Gravity Box and Other Spaces Read Free Page A

after so many beers and since she did not want to drive all the way out to Curt’s A-frame he would have to come home with her. He agreed with littlecoaxing. He did wonder, though, how the evening might progress.
    He never remembered the course of his seductions. He could not explain later how any of them happened. At best, he sensed the point at which a line was crossed and the rest became inevitable. The whole process seemed so automatic, so out of his hands, that he went through periods of guilt and withdrawal. But the shame and self-reproach never lasted long and soon enough the cycle started again. One of his friends, when Egan had tried to express his dismay over his apparent “gift” for seduction, told him that he listened well and people found that very attractive.
    â€œYou’re kidding,” he had responded.
    â€œNo, no. Think about it. Don’t you find it very appealing when someone pays complete attention to what you’re saying, as if every word meant something?”
    He could see that, certainly, but not why it had to always go so wrong or why he seemed so helpless to stop the process, even here, in the back of beyond, as if fate kept putting him in the path of women he could neither leave alone or refuse.
    It was a short trip down a street which Egan had completely overlooked during his first drive through the town to Bert’s four-room house. The street opened between two of the buildings on the far side of the road and looked like a narrow driveway to a rear parking lot, but small houses, drawn back from the street, lined both sides of the incline. Bert pulled into the grassy yard of one a quarter-mile from the tavern. A single lamp glowed in the front window.
    He hesitated on the diminutive concrete slab that acted as a porch. Bert bent forward slightly to unlock the door. Egan wondered how upset she might be if he beggedoff and went home. She stepped inside and flipped a switch. He hesitated, but then let himself enter her living room.
    â€œMake yourself to home,” she said. “I’ll put on coffee. Be right back.” Bert disappeared into the back regions of the house. A few moments later he heard water running.
    The living room contained a pair of loveseats, a recliner, and a stereo system that surprised him. The rack of CDs surprised him even more, containing a mostly classical selection. He chided himself for making assumptions, remembering vividly a lecture from a former lover about that (“When you assume, you make an ass out of you and an ass out of me”) and sat down on the loveseat facing the hallway.
    â€œSo, Egan Ginter,” she said, coming back in. She had pulled her shirt out of her pants. “Are you married?”
    Away from the deceptive dimness of the tavern Egan saw that she was older than he had first thought. It didn’t bother him, though. What did was the fading bruise on the left side of her face, just below eye level.
    He laughed. “No, Mrs. McCutcheon, I am not.”
    â€œTouché. I forgot about her askin’. Well, fair is fair. You get to ask me a direct question.”
    â€œOkay. If I think of one, I’ll ask.”
    â€œThen I’ll take another turn. How come you’re not?”
    â€œMarried? I can’t—” He stopped and studied her more closely. Sarcasm would end the evening immediately, he realized, which might not be a bad thing. But it would hurt her. Maybe not badly, but Egan did not want to hurt her at all.
    Then why’d you let her bring you here?
    Because it was easy
, he answered himself.
    Easier than going home alone and because refusing would have hurt her, too, though probably much less thananything that he might say or do now. He could never work out how to choose between the lesser of two evils, so he followed events and hoped things worked out.
    And ended up hurting everyone—
    â€œSorry,” Bert said. “Didn’t mean to hit a