Pictures of Houses with Water Damage: Stories Read Online Free

tell.”
    “Am I being rude?”
    She smiles. “I like it when you eat food I cook.”
    “I haven’t been working.”
    “You look pale.”
    “I’ve been cold,” I say. “No heat.”
    “ Why don’t you take care of yourself?”
    “I can’t.”
    “ Bull shit.”
    “I never could.”
    “All your life you’ve relied on women to take care of you.”
    “You make it sound so bad.”
    “Not every woman can play Mommy.”
    We don’t talk for a while. We eat and drink.
    Terri says, “Christmas doesn’t mean anything to me. It's just another day. People put too much into it.”
    “Is that what your step-father made you believe?”
    “How can you say something so mean?”
    “Christmas is dreaming about all those toys and good things,” I say. “Happiness and smiles.”
    ‘That's for children,” she says.
     
     
    “You were right,” Terri says as we put the dinner dishes in the sink, “what you said.”
    “What did I say?”
    “About my step-father.”
    “Oh.”
    She says, “He had to take the magic out of everything, the bastard.” She asks, “You want to hear about this dream I had?”
    “What dream?”
    “I told you I had a feeling you’d be at my door tonight, right? Right. Well, I had this dream the other night—”
    “Okay.”
    She says, “I dreamt you were there, in the cold, just like you were, and I let you in. The thing is, you weren’t you. You were an alien. Well, not an alien, but an alien had taken over your body. This alien informed me of this. You were sick or something, you weren’t well, you were going to die, and the alien couldn’t stay in your body.”
    “How did it take over my body?”
    “I don’t know. The alien didn’t have a body, it was non-corporeal or something. This doesn’t matter, it was a dream, not an episode of The Twilight Zone . The alien wanted my body, you see. It wanted to jump from your body to mine. I told it I couldn’t do that. I wanted to be with you. So this is what it did: it took my soul out of my body and put it in your body, with you, then stole my body. So there the two of us were: our souls stuck in your body. The tragic thing was that you were dying, so we were doomed to die together.”
    “I want to kiss you,” I say.
    She turns her face.
    “You can kiss me on the cheek,” she says, and I do. “Hey, do you want to watch TV?” she says.
     
     
    “Are you going to sleep here?” Terri asks after the movie on TV.
    “What?”
    “I guess that's a yes.”
    “It's cold at home.”
    I get up, she pushes me back on the couch.
    “I’ll get you some bedding,” she says.
    She leaves and returns with a blanket and two big pillows.
    “Terri.”
    “What?” she says. “You didn’t think you were going to sleep in my bed, did you?”
    “I was hoping.”
    “And do what?” she says. “Did you think you were going to fuck me?”
    “I was hoping I could kiss you.”
    “Kiss me?”
    “I was hoping I could hug you.”
    “Hug the extra pillow. That's why I got it. You like pillows. They’re big and warm.”
    “I like pillows,” I say.
    “You can kiss me goodnight,” she says, after a moment.
    “On the lips?”
    “That's what kisses are for.”
    I kiss her on the lips. I kiss her again. I try a third time, but she moves away.
    “I’m sure the cats will sleep on top of you, like they always used to.”
    “They miss me.”
    “They do.”
    She leaves to her bedroom.
    I lie on the couch, with my two pillows, and cover myself with the blanket. Only one of her cats stays with me, the other two follow her.

Adventure
     
Phone Call
     
    I got the phone call while I was watching television. Star Trek . I think I could’ve been watching too much television.
    “Hello,” I said.
    “Hello,” a woman's voice said, “who is this?”
    “Who are you?” I asked.
    “Andrea,” she said.
    “Do I know you?”
    “I don’t think so,” she said. “I found your phone number. I was curious. I was angry. I called. I’m