Terrible Lizards (ePub)

Dark, nuanced, and sometimes twisted dinosaur stories for adults ...

From Terrible Lizards:

"Don't thing I haven't noticed it," she said, slurring slightly, and added, "I see the way you look at me."

I uncorked the bottle and filled my glass. "You're a very beautiful woman," I said-and sat the bottle between us-too hard, I think. "And a talented one. What would you expect?" I watched as she shimmied and did a little pirouette. "And I'm enjoying the conversation-more than you could know. You move beautifully, by the way. Like a cat."

And then she attempted to spin again but only stumbled suddenly and fell smack into my arms; at which we just looked at each other, she with her boozy, breezy smile and me with an apparent moral dilemma: i.e., should I make a pass at her, like I wanted to, or should I just put her into bed and tuck her away safe (as though she were a simpleton, perhaps, or even a child) like, say, John-Boy Walton might. A dilemma I answered by taking her head in my hands and kissing her-heatedly, hot-bloodedly, restlessly-what a friend of mine used to call a "come fuck me" kiss; because she was no child. And I was no John-Boy.

And then we went to her room and lay together; drunkenly, sloppily, unspectacularly, and after a while, I dreamed: of lightning permeating everything and rain pounding the roof like nails, like hail; of wives and friends and girlfriends and my father-most of whom I hadn't seen in years; of small, predatory dinosaurs, deinonychuses, with dark skin and wet backs-who held vigil around our bed like cultists, like priests, and who trilled, softly, faintly, as though they were meditating. As though they were communing.