Deaths Excellent Vacation

squeezed his eyes shut. How come this couldn’t have happened to him before he met Jenny, or sometime in the future? Six months—hell, one month—from now, maybe his mind would have been in a different place.
    “I’m sorry, I just . . .”
    You can put it anywhere you want.
    Holy God, how was he supposed to handle this? His heart slammed in his chest. His face felt flushed, and once again this woman had given him a painful erection, this time with nothing but a whisper. He felt like a fool for having so little control of his body.
    “Tim, hush,” she said. “Think about this. You’re trying to forget, right? I can give you that. We can help each other. I can make you forget, and you can help me get to sleep.”
    “It isn’t that simple.”
    “But it is.” She laughed that sweet, soft laugh again. “Honey, trust me, I’ll make you forget your own name.”
    There in the dark, he felt himself grin. “I have no doubt you would. And you have no idea how tempting it is—or, actually, you probably do. But this isn’t about forgetting Jenny . . . I never want to forget her. It’s about making peace with the fact that she’s gone, and . . .”
    He trailed off. The rest was too personal. He didn’t know Diana.
    “And?” she whispered.
    Tim took a breath and turned onto his side, phone pressed between his cheek and the pillow.
    “I betrayed her once. This would feel too much like doing that again.”
    “She’s been dead over a year, you said.”
    “Not to me. I need to finish saying good-bye. Whatever life has in store for me after, I’ll embrace it, but not here. This place was part of us.”
    “Please?” she said in a little-girl sort of voice. “I can’t sleep.”
    His words dried up in his throat as the reality of the conversation struck him hard. Please, she’d said, and now that he reminded himself what she was pleading for, what she wanted from him, he could barely think. It could be the night of his life.
    But he would never be able to enjoy the memory of it.
    “I’m sorry,” he said. “Good night, Diana.”
    As he reached out to return the phone to its cradle, his hand hesitated involuntarily for just a moment. But if she said anything more, he did not hear it. He hung up and laid his head back down with a mixture of relief and regret.
    His arousal subsided and a peaceful sort of contentment filled him. Though he half expected the phone to ring, it did not. He closed his eyes and burrowed down into the bed. Sleep had fled, but only for a while, and soon enough it began to envelop him again.
    “Tim.”
    He came half awake, lost somewhere in a dream.
    “Tim.”
    Now he blinked and opened his eyes. In the darkness he reached out to search the rest of the huge hotel bed to make absolutely certain he was alone there. She sounded so close.
    “Are you awake?”
    She wasn’t in the room; her voice came through the thin wall, a lover’s whisper, though she must have been speaking up in order for him to hear her.
    He considered replying but then thought better of it.
    “Think of something you’ve always wanted to do but never dared to ask of a woman,” she said. “You don’t have to ask me. You could do whatever you want, and I won’t stop you. I won’t say no. Better than that, I’ll ask for more.”
    Scenarios played out in his mind instantly, and once again she had him captivated.
    “Please,” she said. “I need you.”
    She began to tell him in great detail every little thing she would be willing to do, and have done to her, and how much she would enjoy it. How she would moan, even scream.
    Then, at last, when he did not reply, she sighed.
    “All right. I’ll just have to call room service. But you’re to blame for what happens.”
    You’re to blame? What the hell was that supposed to mean?
    Tim pulled a pillow over his head to block out her voice, but it seemed she had surrendered at last. Yet still her promises echoed inside his head. He lay curled on his side, unable to make his erection go away, unable to deny his arousal, and yet filled with more sorrow and missing Jenny more than he had since the day he had lost her.
    At some point he drifted off, temptation still burning in him.
     
     
    A sharp rap at the door snapped him awake. His eyes burned and his head felt full of cotton. What little sleep he’d had tonight had been shallow and restless. In the blackness of the room he threw back the covers and started to climb out of bed.
    Gotta be her. Crazy woman, Tim