Waves broke in the night. The cool predawn wind flagged the motel's curtains. Listening to the surf and the distant sounds of the Pacific Coast Highway, Carl Lyons held Flor Trujillo.

For a few minutes of peace, Lyons floated in the soft darkness of ecstasy, without thought, without memory, without horror or rage. Conscious only of sensation, he heard his breathing and Flor's breathing and the waves breaking on Malibu Beach in one sound, as if the darkness outside of him and the darkness within breathed in one rhythm.

The sensation flowered and became a mosaic of perceptions: the warmth of Flor's thigh against his face, the throb of her femoral artery, the caress of her hand on his leg. He felt the breeze on his sweat.

Sensations without thought. Sensations defining the form of his body, where his body touched Flor, where his body touched the wadded and tangled sheets of the bed, where the night wind touched him. For minutes, he existed only as a form defined by sensations.

Then he remembered their pleasure. The sweat-slick flesh of Flor's thighs, his fingers clawing into her flesh, her muscles snapping taut like steel cables as she spasmed in ecstasy, her cries and gasps, his breathing locked with hers. The rhythm and tempo had intoxicated them, her arms gripping him, pulling him against her as if urging him to plunge deeper into her, to thrust deep into the center of her self, her hands jerking him against her, and then his climax.

Her tongue touched him again, the spin of her tongue stopping his memories. He groaned and moved in the bed. "Oh… no. Can't."