Free Slice by Rex Miller Page A

was opening up for him and they were coming together like two halves of a puzzle built in separate rooms, assembled independently; then the pieces joined together in a mating that never failed to delight each of them with the perfection of the fit. “I want you,” she said in a hot whisper. “Yes, honey,” he agreed, “I want you too. So much.” But the reality was that he was somewhere else in that part of him where the deepest desire was kindled. He suddenly realized that he had crawled inside himself and was watching his own performance. GRADING himself or something. And the ludicrous discovery softened his ardor just as she heard him say, So much, and she wondered what she had done. She had been accused once of coming on too strong by a previous lover and it had stayed with her, as the fiercest critiques so often will.
    He said nothing. He only kept kissing her, but now in a different way, and after a bit he rolled over, wondering what it was that had passed through his subconscious, like a cold, dark shadow. Donna wondered what she'd done this time to attack the fragile male ego bastion. Both of them thinking these things but said nothing. Donna wanted to say, “It's okay, my sweet. No big deal.” But she thought it inappropriate and dangerous and silly anyway. Saying it was no big deal was saying that it might have been a big deal, having all this go on inside her head. Jack wanted to put his face in that pillow of luxuriantly dark hair and just breathe her in till the bad jazz blew away. But neither of them did anything.

CHICAGO

    H e spotted her on Randolph, walking slowly, looking straight ahead, and his eyes targeted first on the thin fabric of the white dress that reminded him for some reason of an actress in the movies. His computer showed him a mental image and he pulled the car over to the curb, lowering the window as he forced a huge, crinkly smile onto his face. She was thin, ordinary-looking, anywhere from nineteen to twenty-three years old, alone, and she met all the requisite minimums.
    One may have trouble understanding how this 460-pound killer with the bandaged face could work his magic. The fact that this was not an unattractive young woman makes it all the more incomprehensible to some, but age, sex, personality, they have very little to do with the phenomenon that a man like Daniel Bunkowski exploits.
    His eyes saw a female form alone and zeroed in on the legs, which were silhouetted through the thin material of the dress by the sunlight. The fact that she wore a dress—that alone triggered a whole battery of responses in him. Then there was her vulnerability. Who can say why some individuals project this quality and others do not? Vulnerability runs the full range of a wide and complicated spectrum of auras—from projected vulnerability, a far different thing, to true vulnerability, the brand of the profile one so often sees among life's casualties. This young woman had that thing. It was a quality the star-maker machinery looks for in females. When you find it in concert with overt sexuality, the package is dynamite. But in this one it simply said to Daniel, I am vulnerable to the taking.
    Even as he pulled to the curb, hitting the electric window controls and reminding himself not to turn his face too far to the right while he was speaking to her, he was sizing up his pitch by her appearance, the clothing, the shoes, the degree of cleanliness, the gait of her walk, the purposefulness or lack of purpose in her physical movements, the tilt of her head now and the way it changed when his voice drew her eyes, the eyes themselves—which so often will give it all away even in the most practiced liar—the hair, the hands and what she was carrying, everything about her told him a quick story. It said, VICTIM.
    “Hi.” There was no response as she turned. “Excuse me,” and a mumble of words followed, calculated to pull her over by the side of the newly stolen wheels.
    “What?” She moved