Read Online Richmond Noir by Andrew Blossom - Free Book Online Page A

ache. And the scent, his scent, was so thick she feared she might be suffocated. She gasped when he lifted her leg and forced himself inside of her. For the first time in years, she felt something. She tried to expand herself, to make herself wide enough for two ships to pass through.
    She didn’t know how long it lasted, but when it was over, she heard him say, “That was amazing.” She heard his zipper going up, his expensive loafers sliding against the carpet, the door swinging closed. Lying naked on the bed, she wondered if it was her or the room that was spinning. She closed her eyes to try and regain her balance. When she opened them, she was not alone. Doo was leaning over her. Gaia tried to sit up, but she felt pinned to the bed. Her throat was dry and her tongue was like cotton.
    Doo was smiling. “I got the pictures. You did good. See, we didn’t even need Charlene. We’re a great team.” She brushed a stray hair away from Gaia’s face.
    Gaia watched Doo’s lips come closer and closer and shut her eyes when she tasted whiskey and stale cigarettes on Doo’s thick tongue.
    Gaia shook her head, started to say no.
    “Shh,” Doo’s mouth whispered. Her hands came up to grip one of Gaia’s exposed breasts.
    Trembling, Gaia’s fingers searched for the cold steel underneath her pillow. Her arm felt like it weighed fifty pounds when she lifted the gun and swung it over and over against the back of Doo’s head. The hard steel connected with bone and made a cracking sound. Doo shrieked in pain and covered her head with both hands. They fell to the ground with a thud, the lamp, the alarm clock, and the nightstand all clattering down with them.
    Doo went limp, stopped moving or making any sounds, the back of her head against the carpet. Gaia dropped the gun and crawled to the corner behind the door, sitting with her red knees pulled up to her chest. She watched as the pool of blood coming from Doo’s head turned the beige carpeting purple-red.
    The muffled beeps of the fallen alarm clock sounded like they were coming from inside Doo’s baggy jeans. Laughter bubbled in Gaia’s stomach and rose up her throat like a gush of water. Her whole body shook with laughter as Doo beeped and beeped. Gaia crawled over to the body. She hovered above Doo and then lifted her shirt. Doo’s breasts were strapped down in layers of ace bandages. “Shh,” Gaia whispered, pulling the bandages down. She laughed as one soft breast tumbled out.
    Gaia was about to touch it with the tip of her finger when a loud screeching of tires squealed just outside the window.
    She shook her head and blinked rapidly. Her breathing hastened as a weight seemed to suddenly sit down on her chest. What had she done? Oh God, Doo! And Charlene . Charlene would hate Gaia, never speak to her again. Gaia’s body collapsed and she dropped her head to the carpet. She felt like dying. She felt like disappearing, like hiding. She felt … cold. She spied her dress lying at the foot of the bed and crawled to get it. She pulled it over her head and felt the fabric wiping away the tears that rushed down her cheeks.
    Turning her head slowly back toward the spot on the floor where Doo lay, she started to say, I’m sorry, Charlene , but the words caught in her throat. She stared at Doo’s tar-stained lips until they were two brown blurs, and realized it wasn’t true. She wasn’t sorry. She stood up momentarily and then sat on the bed as she surveyed the room. Overturned tables, blood-soaked carpet. She was sitting on something hard. She got up, saw that it was Doo’s small, silver camera, and squeezed it between her hands. She was holding one of the only pieces of real evidence that she had ever been here tonight. She studied Doo’s small body. Doo couldn’t be more than a hundred and twenty, a hundred and thirty pounds. Could she?
    Gaia drove east toward Providence Park, by instinct, not choice. She knew exactly what was waiting for her back there. Zooming