The Boogeyman

Chapter One

Please enjoy this excerpt from The Boogeyman

Publisher:  Ellysian Press

Copyright Lillie J. Roberts 2015

"I'm going to miss you. Can't you stay?" Ben hugged Lacey's curves to his body. She rested her head on his chest, listening to the rhythmic beat of his heart. He'd talked her into this last minute trip, a last fling of summer.

She lifted her head. "It's only one day. Besides," she poked his shoulder, "we spent the whole day together, you know, before we went to the bonfire."

"Yeah, and you spent the rest of the night on the beach... with Kimmie." He sounded wounded, his eyes accusing as he nuzzled her neck. 

She laughed at his pretended hurt feelings. "Poor baby." Her fingers brushed over his bristly cheek.

His hands moved under her tank top, and she shivered at the feathery touch of his fingers running up and down her spine. She lifted her face to his, still listening to his heart. Its steady beat thudded faster when his fingers swept over the tee-strap on her sports bra. She stole a kiss of her own. His lips dropped to her neck, tracing its length. He nibbled on her shoulder, pushing first the strap of the tank top lower, then the edge of her sports bra. Her heart sped up. She felt the heat start to creep up her chest and into her neck. Her cheeks warmed and she hid her face. She'd give anything to stay, to keep touching, and to be touched.

"Stop. We can't... I don't..." She pushed him back when she really wanted to pull him closer, spend more time wrapped up in his arms. "Kimmie wants to leave by six. And since it was my idea, and she's giving up time with Tommy..." her voice trailed off as Ben ignored her feeble attempts to stop his actions. His lips dipped lower. Her heart raced with this new feeling he aroused deep inside her. She stepped closer, his soft lips seeking lower.

"Okay." His mouth quirked up in a half-smile and he lifted his darkly blue eyes to hers. He backed away, leaving her to feel abandoned, even though it was because of her protests. "We have to stay one more day. Pete's parents paid for five nights. No way is he leaving early. His parental units will go ballistic," Ben said quoting the movie, The Coneheads. All of them had gone to this weird drive-in that smelled faintly of marijuana and incense, thrown a blanket over the grass, and watched the classic features from the 80's and 90's until the sun started to peek over the horizon.

Ben stepped in closer once again, as if drawn by a magnet centered in her body, unable to refuse her pull. It amazed Lacey. "If you're sure I can't talk you into staying...." his muffled voice drifted away. His warm hands slipped under the edge of her tank top.

"We.. we..." Her dissolving determination weakened as his hand wandered over her body. "Yes, we do." She stepped away before her resolve vanished and she let herself give in to the need pulling at her to stay with Ben. She tugged her top back into place.

"You're really going to go?"

She nodded. "Hey," she stepped in closer, "you know I love you though, right?"

He met her, snuggling to her once again.

"Kimmie wants to leave after the day cools. In fact," she twisted her body and pulled her phone from her pocket. "I need to go find her before she gets too involved with Tommy." It was already later than Lacey thought. 

Ben's lips skimmed over her throat, and she caught her breath. He hadn't said he loved her.

She pushed up on her toes and kissed his lips. "It's only tonight and then tomorrow. You'll survive." She giggled as he hung his head, his dark bangs tickling her forehead. Fake dejection was in his wonderfully blue eyes when he lifted his head to show off his pout.

Ben was tall, lean, muscles stretched under his tanned flesh. One look from him made her heart skip and her willpower melt. But not this time.

"Come on." She held out her hand to him. "You can come and help me find Kimmie."

"You promise we can have a day all to ourselves when we get home?"

"Okay," she said softly. "If that's what you want."

"I do." His hands lingered on her waist, and then he kissed the tip of her nose. "I love you too."

***

The black paint went on in long chunky strokes over and over again, each coat lovingly applied. 

"This oughta do the trick," Edgar wheezed. He listened for a few minutes to see if he could still hear the old lady's cries. It echoed back to him from within the basement. He pounded the portion of the window still unpainted and shouted, "I said to be quiet! You want me to come back down there? You know what's going to happen if I do," he threatened in a rasp of a laugh as her cries grew silent until a quiet weeping was the only sound. "I didn't think so."

His mama's unnaturally high pitched voice came back to him, "Edgar, you're such a coward. What do you think you're doing? We both know that's not your gift. Have you practiced your art? Well, have you?"

"Shut up, Mama," Edgar wheezed to no one.

"Practice...no matter what." His mama's mantra, practice could fix anything. She would nod her head when he was a boy, and repeated as he painted, "That's better. There might be hope for you yet. You want to be the pinnacle don't you Edgar, like Degas." Then she would swing the other way without reason. "It's a wonderful word, isn't it? Pinnacle?"

He shook his head, chasing away the remnants of his mother's musings. Sanity and she parted ways long before her death.

"Needs to be perfect," he muttered to the emptiness. He leaned back to admired his work. Then, he started painting once more. "We don't want the world watchin' over our shoulders, now do we? All artists need their privacy." He snickered and thought, and me, I'm an artist, like my mama wanted. 

Edgar was named for one of the greatest painters of all time, Edgar Degas. He had to laugh when he thought about it. Mama would be so proud of him, wouldn't she?

He applied another layer of the dull, thick, black paint, so unlike the museum paintings she'd shown him, the ones she'd forced him to study.

"This, Edgar, is true art." His mama's words rang in his ears. She'd hold the book's open pages to him, the cloud of cigarette smoke closing around his head in a choking noose. When his small hands reached out to stroke the paintings, she'd smack them away as if his grubby fingers would defile the pureness of the images.

He shook his head, she'd been crazy for sure. He was happy she was gone, that she'd been his first. Poor delusional Mama. Edgar could almost hear her now, her voice shrieking, "Delusional, that's a good word isn't it, Edgar? Delusional, something to work for. It's possible one day you'll be delusional too."

He preferred to think he was name for Edgar Allen Poe. Degas had a stick up his... well, Mama would be surprised at that thought. He laughed, shaking his head again. 

Poe and he, now there was a comparison, kindred souls. After all, they shared so many parts of their natures. They both battled with their own demons, their own desires... each in their own way.

"All artists struggle, need to be able to work the way they want, in the medium they choose," he growled. The sun gleamed off the drying black paint. He wiped a smear of sweat from his forehead, then swathed on another coat, smiling as layer upon layer of the dark stuff covered the glass. 

He laughed again at his own joke. He brimmed with artist ability. Mama had that part right. He wanted to be like Picasso, puzzling his pieces together. Mama hated the Picassos, said his paintings were meaningless hodge-podges, not like the beauty of Degas. Well, he'd show her true beauty. He nodded his head, then pounded the window again. "I said to shut up!"

"All artists," he spoke with satisfaction in his voice, "choose their path, and I've found mine. I'll be one of the greatest. I'm the Picasso of Death with the poetry of Poe."