not for kiddies

It hadn’t been the worst day of Barb’s life. That had been the day the power plants blew up. That had been the worst day in everyone’s life. The survivors were still trying to get back to normal. The cockroaches were still mutating, though.

“Maybe I should have taken that apartment,” she muttered to herself, rubbing her sore calf muscle. “At least with the big ones you can see them coming.”

She looked around her motel room. The bare floor shone softly in the LED light. All the furniture stood with each leg in a dish of kerosene. A sign on the wall said, “The management will not be responsible for anything left touching the floor or a wall.” As she sat on the bed with her feet tucked under her, she watched a blush of the tiny red ones sweep across the wall behind the TV. They were too small to focus on individually, but the little cockroaches swarmed in the millions. Barb shuddered.

Things had been better in Billings. The cold winters killed most of the bugs. Here in sub-tropical Seattle, the whole city crawled. But this was where the work was, so this was where she was going to have to stay for a while. It was just too damn bad that a diagnostician couldn’t do her work on line, but telecommuting won’t tell you the feel of the patient’s skin or the smell of their breath or the exact timbre of their cough. Diagnosis was still a hands-on profession. And as long as her mom was going strong, Billings, Montana didn’t need another diagnostician.

“Why didn’t I go for surgery?” Barb asked herself, carefully tucking all the sheets and blankets up to avoid leaving a bridge from floor to bed. “I could phone that in from anywhere in the world, but nooo, I had to watch every episode of “House” and get inspired to diagnose. Idiot. Lights out.”
Obedient to her command, the lights went off.


New Seattle - 1:00AM- May 9, 2020

“God, you’re beautiful,” Cody groaned. He began to kiss the tender spot in front of her ear, trailing a tongue tip around the whorls, and breathing into the hollows. Barb shuddered with pleasure.

“Oh Cody, let me sleep. I’ve got to be bright and alert my first day on the job.”

“Oh baby, you are bright as the sun at high-noon in August. They’ll need sunglasses just to be in the same room with you.” He nipped her earlobe, and her breath began to come quicker.

“You can give your old Cody a little sugar, can’t you darlin’? He was kissing down to the corner of her jaw, then mumbling his lips along her throat, slowly pulling the blankets down. “Just a little lovin’ for your dear old Cody?” He slipped between the sheets next to her. He was naked, of course. “Just once for old time’s sake, my little rodeo queen?” his hands were on her breasts, caressing, teasing. She opened her mouth for his tongue, and her knees for the familiar weight of his body.

“I have never heard of a ghost as horny as you are, Cody,” she sighed.

“Yeah, but you like it, don’t you sugar pie?”

“Oh yes. Oh, God yes. Yes, Yes! Yesyesyesyeeeesss! Ohhh, Cody.”

“You just go to sleep now, darlin’ Old Cody’ll take care of you.”
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