The Good Doctor's Tales Folio Four by Randall Farmer Read Free Book Online Page B

pain, always.  I promised myself to
learn from this one, my debt to Bobby. 
    I decorated the kitchen in a quaint country style, and
daisies and baby ducks covered everything.  I got a jolt sometimes when I came
into the kitchen, wondering what made me decorate the kitchen in such a way.  I
made a point of keeping the kitchen clean of all signs of my less savory
activities.
     
    A week later, Bobby was still sick, but healing.  He had
an annoying raspy cough, but he walked and talked, and I had him under orders
not to go out in public, where he could catch a cold.  I was easy on him – no
rough sex, no rough anything.  No shorting him on sleep just to teach him
another lesson about the power of Arms.
    When we talked, Bobby stayed polite with me.  Too
polite.  He had always feared me, but now there was something more, something
deeper.  When I had carried him inside to the cleaner, warm and now more homey
house, he had broken down and cried.  I had broken him.  Not too long ago, he
had been a tough aspiring amateur boxer with a crashingly large ego.  No
longer.
    I took care of him.  I was unfailingly gentle with him.  He
got everything he needed.  Fear and pain haunted his eyes, but now, instead of
titillating and enticing me, his reactions hurt.  Dammit, I wanted a lover, not
a terrified sex slave.
    Should I convince him to go somewhere else, like Los
Angeles or Miami?  Far away from Arms and their problems?  I couldn’t.  He was mine ,
and once an Arm owns something, it’s nearly impossible to get rid of it, even
if you would rather see it gone.  I understood, now, about why my graduation
task from Keaton had been so hard, and why Keaton had nearly reneged when I did
graduate.
    I stewed as I went through my days and dealt with my
normal Arm problems.  I was one Arm, alone.  Keaton and Zielinski remained but distant
voices on the phone and typewritten letters delivered to Milwaukee.  I thought
up the idea of a Transform clearing house – you have a problem, we have the Major
Transform with the specialty to solve it.  I worked out my idea in exquisite
detail, in every aspect.  A useful idea, but useless now.  I didn’t dare speak
of my idea to Keaton or Zielinski.  In my current condition, they would label a
wild-ass idea like mine certifiably insane and not be wrong.
    I found a kill and took out my passions on a stockbroker
I found out trolling for tail at a local bar.  After I finished with him, I stuck
his wedding ring half way to his heart via his rear end for cheating on his
wife.  I found another man later, a potential recruit, and took him apart
physically and mentally to find out if he was worthy.  He wasn’t, and
afterwards, I made sure he wouldn’t be robbing any more old ladies of their
social security checks and raping them afterwards.  Doing a good deed at least
cheered me up, some.
    Finished with my work, I came home.
    Just before dawn, Bobby’s skin almost glowed in the
almost-darkness of the room.  He had slipped mostly out of the covers, his back
lay naked to the air.  My eyes lingered on the lean curves, and the fall of his
brown hair over his eyes and I wanted to gently run my fingered down the length
of his back and tease him awake.
    Foolish me.  My breath caught at the sight of Bobby, and
the energy inside of me tightened into an ache.  I wanted to climb into bed on
top of him, breathe into his ear, and turn him on until he went crazy.  I
wanted to spend the rest of the day here, stroking my own lusts as I fed his,
until we were both sated to exhaustion.
    Such sexcapades wouldn’t be good for him, though.  I
wasn’t good for him.  Every day he stayed with me I consumed a little more of
his strength.  He would heal better if he stayed away from me, but he could no
more leave me than a moth could leave the candle flame.  He needed me like a
junkie needs his horse.  All the while, his candle burned down and I didn’t
know how to stop it.
    Oh, and I needed