The Bonded Read Online Free Page A
intermingled with teeth chattering and the frozen stiff roll of tires on hard-packed snow.
I feel the dull ache in my bones throb; the idled heat in my blood leisurely slithers until my body responds with utter, complete fatigue. It’s not every day I find myself in a fetal position, shivering like a heroin addict at Betty Ford, but I guess tonight’s my night. I gratefully embrace the black abyss of unconsciousness and wearily fall into a yawning sleep.
* * *
Dreamless sleep has always been my favored companion. My eyes creak open and greet the cool presence of bridled light. I start my diagnostic check with twitching my fingers and methodically move to toes, legs, and… Yep, it’s still there. I’m good!
After I reclaim my objectivity, it dawns on me that I am acutely aware. I guess that pop I felt last night was no dream, but a permanent change in my system. I’ve always been more sensitive than my friends and family, but this was absolutely mind-boggling. It’s as if my nervous system is hyper-charged. I’ve heard people say that we only utilize twenty percent of our brainpower and perhaps that is true of our senses as well. Come on, quit thinking so much and figure out what the hell is going on.
I look around, expecting haunting grey stones and candlelit shadows sneaking in and out of crevices, but find a living room converted to a man cave by Mr. and Mrs. Smith with their two-point-five kids. I’ve seen these converted basements in most homes up in the Northeast and always appreciated their isolated space, but I really was expecting something quite different. I feel the cool pressure of leather and peel my face away from a masculine brown couch that smells new.
Over to the right sits a matching chair and a distressed wood coffee table as the focal point. Please don’t tell me that mutated cannibals exist and they are Pottery Barn yuppies . I prepare myself for a grunt response to pain and soreness, yet sitting up is effortless. I merely thought and my body moved at the same speed. I embarrassingly slip a crooked smile of admiration and quickly force it down, as I’ve never been one to look twice in a mirror or congratulate myself. I steal a look at my hands and discover skin fresh with smoldering heat as deep blue veins flex and retract with the rhythm of my heart. In hesitant anticipation, my fingers inch toward my skin for a quick touch and pinch. They are resiliently unwelcomed because my skin has toughened like hide or leather. Snap out of it and get back to the real world!!
The walls are covered with oil paintings depicting violence and… surprise, surprise, sex. Rich melancholic blacks complimented by velvet reds and Van Gogh blues sketching deathly horrors and dead whores. Blood mixed with yearning, mixed with intimacy, mixed with murder. The images are so beautifully terrifying that the victims won’t release me from their vacant stares. I feel the creeping guilt as if I was the one raping and murdering those poor souls and my heart replies with the misty sting of a tear. This guy has some serious mommy issues. I make a mental note of his antipathy and digest his inner-world for later use.
I quickly glance from one corner to the next, inhaling strong new scents, and I feel the tickle of a chill in the back of my throat that demands a full-body shiver. Years ago on a journey through Siberia, I wondered through the Altai Mountains. The people were sparse and hardened by the sculpting wind and brutal arctic temperatures that gave respite only one month a year. I’ve seen the dead stitched alongside isolated roads marbleized from freezing and rigor mortis. They were most likely abandoned by those whose will to survive was stronger than their need for closure. The bodies would lay unattended for months until a few desperate vultures, on the verge of starvation, would brave the elements for a frozen dinner. They say water is the giver of life, but Siberia’s icy terrain offers unabated
I feel the dull ache in my bones throb; the idled heat in my blood leisurely slithers until my body responds with utter, complete fatigue. It’s not every day I find myself in a fetal position, shivering like a heroin addict at Betty Ford, but I guess tonight’s my night. I gratefully embrace the black abyss of unconsciousness and wearily fall into a yawning sleep.
* * *
Dreamless sleep has always been my favored companion. My eyes creak open and greet the cool presence of bridled light. I start my diagnostic check with twitching my fingers and methodically move to toes, legs, and… Yep, it’s still there. I’m good!
After I reclaim my objectivity, it dawns on me that I am acutely aware. I guess that pop I felt last night was no dream, but a permanent change in my system. I’ve always been more sensitive than my friends and family, but this was absolutely mind-boggling. It’s as if my nervous system is hyper-charged. I’ve heard people say that we only utilize twenty percent of our brainpower and perhaps that is true of our senses as well. Come on, quit thinking so much and figure out what the hell is going on.
I look around, expecting haunting grey stones and candlelit shadows sneaking in and out of crevices, but find a living room converted to a man cave by Mr. and Mrs. Smith with their two-point-five kids. I’ve seen these converted basements in most homes up in the Northeast and always appreciated their isolated space, but I really was expecting something quite different. I feel the cool pressure of leather and peel my face away from a masculine brown couch that smells new.
Over to the right sits a matching chair and a distressed wood coffee table as the focal point. Please don’t tell me that mutated cannibals exist and they are Pottery Barn yuppies . I prepare myself for a grunt response to pain and soreness, yet sitting up is effortless. I merely thought and my body moved at the same speed. I embarrassingly slip a crooked smile of admiration and quickly force it down, as I’ve never been one to look twice in a mirror or congratulate myself. I steal a look at my hands and discover skin fresh with smoldering heat as deep blue veins flex and retract with the rhythm of my heart. In hesitant anticipation, my fingers inch toward my skin for a quick touch and pinch. They are resiliently unwelcomed because my skin has toughened like hide or leather. Snap out of it and get back to the real world!!
The walls are covered with oil paintings depicting violence and… surprise, surprise, sex. Rich melancholic blacks complimented by velvet reds and Van Gogh blues sketching deathly horrors and dead whores. Blood mixed with yearning, mixed with intimacy, mixed with murder. The images are so beautifully terrifying that the victims won’t release me from their vacant stares. I feel the creeping guilt as if I was the one raping and murdering those poor souls and my heart replies with the misty sting of a tear. This guy has some serious mommy issues. I make a mental note of his antipathy and digest his inner-world for later use.
I quickly glance from one corner to the next, inhaling strong new scents, and I feel the tickle of a chill in the back of my throat that demands a full-body shiver. Years ago on a journey through Siberia, I wondered through the Altai Mountains. The people were sparse and hardened by the sculpting wind and brutal arctic temperatures that gave respite only one month a year. I’ve seen the dead stitched alongside isolated roads marbleized from freezing and rigor mortis. They were most likely abandoned by those whose will to survive was stronger than their need for closure. The bodies would lay unattended for months until a few desperate vultures, on the verge of starvation, would brave the elements for a frozen dinner. They say water is the giver of life, but Siberia’s icy terrain offers unabated
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