David Read Free Page B

she carries in her bag, it’s never referred to as hers . It’s as if we’ve discovered a way to not be what we don’t want to be and yet still have what we want.
    â€œI decided to close early,” I say, picking up my drink, reminded of why I poured it in the first place.
    â€œYes, of course, that is obvious. But why? This is not like you to not want to make money.”
    I finish the rest of my drink in one long swallow and almost gag. Whiskey is not water, is made to do other things.
    â€œIs that who you really think I am?” I say. “Just another greedy shopkeeper?”
    I take my empty glass with me into the kitchen without asking Loretta if she’d like a drink too. It doesn’t matter. By the time I’ve finished refilling my glass, Loretta is beside me at the kitchen counter, taking another glass down from the cupboard as well as her bottle of schnapps. We walk back into the library with our respective drinks without exchanging a word.
    Loretta will not argue—she’ll discuss, deliberate, even debate, but she will not argue—and the way she picks up her needles and yarn from underneath her chair and straightaway begins knitting without acknowledging either me or my sour mood has its intended effect, makes me madder than if she’d confronted me with the bile of my words and shown me I’d been wrong to use them. I reopen the Blake and bring the book close enough that I don’t need my glasses to make the type stop smearing. That’ll show her.
    Except that in five minutes I’ve got a headache from reading without my glasses and a cloudy brain from drinking the whiskey too fast and a strong desire not to feel distant from one of the two human beings I know in this world whom Idon’t ordinarily feel distant from. Good liquor and immortal literature are necessary but not sufficient.
    â€œI’m sorry,” I say.
    Loretta stops knitting, looks up. “You are forgiven,” she says. Needles immediately working again, “So. You closed early this evening. This is not like you.”
    I want her to know what happened tonight—who died, what it means—but I’m not sure that I know yet myself.
    â€œCan we just pick up where we left off last night?” I say. I say it like a child asking for a sweet, but that’s how I feel, so, so be it.
    Eyes still on her work, “Are you sure that is what you need for yourself right now?”
    I nod. She doesn’t look up, makes me say it. “It’s what I need,” I say.
    She finishes a last row and then slides the yarn and needles back into the box underneath her chair; stands up and wipes away an imaginary mess from the front of her dress. She offers me her hand. I take it and we walk side by side up the stairs, the click of Henry’s nails on the steps behind us serenading us all the way to the bedroom.
    By the time I’ve undressed and am already underneath the covers, Loretta is only just down to her undergarments. The light from the bedroom fireplace is less than what I’d like—watching Loretta bathe by the natural light of bright morning is my favourite way of beginning the day—but the gentle glow it creates all around her suits where we are and what we’re going to do.
    She meets my eyes and doesn’t release them while unfastening her corset and then pulling off the white chemise underneath. Next, foot up on the metal end of the bed, the unhooking of the garters, always the left then the right, followed by the slow roll of stocking down thigh, calf, ankle,toes. Finally, the removal of the belt itself, tugged around to the front and unclasped and set on top of the heap of clothes on the fireside chair. I pull back the blankets from her side of the bed, let Loretta slide in.
    What happens next, I don’t have to ask her to do. Loretta reaches across me, raises herself up on one arm above me, two identical pallid moons rising over me,