Impulse by Joann Ross

wasn’t used to girls talking back to him. He wasn’t used to girls talking to him, period.
    “Then you’ll come?” She held out the invitation again. When she touched his sleeve with a fluffy white mitten that matched the trim on her hood, he felt a fist gripping inside his chest.
    “Sure.” He shrugged. “Unless something comes up.”
    The dimple in her cheek flashed and her cornflower blue eyes brightened, as if someone had turned a light-bulb on inside her. “That’s great.”
    A woman across the parking lot began calling her name. Shit. If he’d had his stepfather’s pistol, he would have shot the bitch.
    “That’s my mama.” She waved. The woman waved back, her smile a twin of her daughter’s. “I’d better go. I have a ballet lesson this afternoon.” Halfway to the black Suburban, she turned back. “You don’t have to bring a present. Like Mama always says, having a birthday at Christmas just means I get too many gifts all at once, anyway. It’s the company that’s important.”
    “If I come, I’m going to bring a damn present.”
    Her eyes widened a bit at the cuss word. But she didn’t argue. “Whatever you want.” She flashed him another smile, then raced off toward the car.
    He’d filched a charm bracelet from the Mountain Mercantile. Her mother’s blond brows had lifted suspiciously at the gift, which she’d probably figured he hadn’t been able to afford. And she’d been right. But he was glad he’d taken the risk because everyone else had brought birthday presents.
    She’d thanked him and held out her thin, white arm, like a princess inviting a serf to put it on her wrist. But the minute his fingers had brushed against that silky, white flesh, they’d turned as thick and useless as sausage. While the other kids laughed as he fumbled with the clasp, he’d imagined pouring gasoline on them, setting them on fire, imagined their flesh burning and those stuck-up expressions melting off their faces.
    Their scorn infuriated. But not as badly as the pity on Mandy Longworth’s face.
    Don’t think about that! He drew in a deep breath. Let it out. Closed his eyes and focused on a more appealing memory of the day.
    Desire stirred deep in his groin as he recalled Mandy’s joy when her parents handed her a fluffy, white kitten. Its slanted eyes had been bright blue, its button nose pink, and it was wearing a silver bell on a red ribbon around its neck. The cat, which she named Snowball, spent the rest of the party curled up in Mand y’ s lap, blissfully purring like a small motor.
    It hadn’t been purring two weeks later, when he’d taken a razor and shaved off its soft white fur.
    Or when he’d pelted it with a steaming-hot shower.
    The kitten’s mewling cries had been like electric wires running beneath h is skin, creating a surge of en ergy like nothing he’d ever before experienced.
    With power singing in his blood, he’d taken the wet and blistered animal out into the woods behind Muddy Hole, where he’d tie d it to a tree with brown twine.
    Although hunting season was over, there was always a chance some cross-country skier or poacher might hear the animal’s shrieks, so he’d stuffed a sock down its throat. Then taken his stepfather’s bow from its black leather case.
    He hadn’t been a very good archer, but the fifth shot had proven the charm.
    All it took was the memory of that feather-tipped arrow pinning the cat’s body to the trunk of the towering Douglas fir tree to make him hard.
    He unzipped his jeans. Took out his cock and began stroking himself as he remembered pretty little Mandy Longworth’s red-rimmed eyes when she’d come to school after finding the kitten’s skeleton strewn over her backyard. They’d known it was Snowball because of the filthy red ribbon and bell still tied around its neck.
    Coyotes had been the general consensus.
    Packs of wild dogs another popular choice.
    But from the way Mrs. Longworth had stared hard at him the next time