Read Online Rhode Island Red by Charlotte Carter - Free Book Online Page A

music in the apartment, comparing live versions of those songs to studio recorded ones; early recordings to late ones; those done in New York to those recorded in Boston to those recorded in California. Before long we were hungry again. Henry ordered in Indian food from a grand place on Fifty-sixth Street and champagne from the liquor store and the talk fest continued.
    It wasn’t until he’d closed the cab door after me that night and the driver pulled away from the curb that it occurred to me: Henry had not tried to make me. Not once.
    So, after dinner a few days later, I seduced him.
    On the elevator up to his place, I wanted him so much I thought I was going to detonate. The wanting was like a noose around my neck. But I was cool. And remained so through both sides of the Parker with Strings cassette we’d picked up from a street vendor in the Village. I was wearing the world’s shortest suede skirt, absolutely sure I was sending out telegrams of sexual funk, and pretty sure he was answering the door. He put on the smokiest ballads in the house, and while I sat eating a seckle pear, he took off his tie. Then, out of the blue, he asked me to dance with him!
    Which I did, for about sixty seconds, just long enough for the first extended kiss. And then I knocked him down.
    His mouth on my nipple sent chain lightning through me. As he rolled down my tights and began to stroke me I gripped him, scratched him, as if I were trying to mark him for my own. I came and came back again, came and came back again. I tore him out of his pants there in the lamplight and took him . We fucked on top of a Nat Hentoff essay. We did it standing up under a framed photo of the Birdland marquee. I couldn’t get enough of him, couldn’t feel enough of him inside me—thick, strange, hungry. And when he had no more to give me, when he was lost in his own frantic shivering, I opened my mouth, mercilessly and bit into him like a cannibal.

CHAPTER 7
    Trinkle tinkle
    I had two lovers. Two men do not a slut make. But, still and all, two ain’t one.
    Aubrey thought it was funny.
    Walter didn’t.
    No, I didn’t tell him. I didn’t have to. He noticed.
    He had just come out of the shower that morning. I was making coffee. By the time he was dressed for work, Walter had turned sullen. He took a seat across from me in the kitchen, ignoring the plate in front of him.
    â€œJust so you don’t think you’re getting away with something, Nan, I know you’re fucking around.”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œSkeevy bitch.”
    â€œCut it out, Walter.”
    â€œCut what out? You’re dogging around and you know it.”
    â€œWalter, you sound like a tired housewife. I’m not your goddamn property. You never slept with anybody else while we were together?”
    Things took the predictable elevator up from there, ending with his wordless, self-righteous departure for the office. He didn’t slam the front door. Matter of fact, he didn’t even bother to close it.
    I sat alone for a while, feeling tired and torn—and guilty—until I decided I’d better hit the streets and make some money.
    It was hard to shake the bad mood. After an hour of playing I repaired to a busy coffee place on Thirty-fourth Street. The jelly donuts were tops, and I needed a shot of sugar, bad. The guy sitting next to me finished his chocolate croissant (I had tried one once—too oily) and walked out. I picked up the Daily News he’d left behind and started flipping through it.
    Page three was where I stopped flipping.
    BRAVE POOCH DIES DEFENDING BLIND MISTRESS
    One of the grainy photos accompanying the story showed a hulking, lifeless animal lying on its side. “Seeing eye dog and mistress both stabbed to death” was the caption. Next to that was a picture of a young woman three-quarters covered by an EMS blanket.
    â€œFuck,” I said aloud.
    It was Inge—Mrs. Sig, the