Outside the window, the night was thick.
"Clement Atkins."
"Clement Atkins."
Someone called him, their voice gentle and soft, light as a feather.
He opened his eyes and saw a woman's face, half-asleep, half-awake, "Rae Bennett..."
The woman smiled faintly, clinging to his neck, chanting his name, one after another, in a continuous, tender melody.
"She doesn't call me that."
The woman asked, "Then how should she call you?"
"She calls me 'little kidnapper.'" Clement Atkins grabbed the woman's hand, showing no pity as he pushed her off the bed, his eyes clearing of sleepiness, cold as ice, "Get out."
The woman rubbed her sore arm and left the room with her head bowed.
Clement Atkins sat on the bed, finished a cigarette, got up to extinguish the aphrodisiac fragrance candle on the table, and turned to enter the bathroom where he took a five-minute cold shower.
In Bloomington, there were very few who had the nerve to slip people into his private residence.