His heart was booming, his breath short and strangled, his skin iced with sweat. He shot up in bed with fists clenched, his eyes searching the murky shadows of the room. Weak sunlight filtered through the slats of the blinds and built a cage on the thin gray carpet. His mind stayed blank for an agonizing moment, trapped behind the images that crowded it. Moonlit trees, fingers of fog, a woman’s naked body, her fanning dark hair, wide, glassy eyes. Ghosts, he told himself as he rubbed his face hard with his hands. He’d expected them, and they hadn’t disappointed him. They clung to Desire like the moss clung to the live oaks. He swung out of bed and deliberately—like a child daring sidewalk cracks—walked through the sun bars. In the narrow bathroom he stepped into the white tub, yanked the cheerfully striped curtain closed, and ran the shower hot. He washed the sweat away, imagined the panic as a dark red haze that circled and slid down the drain. The room was thick with steam when he dried off.
