What a shit hole. The shacks — housekeeping cottages the sign said — were spaced randomly among the tall pines, which prevented any breeze shy of a healthy cyclone from venting them of their aroma of mold and decay. A cloud of gnats and mosquitoes whined...
It was discouraging. She just lay there like a dead woman, no response, not a twitch, not a moan—nothing. Still he kept at it, willing away the fatigue that had begun to set in to his jaw. He had prepared for a long siege. He could last another twenty minutes, maybe a...
She folded her legs, vacating space on the couch so he could sit down, but she kept her eyes fixed on the drama playing out on the television. He sat, his eyes also trained on the screen and the performance of the four young actresses. "I hate this show ... and the...
"Oh, God, there it is," Janie squealed. I nearly jammed on the brakes, my eyes searching wildly up and down the road for an accident, or maybe a pedestrian who had blundered into traffic along busy Route 1. "What? Whatsamatter?" I barked. "There, " she pointed...
He awoke sensing the vacancy next to him. She was already up, staring down the mirror and self-critically taking inventory of her parts. He watched her with one eye open as she lifted her breasts, hefting them as if she were trying to estimate their weight, then...
His melancholy office complete, Porter stood, contemplating the utter beauty and wonder of the moment. Out on the darkening sea the Creator had begun to unfurl a banner of stars from the blue velvet horizon. Behind him the last clear October rays of a tenacious sun...
They were the keepers of standards, emblems of the well-mannered life and divas of deportment. They were the wives, mothers and daughters of the scions of old money — the oldest money. They arrived individually at the polo club, driven to the front door, and then...
The house was lit up, a beacon in the darkening twilight guiding her to its dead-center location within the suburban cul-de-sac. But she hesitated; rather than making straight for the driveway already occupied by Jason's BMW, she parked across the street and cut the...
I'm trying not to give anything away to the detective, but I'm afraid I may have already. He's nice, though, not like most cops—and cute too, in a kind of farm boy sort of way. His sandy blonde hair keeps falling down over his gray eyes when he writes into his...
Who in hell was hitting the door with a sledgehammer? All he wanted to do was sleep. Six straight 12-hour days had finally come to an end, and he had planned to sleep right through his three-day weekend. The banging resumed. Someone was trying the break down the...