More Stories from the Twilight Zone by Carol Serling

at Deb’s hair, and Deb blanched. She’d been meaning to get a cut. . . .
    Â 
    â€œYou are perfect just the way you are,”
Aidan murmured into her frizzy shag six hours later. Kevin was still on the couch, thank goodness.
“I adore you.”
    â€œYou’re really here,” Deb whispered, touching his broad chest with her fingertips. She’d been on page seventeen, third paragraph down, when suddenly he’d appeared, as he had the night before. Except tonight . . .
    . . . no chain mail.
    â€œMom!” Sarah bellowed. “Mom, I need a towel!”
    She sighed. He caught her hand and brought it to his lips.
“I am really here. And all I want is . . . you. Kiss me, my beauty.”
    â€œMom!” Sarah cried. “There is cat hair all over the floor and my wet feet will get all gross!
Mom!
”
    â€œShut up!” Andy shouted. Pounding rattled the hallway wall. “Me and Dad are watching the game!”
    â€œStay here, with me,”
Aidan begged her, grabbing her hand.
“Stay here.”
    â€œSarah needs a towel,” she told him.
    â€œBut I need you.”
He eased her back against her pillow.
“I need you as no other needs you.”
    â€œHere!” Andy yelled. “Catch!”
    â€œOuch!
Mom!
”
    â€œStay.” He kissed her.
    And she stayed.
    Â 
    â€œThanks,” Deb said absently to Kevin, whom she had convinced to stay on the couch by claiming that she had caught his cold. He’d been there for four nights now. He seemed perfectly content, eating potato chips, drinking beer, channel surfing. As thunder rumbled overhead and rain poured down the sliding-glass door, she glided away, the hem of her light blue chenille bathrobe catching on one of the heaps of tissues, sending a cascade to the floor. In the hall, she stepped on a LEGO, and then on a wet washcloth.
    â€œWe’re out of Sugar Pops,” Sarah informed her from the doorway of her room. “We’re out of
everything.
And I don’t have any more clean jeans.”
    â€œI’m so sorry, sweetie,” she said, gliding on.
    â€œWhat is
wrong
with you?” Sarah demanded, then huffed and slammed her door as Deb glided past. “I don’t know,” Sarah muttered behind the closed door. “I swear my mom has gone psycho.”
    Deb went into her bedroom . . . or rather, where her bedroom used to be. Now it was their secret tropical cove of passion. Aidan’s pirate ship,
The Treasure,
bobbed in the distance, and Aidan himself lay bare-chested in the fine filigree bed he had carried from his quarters aboard ship and settled firmly in the fine, warm sand. A canopy of shimmering Indian silk was strung from one gently curving palm tree to the other, and he was lying on his side, his broad chest glistening with a sheen of manly perspiration, his long brown hair hanging low. A parchment map was spread on the bed; he was drinking finely spiced rum from a sterling silver goblet. At his tanned elbow, an empty silver platter studded with jewels gleamed in the sun.
    â€œMy love,”
he said, eyes drinking in the sight of her.
“I’ve been waiting an eternity for you.”
    â€œSorry, sorry,” she murmured. “My family . . .” She shrugged and held out her hands.
    â€œI am your family now,”
he said, reaching for her wrists and drawing her toward him.
“Come to me, my beauty.”
    Her stomach growled. She had made tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner, and burned the last of the bread—her own sandwich—while reading chapter twenty. Thirty-six pages of love scene.
    She could hardly wait.
    She sat down beside him on the bed. His eyes blazed with pleasure. Her stomach growled again and she said, “What were you eating? Is there more?”
    â€œIced shrimp and papaya,”
he told her.
“Of course there’s more.”
    He leaned over the side of