Free The Crash of Hennington by Patrick Ness Page A

inside.
    —Must we?
    —Duty calls.

19. Duty Calling.
    Deep in the distant far side of Hennington Hills Golf Course and Resort, Jacki Strell waited on the bed for Councilman Wiggins to finish his cleanup in the bathroom. The excitable Councilman had spilled all over himself inside of twenty minutes. As usual, he had tried to hold out and Jacki had attempted the methods she knew to slow him down: givingit a finger flick on the head, grabbing a single pubic hair and pulling it out, etc. All to no avail. Given that the entertainment was informally scheduled for an hour, Jacki faced the familiar problem of dead air with Councilman Wiggins. Most of the time, they tried half-heartedly to bring him to a second climax, a climax for Jacki, of course, being the furthest thing from either of their minds. He usually just ended up biting too hard on her nipples while fumbling ineffectively with her round bottom.
    Jacki sighed pleasurably. She had so much Forum in her bloodstream that Councilman Wiggins could bite away and she wouldn’t even notice until the next day rolled around and salve would be required for her inflamed, maltreated aureoles. Taking Forum was like kicking back in a hot bubble bath you could take along anywhere. The world became one movable, ongoing massage. It was fair to say she couldn’t remember what life was like before Forum, back in those non-prostitute, number-filled days with her sons and ex-husband, but one of the side effects of Forum was the peculiar accompanying belief that all of a sudden there wasn’t a life before Forum, that it was always there, that it would always be there, that no problem was ever too big or too unpleasant that it couldn’t be washed away in the enveloping stream of Forum. She barely registered the Councilman coming out of the bathroom looking both sheepish and peeved.
    —I thought you said you were going to learn some new things to keep that from happening.
    —It’s okay—
    She blanked on his name.
    —Darling. It happens to a lot of men.
    —But you said you could slow things down, that it wouldn’t be a problem.
    —I did slow things down, but let’s face it, you’re a little soldier who wants to shoot as soon as he gets to the firing line.
    —Little.
    She sighed, but didn’t lose the smile from her face.
    —I don’t mean literally little. I meant it as a term of endearment.
    —I’m not little.
    He was. He was almost six inches shorter than Jacki, a good two stones slighter, and his genitalia, while proportional, were on the smaller side of what Jacki had seen in her most recent business days.
    —No one’s saying you are.
    —You just did.
    —I didn’t, but we were having such a fun evening. Come here. Come back to bed. We’ll have a nice, relaxing time for the rest of the hour.
    Wiggins looked skeptical.
    —Maybe we can make you go twice.
    —You think so?
    —Honey, I’m sure of it.
    What were these words? Where did they come from? She didn’t even call her children ‘honey', had never addressed her husband during the eleven years they were married as ‘darling'. And what were these clothes? She was a mathematician, for pity’s sake. Mathematicians didn’t wear rubber panties or silicon bras with zippers down the front of each breast. Accountants sure as hell didn’t wear black hosiery attached to a black metal band that gave a slight electric shock when touched. At least not on a regular basis, they didn’t. Who was she? Who was she right now?
    Sometimes with Forum came the Lions, and they could kill you if you let them drag you away. Jacki closed her eyesand fought. Forum had a vibration, and while Councilman Wiggins resumed sucking down her nutrient-rich breast milk (also, incidentally, Forum-rich; Councilman Wiggins had quite unknowingly developed his own habit), she concentrated on working her way back into Forum’s vibe. She could even see it when she closed her eyes. It was honey-colored and shimmering and just out of her reach.
    Breathe,