1 comments/ 16282 views/ 2 favorites The Mummy By: TamLin01 The Mummy His voice became brittle. Sharon froze, her heart beating faster and faster. "What are you talking about?" "Just some fascinating tidbits for your research." He held on tighter, constricting her so that she couldn't move. "Marcus, what the hell are you doing?" "Marcus?" His eyes lit up. "No. I have rather enjoyed being Marcus for a few hours, though. I suspect I got more out of it than he ever did." Sharon pulled away, but Marcus (not Marcus, she realized, panicking) had too firm a grip. She was stronger than him, she knew, but he had leverage, height, and surprise in his favor. She tried to slap him again but her arms were pinned. "Now, now," he said, talking as though to a child. "There's no point in trying to hurt me. This isn't even my body, so I don't care what happens to it. If you want to help Marcus, the first thing you'll have to do is behave." He raised an eyebrow. She stopped struggling. "If I let you go, do you promise not to run?" Sharon gritted her teeth, but nodded. He let go. She backed away. He took two steps forward, arms out, but she held up a finger. "Stay right there," she said. "Don't come near me." I've been very near you already. But as you will." He sat on the plaster sarcophagus. Minutes passed. Sharon wrestled panic. Every time she was about to say something she looked at him and felt sick. He waited. Sharon took a deep breath and, without looking directly at him, said, "Who are you?" "My name is Ta'Awa." She hesitated before the next question. "Are you...the mummy?" He shrugged. "Not strictly. A mummy isn't a person, it's just a vessel for a soul. But yes, that mummy was made from my body, and I was in it for a long time. And now I'm out." He put his hands out to the side. "Ta-da." Sharon shook her head. "How do you speak English?" "The last owner of that mummy was an Englishman; I've listened to the language for decades. In fact, I know a lot of languages. You pick up on things, listening to people." "But what about Marcus? What did you do to him?" Her voice went up an octave. "Just traded places, until I decide to let him out. Which I will, shortly. I'm sorry about the pretense. I thought a scare would help put you in the mood." "In the mood? Wait a minute!" said Sharon, standing up straighter. "If you're not Marcus, then why did you...I mean we—we..." "Ah, yes, I can explain that." Sharon waited. Ta'Awa said nothing. "So?" she said. "Hmm?" "Explain!" Ta'Awa shrugged. "Look, it's been thousands of years and I saw an opportunity, what did you want me to do?" He examined his nails. "Besides, I thought this might be my only chance to see what it was like...as a man." He looked up. Sharon frowned, and then his meaning dawned on her. She gaped. "Do you mean—?" "Surely you realized that 'Ta'Awa' is a feminine name?" "Oh. My. God." Sharon had to sit down. "God? Yes, you have a strange notion of gods these days. I was a priestess of Sekhmet for most of my life." "This can't be happening." "I'll admit the circumstances are a bit odd," said Ta'Awa. "But there's really nothing wrong with—" Sharon walked away. She heard Ta'Awa calling after her, but she ignored it, focusing on the entry to the gallery as though it were the only thing in the world. She was almost there when the skeletal figure blocked her path. At first she panicked but after thinking for a moment she stopped and said, "Marcus! Are you okay?" The mummy's leathery face was blank, incapable of expression. She wanted to touch him but was afraid of how fragile the body must be. "Can you hear me? Marcus!" "He can hear you," said Ta'Awa, emerging from the tomb behind them. "But he probably has no idea what's going on." Sharon backed away. Ta'Awa pointed to the mummy and said, "Rest." The mummy walked back to the sarcophagus, lying down inside and becoming still. Ta'Awa stood over the case, looking at the shrunken, skeletal thing. "Strange," she said, "to think this was once me." "Look, are you going to help him or not?" said Sharon. "Of course. It was fun to try, but I have no desire to remain in Marcus' body forever." "What then? What do you want?" "Can't you guess? I don't want Marcus' body, Sharon. I want yours." Sharon was stunned. Half a minute passed before she managed to gasp out, "What?" "You mean you didn't realize? There are only two bodies here, after all, and I don't want this one." "But why do you need any body at all? You're dead; you're ancient for crying out loud, why are you doing this?" They stood on opposite sides of the display now, the mummy stretched between them. "Because I'm awake in a way that I haven't been for centuries," said Ta'Awa. "I'm tired of eternal life. Now I want to live. You understand, don't you? You can't deny me that? You wouldn't be that cruel?" "But what will happen to me?" said Sharon. "Something wonderful. You'll sleep for ages, but you'll have the most divine dreams, and in your dreams you'll learn everything that goes on around you. You'll awaken some day, maybe in a hundred years, maybe in five hundred, maybe in thousands, and find a new world waiting for you. Doesn't that sound incredible?" Sharon said nothing. Ta'Awa leaned in. "Don't you want the promise of eternity? You can have it; I don't want it anymore. And what are you even giving up? How happy are you here? How happy have you ever been?" Sharon's head was spinning. She was confused, and scared, but a chance like this was never going to come again... Ta'Awa slid around to the other side of the display. "I know all about you," she said. "I know all of Marcus' thoughts. You're just like me, in a way: I spent my entire life tending to these same artifacts, to the bodies of the priests, to the images of the gods. It's emptying, isn't it? I never believed in the next world or the power of the spirits any more than you do. We just live for icons, you and I, placeholders of things that never existed." Sharon was afraid that if she talked she might cry, so she said nothing. Ta'Awa took her hand. "You have a choice, now. You can take my offer, and live the life of a goddess reborn. Or you can stay here, in your office, with your dead people and no one but naïve little Marcus to keep you—" Marcus! "No," Sharon said, backing away. "I don't trust you. And I don't want what you're offering me. I just want you to...go away. However it is you do that. Bring Marcus back, and go away. Now." Ta'Awa stepped forward, silhouetted under the dim late-night lights. "Then I'll just take your body by force, the way I did Marcus." "But then what will you do about him?" said Sharon. "He'll know what happened and he won't give you any peace. You'll have to kill him to shut him up, and have the danger of getting caught hanging over your new life forever." "I—" said Ta'Awa, but then she stopped, perplexed. "Didn't think this through very well, did you?" Sharon said. Ta'Awa glared at her. Then, moving so fast that Sharon didn't have time to react, she hit her, the back of Ta'Awa's hand grazing Sharon's jaw. Sharon lost her balance and fell, and before she could stand Ta'Awa was on her, leaning all of the weight of Marcus' body on top of her. Sharon felt something press to the side of her neck and realized that it was Marcus' box cutter. She became very still. "Are you going to think your way out of this?" said Ta'Awa. Sharon spit in her face. Ta'Awa pushed the blade a little closer. "You're right, I don't know enough about the world yet to get away with murder, but I don't have to kill you. I can just make you wish I had. I know how to do things that won't even leave a mark but will have you screaming until you forget your own name. You think you're so—" Sharon brought her knee right up into (Marcus') crotch. Ta'Awa's eyes bulged, and Sharon grabbed her by the shoulders, rolling them both until Ta'Awa was on the bottom, pinned. The box cutter slipped out of Ta'Awa's hand and Sharon grabbed it. She pushed the point against Ta'Awa's throat. Ta'Awa exhaled hard and groaned. "Wow," she said. "That really does hurt." She looked at the blade pointed at her. "What are you planning to do with that? You know you can't hurt me. If you kill me, Marcus will be trapped forever." "Won't he be anyway? Or me instead? You're not going to let us both walk out of here, so what difference does it make? You might as well be dead if one of us is going to end up stuck no matter what." "But you can't kill anyone, you won't get away with it!" "I'll take my chances. I think I can get people to sympathize with how I fought off my attacker after he cornered me at work, late at night, alone, when everyone knows how many times I've fended off his advances. I think my odds are at least fair. What about yours?" They froze, glaring at each other. "You're bluffing," said Ta'Awa. "Hard to say. I'm willing to take my chances. Are you?" They stayed that way for a long time. Finally, the features of Marcus' face settled into a smirk, and Ta'Awa said, "Fine. I'll just put things back as they were." Sharon blinked. "You will?" "Sure. I'll put everything back and let you both go." "You're just giving up?" "What choice do I have?" Sharon shook her head. "I don't believe you." "That's the problem with you: For someone who spent her whole life studying history and eternity, you don't have much perspective. I can go back because I can afford to wait. I'll still be waiting when you and lover boy are dust in the ground. Some day I'll find a way out. But you? You'll be trapped here until you die, and unlike me you really will die. Don't feel too sorry for me, Sharon. I'll be dreaming about you while I sleep." And then she left. Nothing spectacular happened to mark the change; there was not even any alteration in Marcus' posture or demeanor, but rather just the barest flickering of expression, from Ta'Awa's resigned anger to Marcus' pained bewilderment. He looked up with glazed eyes and Sharon realized, with embarrassment, that she was still straddling his body. She rolled off and he sat up, wincing. "What the hell?" he said. She put her hands on his shoulders and shook him. "Marcus, is it you?" He blinked. "Yes?" "But is it REALLY you?" She shook him again. "It's me, it's really me;" he said, untangling himself from her. "Want me to prove it? You drink six cups of coffee a day; you always wear your red pumps on Tuesdays; you read cheesy romance novels on your break and think no one notices when you tear up over them; we first met on a bus coming from Daly City without realizing we worked together; your middle name is Ginsburg because your father wanted to be a Beat; your favorite song is 867—" She put her hand over his mouth. "They stared at each other for a while. Then she said: "I do not tear up reading those books." Marcus was about to laugh, but at all at once he noticed the mummy again. Looking panicked, he grabbed the heavy flashlight, raising it up and preparing to dash the mummy's skull into fragments, but Sharon said, "Wait!" "Why?" said Marcus. "She's dangerous." "Yes. But what if what you're about to do doesn't kill her?" Marcus frowned. "Do you think?" "She said that a mummy is just a vessel for a soul. I don't want her soul out wandering around on its own. I don't even know what she'd do then." "So what are we doing to do about her?" Sharon looked at the mummy, considering. Then she said, "Nothing." "Nothing? But what are we going to tell everyone about what happened tonight?" "What happened tonight?" said Sharon. "Why, tonight we both took off early to have a drink at your friend's bar. We just made the after-party." Marcus blinked dumbly. "That party was over hours ago." "Really? I don't even remember. I guess we had a really good time." She shut the coffin lid and turned the lights off, and she and Marcus left, hand-in-hand. In the gallery, in the dark, something stirred. But a second later it was gone, and everything was still again. Still as the grave. *** The mummy it still there. Sharon Hiller and Marcus Greene abruptly resigned their positions the day after its arrival. They had one meeting with the museum owners, but no one except those present knows what was said there. When the sarcophagus' previous owner was contacted he said that he knew all about the mummy, and in fact he'd put it in there on purpose. He said that it should be considered a gift to the museum, and that he was "Tired of dealing with it." He would elaborate no further. It's perhaps not surprising that the mummy became the focus of various superstitions, some facetious and some not, on the part of museum staff. More than one person has been caught staring at it, rapt, for minutes on end, unresponsive. More than one staff member has quit the museum following such an episode, though few say why. Those who have seen the mummy comment that it is so remarkably well-preserved, and its face so expressive, that at times it seems not to be dead at all, but only sleeping. Most are unnerved by this thought, since it stands to reason that anything that is sleeping will some day awaken. But if the mummy knows how long the sleep of the dead lasts, it keeps the secret to itself. The Mummy "Pssst!" I was raking leaves in my backyard. At first I thought the hiss might be a snake in the grass. But it sounded far too human for that. "Pssst!" It was coming from behind me. I turned. I turned and found my neighbor Hector's bearded face in the V-shaped opening his hands had forged in the hedge that divided our properties. "Hey Hector, what's up?" "Hey, man." He signaled me closer, urgently. I dropped the rake and walked to the hedge. Hector was one of those people you could see a thousand times and he'd never remember your name. We'd been neighbors, but not very close ones, for going on two years now. "Hey. Your wife," he whispered hoarsely, all the while glancing left and right, "she away, right?" "Y...eah," I replied warily. "I know cause I seen you loading her suitcase in your trunk yesterday morning." "She's away for a few days. On business." Laughter bubbled up in Hector's throat. "Yeah," he said, as if he knew something I didn't. "Anyway, my wife? You like her right?" Hunh? I don't think I'd exchanged eight words with Isabella--Izzy--in two years' time. "I know you do," Hector continued, "cause I seen you looking at her when she sunbathes out by the pool. Topless." My mouth opened in protest. But silence reigned. He had me there. On more than one occasion, when my wife Desiree--Dez--wasn't around, I'd spied through the hedge on Izzy's oiled and sunbrowned little body. With those silicon-enhanced D-cups. I'd brought binoculars the last few times. In all honesty she wasn't my type. I would take Dez's natural B-cups and long slender legs over Izzy's body type any day of the week. Still, when your nextdoor neighbor is sunbathing in the nude... "Anyway, she home now. She a nurse, you know? A R.N.?" I had no fucking idea where this conversation was heading. But I did at least know Izzy was a nurse. "Anyway," Hector repeated, somewhat nervously (or perhaps he'd just had one too man con leches), "when she get off her shift she's like worn out, you know? How you say...frazzled? She stressed, man. The shit she gotta deal with four straight days, twelve hours a day...?" I nodded. Sympathetically, I guess. "So to relax, this is what she do..." And here Hector, with his cigar breath, leaned even closer. The hedge parting even wider. "She like to be a mummy." "A what?" "A mummy." "She wants to be a mommy?" "A mummy, a mummy." Hector wanted badly to talk with his hands, branches shaking. But he couldn't. "You know, wrapped-up like?" "Wrapped up like a mummy?" I said in disbelief. "Yeah! Yeah!" Hector shouted triumphantly. Catching himself, he again lowered his voice to a hoarse whisper. "I used to wrap her in Saran Wrap but that shit too expensive. So now I get that industrial, like, shrink-wrap. I buy big rolls of it. Maybe you seen the truck delivering it..." Not really, I thought. I said: "And this is voluntary?" "What is?" "Your wife getting wrapped up like this? This is--" "Oh yeah, man! She love this shit! It was her idea. She find it relaxing, man. Twelve hours in her mummy suit--we call it, we joke, her mummy suit--and she come out all nice and relaxed...her old self again. Refreshed, you know?" I didn't. "Then I take her out for a nice dinner at like Red Lobster or some place. It's like our routine, you know?" I didn't. "Hector, why are you--" "See, before she met me she was dating this doctor, see? Anglo? She still date him sometimes, but that's cool. Anyway it was this doctor guy who show her about the mummy. He used to wrap her up and keep her in his closet for like twelve hour. Locked up. She got into it, man. Now she like addicted to it, you know? She love this shit." "How does she breathe?" Hector let one side of the hedge go and pointed two fingers at his flat nose's large nostrils. "Airholes, man. Her mouth too. Oh yeah, she can breathe OK, man. Otherwise..." Yeah. Otherwise it's called suffocation. "Plus her big tits." WHAT? I felt like the conversation, or confession, or whatever this was, was finally getting somewhere. "I used to wrap her whole body up but now I leave her tits unwrapped." "Why?" So they can breathe? "So, you know...," he said diffidently, glancing down, left then right. Then at me. "So guys can like cum on them." I swallowed. My mouth had gone as dry as the leaves I'd been raking. "Guys cum on her...?" Hector nodded. "It was, like, her idea. Well, mine at first but then she..." I was wearing old jeans. Two sizes too small. I was getting a hard on. I wondered if it showed... "See, one day her brother visiting. Umberto? Bertie? And I say, your sister here but she, like, sleeping. In her mummy suit, you know? And he like...WHAT? And I tell him and he say, Can I like see her? And I'm like...Why not? It's his sister. So I take him in the bedroom and Bertie, he, like, just loses it. Tells me he hasn't seen his sister's naked body since, like, highschool. Pulls his pants down--he's a doctor, too--and shoots his load all over Izzy's mummy suit. Un--fucking--real, man! "So after she wake up, I tell Izzy and she like...shrugs. Like she OK with it, no big deal. So I say to her..." (I'm standing there wondering: is all this being discussed in a booth at Red Lobster?) "I say to her...Maybe we like get guys to come over do this all the time. What guys, she says. I don't know...Craigslist-type guys? Charge 'em, I don't know, fifty bucks a pop? Something? Make a little extra cash? Izzy say, I don't care long as they don't wake me up, bother me. I need my mummy sleep. I say, no touching, no noise. Them's the rules. I leave your pussy unwrapped from now on... "Not my pussy, Iz say. I don't want no strangers cuming anywhere near my pussy. Leave my tits unwrapped. Sides, cum is good for the skin and my tits, they like my best feature. So that's what we do ever since. I leave her big tits unwrapped, take some pictures, post on Craigslist. Guys come over, you probably seen the traffic?" Not really. "So anyway, today, this Craigslist motherfucker...he a no-show you know? Piss me off, man. I promise Izzy a man come over while she asleep today and..." I cannot quite find the words to describe Hector's expression, as he looked directly at me. It was somewhere between demanding and pleading. "So listen, man, so you...wanna come over cum on my wife's tits? Like now?" The hedge shook. "I ain't chargin' you, man. This a freebee. You my neighbor and shit and all that. You my bro, man." I stood there across the hedge from Hector thinking up all the reasons this was a bad idea. Not a bad idea, a FUCKING TERRIBLE one. "Ain't like you cheating or anything, man. All you doin' is shooting your load. Hell, Izzy ain't even conscious." I winced. "I don't consider it cheating and she MY WIFE. All it is is a little cum, you know? And your wife not bein' at home...you probably got a load you need to unload. Right, man?" Little did Hector know that masturbation was now my only form of sex. Dez had made it clear months ago that I no longer--if I ever did--satisfy her in bed. In fact she'd banished me to the guest bedroom. I slept alone. Dez, on the other hand, now slept AROUND. In fact I was 99% sure her traveling companion this weekend, one of her company's VP's, was also her latest lover. "Also, man, it like nobody will ever know. You, me and not even Izzy'll--" "OK." A moment of silence passed. Of partial disbelief. Before Hector's bearded face exploded in smile. "Right on, man!" he exulted, as if this were 1968. "Put it there, bro!" launching a hand through the branches. "Let's go, man! Let's do it!" "I need...like a couple of minutes," I said, finger raised, backing toward my house. "Hurry up, man! Let's go! She be awake in like three hour, man..." "I..." I turned, ran and headed straight for my kitchen. And the bottle of Absolut in the freezer. I drank directly from it. One thick slug, two. It was a little bit like swallowing semen, come to think of it. Near-frozen semen, but... Next I jumped in the shower and, still half-wet, pulled on drawstring pants and a teeshirt. No panties. Why would I need them? My head was just starting to buzz from the vodka when I arrived at Hector's front door and rang the bell. It opened on his displeasure, a forefinger to his thick lips. "Shhhh, man! Why you ringin' the doorbell? I know you's coming. She's asleep, man!" On that critical note I entered a house I'd never darkened the door of before. Typical anonymous neighbors in the suburbs, I guess you could say. Hector was holding a silver flashlight. Still frowning, he gestured with it and led me to the end of a dim hallway. He turned back from the door, and whispered: "Two rules, OK? No touching. No noise." I nodded. Hand on the knob, he turned back again. "Not even when you cum, OK? Keep it inside." I always do, I said to myself. Quietly, as if a burglar, he turned the knob fully counterclockwise and gently pushed open the door. The room was black. I could see...nothing. Hector turned on the flashlight and shone it downwards to his right. Where his wife Izzy lay. Encased tightly in shrinkwrap. It was the creepiest thing I'd ever seen. And I've seen my share of embalmed bodies in caskets. Hector set the flashlight down on its round bottom atop the headboard, and now yellowish light shone up the wall in a V-shape and on the ceiling as a half-moon. It was like during a hurricane. Then my host, once again pressing a forefinger to his lips, silently backed out of the bedroom and closed the door. I was alone now with his mummified, unconscious wife. I blinked down at her as my eyes adjusted to the partial light. There they were: those magnificent silicone-enhanced boobs I'd observed poolside before. Despite the fact that Izzy lay flat on her back, her tits rose off her chest like two rounded pyramids in the desert. Thanks but I preferred the all-natural saggy type. Breasts that flowed off to either side when a woman lay prone. Half-flesh, half-liquid. As yummy-soft to the hand as moonlight to the eye. Beautiful. Transcendent... I was far more interested, as long as I was privy to them, in the shrouded, transparent details of Izzy's pert little body. The way her toes, with their red-painted nails, curled under at shrinkwrap's constraining far end. The silver toering, fourth toe in, left foot. The aquamarine anklet six inches further up (a gift from Hector?). The little, very black tuft of shaved, trimmed pubic hair mid-body. The makeup-less face I'd never really studied close up. And which, though not to my tastes, was really quite cute. Hmmm. Her bare breasts awaited. I lowered my drawstrings and went to work. Her little body was about a foot in from bed's edge. So I spread my legs a little and leaned over further, against the mattress. I slipped. I slipped and the bulging head of my cock brushed her nipple. I'd violated Rule #1! (Or was it #2?) I breathed a (silent) sigh of relief as her body remained still. As if she were in a deep coma. Which, in a sense, she temporarily was. Perversely, perhaps, I decided to chance again. I lowered the pink head of my hard cock, with its cum-glistening hole, until it brushed Izzy's brown aureole, and its erect nipple. Her body flinched. So did mine. I was standing upright again. I looked at her shrinkwrap-encased face. Her eyes were still shut, thankfully. Enough nonsense. I stroked my meat a few times and, as is my wont, just ask my wife, let my semen fly. Silently. The looping cum looked yellowish in the light. I watched it land on and across her swollen left tit, and in the valley between it and the perky right one. My cum barely climbing the base of that artificial far mountain. As I finished up I leaned over further so the last oozes dripped directly onto her left nipple. Then I leaned back. Done. Or nearly so. Now I regretted not having worn panties. My residual, oozing cum would soak through the front of my thin cotton pants (which, fortunately, were black) or, worse, drip down my leg. I wiped the cum on my hand on the edge of the mattress. What else was I supposed to do? Then I grabbed the flashlight and--quietly--exited the bedroom. Hector was leaning against the wall, a few meters down the hall. "Man, that was fast!" he said. I handed him the cummy flashlight, which he extinguished. "Pretty cool, hunh? Jacking off on a lady like that?" I wasn't sure about the lady part, but... Hector put his arm around my shoulder as we bumped our way down the hall. "You want to come back? Do it again? You got like a special Cart Blanch," he said. "Neighbor's rate, too. Forty? No, thirtyfive. Special nextdoor neighbor rate you motherfucker," he added, giving me a shoulder hug. "Give me your number. I text you next time Izzy in her Wedding suit, OK?" Hunh? "Her mummy suit, I mean. OK? Wedding, I...," flipping a hand from his head. "Loco, I don't know." "Sure, man." I was deflated. Like a balloon. Again. My legs felt like rubber. I was tripping over my own heels... "Come back soon you horny prick!" he shouted, out his front door, and so loudly probably anyone within a hundred meters could hear him. Thanks, Hector. Whatever happened to...Shhhh!? As I stumbled across his front yard into mine, I couldn't help wondering: The cum. On her tits. That's supposed to be so good for the skin. Right now it's just so many runny globs. How does it get spread out? Over them. How does it get worked in to the flesh? Is that Hector's job? That was Saturday. The following Tuesday I picked Dez up at the airport. We were long past the meet-you-at-the-gate-as-you-deboard-and-hug-and-kiss-you stage. I idled for her at the curb, hoping an airport cop wouldn't order me to "move along." Dez showed up ten minutes' late. I got out and opened the trunk. Inside the car we pecked each other's cheeks. A marriage formality. "How was your training session?" I asked, as we pulled away from the curb. "Oh. Boring." Silence. We exited the airport and headed onto the freeway. After my "session" with Izzy I was feeling quite full of myself. In the manner of...two can play at this (cheating) game. "After I didn't hear from you I called the hotel you told me you were staying at, on Sunday, and they told me they had no room reservation under that name." I took a breath. "So I gave them the name of that VP--Darren is it? Darren Knight? And they had a reservation in his name. A room for two." Dez sighed, wearily. Her tone was mocking: "So now you know my big secret..." "You could've told me," I said. "You've told me about all the other ones..." Again, wearily: "I forgot." "Fucking the company's vice president? That could be dangerous." I had a big grin on my face. Traffic was light. I was doing 75 in a 50 zone. "What business is it of yours who I fuck or when? I thought we decided all that months ago." I played my trump card. "Well, I have secrets too," I said. "Oh yeah? Have you been drinking." "Maybe." "Slow down." I was doing eighty. I slowed. Back down to 75. "What secrets?" I had her. She was hooked. "Let's just say it involves a mummy." "A what? Slow down." "A mummy." "Your mommy?" "Hunh?" Traffic merging, on the right. "You told me all about that already." "About all what?" I asked, defensively. "About you and your mother. When you were a teenager. Unless you've started fucking a 75 year-old woman..." "Dez, please. I--" "Oh you mean the MUMMY," she devined. "Next door?" I looked sharply right. "You know?" "Whatshisname, Hector, came over one afternoon when you were at the races, or whatever, and his wife was at work. She's a nurse at Methodist General," Dez added, looking at you. "I know." "We had drinks out on the patio and he told me all about her...her...I don't even know what to call it. When she's not working she likes to be wrapped up like a mummy?" I nearly drove off the highway. "You know about all this?" "Hector told me about it. Thinks she's a weirdo. Told me what he wouldn't give to have a normal woman in his life. Preferably an Anglo. A blonde..." "You?" looking right again. "I fucked him, yeah." She shrugged. "He was very nice. Not great in bed, but not terrible either. I felt sorry for him. He's a helluva salesman, I've give him that." "Yeah," I muttered, thinking of the unraked leaves. "Hunh?" "Nothing." "I've fucked him about a dozen times, just so you know." "Oh." I suddenly felt about three feet tall. "Great." I was a deflating balloon again. Shrinking fast. The speedometer dipped below 55. "I..." "Why're you going so slow?"