth and screamed with laughter.
    “What’s wrong with you?”
    She pointed at me, waving for me to stop. A family of four at another table was staring at us. They looked like they wanted to giggle, too.
    Cheeks shining with tears, Rose said, “ You come in the men you ride! ”
    I felt a flush coming on. Of all the fantasies I’d had about one day meeting someone I could confide in, I’d never imagined them suffering the same fate as me. But Rose didn’t seem to be suffering at all. She wasn’t worried about her host’s welfare. If Rachael was a bad person, Rose didn’t appear worried about that, either. Calling me a do-gooder was as much as saying she wasn’t one. How was that even possible?
    “Why so serious?” Rose said, watching my face. “You were more fun last night.”
    The waiter arrived and we ordered our food. As usual, I ordered a lot. What surprised me was Rose ordered just as much, surgically interweaving her choices so neither of us got the same thing. I asked for orange juice, she chose grapefruit juice. I ordered pancakes, she got waffles. I chose bacon, she picked sausage. Between the two of us, we could have fed five people.
    “So you do it too,” I said after the waiter left. “With the food. Before I died, I had an appetite, sure, and I was chunky. But after … Now all I think about is eating. I get so bored.”
    And lonely.
    Rose nodded. “We all do, and not just food. Sex, drugs, partying. Even killing. The stuff of life. What else do we have?”
    I frowned, not liking what she’d said about killing. She didn’t seem like the type to enjoy hurting people, like some of the people I’d run into over the years.
    We were quiet for a time, sipping our juice and waiting for the food to arrive. She filled the time by poking through Rachael’s purse, looking at photographs and other things she found there. At one point, she pulled out a box of condoms and showed it to me.
    Because she seemed to expect a response, I said, “Huh.”
    “Your little princess isn’t so pure,” she said, waggling her fingers at me. She wore two rings on her ring finger. “Wedding ring, closest to her heart.”
    “Doesn’t mean she’s a mass murderer.”
    Rose opened her mouth to reply, but then a couple of waiters arrived with our food, piling the table with syrupy, eggy, greasy delights.
    By unspoken agreement, Rose and I didn’t talk. And we respected no boundaries when it came to food. I cut up my pancakes, and she shoveled half onto her plate. I snagged some of her sausage, and she sprinkled salt on my grits, stirred it in, and scooped some into her mouth. I tasted some of her grapefruit juice and made a face.
    Ten minutes later, she leaned back and closed her eyes in contentment.
    I jerked up suddenly—her foot had appeared between my legs, and she was doing something with it. To my shame, I let her.
    “Rachael?” a man said from two feet