In His Memory E-Book

Angel Rupert

• Herausgeber: Bentockiz
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

They opened the door to the mail foyer and discovered over a foot of snow covering the tile of that small space. The outer door, which didn’t always latch properly, had been pushed open by the wind or the snow. It was all just white, flat white with gentle mounds interspersed. And above and around all that fixed white was a blur of moving white, blown this way and that by violent winds still pushing at their door, blowing more snow into the foyer, cutting at the skin of their faces even inside the protected space.

Leseprobe

Title Page

In His Memory

Unjustified Changes

Angel Rupert

In His Memory / 10th of series: Unjustified Changes / By Angel Rupert

Published 2023 by Bentockiz

e-book Imprint: Uniochlors

e-book Registration: Stockholm, Sweden

e-book ISBN: 9789198847093

e-book editing: Athens, Greece

Cover Images created via AI art generators

Table of Contents

Title Page

Introduction

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Introduction

Through books we come into contact with everything important that has happened in the past, analyzing also current events and putting our thoughts together to predict the future. The book is a window to the world, acquiring valuable knowledge and sparking our vivid imagination. It is a means of entertainment and is generally seen as a best friend, or as a slave that carries together all valuable information for us. The book is a friend who stays together without demands, a friend you call upon at every moment and abandon when you want.

It accompanies us in the hours of boredom and loneliness, while at the same time it entertains us. In general, a book does not ask anything from us, while it waits patiently on a dusty shelf to give us its information, to get us out of dead ends and to travel us to magical worlds.

This may be the travel mission of our books. Abstract narration, weird or unconscious thoughts difficult to be understood, but always genuine and full of life experiences, these are stories of life that can’t be overlooked easily.

This may be the start of something amazing.

Chapter One

Zach had a fleeting and unsettling realization—those back bedrooms this night were being used to talk about the birth of babies, plan baby showers, rather than for the purpose of making babies, the lights off, the words hushed, just two bodies talking in acts of primal need. But were those conversations about babies as primal in their needs—for that gender anyway—as the groping and the penetrations in dense dark? He looked up to Mark who was now staring down on him with an almost beatific gaze. “Well then,” he said. “To better tomorrows for you and Cheryl.” He raised his bottle and tapped Mark’s.

Mark nodded. “It’ll sure be different.”

“A new adventure.”

Mark shrugged. “I guess.” He stood next to Zach’s chair. “Let me go check the appetizers and the trash. Those are my two tasks for tonight—the food and what’s left over after it’s consumed.”

“Good to be needed.”

“I guess. Let me know if you want an interview with the firm. Two slots opened up in sales just this week.”

Zach nodded. “Thanks for the offer. I’ll let you know.”

Mark nodded, raised his bottle silently—a beacon of freedom or shackle of imprisonment, or maybe a little of both—them disappeared into the crowd of revelers.

Allison reappeared after more than an hour and found Zach still stationed in his chair. She flopped down on his lap. Her breath smelled of sweet wine and her muscles had the looseness of mild intoxication mixed with the agitation of a sugar high. She rolled the back of her head from side to side against his chin and squirmed her butt deep into his groin. After this uncommon greeting, she nuzzled her face into the notch between his shoulder and neck and whispered into his ear, “Cheryl and Mark are pregnant, but don’t tell anyone.”

Zach nodded against her face. “I know.”

She looked up in surprise. “How’d you know? Ian?”

He shook his head. “No, Mark himself.”

“I didn’t know you two were close.”

“We aren’t.”

“Then why’d he tell you?”

Zach shrugged. “Maybe that’s why—safer to tell an outsider.”

Allison thought about that. “Strange,” she said.

“The pregnancy or the telling?”

“All of it,” she said while looking sideways at the shifting crowd gathered in the dim room. She then suddenly turned her face into Zach’s head and lightly nibbled at his earlobe.

Zach leaned his head away. He wasn’t near drunk enough to enjoy such a public display of affection, least of all from his normally restrained wife. “What’s got into you tonight?”

She shrugged. “You’re always wanting me to be more ‘physically expressive’.” She repeated a phrase Zach had used years ago and regretted ever since—every time she trotted it out to remind him of the mistake. “So I’m taking your advice.” She slid a hand down between her butt and his lap and massaged, in cramped quarters, his body parts she found there, out of sight of the crowd but certainly not out of notice of Zach’s suddenly taut body—taut from head to toe even as those massaged parts grew taut in their own manner.

Zach leaned hard against the chair back, torn between what her hand and her suddenly enticing fragrance were calling forth from him, and what his mind was telling him about their surroundings and their exposure to this community where they were both outsiders and contingent members. He understood, from years of training in a similar community, that what they did next would define their entire future in this community. And at the moment, he didn’t know what message he wished to send.

Ian appeared from the crowd. “Now that’s what I’m talking about,” he said with a broad smile.

Allison quickly sat straight up, her hands folded demurely in her lap. “What?” she asked.

“The two of you acting like you might even like each other.”

“We always like each other,” she said defensively.

“Then maybe love each other. It ain’t so hard if you try.”

“How would you know?” she asked.

“Oh, I’ve tried—a lot. It’s easy for me. Not so easy for the other side—least not the ones I’ve picked.”

“Better if you don’t have to try. Better if it comes naturally.”

“See how long that lasts,” Ian said.

Zach muttered, “We have.”

Allison stood. “I’m off to find a White Russian.” Her body had lost its swaying looseness, was suddenly all angles and stiff movements.

“The man or the drink?” Ian asked.

“Maybe both,” she said and headed for the kitchen.

“That went well,” Ian said to the freshly alert Zach.

“It’s for the best.”

“Whatever the hell that means.”

They left the party early enough to catch one of the last redline subway trains heading back into town. Allison had actually sobered up slightly as the night wore on (despite fraternizing with several of those White Russians) and Zach had discreetly maintained the in-control buzz he’d put on shortly after arriving. So the two of them defined a staid and quiet couple in the nearly empty subway car. At first glance, an observer might’ve guessed they’d been married many years—had several kids at home with the grandparents, jobs accumulating pensions and benefits, plans for a house in a better neighborhood—until they noticed the slight flush on youthful skin and the barely hid stiffness. This more careful observer would’ve then identified them for what they were—young, recently married, half-drunk, and in the midst of a silent fight.

They walked together from the Dartmouth Street Station in the clear cold night. They passed numerous late-night partiers—snuggling couples, boisterous groups of four, six, eight (all the numbers even)—and several busy bars along Newbury Street; but as they walked along Exeter the crowds thinned and the chatter of night life faded. By the time they reached Comm. Ave., they were the only people on the sidewalk and the banks of frozen and grimy snow left over from the storm of two weeks ago, mounded to each side, seemed almost walls of a prison, or at least obstacles to escape from this night that had started out with so much promise now ever narrowing in its prospects.