Free The Mentor by Pat Connid

than he had a key for your apartment, a tool belt around
his waist and wanted to fix the sink?  He told me.”
    “Oh yeah,
that guy.”  I nodded.  “Looks like a black ninja, right?”
    Laura
laughed, hopped up from the couch and shuffled toward my bedroom.  “I
don’t know about the ninja part,” she said and stopped at the door, leaning on
the thick paint of the molding.  Whoa, I loved her calves.  When she
shaved her legs, I really loved her calves.  When she didn't, I still did.
    She added: “He
had really great teeth.”
    Yeah, I
knew those teeth.
    Pavan
looked at me and shook his head slowly.  “You coming?”
    “Where?”
    “ Not here,” he said, padding toward the door.  “You said you didn’t want to
stay here tonight.”  I turned and watched Laura walk into the bedroom, her
body slipping into the velvet darkness.  He said in the hoarse whisper:
 “Man, that guy was here again , right?”
    “Yeah, I
gotta check under the sink.  Wonder what he was doing under there?
 Maybe he put some sort of…” I said and popped open the cabinet.  A
moment later, the room was suddenly split with the sound of buzzing and I
lifted my head out from under the sink. “Yep, looks fine under there.”
    “How can
you see?  You need a flashlight,” he said and started rummaging through my
junk drawers.
    “Nah, I’m
cool,” I said, my eyes flashing toward the bedroom.  “You head home.  I’ll
call you in the morning.”
    “Dude, he
might have put something—“
    “Listen
Pavan,” I said pushing him toward the door. “If I don’t get in there within the
minute, she’ll be done before I can get undressed.”  Opening the door to
my apartment, I pushed him out.  “I’ll call you tomorrow.”  He craned
his neck, trying to look around me as I closed the door and locked it.
    I caught
sight of the sink and stopped.  What had he been up to down there? 
    Then, I
heard the first loud sigh from my bedroom and realized it could wait.
     
    THE NEXT
MORNING, I tried to roll over but my body was sore and that thought made me
smile a little.  
    I craned my
neck up and looked out the window, upside down— it was barely dawn.  The
sky was slashed along its edge, and a hazy orange glow bled through the wound.
 
    Next to me
in the dark, Laura lay motionless, deep in sleep.  I closed my eyes again and
tried to join her.
    “What a
waste of the day.”
    My eyes
popped back open.  
    Had I
fallen asleep so fast?  Dreaming? 
    Sure, possible.
    “I mean,
Dex, you’re already awake.  You should go for a run, maybe.”
    But not
likely.
    Lifting my
head, I saw the black man sitting on my dresser across the room.  The light was
very dim, but I could see that his feet hovered a few inches above the floor.
    “You could
stand to lose about twenty-five, thirty pounds.”
    Looking
over at Laura, I was surprised when she hadn't woken up.  Maybe it was
just a dream?  
    I squinted,
trying to draw his features out of the darkness.
    “Don’t
worry about your girl there, Dex,” he said and slid off of the dresser to the
hardwood floor.  He made no sound.
    The way he
walked, like a predator or a big jungle cat, was smooth and precise.  That
slow, aggressive motion instantly put me in a full-boil panic.
    I shuffled
toward the headboard and leaned back up on my elbows. In an instant, my mouth
had gone dry.  Not wanting him to see how scared I was, I forced an angry
face.
    “You drugged
her, you crazy fuck?”
    “And, I
would suggest you start reading again,” he said, twirling something between his
fingers.  “Your vocabulary is suffering.”
    As if he
held the reins of both darkness and light in either of his gloved hands,
something flashed in front of his belly.  
    My body started
to hum as my panic began to transform into something more useful: rage.
    This time,
I wasn’t going down without a fight.  
    I looked
around the room for a weapon.  Any weapon.
    In the dim
light, I saw Laura’s “Pocket