Read Online On Thin Ice by Susan Andersen - Free Book Online Page B

control. Okay. All right. It wasn’t as if she were a stranger to this feeling of impotence. But that of course was the very problem, and, oh, how she hated it.
    She had grown up in a fundamentalist Christian home where she was expected to be seen but not heard, unless specifically called upon to sing a hymn or recite a lesson from the Bible. And woe be to her if she forgot or stumbled over her words. The common punishment for misbehavior in any of its guises was a stay of up to as many as three days in a dark, damp, seven-by-four-foot cubicle in the cellar.
    Usually after Father had taken his birch stick or his belt to her.
    It had never grown less terrifying in that unlit chamber, filled with its musty smells and skittering noises, no matter how many times she was put in there. It had always imbued her with such feelings of hopelessness and rage that she had feared she would burst with them. So she’d sung every acceptable gospel song she’d known, recited Bible verse after Bible verse, and swore repeatedly that someday she would have influence and authority. No one—no one!—would ever be allowed to inflict pain on her then . . . or make her spend time in a small, dark space again.
    She’d discovered the power of sex when she was seventeen years old. Up until that time, in compliance with her austere relatives’ demands, she’d kept her nose in her Bible and her feet on the straight and narrow, bound for Glory. She had gone to school; she’d gone to church; and any free time left over was devoted to skating—but only after her coach had assured her rigid parents that she would never be subjected to any material that didn’t have good, clean values.
    Which, of course, was as it should be.
    It was at skate practice that she’d first began to notice the way boys acted around her. If she quite properly dressed them down for using unseemly language, they would hang their heads. But when they looked at her their eyes were avid; and if she moved a certain way, bent in a certain manner, used her tongue to moisten her lips, a bulge would appear behind their zippers. She was pretty and her body was beautiful, and she discovered she could control boys with it.
    Power. It was so sweet, and for the first time in her life she had access to the real thing.
    Over the years her power base had enlarged until these days there was little she couldn’t accomplish or obtain. Most of the time it was simply a matter of placing herself in the right place at the right time. Of knowing how to manipulate the right man. Clearly, the airplane this afternoon hadn’t been the right place for Mick Vinicor.
    Or perhaps it was the timing that was off.
    Well, the time was always negotiable. As for the place . . . she didn’t doubt for an instant that she would eventually find a spot that he would find eminently suitable for their purposes. Heavenly days, it would be rather ludicrous to harbor doubts about her eventual success, wouldn’t it? Why would she want to do that?
    She hadn’t failed yet.
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    It was after midnight when the taxi let Sasha off in front of the Eugene hotel. She strode through the lobby doors and headed straight for the lounge. She could use a stiff drink.
    Damn Lonnie anyhow. How on earth had she allowed herself to be talked into this?
    Tossing her evening bag on the table, she slid into a U-shaped booth in one of the darker corners of the dim bar. It seemed like an eternity before the cocktail waitress sauntered over and took her drink order. Sasha fiddled with a book of matches as she watched the waitress walk away, turning it end over end between her slender fingers while she brooded.
    What difference did it make why she’d caved in—what counted was that she had. She’d listened to Lon’s arguments and she had agreed to his plan, however reluctantly. She could have said no. She should have said no. But . . . no. Instead she’d gone ahead