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In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

In Over Her Head by Elsie Russell - Parnasse.com

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at least once, but her knees gave way and she crumpled to the floor so<br />

fast he was left clutching a cloud of chiffon.<br />

Ula threw the dress over Penny and he whisked her away to the<br />

white limo.<br />

"She looks like an angel, passed out in your arms like that. Oh,<br />

Sandro, you have to call Züt," Ula said after a few silent blocks. But he<br />

hadn't heard.<br />

Desperation had brought them here. Penny stretched out across<br />

the seat, her head cradled in his lap. His head back against the window<br />

trying not to fall apart. The limo sped through Times Square, the ad<br />

lights flashing across his cheekbones. At his most beautiful in these<br />

moments. Ula, filled with an urgent erotic need, had to stifle a small<br />

sound. How long since he had touched her? She never should have told<br />

him about what she had tried with Penny. Never should have done this,<br />

done that. And even the drugs no longer worked, at any strength, in<br />

any <strong>com</strong>bination, even the new blue ones, as if he had built up an<br />

immunity, like bugs to DDT.<br />

Back at Grand, he was like a zombie carrying a dead girl into<br />

the elevator.<br />

"I take her up."<br />

"No you do not! She's already asleep, she'll do fine in her<br />

room."<br />

"They go into <strong>com</strong>as."<br />

"She won't, because you're going to call Dr Z. Subito!"<br />

He leaned against the battered riveted wall, his eyes shut and<br />

with Penny in his arms like an enormous bouquet of white flowers.<br />

<strong>In</strong> her dark cave lit only <strong>by</strong> those ghoulish screen savers and the<br />

blinking green and red dots, he lowered her on her futon and covered<br />

her with her Bambi sleeping bag. Tenderly he kissed her lips then rest<br />

his head on her chest as if she were already dead.<br />

Up in the elevator he wouldn't speak, but he was himself again,<br />

whatever that meant.<br />

When they were almost at the loft, she asked, "And what if Max<br />

<strong>com</strong>es looking for her?"<br />

"Oh, please."<br />

"What did you do, castrate him?"<br />

He snorted like an angry horse, then snarled, "Yes wife, you<br />

would know," and smashed his head into the hull of the elevator. Once<br />

upstairs she reminded him again to call Züt.<br />

"Mais Zut, zut, zut et encore zut! Ce p'tit toubibe va nous faire<br />

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