An Hour to Kill

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Final Release

Friday, March 20

"I'm uncomfortable talking about it. "

"All the more reason to talk about it. "

"I don't know. "

"Go on. "

She tilted her head to the right, shifted in her chair, uncrossed her legs. She wore a tight button-down blouse, black, a short wool skirt to match. Her jet black hair, flecked with auburn highlights, tousled on her shoulders. "If you think it matters."

He looked at her, felt the saliva well up under his tongue.

She brazenly met his gaze, then looked right past him, over at the cat on the windowsill. She laughed. "Looks like your cat's gonna kill himself."

The cat was not the point.

He focused his eyes on the tip of her nose. Then her lips. Cherry red. She was young, too young for the life she'd led. "Notice how you've just changed the subject?"

She brushed a hair from her face, then slouched back. She rubbed her palms up and down her thighs, offering a view of one black garter.

"Tell me how you've been. "He crossed his arms, his rolled-up shirt-sleeves revealing the muscular forearms of an avid sportsman.

She fingered the gold pendant that rested like an amulet between her breasts. She arched her back. She stared up at him, then looked down at her hands. She exhaled loudly. "There's that look on your face again. You're losing patience with me."

They'd been at it for six months now. This was no ingénue from Kansas seeking the talking cure. In need of a fix, she was blurring boundaries, again. An accomplished tease who had tempted him out of his chair. It had begun with a reassuring caress. An empathetic gestureextended after a particularly intense exchange. A gut-wrenching outpour about incest with her dear father. He could remember wiping her tears. Then, their bodies in close contact. Her lips on his. A mistake? An indulgence.

Subsequent episodes followed. Fondling. Prolonged good-byes. The brush of a hand making contact with the contour of a breast, a thigh, her ass. Regular meetings took place. In the park. In his car. Couldn't resist the game of taboo.

"No smoking, huh?" She huffed.

He usually discouraged smoking, anything that would take a patient away from the self, away from dealing with their truth. But with her, the rules did not apply.

"Go on." He wanted out, out of this mind-set, out of the room. The heels on her boots just high enough, her skirt just short enough.

"One?" Her look was coy, well rehearsed. She fiddled with the buttons on her blouse as she'd done so many times before, nonchalantly opening one more, the curve of each bare breast summoning his cock to attention. She smiled when he nodded his approval. She reached into her well-worn leather jacket, got the pack and shook one out. She offered him one.

At first, he refused. Joining in a smoke was her idea of connection.

But then he lit up, and she let go -- a stream of smoke propelling her to carry on. "I keep having the same dream. You know the one. I'm with my father. Front seat of his car. He passes me a bottle, tells me to drink up. He has me strapped in. He's laughing. Like it's all some big joke. And then he's between my legs, sucking there ... like a baby. And it's bad, you know, I want it to stop. And then I look down, and ... "

"Yes." He lifted his chin, his eyes caught the light.

"And then I look down. And ... it's ... you."

He offered his best impression of neutrality. His self-control was a hard thing to shake, but she had a way of making him spin. He let the silence moderate.

"I wake up, but then I'm back to sleep ... I can see the car ... doors all locked, and the car ... the car's on fire." She paused. "You're in there ... and I'm watching you burn up and die."

If he had a gold coin for every one of his patients' fantasies. To be him, to fuck him, to kill him. "Tell me how you feel."

At first she looked disappointed. Her eyes so vacant, he wondered if she had heard him. "About the dream or about you?" She probably could have convinced anyone but him that she'd forgotten.

He rubbed his chin. "Both."

She looked away, toward the wall. Framed diplomas and citations. Yale. Prestigious psychoanalytic societies. Outside, the winter wind howled, but here, inside these walls, it was hot as hell. "I don't like this. You know everything about me and I know nothing about you."

"I'm here to listen. That is what you said you wanted?"

She said something under her breath, coughed it away.

"What is it you want to know?" He pursed his lips, furled his brow.

"Will you tell me the truth?" She smiled.

"I am prepared to accept whatever you tell me as truth."

"I said, will you tell me the truth?"

He nodded yes.

She twisted in her chair. "I mean, don't you think we should talk about us ... "

He glanced at the clock on the wall. Quarter past four. He heard a faint ringing in his ears. A day's worth of stale air and an invisible force field stood between them. "I'm afraid we haven't ... "

"Time."

"No. It would be better to ... "

"Deny it?"

He looked at her mouth, could imagine himself kissing her. He cleared his throat, stayed the course. "It would be better to discuss your dream."

"I want something to stop these dreams."

In his mind's eye she had her mouth around his cock now. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Imagined his hands cupping each of her breasts. Her tongue communicating in ways absolutely forbidden here. He took a deep breath, exhaled, blew the image away. "How about going to detox?"

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Excerpted from An Hour to Kill: A Novel by Karin Yapalater
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.