Chapter 5
1084 Words
Chapter 5
Sam’s hand traced up her hip when Dana leaned in for the first kiss. His hand stopped as all his concentration shifted to their lips. The warm heat flowed between them, no dark lust, no red-hot passion, at least not yet. She certainly hoped that there would be a lot of that happening tonight. Soon. But for now, just a rich, sweet taste. Of freshly used toothpaste and a hint of strawberry. His free hand was caressing her breast through her t-shirt by the time the kiss was done, the movement had gone unnoticed it was so gently achieved. She didn’t complain. Didn’t mind in the least.
Cupped, held, coddled. She lay back, pulling him into a delicious full-length hug. His shoulder-length straw blond hair, longer than hers, fell against her cheek, soft with recent washing after a hard workout. As his lips investigated her throat with little nibbles that made her breath catch, she leaned her head back and opened her eyes to watch the emerging stars.
The sun had faded as programmed, and now the dome wash of reds and golds was tapering off into the dark of night. The first stars were just visible enough to begin their nightly promenade across the sky, moving in synchronization with the real world.
A small figure garbed in white glowed in the last of the fading sunset. It sat on the edge of the star projector.
Sam must have noticed her inattention, for he stopped the wonderful things he’d been doing.
“You okay?” He pushed up on his arms and looked down at her with those sea-blue eyes.
“I’m fine. It’s just someone left their doll on the projector and I hadn’t noticed it before.”
He looked over his shoulder. “Where?”
She was going to point but the little figure shook its head.
And smiled.
“He can’t see me.”
She yelped.
Dana couldn’t help it.
The doll stared at her with a cheery, round face and black curls all caught up in, Dana swallowed hard, a tiny golden halo. A white robe reached elegantly down to her feet, which just peeked out, encased in the smallest tooled-leather sandals Dana had ever seen. It was hard to tell, but there just might be a bit of feather peeking around her shoulder. It leaned over against the slim black tube of the meteor-shower projector mounted on the base.
“You sure you’re okay?” Sam eased his weight farther back yet.
She wanted to pull him close. The weight that had felt so good a moment before.
“Don’t worry, he can’t hear me either. Just you.” A wing definitely fluttered momentarily into view as the doll giggled.
“Why me?”
“Me?” Sam was squinted down at her.
“No. Sorry. No. I’m, ah, talking to myself.”
She looked from Sam’s blue eyes, barely lit by the last of the sunset, to the doll’s dark ones and decided that she must be losing her mind.
“Just kiss me, hard. Like you really mean it.”
He did, and she let herself melt into it. He was a far better kisser than any of her prior experiments. She could feel her energy flow more smoothly at the same time as its speed stirred wildly within her chest. Of its own accord her leg wrapped around him and one of her hands slid into the back pocket of his corduroys squeezing all the tight muscle of his runner’s behind.
“Ooo! Ooo! Ooo!”
Dana opened one eye. The doll had covered its eyes with equally tiny hands and was blushing a pink far brighter than the fading sunset. So bright that her cheeks were becoming a light source in the darkening planetarium. A pair of wings, they were definitely wings, covered in neat layers of white and golden feathers, were wrapped forward to cover her ears.
Pulling her mouth free, she shouted at the doll. “Go away!”
Sam froze above her. How had his hand gotten inside her t-shirt; her n****e trapped tightly between still fingers?
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“But—”
The doll still hadn’t moved. Just hunched there in her white robe. Eyes and ears covered.
There was a faint humming that Dana finally figured must be coming from the angel doll. Humming…what? The fairy song from Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Iolanthe.” Which of course made her think of Gloria Estefan and “The Conga” which was exactly what she wanted to be doing at the moment.
But the doll kept pulling her back to the Fairy Queen teaching manners to her subjects. Which was not at all the right track.
Sam had pulled back, sliding his hand down over her stomach. His expression fading away into the light of the artificial sunset.
She kissed him lightly, “Could you give me a sec?”
He nodded as she struggled free and stood facing the base of the projector.
She pulled at one of the wings, but had to snatch her hand back. They felt real. Not like a doll at all. Layers of soft, prickly feathers over bone and muscle. And strangest of all, they were warm. Not warm like a doll in the air, but warm like a living being. And the doll smelled ever so slightly of apricot and a classic ’57 Chevy. Dana had never even been near one, so she had no idea how she could possibly know that.
Great. An invisible, animatronic, real, live angel.
It hiccupped and launched itself upward several inches before settling back onto the projector.
And its hiccup smelled of wine. An invisible, animatronic, real, live, drunk angel.
The angel doll peeked at her from between spread fingers.
“Is it safe now?” She launched herself upward again.
“Yes.”
Not quite trusting, she scanned the room through the narrow peephole made by her index and middle fingers. She leaned closer, causing Dana to lean down as well.
“He’s still here.”
“I should hope so. You’re the one who’s leaving.”
“I am?”
“Yes! Now! You’re interrupting me.” She knew she was starting to shout but she couldn’t help it.
“I am?”
“Will you stop saying the same thing!”
“Am I?”
Dana managed to trap her next demand deep in her throat and emitted only a strangling sound.
“I’ll catch you later.”
She whirled around to see Sam backing toward the door.
“Sam. No! I—” She what? She was hallucinating a foot-tall, talking angel doll. An angel apparently only she could see or hear.
“Most weird, Murphy. I’d heard you were odd, but that wasn’t my first impression. Guess the first impressions can be wrong. Later.”
He reached the door.
“No, Sam. It’s not me, it’s her.” She pointed at the projector, but the angel doll wasn’t there.
By the time she turned back, the door was swinging closed.
A final comment reached her before the door latched against its light-tight seal.
“Much later.”
Dana spun around and nearly tripped over the doll. It had torn a corner off the untouched loaf of bread and was nibbling at the white interior like a watermelon rind.
The last light of sunset faded away to starlit sky.
- Writer
