Total pages in book: 117
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 108342 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 542(@200wpm)___ 433(@250wpm)___ 361(@300wpm)
Being raised around such things he figured he took this place for granted, but now that a scarlet letter had been burned into his reputation, he treasured it. The smell of the air… The cool sea breeze… The feelings of his childhood rolled back like the tide. He looked about, regaining his bearings. Today he’d decided to bypass peeking in on the mini-golf and waterparks. He just wanted peace.
He wanted to walk the beach… people watch… ride the one dollar trolley up and down the coast to get from end to end. Things he hadn’t done since Mom died. He’d always enjoyed keeping to himself, but after her death, he required even more alone time, to heal and get through the trap doors of grief. With all of the chatter and town talk about the homicides, him being the center of some of the most blasphemous conversations he was certain, he shunned the spotlight. He found it interesting how every now and again he’d hear whispering around him as he shopped or worked out in his yard, but no one had the balls to say whatever they were thinking to his face.
I have the right to be here just as much as anyone else.
He wanted to lay his eyes on this place again. A place of his youth filled with family and associates. A place of his teen years where he snuck and smoked cigarettes with friends, and chugged beers behind a dumpster until they puked. A place where he and his first real girlfriend had ventured for a puppy-love date, followed by clumsy sex in the back of his Nissan. A place where he and his brothers had some of the best times of their lives. After all, this, too, was a part of him. He missed it more than he’d ever realized. For a split second, he felt limitless peace and satisfaction by just being there in that space.
When he got out of the car and began to make his rounds, he quickly figured out it looked pretty much the same as he recalled. There were a lot of people in Maine during the tourist season, and always something to do, but nothing would cause anyone to forget about all that had happened right there at the beach. This wasn’t Los Angeles or Manhattan. This was Portland, and if you didn’t know a particular local person in town, chances were high that someone in your family or friends circle did know them.
This was a big deal and had made national news. The local police did all but admit that a serial killer was amongst them, taking guys out left and right. They tried to downplay it, but from what he was hearing, few people were buying it.
He kept walking to an area where one of the bodies had been discovered.
Relive a kill… Feel a kill… return to feel it again… He thought about that and other morbid things. Dry, brittle, rotten and raw things…
As he walked along the beach, his earbuds carrying the sounds of ‘Away From The Castle,’ by Video Age, he took out his phone and made a much needed and desired call.
First ring. Second ring. Third, half-way through…
“Hey, you,” came that sexy, slightly raspy womanly voice. Porsche had been on his mind all day. He loved feeling that way again—it had been so long since he felt this way about a woman. So profoundly invested in someone he cared for deeply. She was a new, big, beautiful part of his life.
“Hey back.”
“Hold on a second, Nikolai. I have another call coming in. Shouldn’t take long.”
“Okay, baby.”
He missed her when she wasn’t around, so much so he’d kept a pair of her used panties in his nightstand drawer when she’d stayed over a couple weekends prior. He recalled the lingering scent of incense smoke and white melted candle wax on the floor of his bedroom… strewn clothing… Sore muscles, scratches on his back, and sweat-soaked sheets… He loved when she wrapped her legs snugly around his waist, pulling him deeper into her until she screamed and shivered as he hit those walls and depths just right…
Oh, yes… the panties… She couldn’t find the little red satin number when she was putting her clothes back on that following morning, and had to go home commando due to running late for work, but then he’d found them under a chair in his bedroom after she left. He’d placed them against his nose and inhaled…
‘Damn, I love the smell of her pussy… Oh yeah, I’m definitely keeping these,’ he’d thought to himself. They were his now. His little secret.
“Okay, that’s settled. What’s up, sexy?” she chirped, returning to the line.
“Hey… Nothin’ much, beautiful. I miss you,” he confessed.
“I miss you too, baby.”
“What are you up to? Busy as usual?” He kicked a pebble that wasn’t too far from the lighthouse and debated on walking to it.