The Glimpsing by James L. Black, Mary Byrnes Read Free Book Online

away again, this time showing him her back.
    “Answer me!”
    “I had to see you,” she whispered, though still not turning back.   She brought a hand to her temple.
    “What’s wrong with you?   Are you drunk?”
    No reply.
    “How did you get in here?”
    “You brought me,” she said, her voice still not above a whisper.
    “Listen Portia, I’m not in the mood for—”
    She cut him off.   “Why did you do it?”
    “What?” Jack said, confused.
    “Why did you do it?”
    “Why did I do what?”
    “My bedroom.   Why did you enter it?”
    “What are you talking about, Portia?”
    She only rolled back halfway, looking at him with those drowsy eyes but nevertheless with enough force to convey she knew he was trying to hide the truth.   And he was trying to hide it.   He knew very well what she was referring to: the night he had entered her house, went upstairs, and violated her bedroom.
    He sighed heavily.   “So, that’s what this is all about.   I broke in to your bedroom… and now you’re returning the favor.”   He chuckled incredulously.   “Not exactly something I would ever imagine you doing, but I guess turnabout is fair play.”
    She finished rolling back toward him, then asked with an innocent, almost childlike inquisitiveness: “Why were you there?”
    He paused, then said smugly, “I’d been drinking.”
    “I know that,” she whispered.   “But what did you want?”
    “Who says I wanted anything.”
    “You wanted something, Jack.   Don’t pretend.”
    He shrugged.   “What does it matter?   I left, didn’t I ?”
    She paused, her face reflecting a sense of suddenly greater interest.   “But why?   What made you leave?”
    Jack got a bright visual of the red blush and eerie face he’d imagined in the closet.   “Let’s just say I… came to my senses.”
    “I see,” the woman said flatly.
    Jack stared at her, musing for a moment.   “How did you know I was there?”
    “I saw you,” she said, as if this should have been plain to him.
    “What do you mean you saw me?   You couldn’t have.”
    “I saw you then just as clearly as I see you now.”
    Jack chuckled.   “You were in bed.   You were asleep the entire time.”
    “Oh, I wasn’t watching you from the bed, Jack.”   She paused.   “I was watching you from the closet.”
    Jack stared, blinked… and then a pimply rash of gooseflesh broke out on his back.   It was her, the thing he’d imagined in Portia’s closet.   Only he hadn’t imagined it at all.   She was laying before him.
    The woman slowly sat up, like a vampire rising in a coffin.   “Oh. It seems I’ve startled you again.”
    Jack’s mouth moved in an attempt to speak but nothing came out.   He gaped at her wide-eyed, their faces mere inches apart… and then his demeanor suddenly changed.   He relaxed, visibly.   A big chummy grin formed on his face.   He began a loud, mocking round of applause.   “Very good, Portia.   Very good.   But I’m surprised.   This is all so unlike you.”
    Jack had realized that once again he was falling prey to a colossal gag.   It was obvious that Portia had actually awakened the night he’d infringed upon her bedroom and saw him gazing into the closet, alarmed by what he thought was some entity there.   Now she had come here and was playing on that moment, cleverly trying to upset him, to repay him for doing something she had told him never to do.
    He grinned at her.   She grinned back.   Hers, however, was not one that seemed to share the comedy of the moment.   It was one that suggested he was a fool.
    “What are you doing here, Portia?   I mean really, what is this all about?”
    She tilted her head slightly.   “What makes you think I’m Portia?”
    It was a nonsensical question.   In spite of the getup: the red dress, the dyed hair, the dark contact lenses, there could be no doubting who she—
    He stopped.   He whirled, peering down the hallway.   The bathroom still