Conjugal Rites (Kit Tolliver #7) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) Read Online Free PDF

him home to what had just become her apartment, take him to bed and fuck his brains out, and then what? Kill him and look for another sublet?
    “I really wish I could,” she said. “But these days my life’s complicated enough as it is. But some other time, huh? I mean, you never know when I might find myself in Wichita.”

    There was probably a shop in Riverdale that sold sex toys, the potential customer base was certainly present, but she remembered the Pleasure Chest on Seventh Avenue, and it was just a subway ride away.
    She picked out a batch of items, and as she was paying for them she set one aside and asked if the store could ship it for her. She wrote out the name and address.
    It would be no problem, the clerk assured her. And would she like to enclose a card?
    She shook her head. “She’ll know who it’s from,” she said.

    She’d been staying on the cheap in a Jersey City rooming house, but once she’d sublet the Riverdale apartment she moved right in. The furniture was generic, but everything was new and neat and clean, and it would be comfortable enough for the week or two she’d be using it.
    Every few days she called Peter, and was pleased when they released him right on schedule. “I’m in the van now,” he said. “It seats ten, but there’s just me and the driver. He’s taking me all the way to the halfway house.”
    “In the movies,” she said, “they give you ten dollars and a cheap suit and you’re on your own.”
    “They gave me the suit I was wearing when I got here. Got there, I should say, because I’m not there anymore. It doesn’t fit as well as it used to.”
    “Still, I bet you look nicer in it than in the orange outfit.”
    “Jesus, I hope so. They give you a ride to the halfway house because otherwise too many guys don’t make it that far.”
    “They lose their way?”
    “In a manner of speaking. And I can understand why. All I am right now is outside the walls, maybe thirty miles down the road, and already it feels scary.”
    “Being free.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Well,” she said, “if you miss it too much, all you have to do is find some sweet young thing and kill her. They’ll take you back in a hot second.”
    The silence was profound. Had she gone too far?
    “I’m sorry,” she said. “That was supposed to be a joke, but I guess it wasn’t what you wanted to hear.”
    “It just came out of the blue,” he said. “Took me by surprise.”
    “I can see where it would. Forgive me?”
    “Nothing to forgive, Audrey.”
    “Well, I intend to make it up to you,” she said. “I got a place for us to be together. I know you have to spend nights at the halfway house, but that leaves a lot of hours in the day. It’s a nice modern building, and the apartment’s all furnished and there’s even a view. Plus I went shopping.”
    “Oh?”
    “I bought us a nice bottle of wine,” she said. “Nuits-Saint-Georges. And I bought some toys for us to play with. You’ll see. We’ll have fun.”

    She gave him two days to settle in at the halfway house, then met him around the corner. He was wearing a flannel shirt and well-worn jeans, and she had the feeling he wasn’t the first person to own them, that they’d been picked up at a thrift shop or handed out at the halfway house. Whatever the source, he looked good in them. They were an improvement on the orange jumpsuit, and a better choice than any suit he might have worn.
    “That’s some place,” he said.
    “Better than where you were? Or worse?”
    “Well, all I had to do just now was open the door and walk out. That wasn’t an option upstate, so that makes this a big improvement. But it’s the same people, you know? We’re none of us wearing orange jumpsuits, but outside of that we haven’t changed all that much.”
    “Oh?”
    “A lot of the guys are drinking,” he said. “That’s a violation of the house rules, but nobody makes you take a Breathalyzer test. Still, if you’re a falling-down drunk