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          Caught up in that past reflection, I remembered that it was dark then and that I was working late at the office, with just a desk lamp shining low over my papers.  I was dictating with my feet up on the windowsill, my back to the door.  I heard something scrape on the floor behind me and spun around in my chair.  She was standing in the doorway leaning against the jam.  We made eye contact and she walked into the room, tall and blonde, smiling a smile that would have melted a weaker man.  She was dressed to the nines and had a body that you could tell she knew how to use.  I stood up as she came around my desk and pointed two 38’s at me.  It was then that I realized that she was carrying a gun in her right hand.

          “So, you’re Dr. Matrix,” was how she started out.  “I need your services.  I’m a desperate woman,” she continued in a low alto.

          I thought that it must be cold outside or she was really glad to see me.  She wasn’t afraid to stand up close, inside my space.  She was a cool number, a close talker.  She didn’t seem desperate.  “What kind of services are you after.  I can offer you a wide variety, some very personal, and they’re all guaranteed,” I said with a slight smile on my face, “...and why the shooter?”

          Her voice a whisper, her eyes locked on mine she said, “The gun is because it’s dark outside and I’m scared.  I need you for a job.  It is going to be hard and require a lot of probing on your part, maybe into some areas that you aren’t comfortable.  But I think that you’re the man to do it.”  She had a gentle hint of a French accent.

          “Probing comes with my profession, believe me, so that doesn’t concern me.  But, before I agree to help I am going to need some history, about you and about what you’ve got yourself into.  Like your name for starters,” I whispered back.  “And you are safe here.”  I added, as I slid my hand down along her arm and gently took the gun out of her hand.  She took a step back and gave me that smile she had walked in with.  It made me think of a thousand sensual moments.  It was obvious that she was a complete and total package.  It would be hard not to want to help her.

          She proceeded to tell me about her dead husband, about the multi-million dollar inheritance and about the police.  She needed help getting out of the murder rap and she had heard about me from a lot of sources.  She gave me her complete history, including the fact that she was way behind in having a physical exam and pap smear.  She was very emotional and I comforted and reassured her.  I told her that she needed to trust me and that I would take care of everything.  I agreed to take the case and told her to see me the next morning in my clinic.  I figured that was a good place to start.  The rest was history….

          The hum of the road brought me back inside the roadster.  It was 5:30 AM and the sky was starting to show signs of the oncoming dawn when I idled back into the garage.  I went into the house and found that the ghosts and terrors had fled with the gently growing light.  Within a few minutes I was back in the bedroom, in my sleeping clothes, crawling back into bed.  It didn’t look like Sarah had moved.  I could just see her sensual rounded curves under the bedsheets and momentarily considered gently waking her with kisses and caresses.  She would have obliged me, even half-awake, because she loved me and wouldn’t say no, and she liked how I made her feel, despite the tension.  But it had been a difficult weekend for her too, so instead I lay down next to her, feeling her warmth. 

          Sarah stirred beside me and brought her arm across my chest.  She was warm and fragrant.  Her skin always had a delicious, sensuous aroma.  I brought my hand to her shoulder and down along her side and discovered, in that moment, that she was naked beside me.

          “You’ve had quite a weekend.  I’ve been waiting for you,” she whispered.

          “I have.  I thought you were asleep.  I didn’t want to wake you,” I replied as I gently caressed her round, full breast, finding the nipple and softly teasing it. 

          She moved against me and opened herself to me, letting me know that she didn’t want to just talk.  “I need some quality time with you too, you know,” she said as her hand moved across me.  “I need your touch,” she whispered as she led my hand across her smooth, soft abdomen.

          It was then that we began our dance together; a wonderful warm, erotic dance of the senses.  She was a wonderful partner.  We had been together a long time and though we knew the steps they were always new and fresh.  We danced a slow dance and in those moments we were in our own world, just the two of us. 

          She let me explore her, touch and arouse her as she returned those sensations to me.  She was firm and gentle and I moved with her.  I could hear her breathing change and could feel the waves of pleasure course through my own body.  She moved over me letting me have her whole body and finally at the perfect moment our mutual pleasure exploded, mingling our minds and bodies together in an intimacy and closeness that words fail to describe.

          Exhausted, she lay down beside me; her body warm and slick with the wetness of sex.  “Wow,” was all that I could say.  Lying there with my arm around her I could feel her body relax and her breathing become deep and regular.  She was asleep in my arms.  We had shared what we both needed and now she could sleep.

          With the growing light in the room I tried to quiet my mind.   I knew that the chance of sleep was unlikely.  Lying there I closed my eyes and watched the patterns of light against dark, flashing across the back of my eyelids.  I tried to find stars in the patterns because I knew that I could float through them into sleep.  I thought about the demons that had fled the house and those that were always there, on the edge of my consciousness, waiting to trap me in their web of depression, confusion, anger and fear and I thought about the very short weekend I had just survived.  I thought about Sarah lying beside me and the solace she gave me.  I needed to get some semblance of rest before the morning came.  I knew it would come too quickly.