He drops the knife; it clatters to the ground, sending a fine spray of blood across his ankles. An officer wrenches Angelica off him, her screams dulled by the blood pounding through his ears, racing through his arteries at a fever pitch. Time careens around him – he can't decide if things are moving in slow motion or whipping by with unnatural speed. All he knows is that he has quite possibly killed for the first time. Whether Angelica survives or not is inconsequential – when she rushed him, all his will was focused on one thing – the obliteration of another person. He now knows with utter certainty that he is capable of stamping out another life. And it terrifies him. It is a knowledge he would prefer to be without.
And suddenly, his arms are full of Carol Jordan. She captures him in an embrace that startles him with its ferocity. Her lithe figure is preternaturally strong – she crushes the air from his lungs as she seals her body up against his naked flesh. Her hands splay across his back and he sucks in his breath at the raw intimacy of the moment. His mind, still racing, bombards him with images of her at the height of ecstasy. Those same hands dragging fingernails down his back as he writhes between her thighs. He feels her breath, coming in gasps, warm against his neck. And for the first time in years, he feels himself stir. He begins to harden against her stomach. He knows he should pull away, but he can't bear to separate himself from the force of nature holding him tight. If she is aware of his reaction, she gives him no sign. She simply continues to hold him tight, stoking the fires inside him by her mere presence.
He can still taste Angelica on his lips. The smell of Carol fills his senses. His hands are stiff with dried blood. And he is hard.
In the dark hours of the night, with sleep just teasingly out of reach, these are the moments that come back to haunt him. And he wonders: Was it the warmth of another human being holding him close? The taste of madness in his mouth? Or was it the blood on his hands.
And he wonders if the reason that he has led such a solitary life is the unsettling possibility that he needs all three.
