Read Online Flimsy Little Plastic Miracles by Ron Currie Jr. - Free Book Online Page A

for breakfast that morning.
    If you want to be happy for the rest of your life, never make a pretty woman your wife.
    But anyway on Christmas eve I didn’t think much of it, really, and we went to the cocktail party, where I knew everyone and Emma knew no one, and she drank red wine and made friends and sort of lit up the room, quickly and efficiently gathering the attention of the men there, as she always did. Watching her I started to wonder suddenly about the guy who had tried to kiss her in Washington, wondered how complicit she’d been in the whole thing, though she’d characterized it as being completely on him.
    After, we went back to my place and stayed up late drinking. We woke after just a few hours’ sleep and exchanged gifts. I gave her a pair of earrings from Tiffany; she gave me a photo, in a beautiful custom frame, of the two of us on a trip to Ireland from a few months before. We made breakfast, drank more champagne. It was nice. But now my mind had fixated on the abortive kiss in Washington—the guy must have believed he had a green light for a reason, I thought. I wondered if she had, at first, returned the kiss, maybe even let him put his hands on her, and then thought better of it.
    This thought blossomed and grew great black thorns, loomed over our breakfast like a floral centerpiece out of Lovecraft, and finally I asked Emma if she had, in fact, kissed the guy back.
    She gazed at me evenly. For a moment, she said. He kissed me. I’d been drinking. He’s not unattractive. But then the moment passed.
    It was her nonchalance, you can understand, that really made my mouth go dry.

A fter breakfast we fell into bed again—no matter the upset or offense, all it took was one decent look at her in profile, one whiff of her essence underneath the previous evening’s perfume, one look at her from behind as she walked away from me, and even if I found it impossible to forgive there was nothing I could not forget.
    And in forgetting I regained myself. Pushed her face-first onto the mattress, flat on her belly. Grabbed her wrists and yanked them up, pressing them against the headboard in a way that made clear they were to stay there even after I let them go and set my hands to other things. She squirmed under my weight in faux protest, her legs coming open a bit. Here, in the bed, was the only place where she gave herself over to me, relinquishing control with a sigh as I checked her with one hand, found her inner thighs slick. With the other hand I grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled hard, and she made muffled noises against the pillow as I pushed into her.
    And then, afterward, she said that she loved me.
    I couldn’t think of anything that seemed like an appropriate response, so I asked her why she would say that.
    She told me: Because it’s true. I love you. I’ve loved you again, ever since I read the book.

W hen she got really turned on Emma sometimes grew angry. My mouth on her nipple, and she’d flail, growl at me a bit. My hand between her thighs, and her hands would clench into fists. It was an obvious effort for her to keep them pressed to the mattress at her sides instead of raising and wielding them.
    It’s not that I really want to hit you, she said once. Not at all.
    I think you should.
    Think I should
what
?
    Hit me. When the impulse happens. See where it goes.
    No.
    You’re afraid.
    Of course I’m afraid.
    Which is precisely why you should hit me. See what’s lurking behind that impulse. You might be surprised at what you find.
    Listen, she said, I know what you’re getting at, okay. I just think these are things better investigated with my therapist.
    You’re going to punch your therapist?
    Smiling: Fuck off.
    And besides, I said, who said anything about therapy? I’m thinking if you actually hit me you’d probably find yourself as turned on as you’ve ever been in your life.
    But to what end? she asked, her