The Spirit Wood Read Free Page A

thing—this—and forget about everything else.
    With her feet, Meg drew the sheet down to the foot of the bed. His hand grazed across her smooth, bare thigh, and then slid upward, deftly but absently, as if it were operating somehow independently. Peter's eyes remained closed, and but for his one hand, he lay perfectly still. Meg raised herself and allowed the nightgown to slide up to her waist.
    She wanted to say something, even if it were only his name, to tell him that she loved him, that she wanted him, that she needed him to make love to her. But she knew she couldn't do that, that to say anything at all would break the spell, that her only hope was to somehow slip silently past the barriers, to infiltrate his senses and arouse him to the point where he could no longer stop himself, where sensation—immediate, passionate, all-consuming—could drown out memory and guilt and sorrow.
    She pressed herself against his shoulder and felt his hand respond, clenching her skin. She raised her head above his, so that her hair fell across his neck and chest like a fragrant veil. She bent and kissed him on his eyes, then his forehead, just beneath the fringe of black curls, then down to his mouth, ever so tentatively. His lips were dry; she wet them with her tongue. His mouth opened, and she pressed downward, at the same time slipping up on top of his body. His left arm came up and around her, just as it used to do, and she rubbed herself against him, hearing the slight scratching sound of their bodies coming together, feeling him growing harder beneath her.
    He held her now with both arms, each finger burrowing into her flesh, his hips beginning to rise andfall, more and more insistently. “Peter,” she murmured, his warm breath rasping in her ear. “Peter . . . “ And she leaned up above him, then almost imperceptibly slid herself down his body, until she felt him touch and enter her.
    “Peter, I love you . . . I love you. Please don't ever go away from me again.”
    In the pale glow of the streetlamp, she saw him open his eyes and stare up at her. His hands, which had been clutching her hips, moving up and down with them, suddenly loosened their grip. She ground down harder, but felt his movements slowing down, felt him already slipping out and away from her.
    “Peter, please . . .” and she pressed herself against him, her hair against his cheek, her lips on his shoulder. She stared at the rumpled corner of the pillow, and knew that his own eyes were fixed on nothing at all, or on something that had happened months before. She lay still and felt his right hand fall to her side. It touched her knee, and one finger, like a dark divining rod, unerringly moved to and lightly traced the crescent scar that marked her there . . . back and forth, across the slightly raised, shiny smooth patch of new skin. A car on the street puttered to a stop at the corner and honked twice. Peter reached up with his bad arm and laid his hand consolingly against the back of her head. Meg squeezed him gently, and slipped off him to her own side of the bed. The car honked again, still running its engine. Who was it honking for? Ask not for whom the car honks, she thought . . . that was something Byron might have said. Any other time it might have made her smile.

Two
    F ENSTERWALD'S BEEN TOUCHING my stomach again.”
    "What's he expect to feel at this stage?"
    "Me.”
    “You want I should kill him?” Gruff gangster inflection.
    A laugh, a kiss.
    "Peter, let me replenish that for you.” Phelps, the host, flushed, wobbly. “Meg, how about you? Not drinking for two now, huh?"
    Tina Turner on the stereo, dancing in the living room. Whole English department. Fensterwald flailing his arms like a windmill. Horniest guy in the grad school — not an easy title to come by.
    One A.M. "Peter, I'm fading. How about it?"
    Putting the glass down on the littered kitchen counter. Phelps shouting good-bye from across the crowded room. Outside, cold, night