CHAPTER TWO

I FEEL LIKE CHOCOLATE TONIGHT

John Stonebrook rolled his shoulders inside his long coat. It was an impressive maneuver, causing his muscles to bulge noticeably for a moment under the material. But it was born from aches and stress making themselves felt rather than the need to impress any onlookers. Sighing, he let his shoulders drop and inserted the key into his apartment lock.

His home was cheerless at best and deeply depressing at worst. Most days he never turned on more than one bulb at a time, not wanting to see the dreariness that infected the place.

Curtains hung dusty and neglected over the grimy windows. Underneath the couch and tables, dust bunnies had proliferated and spawned several litters; sometimes he could swear he found their pellets lying around. The wallpaper had long faded from its rich yellow color to an off-beige and bore an odd tackiness--doubtless born of the greasy foods from whenever he bothered to cook.

He briefly debated with the notion of eating this evening and then dismissed it. Regardless of what his friend Benji thought, he'd figured out he didn't need to eat every single day. Humans were very sturdy creatures. He himself could go for two, three days without solid sustenance other than a hastily snatched burrito. Benji chided him often about his bad eating habits and found ways of forcing him to eat better foods, usually by making him share her suspiciously over-large lunches.

The couch sagged under his weight but managed to hold him--just. He'd had it for years now and it always creaked a little when he sat on it but it was far from breaking. It was a good quality piece of furniture; the day hadn't arrived when he needed to throw it out for a newer model.

He picked up the remote and clicked on the TV, not really interested but wanting something, anything, to distract him from the echoing silence in the rooms.

"Nothing says love like Baci's chocolates--especially with sayings in four different--" He gritted his teeth and switched to another channel.

"This Valentine's, get her something more special than chocolate." The screen image of a delighted female cooing over a diamond ring splintered before disappearing into black.

Shit. It was that time of year again. Somehow he'd forgotten, the days merging into the usual blur until he barely knew what day of the week it was.

He hated Valentine's Day--had ever since Sarah had been taken from him.

It hadn't always been that way. Valentine's used to be one of his favorite times of year. Other men went into a blind panic, scrambling at the last moment for a crappy gift, or forgot it in blissful ignorance until their aggrieved wives blew up at them in a fury. Not John. He would go all out, taking the time to leave little Katie with a sitter while he took Sarah out on the town.

Every year, it seemed he'd fallen more and more in love with the beauty who had chosen him, him--out of all the men who'd courted her--to share her life with. There had been days, sure, when he'd taken her for granted. Hot burning love did tend to fade into something more companionable as the years passed; that was as it should be.

But on certain days of the year--Mother's Day, Sarah's birthday, Christmas and, yes, Valentine's--he was reminded all over again how special she was and how lucky he was.

Until that night both his wife and little girl had been taken from him.

He swept a calloused hand over his face, feeling the burn of unshed moisture behind them. He didn't cry, not any more. Whatever tears he'd had in him had been wrenched out long ago. He was well past that.

Some days he thought he was past everything.

Well, what else was there to do? Television was out, with its nauseatingly peppy, sentimental bullshit about romantic love oozing out of it with every commercial break. The bed loomed but there would be nightmares for sure. There usually were this time of year.

The emptiness in his stomach gnawed at him with something he told himself was hunger. Maybe he could eat, after all…

Staggering to his feet, he headed towards the kitchen.

__________

"John, come and join us."

He gritted his teeth and made a show of looking through the papers on his desk.

"John." He knew that tone in Benji's voice. She wasn't going to let up with this until she got his consent and/or attention.

"Benji, I'm busy. Can't you see I've got yards of paperwork to get through?"

"And it's the same paperwork you had last week. It's hardly crucial, is it? It can keep for one more day." When he bent his head down without looking at her, she placed a hand on the papers. "John, please."

"Please what, Benji? I'm just not in the mood, all right?"

Something shifted in Benji's eyes. It wasn't impatience, exactly, like he'd seen in the eyes of his fellow officers, the look that said, "For God's sake, get over it already! She's been dead over three years!" No one actually came out and said it. John was big and menacing enough in his overall bulk to make them think twice about that. But that didn't mean it wasn't on their minds.

Maybe they didn't love their wives the way he did. No, that wasn't fair. They might joke but he knew many of them were as fiercely devoted to their wives as he had been to Sarah. But none of them had lost their spouses, not like he had. Let their women and children get carved up like Christmas turkeys and see if they could brush off the pain like dryer lint.

Benji understood, though. Maybe because she was the sole female on the force, maybe because she was a female, period. It made being with her harder and easier.

Harder, because he hated the pity he caught in her eyes, even after three years. Harder, because she would keep pushing and pushing for him to get out, to join in a little socializing, even when he would rather walk over broken glass in his bare feet than be forced to endure the abrasive company of others. Easier, because she was the only one who really understood, who didn't think this was something he could "get over" like it was a bad rash.

Today was one of the hard days.

In traditional American fashion, the Valentine's Day juggernaut had started a month early and hit full force once February started. Everywhere he went on the street, jaunty red-and-pink decorations hung in the stores. Boxes of candy, chocolate bars and Valentine cards were shoved to the front of the aisles, shelf stickers proclaiming them to be on sale. The newspapers were filled with ads promoting special things to do in the upcoming days.

What the hell had happened to the country? This didn't have a damned thing to do with love and John knew it. It was all part of the crass commercialism that had storeowners putting up their Thanksgiving and Christmas signs just after Halloween.

Had it been this bad when Sarah was--? He didn't finish the thought.

Benji was talking again. He'd missed what she was saying. "--Paul's firstborn. It's a big deal for him. He won't stop talking about it: what a big boy it is, how he's got his father's gray eyes and that odd white streak in his hair that he's had since he was a kid himself. It would mean a lot to him…"

John stood up abruptly, the harsh scrape of the chair legs jarring amid the low murmurs. The last thing he wanted to do right now was celebrate the birth of someone else's kid. Shit, couldn't Benji understand that, at least? Maybe she wasn't so sensitive after all.

"I'm going home, Benji." He reached for his coat.

"But what about…?"

"Tell Paul congratulations from me. I just had to miss out, okay? Give my best to him and his wife Alicia."

Benji sighed, a heartfelt sound that conveyed sympathy and reproach at the same time. "John, just this once…"

"Not this time." He evaded her reproachful look and trod from the office with as straight a back as he could manage.

__________

There was someone in his apartment.

Years as a police officer had made him hypersensitive to any change in his immediate surroundings. So, when his door swung open, John knew at once something was off.

The air was fresher as though a window had been opened. There was a faint sense of space being displaced, the indefinable tension you got when you knew you were no longer alone…

He drew his gun and sidled into the apartment. Balanced on the balls of his feet, he moved with the silence of a born predator, not at all hampered by his six-plus frame. The intruder had to have heard the key turn in the lock but so far he hadn't heard any telltale sounds of scrambling or rustling that indicated whoever it was was trying to hide from him.

John toed the door shut. It was the only exit to the apartment except for the narrow windows. If the burglar tried to rush past him, he would waste precious seconds getting the door open again and John would definitely bring him down before he could escape.

He sniffed cautiously and strained his ears to get a bead on the intruder. The persistent grease fire smell was gone, replaced by a rich scent of…cocoa? There was a tinge of a sweeter aroma overlaying it. What it was momentarily escaped his memory. Whatever it was, it didn't belong in his apartment.

Reaching the kitchen, the first room on his right, he angled one arm around the kitchen doorjamb and pointed the gun into the space. John flicked on the light switch in the hall. If the trespasser were in there, John would see him before the man could see John; the single arm would be too small a target for the man to hit.

Nothing. The kitchen was too tiny to hide anyone. The single table and chair made too small a hiding space as well and there was no way whoever it was could hide in the tiny cabinets. Warped doors meant most of them hung off their hinges.

The kitchen was empty but several things registered with John at once, his practiced eye taking in all the details. The floor was clean. Usually, there were crumbs of whatever he'd last eaten dropped on the floor. But there were none now. The kitchen floor shone as if the tiles had been freshly cleaned and polished.

The tiles… They were a dingy, nondescript gray-green, the original colors long lost. At least that's what they were supposed to look like.

The ones he was seeing here were a vibrant black and white, alternating in the familiar checkerboard pattern seen on countless kitchen floors. They looked brand new, like they had been laid down yesterday. The cabinet doors lay closed, each one squarely meeting the wood of the cabinets. That wood, too, shone with the gleam of polish brushed over it by loving hands.

The sink was empty. Usually it held a mountain of dishes--not that John cooked or ate a lot at once. They simply tended to pile up from days and weeks of eating when he actually used cutlery. John had decided washing dishes was a chore he didn't want to waste time on. Whenever he wanted a dish, he simply reached into the dirty pile, scrubbed it free of its sticky leftover and then used it.

He'd explained to Benji that it was better this way. Why take out a dusty dish from a cabinet when he could have one freshly cleaned like in a restaurant? She hadn't been impressed by his logic.

Now, though, all the dishes were cleaned and immaculately stacked in the dish holder. The scent from earlier was stronger and seemed to come from them.

He sniffed and took a cautious step inside. He hadn't realized it but he had been perched on the threshold as though he still feared there was someone in the place.

Shit, of course there was someone here! He hadn't done any of this, he hadn't hired a housekeeper and he was pretty sure he hadn't won a free home makeover from that TV show.

He swung around, his gun pointed in front of him. Of course, stealth was no longer an option; the bright light from the hall would have given him away to any lingering lurker. Silently he cursed himself. He had stood there gaping like an idiot at the kitchen. Anyone around could have jumped him by now.

Investigation of the other rooms revealed nothing out of the ordinary: no interloper, no mysterious cleaning and no missing items that he could see. Evidently his intruder had come and gone doing nothing more harmful than a little…cleaning.

What was going on? Cat burglars he could understand. Cat cleaners? What kind of fucking sense did that make?

Shaking his head, he walked back to the kitchen, half convinced his tired mind had played tricks on him and the kitchen would be in the same rundown state he'd gotten used to.

Nope. It remained the same: shining cabinets, glistening floors, sparkling dishes, all like something out of a damned commercial. Even the various brown stains on the refrigerator were gone.

He edged toward the appliance. It was obscenely white, like a polished fang, and somehow more threatening than anything else that he'd seen so far. If the outside looked like this, what about the inside? Taking a deep breath, he yanked open the fridge door.

There was a small cardboard box lying on the upper rack.

Instantly he froze, every muscle tensing again. He had no memory of placing a box inside his fridge. Okay, usually there were half-eaten boxes of takeout inside, holding remnants of food that he hadn't bothered to finish. But all of those boxes were the typical trapezoidal shapes with bent metal handles or plastic containers containing half-eaten scraps of food. This looked different.

His eye ran over it, refusing to touch it just yet. It was a simple white cardboard box with no clue as to its contents. It was small, about five inches long, three inches high and maybe four inches wide. If it was a bomb, surely it would have been triggered by his opening the fridge, when he didn't have time to get away.

John closed the fridge door and backed away slowly, every motion exaggerated in care. Pausing, he waited. And waited.

There was no "boom", no flash of light or any other noise save his own breathing and heartbeat in his ears. After a moment, he began to feel rather stupid.

It was just a box, after all. A bomb would have been subtle and hidden, triggered by a trip wire or a motion detector. It would have gone off soon after he'd entered the apartment. He was getting paranoid in his old age.

His ears burning, glad that he'd had no witnesses or called for backup, he returned to the fridge and pulled open the door. The box was still there, innocently residing in his fridge, and he pulled it out. Moments later, the contents stood revealed.

It was a chocolate layer cake, or rather a slice, the layers separated by a blood-red sludgy substance. The syrupy smell that he'd half-noted earlier was stronger now and he held it up and sniffed.

Strawberries. That was it, the phantom odor, and the scent was heady. Mixed with that of deep quality chocolate, it was a potent combination. His mouth watered as he took another whiff.

It had been ages since he'd smelled anything so fantastic. It seemed to bring hidden memories with it--the joy of successfully riding a bike for the first time, finding his first chest hair, the first time he'd kissed a girl without missing and hitting her ear. A thousand delightful pleasures crowded to the forefront of his mind.

He had snatched up a fork, sat down to the table and dug into the chocolate treat almost before he'd realized what he was doing. Then he stopped, the fork poised halfway to his mouth.

What was he thinking? What if this was poison? An unknown person had gained entry to his apartment and left this little package for him. What if this was all a trick to kill him?

If it was a trap, it was the clumsiest and most obvious one he'd ever seen. Why clean his apartment, leaving obvious evidence of an interloper? Why leave a box that clearly wasn't his? Why not simply poison the food he already had in the fridge?

He shook away the paranoia, tried to find another explanation. Maybe Benji had snuck in and done a little impromptu cleaning and left this cake as a gift. It would explain why only one room had been cleaned; she hadn't had a chance to do the whole apartment.

But this whole affair had a…sneakiness to it that he just didn't associate with her. Besides, when would she have found the time? She had a husband, two children and a place of her own to take care of; even a kindly gesture like this one would have taken too long.

He realized the fork with the morsel of cake was still hovering in the air below his waiting lips. All at once, he decided the mystery didn't matter. He was a dead man walking, anyway. What did it matter if this was poison or a friendly gesture from a mysterious stranger?

"Screw it," he mumbled and shoveled the morsel into his mouth.

His eyes widened and the fork drooped from his nerveless fingers. The flavor that hit his tongue was like nothing that he'd ever known. The sheer goodness of it exploded across his mouth with the force of a geyser.

The richness of the chocolate wasn't just a flavor; it held the headiness of wine and the subtlety of a fine cigar. It tasted of…cinnamon? Nutmeg? Mace? Yes, there was a spiciness to it but it was more than that. His mouth tingled with the heat of hot sauce. Of course there couldn't be anything like that in chocolate…

The sweetness in the middle was the perfect complement to the spice, tasting like the strawberries it was made from had been picked from the vine mere moments before being cooked into a creamy paste. It was a moist rainstorm, seeming to sway over the chocolate and heat, a teasing tango dancer.

Shit, where was all this poetry coming from? Sarah would have known how to catalog all this. She had been a bit of a wine fancier when she was alive, a hoity toity taste that John hadn't been interested in cultivating. She would have rhapsodized over this treat with all the vocabulary at her command.

John sniffled and rubbed at his eyes. He noted, with only distant surprise, that he'd been crying steadily for the last few minutes. He wasn't sure why--only that the cake roused the memory of love and that he wasn't entirely sorry for it.

Taking a deep breath, he clutched his fork and rapidly finished the rest of the unexpected gift.

__________

Fingers brushed over his face and he smiled in his sleep. "Sarah?" John mumbled sleepily.

The hands paused and then resumed, caressing his neck and sweeping down his chest. They rubbed and pulled at a nipple until he gasped. "Yesss, baby. Don't stop," he hissed.

The fingers spread tendrils of heat, of need, over his flesh wherever they touched. There was an excitement and searching about them that was different than what he recalled from his wife. As they swirled in fiery circles over his chest, he reached up to clasp the upper arms. "Honey?"

The body in his grasp shifted and he became aware of the weight spread across his lap. It was warm, not too heavy, and the arms in his wrists girlishly thin. A soft murmur reached his ears. "John Stonebrook. So beautiful."

A shaft of awareness slid into him, chasing away the dreaminess. This wasn't Sarah's voice, body or movements. Then the weight across his lower body rocked again and his eyes flew open.

He was sitting upright and the unusual position puzzled him for a moment before he remembered. He was still in the kitchen, wasn't he? He must have fallen asleep in the chair after eating all that cake.

It was pitch dark. There wasn't even a ray of light and that was strange. There was a window in the kitchen that looked on to the street. Even on moonless nights, lights from the streetlamps shone into this space. Why couldn't he see?

The arms twisted out of his grip, far more easily than they should have given their relative litheness contrasted to his own husky frame. Then the hot fingers moved down his chest again, more purposefully this time.

He reached to draw them back but they eluded him. They sought and found that special spot on his belly, the one that seemed to tug at a nerve, and his hips bucked. The soft voice became breathless, high in anticipation.

"Ooh, John Stonebrook, I've wanted to be with you for so long. So beautiful, so wanting…you drew me to you. I couldn't help it."

What the fu--? Who was this woman, some crazed stalker he'd managed to attract? Sluggishly, he tried to run through his memories, see if he'd drawn the attention of any female lately who could have latched on to him. A suspect in a case? A witness? An unknown he'd bumped into on the street or in an elevator?

No face or voice came to mind. In fact, John was having a hard time thinking clearly, period. His thoughts kept swooping in and out, unable to fasten on the feeling of danger.

This was a dream. That was the only explanation. He was in the throes of a crazed wet dream, brought on because he hadn't gotten laid in a very looong while. That was it and--

The body inched farther down his. A nipple was licked and he grunted, startled at the abruptness of it. The flesh crinkled as cool air was blown over it. When he moaned, he was answered with a teasing giggle before the other nub on his chest was attended to. The gentle bite of teeth was added, causing him to hiss, and then another soothing lick was given.

Without thinking, his hands slipped down, held a narrow waist. How slender she was, he noted indistinctly. His hands were large yet never had the thumbs been able to meet, nestling in the belly button, while he spanned a woman's hips. He tried to pull her closer and press her flesh to his but she slid eel-slippery between his legs and knelt on the floor.

Cool air was replaced with hot breath swirling around his belly. Before his befuddled mind could piece together the invisible intruder's intentions, his zipper was being tugged down.

"Whuh…?" It wasn't quite a word but his bafflement must have been clear. The figure pressing on his legs paused as though waiting for permission. When he didn't speak again, the motions continued. Hot breath swirled around his bared cock and a tongue began a trail against the waiting flesh. John's body twisted and he opened his mouth, whether to protest or encourage he wasn't certain.

Eagerness was in that bit of flesh darting over his own. Eagerness, yes, but also a large degree of inexperience judging by the sloppy lapping. That surprised him; given the extraordinary boldness of this dream, shouldn't he have conjured a more experienced partner?

He reached down and wound his fingers in a thick abundance of silky hair. "Hey, relax. You don't have to do this if you don't want." Stupid stupid stupid. His first blowjob in years, even if it was a dream, and he was asking that it stop?

The head lifted and he could hear the smile in her voice. "I do want. Just let me know what you like."

He would have protested again but she had returned to her delightful task and he mentally shrugged. Her movements were surer now, as if his speech had removed any shyness she might have had.

Oh, that tongue felt good, sinfully so. When it darted over his crown, dipping into the slit, he groaned, his hips lifting a little from the seat.

So she did it again. Her hands joined in, small and delicate from the feel of them, wrapping around the base and lifting him to her lips. Soft, soft, she lapped at him with determination, as if she had the most enormous sweet tooth and his cock were the biggest candy cane in the world.

The slick heat enveloped him, engulfed him, until he thought his skin would ignite. His hips thrust forward without shame or fear, his hands digging into the warm curve of her skull, guiding her to his rhythm. He wanted to be gentle but it was beyond him now and she didn't seem to care. Her hands left his dick to stroke at his thighs, silent encouragement for him not to hold back.

The darkness closed in on him. His other senses seemed to go haywire to compensate for his lack of sight and he became hyper-aware of other things: his, own crazed breathing and groans, the exaggerated sound of her licks around his cock, the fiery paths on his skin left in the wake of her fingers and nails, a scent of strawberries in the air (the last lingering traces of the cake?), the whoosh thump of…

Wait, what was that? The sound was constant but only now had impinged on his awareness. It was so out of place with what they were doing that his mind couldn't fathom what it could be. This wasn't a normal sex noise, no, it sounded more like…

Then she sucked harder and curiosity vanished. Her hands had fastened on his balls. God, the heat of her fingers was incredible and he panted at the touch of them. She rolled them in her palms, lifted the sac in a considering way, and kneaded with her fingers. He didn't know how but she communicated how wonderful she found their weight and warmth without saying a word.

Then the clenching spiral that had wound through his body lodged in his cock. He knew this feeling, knew what was about to happen. Her obvious inexperience earlier was the only thing that could have forced him to speak at this crucial point. "Shit, I'm gonna…you need to get…I can't stop, oh fuck," he ground out.

He came, then, with the pent-up fury of too many years without and with no more control than a pimply-faced kid jerking off over his dad's hidden porn. She spluttered and he was sorry for that; the last thing he wanted to do was cause her discomfort.

But he could hear smacking sounds; she was licking around her lips to get all of him and the sound alone was enough to make him shake. The tongue returned and he grunted as his cock jerked once more, spilling the little that was left into that greedy mouth.

He was spent and bone weary, the way only really good sex could leave him. The weight shifted, leaving his body to the cool air. The sudden chill produced a shudder and he reached out for her. "Wait, don't go."

The high pitch of her voice dimmed to a gentle regretful murmur. "I have to. But I'll be back."

"When?" His reaching hands grazed the darkness and something both stiff and soft flicked at his fingers. What was that?

There was no answer to his question and the quality of the air had changed, letting him know that he was alone again.

John fell back on the chair. In spite of his tiredness, his mind churned with questions that lust had managed to stifle only temporarily. But the lassitude of completion was stealing over him too urgently to be denied.

It wasn't bliss, exactly. It was more like comfort, the kind he would have known from his wife after a long, hard day at work. That's it; he had been pampered and felt no impatience or embarrassment over it the way he would have if it had come from Benji or any of the other guys on the force.

Was it the unreality of the situation? Was it because he hadn't seen who was doing it? Was it the sheer extravagance of the present given to him? He didn't know and, at that moment, didn't care. John was full and sated and close to happiness as he hadn't been for over three years.

He barely made it to his solitary bed before exhaustion finally claimed him.