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*69
    a short story by
    Blake Crouch
     
    SMASHWORDS EDITION
     
    * * * * *
     
    PUBLISHED BY:
    Blake Crouch on Smashwords
     
    Copyright 2010 by Blake Crouch
    Cover art copyright 2010 by Jeroen ten
Berge
    All rights reserved.
     
    PRAISE FOR BLAKE CROUCH
     
    Crouch quite simply is a marvel. Highest
possible recommendation.
    BOOKREPORTER
     
    Blake Crouch is the most exciting new
thriller writer I've read in years.
    DAVID MORRELL
     
     
    *69 is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are
the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or
locales is entirely coincidental.
     
    "*69" originally appeared in Uncage
Me , edited by Jen Jordan and published by Bleak House Books,
July 2009.
     
    For more information about the author, please
visit www.blakecrouch.com.
    For more information about the artist, please
visit www.jeroentenberge.com.
     
    Smashwords Edition License Notes
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    * * * * *
     
     
    *69
     
    At nine-thirty on a Thursday evening, as he
lounged in bed grading the pop quizzes he’d sprung on his 11th
grade honors English class, Tim West heard footsteps ascend the
staircase and pad down the hallway toward the bedroom.
    His wife, Laura, appeared in the open
doorway.
    “Tim, come here.”
    He set the papers aside and climbed out of
bed.
    Following her down the squeaky stairs into
the living room, he found immense pleasure in the architecture of
her long legs and the grace with which she carried herself. Coupled
with that yellow satin teddy he loved and the floral tang of skin
lotion, Tim foresaw a night of marital bliss. Historically,
Thursdays were their night.
    Laura sat him down in the oversize leather
chair across from the fireplace, and as she took a seat on its
matching ottoman, it struck him—this fleeting premonition that she
was on the verge of revealing she was pregnant with their first
child, a project they’d been working on since last Christmas.
Instead, she reached over to the end table beside the chair and
pressed the blinking play button on the answering machine:
     
    Ten seconds of the static hiss of wind.
    A woman’s voice breaks through, severely
muffled, and mostly unintelligible except for, “…didn’t mean
anything!”
    A man’s voice, louder and distorted by
static: “…making me do this.”
    “ I can explain!”
    “… late for that.”
    A thud, a sucking sound.
    “… in my eyes.” The man’s voice. “Look in
them! …you can’t speak….but…listen the last minute…whore-life…be
disrespected. You lie there and think about that while…”
    Thirty seconds of that horrible sucking
sound, occasionally cut by the wind.
    The man weeps deeply and from his core.
     
    An electronic voice ended the message with,
“Thursday, nine-sixteen, p.m.”
    Tim looked at his wife. Laura shrugged. He
reached over, played it again.
    When it finished, Laura said, “There’s no way
that’s what it sounds like, right?”
    “There any way to know for certain?”
    “Let’s just call nine-one—”
    “And tell them what? What information do we
have?”
    Laura rubbed her bare arms. Tim went to the
hearth and turned up the gas logs. She came over, sat beside him on
the cool brick.
    “Maybe it’s just some stupid joke,” she
said.
    “Maybe.”
    “What? You don’t think so?”
    “Remember Gene Malack? Phys ed teacher?”
    “Tall, geeky-looking guy. Sure.”
    “We hung out some last year while he