Chapter One

     The glass on the den windows vibrated from the strong winds pounding against it with an intensity reminiscent of a starship pulling out of warp speed and just barley colliding with an asteroid A powerful thud, but unscathed.

     I reached out and grabbed the large black remote from the coffee table turned on the television, pushing my way through boring show, after boring show, until I came upon the weather channel, which was still far better than whatever sitcom was popular. I muttered to myself, then allowed the meteorologist his say. His voice was thick and masculine, like a Russian who could speak English with the precision of a native. “Looks like you’re getting 18’ massive inches of snow, with gale force winds coming in off the oceans within the next hour.”

     I moved towards the window and stared into the black abyss that was the night, watching as the sky spurted little flakes of white snow, which slowly drifted downward and accumulated upon the window sill of my den. Chills ran up my back as Goosebumps were aroused on my forearms, sending me to the other side of the house to grab myself a towel, in order to clean up the snow that would most likely force itself through the tight window opening, without mercy, ravaging the beautiful hard wood floors with unsightly bumps and buckles, unless someone made sure to use the proper protective barrier to prevent such.

     Only a few moments had passed when a huge dong sprang forth from the living room, cutting through the tension of the night, saving me from the hardcore debauchery of loneliness that pillaged the inside of my mind, driving me to the brink of madness and all without the radiance of Edgar Allen Poe’s elegant prose to make the lingering pain of despairs engorged embrace upon my soul even more burdensome.

     Moving over towards the fireplace, I snatched the whiskey off the mantel, removed the cap and brought the long, glass handle to my mouth, allowing the sweet ambrosia to fill my mouth and swallowed a swing in one massive gulp. My face slowly grew flushed as my capillaries burst, giving forth the slow rise to comfort and the illusion of warmth, which became displaced by the wetness of my pants, nestling itself right between my legs, making my pajama bottoms cling to my inner thigh. I hadn’t noticed the sticky liquid that had been spilled upon my pants when I grabbed the towel from the bathroom. I was too buzzed from the whiskey to be even mildly annoyed by the inconvenient spillage. I curled my lip and undid my bathrobe as I approached the bookcase and pulled down on the book, opening up the doorway to the spiral staircase that descended into the depths of depravity that was my underground lair.

     I pushed through the spiral doorway into a room dimly lit rectangular room, which would have been all but an inkwell of darkness if not for the small amount of lighting, which expressed itself through six, square shaped windows in the ceiling above, allowing the silken gold light to rain down and envelop the bed in its warm, passionate embrace, as if a beacon had descended from the heavens, carving a path to the siren that was my bed and enveloping it in a warm and passionate embrace, which would surely be the demise of my night if I was to succumb to the temptations which it proffered.

     Lights on, I command with the same “swagger” Ali Baba must have wielded outside the den of thieves an eon earlier. The lights turned on slowly, like a strike to the match that would fully engulf the head with a flame, hypnotically dancing in the dark. A large black book lay on the bedside table, which, was insipidly titled little black book. I sunk down into the bed as I sat upon it and opened up the book containing head shots of woman that I had met over the years, each one with name and number beside them, three hole punched for easy flipping through the binder and all labeled according to hair color, age, body type, sexual predilections and more. I flipped through pages upon pages of woman from which I had my pick, depending on my mood and desires, stopping on the last page of the book.

     Her name was Christine Hernandez, She was a new addition, older and shorter than myself, with beautiful eyes that were gateways into her soul. The hues would change color and intensity based on her mood. One look could take you on an adventure and the next would destroy you where you stood. The same could be said of her hair, fiery red when she was temperamental and blue when she was sad. She couldn’t hide the nature of how she felt even if she tried, because they were as much a part of her as the blood in her veins. Connected as one, yet separate entities. One look at her and I was instantly hypnotized by how she seemed to transcend her humanity and yet was completely held down to earth at the same time. She was her own ying and yang and quite frankly, it drove me crazy with delight.

     Carefully, I removed the headshot from the top loader and grabbed the number on the back and dialed it into the phone. Pressing send, I watched as the seconds ticked up and the sound of the tone echoed in my ear, then a click, followed by a sultry voice on the other end and with a simple hello, I was reduced to rubble.