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her pull them off entirely, and spread my legs wider as my erection grew, reaching for her.  One hand moved from the back of my calf to the inside of my thigh, the other gripped and slid me into her mouth.  I moaned and held her head as I pumped slowly, timing my subtle thrusts with her motion.
    I stroked her hair and leaned forward, draping myself over her and pumping harder as she increased the pressure and tightened her lips.  “Jesus,” I gasped, but the words caught in my throat as she released me, still kneeling and just visible over the edge of the bed.
    She laughed in a way that struck me as nearly dutiful, then flopped next to me on the bed, the mattress bouncing.  My heart racing, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her over on top of me, but she pushed away and stood up.
    “What’s wrong?” I asked.  “What is it?”
    “Nothing,” she said, straightening her pajamas.
    I reached for my underwear and pulled them on over my dying erection.  “This is fucking ridiculous, what is the problem?”
    Toni shook her head.  “It’s never enough for you, is it.”
    “Never enough?  Are you serious?  When was the last time we made love?”
    “That was  your dick in my mouth just now, wasn’t it?”
    We stood staring at each other for what seemed a long time.  “You know what I mean.”
    She arched an eyebrow, folded her arms across her chest.  “Do I?”
    “Well if you don’t then we really are  in a world of shit, Toni.”
    “Is this where I’m supposed to pretend to have some clue as to what the hell you’re talking about?”
    “We don’t make love anymore,” I said, glaring at her now.  “You take care of me, service me the way a hooker services a john, for Christ’s sake.  No passion, nothing real or heartfelt, just efficient, emotionless and robotic sexual acts.”
    “A hooker —that’s a nice thing to say to me.”  Her lips trembled.  “Asshole.”
    “Look, I’m sorry.” I reached out and put my hands around her waist.  She felt so small, so easily breakable. “It’s just—I don’t understand what’s happening to us.”
    “Neither do I.”
    “It’s like everything’s broken, all confused and doesn’t make sense anymore.”
    “Don’t be so melodramatic.”
    The heat that had risen within me was gone, leaving behind a void, a feeling of nothingness.  “You act like it doesn’t matter,” I said.
    She looked away and mumbled something, but the phone rang, interrupting us again.  
    I snatched it from the bed angrily.  “What?”
    “Hey man, it’s me, Rick.”
    “Let me call you back.”  
    “We need to talk.  There’s some weird shit going on.”
    “Fucking now  what?”
    “We were wrong about Bernard,” he said, his tone nervous.  “He did leave a note.”
    I felt my heart drop, but it was only my knees as I sank back down onto the bed.  “What are you talking about?”
    “He left a suicide note, just not in the usual way.”  Rick cleared his throat.  “I was going through my mail from yesterday and—I know this sounds fucked up but—there was something from Bernard.  He left a note, man.  He just didn’t leave it down in that basement.  He sent it to me.”

CHAPTER 5

    The sky had turned an odd shade of gray.
    I parked next to an empty basketball court surrounded by chain link fence and hurried across the street, hesitating once I’d reached the dead front lawn of the apartment building.  I noticed Donald’s car and Rick’s Jeep parked nearby.  Although this was the poorest neighborhood in Potter’s Cove, it was normally a vibrant part of town, but the area was quiet, the streets still.  Two old men talking at the base of the front steps shuffled their feet against the raw wind and ignored me as I moved onto the landing and into the relative warmth of the foyer.
    A door to my right opened with a loud squeak to reveal an emaciated black woman with a sallow face.  I visited Rick often, and despite the high turnover