Secret Sins Ch. 03

We had sex again that day and again in the early evening before she went home. I couldn't get enough of her and, lying in bed that night, I wondered if it was her personally, or the simple fact that she was a woman and the whole forbidden nature of a same sex relationship that had me so suddenly addicted to her body. Was it only the novel experience of sex with another person, regardless of that person being male or female? Possibly all three of these factors?

Sprawled on top of the covers in the heat, wearing my short, see through, white nightie without panties, I turned this over in my mind before I realized that I hadn't rewarded myself with the usual porn video before bed. But, I really didn't need to, did I? Donna had taken care of that very handily. Then I found myself wondering if I'd ever bother with porn again, suddenly taken by the possibility that my secret sin may actually and finally fall away from me, ironically struck down by one of its own side effects. The side effect was much worse and far more difficult to control, but the persistent thought that my porn addiction may have been declawed by Donna was almost unimaginable.

She certainly did have personality. The manager and cashier at Value Village found that out. Getting sleepier, I recalled those events, their immediate change in attitude and their wide, fearful eyes as they looked at her. Rearranging my head on the pillow, I remembered how I was looking over Donna's shoulder at them, and I wondered what her expression would have been if I could have seen it. What expression of outraged offense could have so effectively bent them to her will?

The clock radio read three-O-seven AM when I woke up. Without hesitation, I got out of bed and left my room, padding down the short hall and then down the stairs in my bare feet. The front room of the main level was barely illuminated by indirect moonlight from the North facing window, the edges of the aluminum stepladder shining like some indistinct, futuristic implement in the middle of the floor. Without hesitation, I approached the door under the stairs, opened it and stepped just inside, standing on the small landing at the head of the basement steps and looking down into the pitch black.

I stared in utter silence for at least a minute.

"Who are you?" I demanded in a level tone.

(Pause)

"What do you want?"

I was about to say something else when it struck me, my surroundings and what I was doing. What was I doing? Tingles and shivers crawled over my skin, raising goosebumps all over my body as the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Quickly stepping out of the landing area and back into the front room, I slammed the door shut, a fresh wave of tingles cascading down my back as I realized there was no way to lock the door, and I very much wanted that door locked.

After hurrying to the kitchen, I returned with one of the wooden chairs, greatly relieved to find the basement door still closed. I jammed the back of the chair under the knob, then stood back to stare at the door, wide awake and almost expecting something to start pounding from the other side to be let out.

Of course, that didn't happen, but I was too afraid to move. As much as I wanted to run back upstairs and hide under the covers of my bed, no matter the heat, I couldn't take my eyes off that door. One would have thought it was a dangerous animal that would leap for my throat the second I took my eyes from it, the deceptive safety of my bed only an illusion for those fools who prefer to stick their heads in the sand in the face of danger.

What in hell was I doing?

Why did I come downstairs?

Who was I talking to?

It took a while for me to calm down, for my heart rate to slow and the creeping shivers to abate enough for me to start thinking rationally.

I'd been sleepwalking. It was the only real explanation, at least the only rational one. What with commencement, the stuff with Major Hurdle, living on my own for the first time and, last but most certainly not least, sex with Donna, my subconscious had become disturbed and restless.

Or whatever.

A part of my mind asked in a shaky, fear filled voice if people who sleepwalk remember what they did while sleepwalking. I didn't think they did, but I wasn't sure, and I really didn't want to think about it because, right then, standing in the darkened front room in my little nightie, the sleepwalking theory was a really good one to cling to. Even though I remembered everything, including waking up in my bedroom.

Eventually, enough rationale returned to my mind to allow me to climb the stairs again and return to my bed, getting under the covers and pulling them up to my ears as I peered out from that deceptive safety of fools. Through my open window, the sound of a gunshot in the distance actually helped, a reminder that there were other people in the world, and not that far away. Moments later, a different shot answered the first as my free clock radio blinked to four-thirteen.