BLIND TRIAL by Brian Deer (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📗

sun hung pale behind a haze, drifting above a mist, floating upon a fog, swirling across the waters of the bay.

Behind her, he moaned, rolled onto his back, and stretched his big hands toward the ceiling. “Where are you, beautiful? I’m lonely. Come to Ben. You’re leaving me all alone. Come to Ben.”

She turned toward the bed, then back to the bay. Options. Choices. Decisions. She must Whatsapp Hiroshi. But the day was half-formed. One might say it hadn’t yet started. She tugged another cord and the bedroom dimmed. She slipped beneath the sheet.

He was warm.

THE TWO remaining cardinalfish looked brighter than yesterday. Perhaps they, too, got it together. When Friday rebooted and Sumiko resurfaced, their black and silver stripes looked blacker and more silver. Their dorsal fins trailed more resplendent. They hovered above the reef like hot air balloons on a day without wind or cloud.

She turned from the aquarium and studied the remains of a night she’d wanted for a week. Five Kirin bottles ringed the shaggy blue rug, like a circle of standing stones. Her MiniVAP rested where a stray foot kicked it. Her laptop screen hadn’t slept. Clothes lay where they fell when he’d stripped them both naked: her Extinction Rebellion T-shirt, his baggy blue surf shorts, her sweatpants, his sneakers, her bangles.

She checked her iPhone: nothing from Hiroshi. She felt surprise and relief in one emotion. She yanked back the curtains, padded to the kitchen, and called “milk or sugar?” down the corridor.

Returning to the bedroom, she stepped round the bed, inhaling his smell as she passed. It was the smell of last Friday when she stepped into the module: soap, fresh sweat, and something magical. She clunked a mug of coffee beside a digital alarm clock, amid a scatter of condom wrappers.

Ben sprawled, legs apart, fingering his chest, his knees making a tent in the sheet. Then he kicked—left–right, left–right, left–right—till he lay naked, grinning, and hard. He squeezed his biceps, stroked his abdominals, and ran his thumbs through a fur of pubic hair. He pressed forward his erection, opened his palms, and his cock sprang back with a slappp.

“I need you again beautiful. I’m feeling so lonely. Let’s go to paradise again and come back slowly.”

And wouldn’t that be a journey: to drift again on currents, as light and untroubled as the fish? But again would be the fifth time, and she needed to be practical. There was danger here in going too far.

She set down a second mug, retreated to the bathroom, and donned a yellow flannel robe for protection. Then she picked up a used rubber from the floor in the corridor, and set about the living room—tidying, straightening—brushing last night into the past. She shut down her laptop, put away the vaporizer, and dumped her T-shirt in a basket. She gathered the bottles, squeezed the bangles onto her wrist, and pressed his shorts to her face.

What they’d shared was incredible. But she’d got to stay real. She’d got to keep a grip on this thing. She laid the shorts with his sneakers, found the big manila envelope, and took it to the bedroom: more protection.

He was sitting on his heels and made a grab as she passed. But she dodged and returned to the window. He rose to his knees. She tightened her robe. He smirked and made a dogsniffing sound.

She eyed the clock. “Why don’t you take a shower?”

He pushed out his tongue and snapped it back.

She opened the envelope, pulled out her list, and flicked through the pages without reading. Against the power of his gaze, they meant nothing. Nothing. Those blue, blue eyes lasered her robe, punctured the window, smashed through Oakland, and blazed all the way to where they met.

He must have felt her desire in the Marriott lobby when Trudy Mayr arrived at the conference. Even then he must have known what she wanted. Needed. And if he’d known that then, what did he know now? She’d got to keep a grip on this thing.

She riffled through the list and returned it to the envelope. “I was right, wasn’t I? Actually forging signatures. And Wilson quite obviously knew.”

“Yes, you were right. Totally right. Come here and claim your reward.”

“No, look, this is work. I’m serious.”

He slumped on his back and squeezed his nuts as his erection began to soften. Then he rolled onto his chest, hammered the mattress, rolled back, and sat up.

“Idea.”

“Best idea now is go take a shower. Must clean this place up and get to work.”

“You bet. Shower together.” He chattered his teeth. “But how about this? Why don’t we do this? We could skip the center and hang out today? Nobody needs us for anything now.”

Not feasible. Impossible. She must think of Hiroshi. He’d not even fired her a WhatsApp. “I’d like to do that. Really, I would. But I’ve got clinic all day, and I’ve a great deal of work to get on with.”

“Yeah, but Doc Mayr would agree to practically anything now. We could say we need to see more people, do home visits, or whatnot. It’s all in the protocol, as you said.”

“I’d like to. I really would. But I’m actually very busy.” She lied. “I’ve got volunteers coming in for counseling all day. And there’s Hiroshi to think of. I’d like to, of course, but I can’t.”

“Could go sick.” He lifted the mug by the clock. “Or I could tell Doc Mayr how you’ve still got doubts. She’ll be totally, like, fazed. Don’t you think? That would freak her right out. Or, how about saying you gotta check back on that Ramirez case, or something?”

“Honestly, I can’t be dishonest, can I? If I lie, that makes me as bad as him, doesn’t it? I’d be a hypocrite.”

“Yeah, but it’s not a big lie, or anything. I mean, it’s not a strategic lie. It’s only a tactical lie, and that’s not so bad. Everybody does it all the time.” He drank from the mug and slid it