Read Online The Hanging Judge by Michael Ponsor - Free Book Online Page B

head and muttered, “That is so much better than any of my secrets.”
    The wind died down, and their black leatherette world went very quiet as he looked into Claire’s eyes. Just the purr of the idling engine, the thud of the wipers, and the tap of sleet on the glass. Faint scent of vanilla. He felt slightly dizzy, as though the back end of the car were lifting off the ground. This was when he was supposed to do something.
    Claire turned to David and put her hand on his shoulder. He had an insane thought that she might reach down, unzip his fly, and propose oral sex. People did that these days, didn’t they?
    “How about this?” She dropped her voice. “I’ll tell you one of my secrets, if you tell me one of yours.”
    “Uh,” David began, but they kissed before he could continue, and his field of consciousness contracted to tongue, lips, and nose, the taste of her mouth, and the need to make spaces to breathe. After a life-transforming interval, they broke, and David said, “I don’t know about that.”
    “I figured.”
    They resumed kissing, maneuvering as well as they could in the cramped interior. Claire slipped her arms up inside David’s jacket, cupping her hands over his shoulder blades and down his long back, pulling him to her. The competence of her touch was as thrilling to David as her tenderness. This was a woman who might be, in the best sense, very easy.
    “Okay,” Claire whispered, very close, “here’s the deal.” She kissed him. “I’ll tell you one of my secrets for free.” She kissed him again, longer this time. “And you can decide if you want to reciprocate.”
    “I don’t … I don’t know.”
    Claire’s breath played over his face. “You mustn’t tell a soul.” She put her finger on the tip of his nose and looked into his eyes solemnly. “William the Conqueror had three testicles.”
    They burst out laughing and fell onto each other with even more appetite. David let his hands slide along the splendid curve of Claire’s waist, up over her ribs, brushing up over her breasts and around to the trailing archipelago of her vertebrae. Small things nipped at the edges of his mind—the gearshift and the painful hand brake, the cold nudge of the rearview mirror against his temple, the fact that he badly needed to go to the bathroom—but he was so engulfed in pleasure and amazed at Claire’s eagerness that he barely noticed. Even when a sad chill brushed him, the ghost of Faye melting into the back of his mind, he did not pause or, for the moment, even care very much.
    On the other side of infinity, they took a break, clinging and breathing contentedly.
    “Okay,” David said. He laid his nose on the side of Claire’s head and breathed in deeply. Distant scent of coconut. “Here’s mine. Personally, I don’t care much for death.”
    “Egad. Let me get a pencil.”
    “Very funny. I mean, for the death penalty. Too much strain on the system.”
    “The legal system or your system?”
    “Everybody’s system. The doubts about whether the defendant did it, the pressure to conduct a perfect trial, everything.” He sniffed and drew himself up from Claire’s head. The air was cool. “Then, to tell the truth, I’m about sick to death of death. We’re all going to get there some day. No need to hurry things.”
    Claire tilted her face up to him, and he kissed her eyelids, then the wings of her nose and her chin. As he put his hands over her breasts again, she moaned softly, cleared her throat, and spoke over his shoulder, slowing things down.
    “I’ve never in my life seen such a tidy garage.”
    “Rural upbringing. A man’s judged more by his barn than his house.”
    Two sharp woofs came from inside.
    “Oh, that’s right—you have an exploding dog!” Claire said delightedly.
    “Yes.” He realized that Marlene had been barking for some time, not in anger but with the mechanical persistence of a car alarm. “Could you, uh, come in for a minute?”
    “I think,”