Page 24 of Black Curtain

“Not like this. You look completely different now.” He gripped me tighter, wrapping an arm around my waist. He spoke into my ear. “We really might need to separate for a bit, doc, or I’m going to fuck you on one of these lounge chairs… and no, I’m absolutely not kidding.”

I laughed, gripping his arm in return.

I couldn’t take my hands off him. I could feel the same impulse in him.

He whispered to me again, like we were kids behind the bleachers at school.

“I think we should come up with some kind of symbol,” he said into my ear. “Some way to let the other know we need to have sex RIGHT NOW, before we start acting insane…”

I burst out in another laugh, and it hit me again, how happy he felt.

How happy both of us felt.

“Why are you laughing?” he teased. “I’m dead serious, doc. We haven’t even done the cake part yet and I’m having trouble convincing myself to behave even remotely appropriately…”

I wrapped my arms around him under the tuxedo jacket, and found myself massaging his lower back, then his thigh. I felt him thinking about asking me to stop, right before one of his muscular hands wrapped around my ass, yanking me closer.

It struck me again how completely strange everything felt.

Happy. Crazy. Silly. Strange.

Wonderful.

The world felt better now.

I almost felt guilty at how much better I felt.

I couldn’t believe how happy I was to have Black all to myself.

No more Coreq.

No more “Dragon” or “Tortoise.”

And the world felt lighter.

Not just me and Black’s world.

Not just us, although me and Black were definitely at the forefront of my mind right then.

Everything. Everything felt lighter.

Everyone felt different to me, and strange, and beautiful.

We hadn’t had anything to drink but I felt completely buzzed.

I knew, logically, it was from the end of Charles’ dark rituals, all of those fanatical seers controlling everything and casting a pall over the world’s light. I knew it came from the end of my Uncle’s construct over the United States, the end of their hate-filled desire to get revenge on the humans from another world by punishing the humans here.

I knew it was because all those seers were now gone.

All but Charles… and Charles was locked up somewhere, where he couldn’t pull his twisted shit on anyone ever again, or at least not for a very, very long time.

Cowboy told me a few seers from our own crew also disappeared, presumably plants Charles had put among the refugee seers that found us in San Francisco and elsewhere. That, or maybe they were just super religious and the Dragon guy decided to take them along with him anyway, regardless of their political affiliation.

But it wasn’t just that, not for me and Black.

It was like our lights had been scrambled and pulled apart and put back together again differently. We were both off-balance. We were both getting used to no longer having the Dragon or Tortoise presences in our lights.

Everything felt so strange.

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