He drove, and he would be home soon, masturbating. Lust returning.

Lomita Nairn.

He had pressed his body into hers and felt his penis hard against the hardness of her right hip, just as the bone gives way to the flesh. He could feel the fragility now, and felt that he could have snapped her in two. He wondered what she was wearing underneath the feel of the chiffon trouser material. Silk or cotton. Something with delicacy, he didn’t sense the unevenness that lace lends to skin. She didn’t seem to move, he didn’t know if it was his imagination, but hadn’t she pressed in harder and did she not shift her body ever so slightly to receive his hardness closer to her abdomen?

Closer.

He wanted to be inside her. Who would ever have thought? Think. Present or past. Lomita Nairn.

They had agreed to meet the day after the next day, which, one guesses, in sober language is two days’ time.

Chapter Thirteen

The firing range.

Did not require ear defenders with the Maxim 9, as there was truly very little noise. But they hung around his neck and he fired the first two shots with them, then the tall, bulky bearded man with dead eyes had suggested he take them off.

‘You see, barely any sound at all.’

Well, there still was, Ever thought, for him at least, a hell of a sound, just less than the normal.

Now came the technological lecture.

‘The suppressor assembly at the front of the pistol uses a series of baffles and expansion chambers to allow the propellant gases to expand, decelerate, and cool; this reduces the velocity and noise made by the gases as they leave the barrel. That’s why you get that sound, it’s the block baffles structure, cumbersome, I think, for me, I don’t like it, but it takes down that bang. So less bang more buck.’

This made the bearded man laugh, at least.

Ever understood the words but was baffled – the choice of word made Ever chuckle to himself. First one then the other, one laugh apiece.

‘It will just be good for my ears, you know, less noise on a firing range, and well you know, and hunting.’

‘You’d have to be one hell of a shot to hunt anything with that unless it was right in front of you, big, and not moving.’

He laughed again, his eyes stayed the same. Ever didn’t know if he had convinced.

‘Well, she’s going to take a lot more work to get her. Fingerprints and photo ID, the manufacturers are trying to make it easier, but we can’t co-operate just yet, so you’re not going to be able to walk out of here today with her, it could take you months.’

It came out as a real slur of a: ‘takeya’.

‘Months?’

Ever hoped he hadn’t shown too much desperation.