Read Online Black Angus by Newton Thornburg - Free Book Online Page B

some of the longest minutes of his life, for when she finally did come out, naked, her hair curlier from the bath steam, her body gleaming clean, firm as Carrara marble, he would almost swoon with lust. But then she would just go about her business, dutifully returning his kisses, dutifully going down on him, dutifully submitting as he mounted her finally. And he was convinced that on a few occasions, especially during their first few times together, she had faked her orgasms, for they had seemed slight and theatrical compared to her response more recently. But even with this improvement, he still found her inhibited. There was no play between them, either before or after they climaxed. Nor was there any fun or laughter. She would just come into her tiny bedroom and go to work, as if she were stepping up on a runway to dance topless for a certain length of time.
    This night, however, Ronda was not at all indifferent. And when they were finished he discovered that her eyes had teared, which for some reason moved him unexpectedly. For a time they kissed and embraced like lovers, but finally she pulled away from him and lay on her side, watching him.And Blanchard did not miss the new thing in her eyes, almost the aggrieved look of the victim.
    â€œI’ve got to get out of here,” she said.
    â€œOut of bed?”
    â€œDon’t be funny. Here. This goddamn backwoods.”
    â€œNo answer on your ad yet?” She had recently started running a classified ad for her mobile home in a Springfield newspaper.
    â€œNothing,” she said. “Pretty soon I’m just gonna pick up and leave anyway. Give the damn thing to the finance company. The devil with my credit rating.”
    â€œI’ll miss you.”
    â€œYou’ll get by.”
    â€œIt’s so bad here?”
    â€œYeah, it’s so bad. Especially the Sweet Crick. Another week in that dump and I’m gonna go bananas. What a bunch of animals.”
    â€œThat include Shea?”
    She laughed listlessly. “Well, what would you call him?”
    â€œBig,” Blanchard said. “A big kid.”
    â€œKid, my foot. I never saw Pat Reagan back down from anyone before, let alone a kid. But he did tonight.”
    â€œYou’ve got a point.”
    She was silent for a time. “I still can’t figure him,” she said finally. “Shea, I mean. I can’t figure what he’s doing here.”
    Blanchard had already tried to explain him to her last week, when Shea turned up at the ranch and of course promptly found the Sweet Creek. Blanchard had told her about the years the two of them and Susan had spent at the Darling Agency in Saint Louis and what a gifted advertising writer and idea man Shea had been, both there and in New York, where he had earned big money and had won many national awards, and how none of it had mattered for him, how even after he had reached thirty he had not been able to resist treating his careeras a lark, once even showing up for work in a rented Nazi Gestapo uniform when the management said they wanted to see more esprit de corps. Blanchard had told her about Shea finally getting fired, over two years after Blanchard himself had left the company, and he had told her about Shea’s half-hearted search for another job since then, his problems at home, and of course his drinking. But then, as now, Blanchard had no real answers for her, because he did not know any better than she did what Shea was doing in the area, what he was after . He could only guess.
    â€œMy guess is he’s just running.”
    â€œFrom what?”
    â€œI doubt if even he knows.”
    â€œYou can’t run from something unless you know what it is.”
    â€œSure you can. You don’t run from the dark, you run from what you think might be in it.”
    â€œStill, you must have some idea.”
    â€œWhat he’s running from?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œNineteen eighty-four,” he said, for