wizard-of-the-pigeons

candle flame touched them, tiny round eyes shining in the darkness. His flock.
Their bills were sunk into their breast feathers, their wing plumes preened back
smartly. Their little round orbs were carefully nonjudgmental. He would not find
condemnation there.
His slow gaze wandered back to Lynda. She was breathing out, her warm
breath and the smoke condensing in the chill air of the room. She leaned against
him heavily with a throaty chuckle like the cooing of a fat gray pigeon. He
looked down into her face, at her finely pored skin, the tiny individual hairs of
her carefully groomed eyebrows, at the tiny lines in her lips where the color of
her lipstick was trapped and brightest. She held the pipe up. He looked at her
through a thin streamer of drifting gray smoke. A sudden gust of wind and rain
rattled his windows and pushed at the blanket.
“No.” The awareness was like a cold hand on the back of his neck. It hadn’t
been Booth at all. This ridiculous woman who talked so much she hardly noticed
his silence, this foolish bit of fluff with her make-believe problems and her petty
plottings; she was dangerous. Would she have stood by while Booth beat him to
a pulp, and then left with the victor? He didn’t know. Worse, she probably didn’t
know herself. She had set every stage this evening. He had drifted along with her
plans like a canoe in the current. Now he heard the laughing whisper of the
rapids ahead. She could dash him to pieces with her smile. He hitched himself
away from her touch, heedless that she fell back onto his mattress.“No!” he
repeated to the hand that reached up to wave the pipe lazily before him.
“Whatsa matter, baby?” Lynda sat up languorously. She unbuttoned her
raincoat and shrugged out of it so that it fell onto the mattress. behind her. She
smiled, her generous mouth opening too far, showing too many teeth. “This is
good stuff. Not the best I’ve ever had, but not average. Too good to waste. Come
on, it’s just burning itself up. Take a hit before it goes out.”
The pipe came back to his lips. He pushed her hand away.
“No. I want you to leave now. I’m tired and I’m sick. You’d best go.” His
words sounded petulant and childish, even to himself. Even though they were
exactly what he needed to say.
She responded to them as if he were eight years old.
“No, baby. That’s why I should stay. You need me. C’mon. Listen to Lynda,
okay? She’ll take care of you. C’mon.” She put the pipe back to her own lips,
drawing steadily until the tiny coal shone bright and unwinking as a cat’s eye.
She held it in, making small throaty sounds of pleasure, then letting it stream