Free Shadow Season by Tom Piccirilli

idea of not having any pictures or paintings and wants to ask if it bothers her. Three years of these cold, impersonal rooms, but she never said anything about it. Finn begins to speak but her lips tighten on his and she swallows his words down her throat.
    They fall backward onto the bed. Roz enjoys undressing him. She’s adept and softly scratches at his chest and neck as she eases off his shirt. She kisses his belly button, catches skin between her teeth. She presses her fingers against his toned stomach, then quickly undoes his belt. She unzips him, and works hispants off. He’s thankful that she offers so many caresses and nips. Sometimes, especially when he’s excited, he can forget the contours of his own body. He needs his skin to be on fire.
    She digs her nails into his ribs. He likes it and says so. She laughs in his face. She scratches harder.
    In a moment, Roz is naked. She feeds Finn her breasts and he suckles them for a long while. Again the throaty chuckle escapes her as he eases his erection forward into her hand.
    Pumping gently she brings him to full hardness. She spits in her hand and jerks him faster as he juts on his knees. She leans up and kisses him passionately and slides his cock across her belly. He relishes the feel of her flesh.
    The things that can drive you out of your head. He holds her legs open and licks her calves and fits himself at the edge of her cunt and waits.
    She laughs again and bucks forward and he’s inside her.
    “Say my name,” she tells him.
    When it’s like this, she wants to hear Rose, not Roz. It’s her real name, but she gave it up a long time ago. But she comes back to it in bed.
    “Rose.”
    “Again.”
    “Rose.”
    “Yes, that’s it.”
    “You’re Rose, a beautiful rose.” First time they met, she said, I’m Rose but everyone calls me Roz.
    He asked, Why?
    Why what?
    Why do they call you Roz if it’s not your name?
    She answered, I suppose because I let them.
    Finn fills her tightly and her juices are already flowing thickly, dappling his pubic hair. It’s a smell he enjoys as he plunges and keeps his pace slow and even, going deep so she knows every thrust has a real meaning, a true purpose, whatever it might be.
    Everyone needs affirmation. Roz moans and the sound is laced with a sweet, self-indulgent giggle. Sweat streams across his face. The wind chimes are clacking together out front, the solid thunking nearly in perfect sync with his action. He decides he’s got to get some prints up. Renoir, Van Gogh. The snow pounds against the bedroom window, urging him on, a force of will to add to his own.
    It’s telling him, Come on, come on. The hum of the wind is impatient, almost angry. He can feel its attention on him.
    This is a natural reaction for him, treating the sounds of inanimate objects as if they were people. His psychiatrist says it’s normal for someone in his
situation, under these circumstances
, to personify
things
—stressing the word “things” in such a way that there’s almost a sexual connotation. My thing. Your thing. Let’s discuss this thing. She tells him that the brain is deprived and needs to be fed. He’s an imaginative man, she says. She’s right. He kicks into high gear.
    Finn gets in too close and bumps his forehead against Roz’s. They both say “ow.” She whimpers, “Don’t close your eyes.”
    He thought they were open but realizes now they’re not. “I won’t.”
    “Look at me,” she groans. “I will. I am.”
    “You have such beautiful eyes.”
    Women have always loved his eyes, and he never appreciated it. They’re brown, not blue like most of the girls he knew went for, but they’re flecked with gold and somehow that always got to women.
    Roz licks his eyelashes. It invigorates and repulses him.
    His cock continues to heat inside her as he quickens his tempo, and the quick burn of orgasm is already nearing. He locks hands on her hips and pulls her toward him so violently that she’s instantly