Broken Doll-Chapter 4

His eyelids snapped open. His chest heaved. Nothing's there. It was a dream. A dream. THERE IS NOTHING THERE.

The water in Starsky's bath was still warm, but the detective wanted nothing more desperately than to escape its heavy grasp. Trembling, and shaken, he climbed out of the tub and attempted to warm his chilled flesh inside the warmth of his velour robe. Starsky staggered into the living room and sank down on the couch. His knees were rubber, his stomach churned and his throat and lungs hurt. His head was spinning. What was that? I'm running a fever, he registered, I should call Hutch. I need a drink. What was that? Hutch. Hutch buddy…

Dizzily he got up, went to the kitchen and got himself a glass of juice. Then his gaze fell onto the old stained manila folder on his table

"Oh, shit," Starsky said as his eyes stopped at the familiar and unwanted file on his table.

Reaching for the phone, Starsky took a few deep breaths. Calm down, call Hutch, calm down, he told himself. He dialed the familiar number of his best friend.

"Yeah," Hutch answered.

"Um. Hutch?"

Startled by the quiet tension in Starsky's voice, Hutch answered, "Starsk, what's wrong?"

"I'm…I'm not really sure," Starsky hesitated. "Uh, could, would you… would you mind coming over?"

Starsky could hear Hutch immediately grabbing his keys. "I'll be there in a minute, buddy. Hang on."

Starsky sat with the phone in his hand long after Hutch hung up. As always, Hutch only needed half a word to understand the whole of him. Again, Starsky took a shuddering breath. Hutch'll be here in a minute, he'll know what to do. He'll take care of everything. Just calm down and hang up.

But despite his great effort to let the phone go, the receiver had been his only physical connection to Hutch, and at the moment he couldn't sever it. He desperately needed Hutch to tell him things were alright.

O0O

When Hutch arrived fifteen minutes later, he found Starsky sitting on his couch staring at the phone. An empty glass sat on the end table next to him. Hutch didn't smell liquor. Besides, Starsky was not a quiet drinker. Juice, water maybe. What was wrong?

"Hey, buddy," Hutch's voice was filled with concern, "what's going on? You okay?"

Not looking up, Starsky mumbled for Hutch to look at the kitchen table. Hutch did, and what he saw startled him.

"How'd this get here?" Hutch was perplexed and looked toward Starsky for an explanation. That's when he noticed a purple ring forming around his friend's throat.

"Hey buddy, are you alright?" He knelt next to Starsky and lightly ran his fingers over the swollen bruise. Starsky flinched and pushed Hutch's probing hands away.

"Starsk, you wanna tell me what's going on, buddy?"

"You won't believe me." Starsky said with a touch of desperation in his voice.

"Try me." Hutch noticed Starsky's intense blue eyes, and realized they were a deeper blue than usual. He then noticed the pale skin and reddened cheeks. "Something's obviously going on, Starsk, and it's obviously upsetting you. So why won't you tell me about it."

Starsky looked over to Hutch and sighed deeply. Then, hesitant at first, but more quickly as the words poured out, he told his concerned partner about the phantom in the bathroom. When the story was finished, he leaned back on the couch, eyes closed and mentally spent.

Hutch was silent for a long moment letting Starsky's words sink in, "Wow. That, uh, that was quite a dream, buddy. No wonder you called me."

Starsky shook his head, looking tired and pale. He nearly whispered what he felt. "It wasn't a dream, Hutch. Look at me, look at my neck. Do you think I'm doing this to myself? Where did that file come from? It…it scares me. Am I…I am…I'm not insane. I KNOW I didn't do this to myself. But I can't explain what's happening and…and…I"

Confused, Starsky sat dejectedly back down on the couch, his head buried in his open hands. Hutch sat down next to him.

"Starsk, I believe you believe it really happened." He reached a hand over to rub his exhausted partner's neck, and then pulled it back from the heat that radiated off the skin.

"Shit, Starsk, you're burning up. Why didn't you tell me you were sick?"

"Hutch, if it was just a dream, why do I have these bruises on my neck?" Starsky desperately wanted an answer he could comprehend, rather than the truth he feared.

"Oh, Starsk, they're from that feral woman who attacked you today. Remember her? She beat the crap outta you, buddy." Hutch was relieved to see Starsky look up with a smile, however little a smile it was.

"Yeah. She did, didn't she?" Starsky chuckled despite his obvious embarrassment.

"Yeah. It's all the junk food you eat. It's made you weak." Hutch grinned, grabbing onto Starsky's clammy forearm. Then in a more serious tone said, "And, buddy, you had that horrible dream because you had too little sleep, and now you're sick. Now, get in bed. I want to take your temperature."

"Yeah, you're right," Starsky mulled over Hutch's theory. "It was just a dream. But, still. How'd the file get in here?"

"Go to bed!"

Starsky quickly complied.

"Well," Hutch stated, shaking out the glass thermometer, "You really did it this time, Starsk. Your temperature is 103.5...no wonder you're seeing things."

"Don't pick on me, I'm sick." Starsky pouted in his best little-boy-lost fashion.

"I've known that for a long time, buddy. Now take these." Hutch handed Starsky two aspirin and a glass of water.

Starsky did as commanded, then groaned as he slipped back under the covers of his tantalizingly soft bed.

"Do you need some liniment for your bruises?" Hutch had been shocked at the contusions covering Starsky's body when his friend changed into his nightclothes, but said nothing.

"Sleep." Starsky moaned, then drifted off.

Hutch brushed the sweaty, dark curls from his friend's forehead, then grabbed some blankets and a pillow and headed for the couch. Sleep well, partner.

O0O

Starsky heard the sound of an old record playing somewhere nearby, a slow, haunting blues number. One he thought he remembered hearing when he was little, maybe seeping out of someone's apartment window on a late summer's night…Billie Holliday. That had to be it—her lovely, mournful voice singing of a man she would love no matter what happened. An old song like that. Almost unbearably sweet, yet sad, because of all the hope in something that, too often, turns out so wrong in the end… Way back when—the late-night feel of it, the sound of nightclubs hazed with cigarette smoke, with longing and lust on the air…

Somebody's on my mind
Like an old sweet song, the lasting kind.
Somebody's on my mind
So I'm walking on clouds, all silver lined…

He heard the soft rustle of a dress nearby, silk stockings gliding against each other, smelled the light scent of rose perfume…and opening his eyes slowly, he saw her standing there, against the walls of another bedroom, another time. Late Forties—1947, the case file had said, he remembered dimly. Heavy drapes, heavy furniture, the lamplight warm and intimate.

To dream my dream could be my mistake,
But I'd rather be wrong and sleep right along than wake.

Love may be blind, I'll take my chances that he cares this affair's
my real romance…

And she was all in black, though not the mourning kind at all, not on a body like that. Her face was pale but vibrantly alive, her lips bee-stung red and her eyes dark and deep, with bold sharp eyebrows arching just slightly, showing her to be a woman of rare determination. And at the moment, that rare determination was focused all on him.

He looked down at himself and realized that he was naked, his pajama pants vanished—though this didn't surprise him somehow. It didn't seem to surprise her either, from the way that she was looking at him, her eyes running openly over his strongly-built body as he glanced back up.

That's why you'll find
Somebody's on my mind…

"See, I knew you were my type," she said with a knowing little smile, her voice still sounding a little distant but more steady now, as if approaching nearer, coming into focus. "Even out of uniform, you still got that air about you…you're a man who knows what he's doing."

Starsky mustered a crooked smile. "Well, most of the time, anyway," he said, looking her over more directly now.

Her eyes warmed to him as she neared the bed, her movements sinuous and seductive, like the finely-trained moves of a dancer as she knelt before him, putting a hand up to stop him as he tried in vain to protest, struggling briefly to rise. She held him back softly but firmly, her fingers gliding up through the dark thicket of hair on his chest. She bent lower, her breath warm and tingling on his skin, her lips touching him lightly, her rosy tongue grazing him here and there as her other hand trailed over his body, her lacquered fingernails tracing tantalizing curves and spirals like a figure-skater on the ice.

Starsky felt his thighs tremble with anticipation, a flush of blood stirring him, stiffening his groin even before her cherry-red lips, as boldly painted as the Torino itself, kissed its head, her tongue teasing him rapaciously, and then took him inside her mouth gradually, achingly, as he gasped and froze for a second, breathing hard, then gripping the bedcovers in his hands and closing his eyes as the thrill ran through him…feeling the soft wet friction of her mouth caressing him, her teeth running lightly and ever-so-skillfully up and down the length of him, forcing a tense, shuddering groan of pleasure from him.

He opened his eyes slowly, warily, unsure of trusting too much in these sensations, these heated attentions of hers…she reached up with her other hand, lightly caressing his face, gliding over the slight roughness of his cheek, down the side of his throat, as if treasuring every inch of him, relishing the strength of his shoulders, the firmness of his chest. "Oh, babe…" he murmured under his breath, strained and almost purring with the intensity of pleasure she was building up in him, like stoking a fever slowly and irresistibly, not pushing him but pulling him like a magnet towards the edge…

She withdrew from around him carefully, deliberately, a smile and a sparkle in her eyes as she looked up at him, drinking in the slightly dazed look in his deep blue eyes, the flush of his skin. "I knew you'd like it," she said softly, her voice like velvet, her lipstick barely smudged…"I know what a man like you needs deep down in there, whether you say it or not…"—and with that she slid back over him, grazing him so exquisitely as she took him into her mouth that he almost came unexpectedly right then and there, gasping and reaching out for her, for anything to hold onto, but finally grasping her shoulders as lightly as he could, surprised at her solidity beneath his own hands even though he could very well feel the force of her ardor, working him over in the most excruciatingly blissful of ways.

Her deeply-brilliant red lips glided like a pulse up and down his groin, her tongue pressing at him, hard and teasingly, ready at any second to milk him thoroughly, passionately. His breath was coming in short, moaning pants as her pace quickened and grew deeper and ever more urgent, his hands roaming restlessly over her shoulders, caressing her, feeling her there, so real—her fingers moving over his body like a restless breeze, stirring him, rousing him more and more till he knew he was going to break, to shatter and spill over into her. He couldn't help himself, he had to surrender, he had to… And as he groaned and shuddered, his eyes almost-closed, his body convulsing suddenly in uncontrollable ecstasy as he climaxed, her blood-red nails, suddenly sharp as razors, raked viciously down his stomach, slicing into his flesh. He screamed in outright agony—

To Be Continued