The Hinky Velvet Chair Read Online Free Page B

lungs and dove.
    No, this was nothing like flying. The waves churned sand off
the bottom and scoured her skin. Floating water weed hung down, wobbling with
the surf, defying gravity. A pair of pinky-orange gull feet scrabbled below the
surface. She eeled forward and popped up beside the bird. It made a gutteral
noise of surprise and burst into flight. Jewel laughed.
    At length her hands and feet went numb. She gave up and let
the water push her ashore.
    On the bike ride home, she remembered Clay chiding her. That wasn’t nice. Why did he care?
Trying not to feel guilty, she bumped the bike up the steps of the Corncob
Building.
    She was fed up with having a sex demon for a roommate.
    “You try having headbanging sex for three weeks straight
with no sleep.”
    Said out loud, it sounded ungrateful, as well as mean.
    She sighed. In defiance of the Hinky Policy, she picked up
her phone and hit speed dial.
    “Ask Your Shrink,
you’re on the air, caller.”
    “Yeah, hi, this is, um, Coral.”
    “What’s on your mind,
Coral?”
    “It’s my boyfriend. He won’t let me sleep. I mean, totally
won’t let me sleep. He can do it all night, and I’m starting to see pink
elephants, know what I’m saying? I’m afraid I’ll get in an accident.” In the
elevator, she punched twenty-three.
    “Slip him a sleeping
pill,” Ask Your Shrink suggested, and Jewel blinked in shock. “Perhaps he has a sleep disorder.”
    “The thing is, I’ve kind of locked him in my apartment.
Bedroom. Because then I get to sleep on the couch.”
    “Is your boyfriend
underage? Debilitated in any way?”
    “Heck, no.” He was over two hundred years old and he was
friggin’ magical. “He could get out if he wanted,” she lied. Now she felt
terrible. Clay was right. She was a jerk.
    “When you say he’s
locked in your bedroom, Coral, do you mean for the night?”
    “Um, no, he’s pretty much locked in. I think.” That sounded
worse. She burst out, “I can’t get anybody to see how hard it is.” The more she
said, the rottener she felt. Ask Your Shrink probably pictured her chaining
this guy down and bringing him bread and water only if he, like, performed. “Oh,
never mind.” She hung up and stuffed the phone back in her pocket.
    Imagining Randy stuck in bed, all verklempt, worried she’d
ever come back for him, she raced her bike to her front door.
    Maybe he was in her bathrobe, using her credit card online.
    She burst into her apartment and stood in the hall.
    No sound.
    No Randy in the living room at the computer or the TV. No
Randy in the kitchen. No Randy in the bedroom.
    She stripped and flopped on the bed. “Randy?”
    No tingle. No cuddly come-fuck-me vibe. Sulking.
    Staring at the ceiling, she wondered if the woman who had
cursed him for being bad in bed all those years ago had known what she would be
doing to the lucky girl who won the Randy Raffle. Probably not. When you had
magical revenge available, you were probably trigger-happy.
    “Randy?” She reached out into darkness in her mind.
    Sweet heat exploded in her chest. Her eyes drifted shut with
pleasure, and she heard him say in her head, You came back!
    “I always come back.” Her body, freshened by a good night’s
sleep, yelled a big yahoo.
    And fell backward, cartwheeling into that cloudy night sky
in demonspace.
    She fell and fell. It was not like swimming at all.
    She screamed.
    He caught her from behind as they flew, or fell. The clouds
rushed up to meet her face. You want it.
    Yes, I want sex! But I
don’t want — She turned in his arms, struggling with his strength. And
because she was in demonspace with him, she could be as strong as he. I thought you could count my breaths!
    So I can.
    She felt them lift up into the air, always in the air, he knows how scared I am of heights.
    They grappled, body to body.
    They were so high, there was nothing to see, above or below,
but the turbulent curling bellies of thunderclouds, purple, blue, black, and
every shade