Read Online Beautiful to the Bone (The Enuis Trilogy #1) by P.G. Lengsfelder - Free Book Online
Authors: P.G. Lengsfelder
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“Appalling.”
“What!”
“This coffee. Next time I’ll get you better.”
I walked out unsure why I found him interesting.
***
I sat in a corner waiting for him. Out the window I watched a flock of low-flying, newly-mated King Cans returning from the south. Perhaps a storm was coming.
Harold entered and I watched people watching him, watching the slow, nervous contractions of his body. They disappeared when, as he sat, he took my hand and rubbed it, apparently confirming something, a satisfied look on his face.
“Can we go someplace?” he asked.
It was almost sixty-one years to the day that James Watson and his colleagues presented the molecular structure of DNA to the world, reaching into the primordial swamp and saying we are all in there . The day should’ve been a commemoration, a celebration. Harold’s invitation implied as much.
I said yes.
He drove me south to the forest where we walked surrounded by green new growth. A weekday, hardly anyone else around. I knew it was an exploration.
He tucked his hand around my waist. I didn’t shake him off. He turned me around so we faced each other. He cupped his hand behind my neck and pulled me into him, hungry for my lips. I accepted. And his tongue. The hardness between his legs rubbed against my belly. I accepted. I’ll take away his pain . I grounded him.
***
Still, I had doubts. I made lists. I tried to stay rational. But it was such a grand experiment , to have conversation, to dangle ideas, to theorize, to question — and not only about science.
“He’s an accountant but not dry, he’s not simply about numbers,” I said to my bedroom wall and to Michael Landon’s replacement: an enlarged newspaper photograph of William Schroeder leaving the hospital with the first artificial heart. “Harold’s not dry at all. Maybe not beautiful, but he’s clean. It’s all research, ay William?”
Soon I was having the fun I’d always imagined. Well, almost.
“Please move your things off the table.” He pointed to make way for his satchel and slammed the front door.
“Is it okay that I let myself in?” His edginess entered my body in disagreeable ways, mostly my chest.
“Sure. Of course.” With a quick-but-passionate bite of my neck, he went to his stack of accounting ledgers.
“What’d you do today?”
“The usual,” he said. “Clients.”
Researchers are undecided if smarts impact facial beauty —they doubt it— but they agree that “openness” reflects positively on facial attractiveness. So far he wasn’t very open. He rarely left the office except to visit his clients or the house, and then only after much coaxing from me. I got very few details.
He paged through a ledger, his shoulders hunched.
“You look stressed.”
“Something’s not right.”
I wandered over to him and massaged his neck. “Can I help?”
“Not really.” His fingers rested on column after column of scribbled figures. “There’s just so much of this . . . I’m going to have to go over every one of these damn numbers again, and I’m running out of time.”
“I’m pretty good with numbers.” I rubbed his shoulders. “At least I can add and subtract. How about I take on some of those columns, cut down your load. Can’t hurt, can it?”
“But your studies.”
“They can wait for a few hours. Let me be useful.”
And after a couple of hours of calculating the two of us found the error. He breathed easier. “You’re a life saver.” He sat back and let his head dangle.
I ran my fingers down his back. “And I’m taking you out to dinner tonight.”
“I don’t know . . .”
I’d only seen the inside of a handful of buildings in my thirty-six years: the farmhouse, Carver’s workshop, my classrooms, the school library, the locker rooms, the basketball court and the hockey rink. Oh, and that church. But it was time for both of us to explore. I pushed. He gave in. I was terrified.
He took me to another dark, out-of-the-way
“Appalling.”
“What!”
“This coffee. Next time I’ll get you better.”
I walked out unsure why I found him interesting.
***
I sat in a corner waiting for him. Out the window I watched a flock of low-flying, newly-mated King Cans returning from the south. Perhaps a storm was coming.
Harold entered and I watched people watching him, watching the slow, nervous contractions of his body. They disappeared when, as he sat, he took my hand and rubbed it, apparently confirming something, a satisfied look on his face.
“Can we go someplace?” he asked.
It was almost sixty-one years to the day that James Watson and his colleagues presented the molecular structure of DNA to the world, reaching into the primordial swamp and saying we are all in there . The day should’ve been a commemoration, a celebration. Harold’s invitation implied as much.
I said yes.
He drove me south to the forest where we walked surrounded by green new growth. A weekday, hardly anyone else around. I knew it was an exploration.
He tucked his hand around my waist. I didn’t shake him off. He turned me around so we faced each other. He cupped his hand behind my neck and pulled me into him, hungry for my lips. I accepted. And his tongue. The hardness between his legs rubbed against my belly. I accepted. I’ll take away his pain . I grounded him.
***
Still, I had doubts. I made lists. I tried to stay rational. But it was such a grand experiment , to have conversation, to dangle ideas, to theorize, to question — and not only about science.
“He’s an accountant but not dry, he’s not simply about numbers,” I said to my bedroom wall and to Michael Landon’s replacement: an enlarged newspaper photograph of William Schroeder leaving the hospital with the first artificial heart. “Harold’s not dry at all. Maybe not beautiful, but he’s clean. It’s all research, ay William?”
Soon I was having the fun I’d always imagined. Well, almost.
“Please move your things off the table.” He pointed to make way for his satchel and slammed the front door.
“Is it okay that I let myself in?” His edginess entered my body in disagreeable ways, mostly my chest.
“Sure. Of course.” With a quick-but-passionate bite of my neck, he went to his stack of accounting ledgers.
“What’d you do today?”
“The usual,” he said. “Clients.”
Researchers are undecided if smarts impact facial beauty —they doubt it— but they agree that “openness” reflects positively on facial attractiveness. So far he wasn’t very open. He rarely left the office except to visit his clients or the house, and then only after much coaxing from me. I got very few details.
He paged through a ledger, his shoulders hunched.
“You look stressed.”
“Something’s not right.”
I wandered over to him and massaged his neck. “Can I help?”
“Not really.” His fingers rested on column after column of scribbled figures. “There’s just so much of this . . . I’m going to have to go over every one of these damn numbers again, and I’m running out of time.”
“I’m pretty good with numbers.” I rubbed his shoulders. “At least I can add and subtract. How about I take on some of those columns, cut down your load. Can’t hurt, can it?”
“But your studies.”
“They can wait for a few hours. Let me be useful.”
And after a couple of hours of calculating the two of us found the error. He breathed easier. “You’re a life saver.” He sat back and let his head dangle.
I ran my fingers down his back. “And I’m taking you out to dinner tonight.”
“I don’t know . . .”
I’d only seen the inside of a handful of buildings in my thirty-six years: the farmhouse, Carver’s workshop, my classrooms, the school library, the locker rooms, the basketball court and the hockey rink. Oh, and that church. But it was time for both of us to explore. I pushed. He gave in. I was terrified.
He took me to another dark, out-of-the-way
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