Whispers by Dean Koontz

can’t fool me again.”
    â€œWhatever you say.”
    His voice was deep and gruff, as before, and it did not waver. There wasn’t anything in his voice or eyes or face to betray his hard-muscled tough guy image. But his gloved hand continued to spasm nervously on the sensitive juncture of her thighs.
    â€œOkay,” she said. “What I want you to do is move very slowly. Very, very slowly. When I give the word, we’re going to roll over very slowly, until you’re on the bottom and I’m on the top.”
    Without being the least amused, she was aware that what she had said bore a grotesque resemblance to an eager lover’s suggestion in the middle of the sex act.
    â€œWhen I tell you to, and not a second before I tell you to, you’ll roll to your right,” she said.
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œAnd I’ll move with you.”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œNice and easy.”
    â€œSure.”
    â€œAnd I’ll keep the gun where it is.”
    His eyes were still hard and cold, but the insanity and the rage had gone out of them. The thought of having his sex organs shot off had snapped him back into the real world—at least temporarily.
    She poked the barrel of the gun hard against his privates, and he grimaced with pain.
    â€œNow roll over easy, ” she said.
    He did exactly what she had instructed him to do, moved onto his side with exaggerated care, then onto his back, never taking his eyes from hers. He slipped his hand out from under her dress as they reversed positions, but he didn’t attempt to take the pistol from her.
    She clung to him with her left hand, the gun clenched in her right, and she went over with him, keeping the muzzle firmly in his crotch. Finally she was atop him, one arm trapped between them, the .32 automatic still strategically placed.
    Her right hand was beginning to go numb because of the awkward position, but also because she was squeezing the pistol with all of her might and was afraid to hold it any less surely. Her grip was so fierce that her fingers and the muscles up the length of her arm ached with the effort. She was worried that somehow he would sense the growing weakness in her hand—or that she would actually let go of the gun against her will as her fingers lost all feeling.
    â€œOkay,” she said. “I’m going to slide off you. I’m going to keep the gun where it is, and I’m going to slip off beside you. Don’t move. Don’t even blink.”
    He stared at her.
    â€œYou got that?” she asked.
    â€œYeah.”
    Keeping the .32 on his scrotum, she disengaged herself from him as if she were rising from a bed of nitroglycerin. Her abdominal muscles were painfully tight with tension. Her mouth was dry and sour. Their noisy breathing seemed to fill the bedroom like rushing wind, yet her hearing was so acute that she could detect the soft ticking of her Cartier watch. She slid to one side, got up on her knees, hesitated, finally pushed all the way to her feet and shuffled quickly out of his reach before he could trip her again.
    He sat up.
    â€œNo!” she said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œLie down.”
    â€œI’m not coming after you.”
    â€œLie down.”
    â€œJust relax.”
    â€œDammit, lie down!”
    He would not obey her. He just sat there. “So what happens next?”
    Waving the pistol at him, she said, “I told you to lie down. Flat on your back. Do it. Now.”
    He twisted his lips into one of those ugly smiles that he did so well. “And I asked you what happens next.”
    He was trying to regain control of the situation, and she did not like that. On the other hand, did it really matter whether he was sitting or lying down? Even sitting up, he could not get to his feet and cross the space between them faster than she could put a couple of bullets into him.
    â€œOkay,” she said reluctantly. “Sit up if you insist. But you make one move