Free Touched by Fire by Greg Dinallo

down and removed the contents. Wrapped in the tissue she found a silk, fire-engine-red teddy. It had a peekaboo bodice, fluttery side slits, and a $350 price tag that made her gasp. She pinched the thin straps between thumb and forefinger and held the slinky garment out in front of her as if she’d never seen it before, let alone purchased it.
    Stunned and shaken, she stuffed the teddy back into the shopping bag, then dropped into her chair, steadying her hands long enough to light a cigarette. Her lips werepursed to blow out the match when her eyes became drawn to the flame, and she began rocking back and forth like a hyperactive child unable to sit still in class; then she began swiveling left and right until it seemed as if the chair was spinning one way and the room the other—spinning faster and faster in opposite directions until everything began to blur in horizontal streaks that ended with a head-long rush into the all too familiar explosions of colored light, leaving her dazed and disoriented.
    The next thing Lilah knew, the cellular was in her hand—she’d evidently already made some calls: among them, one to her service and one to the answering machine in her condo, because there was a short list of messages jotted on a pad—and now it dawned on her that she must have also just autodialed her parents’ number because she could hear her mother’s voice saying, “Hello? Hello, is anyone there?”
    “Oh—oh yeah . . . hi. Mom, it’s me,” Lilah said, blinking at the ftuorescents as she came out of it. “Is Daddy there?”
    “Of course. Hold on a sec.”
    “No, no don’t bother him, it’s okay.”
    “I don’t understand, Lilah. You asked for your father but you don’t want to talk to him?”
    “I just wanted to know if he was there.”
    “Where else would he be?”
    “How would I know?” Lilah replied weakly, feeling confused. “Listen, I have to go,” she said, suddenly struck by an overwhelming desire to get out of there. “Yeah, I’m still at the office . . . No, no don’t worry, I won’t.”
    She hung up and was taking a moment to pull herself together when she thought she smelled something vaguely familiar, something she couldn’t place. She dismissed herconcern with a glance to the ashtray, and was crossing to the door when she smelled the acrid, fuel-like odor again. She began sniffing the air, finally zeroing in on the package. She had no idea what it contained, no idea that the fire bomb had just been activated, that the lightbulb filament had ignited the book of matches, that the fuel-sprinkled excelsior was already aflame inside. She was reaching for the carton to open it when the phone on her desk rang, startling her. She froze momentarily, then scooped the receiver from the cradle. “Genetics—Or. Graham.”
    “Hey, what do you like on your pizza, Doc?”
    “Kauffman?” she wondered, displeased by the elation she heard in her voice.
    “Your own personal pizza man, who else?” he replied with a cocky chortle. “I can handle anything but pineapple.”
    Yeah, and med students with pouty lips and perky boobs, she thought, tempted to reveal she’d been at Mario’s and tease him that he was calling her because he’d struck out. “You’re something else, you know?”
    “Hey, all the professors I sleep with say that.”
    Lilah laughed in spite of herself, and glanced over her shoulder at the carton. “Yeah,” she said, deciding not to play hard to get, “but this one means it.”
    “Agggh,” the kid groaned, pretending that he was crushed. “I knew it. I’m nothing more than a sex object.”
    “A sex object who got into med school. Not bad for a guy with three strikes against him.”
    “Three?”
    “You’re white, you’re male, and you’re Jewish.”
    “How do you know I’m Jewish?”
    “I had the misfortune to acquire intimate knowledge of your shortcomings, remember?” They were both laughingwhen Lilah suddenly screamed, then screamed again, startled