DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

“You sure you’re okay?” It was the man who’d asked about the ambulance.

“I’m fine,” he said. “I just tripped on a rock. Knocked the wind out of me.”

The man nodded and moved off.

“You didn’t trip,” Penelope said.

No, he hadn’t. But he didn’t know what had happened. He did know that he did not want to be taken to a doctor, although he was not sure if it was because he was afraid the doctor might find something or because he already knew that there was nothing to find.

Maybe he had a brain tumor. Or some type of cancer. Maybe he’d had a mild stroke or a heart attack or something.

No. He didn’t know how he knew it, but he knew it. This wasn’t a medical thing. This was triggered by the sound of the pipes. And it was related somehow to his dreams and to… His head hurt, and he closed his eyes against the pain.

“I think we’d better go,” Penelope told him. “I’ll drive.”

He nodded and let her lead him out through the front gates of the fair and across the field to the car.

“I really think you should go to the doctor,” she said. “What if this is something serious—”

“It’s not.”

“First, you swerve off the road, then—”

“It’s an acid flashback,” he said.

“What?” She stopped walking, letting go of his hand. Her face was white, shocked.

“A friend of my mom’s put it in my milk when I was a baby,” he lied. “I get these every so often.”

“My God.”

He took her hand again, and they continued walking toward the car. He made up a story about how his mom had found out, how the man had been arrested and jailed. He wanted to tell her the truth, wanted to tell her that he didn’t know what was happening, but something kept him from it. Although the truth was far more innocuous than the lies he was spinning, it seemed more intimate somehow, and a part of him was not ready to share that intimacy.

They ended up going to a movie, a matinee that took the rest of his ten dollars. Afterward, Penelope treated him to dinner. McDonald’s. When they finished eating, they walked around a few of the stores not yet closed.

It was still early in the evening when he pulled to a stop just before the entrance to the winery and turned off the engine, killing the lights. The inside of the car was dark with the sudden absence of dashboard illumination, but he could clearly see Penelope’s face, lit by the low glow of the sodium lamp above the winery gate. She looked gorgeous in the dim light, her skin smoothly pale, her lips full and red. The darkness gave her already alluring eyes a deepness beyond that which they normally possessed. He reached over and took her hand. Her skin was soft, warm.

“How do you feel about me?” she asked. There was a slight trembling in her voice.

He knew what she wanted to hear but was not sure he could say it. He had said it before, over the phone, but in person it was harder. Besides, he had never loved anyone before, and he did not know if he loved Penelope now. He liked her, was obviously infatuated with her, but he was not sure that his feelings went any deeper than that. “How do you feel about me?” he asked.

She looked into his eyes. “I love you.”

“I—I love you too,” he replied, and it was true.

They kissed. His left hand was around her back, and his right cupped her breast, squeezing it gently. His penis was hard, and when his tongue slid between her lips and found her own soft tongue, he felt as though he was going to explode. His hand on her breast began to cramp from the awkward position, and he let it fall to a more natural position in her lap. She did not try to push him away, and he moved his hand between her parted legs and started massaging her crotch through the jeans.

She reached for him and her fingers lightly traced the outline of his erection.

Peripherally, through the windshield, he thought he saw movement outside. He looked up as he kissed her and saw the security camera stationed on the top of the winery gatepost swivel toward the car, but he didn’t want to interrupt the rhythm they’d found and didn’t want to upset her, and he pushed Penelope down on the seat as he started to unbuckle her pants.

32

April drove quickly in order to beat Dion home. She went over in her mind what Margaret and the others had told her.

It explained a lot, she thought.

It explained everything.

33

The moon was full and hung high over the hills, white now after bleaching upward from yellow. The Vintage 1870 shops were closing, and Tim South and Ann Melbury walked hand in hand across the gravel parking lot to the car, following a few other late stragglers. The air was warm but tinged with a cool autumn breeze. Tim, for one, welcomed the changing of the seasons. He was tired of sweating—his old Dart didn’t have air conditioning and seemed to retain heat even with the windows open—and he was equally tired of spending the first half of each date in broad daylight. It was bad enough that his parents made him come home by eleven, but the fact that it didn’t get dark until eight or eight-thirty put a further crimp in his style. He was glad the days were getting shorter. And he could not wait until Daylight Saving Time disappeared.

They reached the car, and he gallantly opened the passenger door, letting Ann in before stepping around to the driver’s side.

She ran a hand through her short, spiky hair as he climbed into his seat. “So what do you want to do now?” she asked.

Tim shrugged. “I don’t know.”

He knew what they were going to do next. They both knew. But they always