Read Online Alice in Bed by Judith Hooper - Free Book Online Page A

wrapped in a special cloth of some talismanic significance) and laid the cards out in the “Celtic Cross pattern.” She was wearing her seeress expression.
    After some mystic discourse about pentacles and cups, the major arcana, the wheel of fortune, a hanged man and a hermit, and whatnot, she pointed to the magician card at the center of the spread, a man with an infinity symbol waving over his head and a wand in his hand, and said, “The card can indicate an interest in a scientific career or someone who is already in such a career.”
    â€œWilliam! Does it say if this person is in Germany?”
    Wrinkling her brow, she read from her book, “This card can indicate a career in which speech or writing is of great importance, a salesman, a speaker, a storyteller. . . .”
    â€œAh, Harry! And Father, of course. We’ve covered almost everyone in the family.”
    â€œHave you considered that it might be about you , Alice?” From her serious expression I saw that she wasn’t joking.
    â€œI’m no magician, Sara.” The absinthe was making me giggle. “Maybe it’s you.”
    Sensing my mood, and possibly losing interest in the tarot herself, Sara moved swiftly through the rest of the cards, telling me: “You will make a voyage overseas and this card indicates an older man who will appear in your life.”
    â€œWill he be on the ship? How much older is this man?”
    â€œThe cards aren’t that specific.”
    â€œI don’t think I fancy old men, Sara.”
    â€œRelax, Alice! I just said ‘older.’ You are always trying to control life and that just keeps life from happening.”
    Was that true? Was that why I was always waiting for my life to begin?
    Sara made it plain that she considered herself a gifted spiritist, a talent she attributed to having nearly drowned in the ocean at the age of three. “I was sorry they brought me back. It was so beautiful being dead.”
    â€œDid your life flash before your eyes?”
    â€œYes, but it was a very short life.”
    For some reason, this caused me to collapse in gales of laughter.
    â€œI’m serious, Alice.”
    â€œI know .”
    I couldn’t stop laughing, and this made Sara laugh, and then we were giggling and kissing and undressing each other, tugging on laces, undoing stays, peeling off stockings. When we’d flung the last of our clothing onto the floor, and Sara was stretching out her arms to me and I was feeling the tidal pull of her, rapid footsteps were suddenly pounding down the stairs, which terminated just beyond Sara’s door. Sara quickly blew out the candle and I slipped like a sylph between the sheets, and we went absolutely still, holding our breath, our pounding hearts pressed together, like expert jewel thieves synchronized in the commission of our crime.
    The footsteps were moving away now. “It’s only Theodora,” Sara whispered, sliding a hand to one of my breasts. “I recognize her tread. Don’t worry. Her self-absorption makes her oblivious to others.”
    Then, with a sly smile, she kneeled over me, kissing me tenderly on the lips several times. Then she straddled me, with a knee planted on either side, and dreamily worked her way down my body, forbidding me to touch her at all (“You are my captive and I’ve tied you up”). After flicking her tongue in my ear, and demonstrating the concupiscence of the navel and the erotic zones of the feet, she applied herself to gratifying me in a new and intense manner. Tears streamed down my face from the pleasure of it; I had to hold a pillow over my mouth for a long time. How had Sara learned these things—from an exotic Oriental love manual? (The Sedgwicks seemed to have no end of obscure foreign books.) Would I ever get to the bottom of Sara’s mysteries, pin her down finally? Did I wish to? Were the pleasures of the flesh just something for which she had a