Jake's crack cocaine habit leads him deep into a dark forest, where he meets a beautiful woman singing by a peaceful stream. He promises that "every waking breath will be a testament to love." But his addiction betrays his promise with tragic consequences.
Jake escapes to a deserted urban forest to satisfy his crack cocaine habit. While there, the alluring song of a mysterious maiden draws him to where she lounges by a peaceful pool, singing and brushing her hair. Her song lures him into a transcendent moment of eroticism that – almost – makes him forget is addiction.
Ebook ISBN : 978-1-60054-212-1
Length: 4000 words
Genre: Dark Fantasy / Erotic Romance
Rating: Shooting Star
$2.00
* * * * * * * * * *
The woman's song, beguiling and bewitching, washed across the wildwood and caressed the moonlight. Another man might have been mesmerized, doomed to follow that song to its source. But at this moment a different obsession gripped Jake. He would soon hear the song, but not yet.
His breath gusted in short, desperate bursts. His hands trembled and his body boiled with an unwholesome craving. His blond hair slaked across his forehead, and his running clothes clung to his sweat-soaked torso. Frantic eyes scanned the park for a shadow of privacy. There! That picnic table would do.
He sat and pulled a short glass tube, a baggie, and a Bic lighter from the pouch at his hip. A crumpled paper rose grew from one end of the tube; the other end was stuffed with the blackened remnants of a Brillo pad. He opened the baggie and, despite his shaking fingers, took great care with the precious white lumps inside. He stuffed one lump in the Brillo end of the tube and then wrapped his lips about the paper rose petals at the other end. "A glass dick," his dealer had called it. He heated the white lump and inhaled deeply as the rock popped, melted and then fumed.
The smoke swirled into his lungs and sluiced the tension from his mind and body. As the last of the rock crackled into nonexistence he tipped his head back and contemplated the moon and the stars. The familiar but fleeting euphoria suffused his soul. The spent tube fell from his lips, and he inhaled the sweet ambrosia of honeysuckle and pine.
It was then that Jake at last heard the woman's song, wordless and forlorn, wafting through the forest.
* * * * * * * * * *
Author Bio:
Max Griffin writes horror and science fiction stories, often with a dark twist. Authors as diverse John Updike, Dean Koontz, Richard Matheson, and Lawrence Block inspire and inform his literary style.
Max Griffin is the pen name of a professional mathematician who is the author of a textbook and numerous research articles. When he is not writing fiction, his days are filled with teaching mathematics and statistics, research, and administrative work at a major comprehensive university in the southwest. He is the proud parent of a daughter who is a librarian. He is blessed to be in a long-term relationship with his life partner, Mr. Gene, who is an expert knitter.
The two humans in Max's household are the pets of an Abyssinian cat named Mr. Dinger, short for Erwin Schrodinger the Cat. Mr. Dinger graciously lets them live in his home in return for food and occasional petting. Oh, and there's that litter box thing they do for him too.
