Read Online Married Sex by Jesse Kornbluth - Free Book Online

drained her coffee. “My father was the irrigator for a ranch. I grew up riding the owner’s horses. People think it’s all Western saddle and rodeos and riding the range out there, but it isn’t—they ride English too. It turned out I was an absolute whiz. At sixteen, I was probably the best jumper in Wyoming and Montana. And I got good grades. There was some press. Princeton gave me a full scholarship. So I went.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œI’d never been east. Princeton—the whole scene—blew my mind. Especially my first competition. It was huge, like every rider in New Jersey was there. I’m sure I was the only one who didn’t have her own horse. I looked at the girls who rode ahead of me, and I saw: They were better. They’d had every advantage, and then they’d worked hard. I couldn’t handle it—I’d always been the gold standard. I clutched. I went on automatic.”
    â€œHow’d you do?”
    â€œThis is where it gets crazy. If I were scoring it, I’d say fourth. Maybe third. But I won. I couldn’t believe it. The other girls couldn’t either. You should see the picture of me accepting the trophy—talk about stunned. Anyway, I go to take my horse in, and there’s this kid waiting for me: Ben Griesman. We have a class together. Maybe I’ve nodded hello to him. But we’ve never spoken. ‘Nice going,’ he says. I say, ‘I didn’t deserve to win.’ ‘You’re right,’ he says, ‘but the judge with the rummy nose thought you did.’ I ask how he knew that. ‘Because I fixed the judging,’ he says. And then he tells me how he went to the judge and promised the guy he’d have a date with me that night if I won. I couldn’t begin to know how to have a conversation like that. But this eighteen-year-old Princeton freshman whose idea of a horse was a nag in front of a carriage on Central Park South—he knew how to bribe a judge.”
    â€œWhy did he do it?” Blair asked.
    â€œI asked him. And he says, ‘I saw you in class and I thought … I felt … I know you. You’re like me.’ I had to laugh. I say, ‘Are you nuts? My father doesn’t own a suit to be buried in.’ He says, ‘You’re a storybook girl. You want it all, and you’re meant to have it.’ I say, ‘Including dinner with an old drunk? What else did you promise him?’ And he goes, ‘He knows I’m meeting you after dinner.’”
    Blair, fascinated, gestured for more.
    â€œAnd he looked at me, like he really did know me, and I felt something break inside, this wave of incredible relief, and I just … went to him. He bought me my first camera. We were together for five years.”
    Blair couldn’t get enough. “And then?”
    â€œI was home for the summer. The owners of the ranch had a friend visiting. She wanted to ride, so I took her up into the national forest. We climbed and climbed, and when she saw that the eagles were flying below us, she wanted to stop. Then she kissed me. And …”
    Silence. Interrupted by chess pieces clicking on concrete tables. And birds. And the distant sounds of football and baseball on the Great Lawn. And, finally, by Blair.
    â€œSo this thing we might do together … you’ve done it before?”
    â€œThis … thin g ?” I read Jean’s smile as quizzical. “Yes. I have.”
    â€œAnd …”
    â€œEach time … when it was over … the same word described the quality of the pleasure … annihilating .” Jean drew it out, making it sound like the ultimate contentment.
    I imagined the three of us, sheets rumpled, overwhelmed by what we’d done. And the sense of freedom, feeling no sin, anticipating no punishment. I looked over at Blair, and I could see she was reassured by Jean’s answer. And pleased that Jean would be her