Read Online The Proposition by Judith Ivory - Free Book Online

in her slippers there on the landing. But she stopped still as a lamppost to hear, "She be a smart woman, ain't she?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "I shouldn't've made such a fuss. I can get in some water."
    Just like that, he admitted he was wrong. What an amazing conversation.
    He continued graciously, "See, I be pigheaded sometimes." He laughed, a deep, rich vibration that made something move in her chest, thudda-thud, the way a bass drum did in a parade. "It come from bein' mostly right, 'course. But she knows a thing or two about the gentry, I guess."
    "Yes, sir." She could tell Milton had little or no idea what the first part had been about. He responded graciously to the last though, saying, "She's gentry, sir."
    "That's what I thought. Will you help me then?" 'Elp me thun?
    "Yes, sir. My pleasure, sir."
    Edwina turned and all but floated up the main staircase to her bedroom. Why, she wouldn't be surprised if he shaved the mustache as well. He was being so reasonable.
    In the morning, she would pretend nothing had happened, that Mr. Tremore had done just as he should have in due course, no argument, no embarrassment. She envisioned saying good morning to him at breakfast (his face clean-shaven), inviting him nonchalantly into her lab —When you're finished with your meal, you can find me down the hall, last door on the right.
    Once in bed, though, she didn't go to sleep. She wasn't sleepy, she decided, so she picked up a book instead. She opened it, then never read a word. Instead, she listened to the water cut off, the pipes clanking as the flow stopped. She jolted slightly against her pillow as she heard a ka-plosh, then, "Ai, that be hot!"—Mr. Tremore entering a tubful of water. She lay there listening to the substantial splashes and sloshes of his large body moving through the business of a bath.
    She thought about his naked chest again. Her memory of it both fascinated and repelled her. Hair. It had been there again as they had argued in the bathroom. She shuddered. Who would have thought? Yet she had studied it with surreptitious care: a pattern of dark hair, two perfect swirls over muscles that bunched when he folded his arms, swirls that converged to become a dense pattern in the crevice between chest muscles, then (when he pulled his arms away to push back his hair) ran in a dark, ever-narrowing line, like an arrow pointing downward. Mick Tremore in the rude, as it were. This way to the widge.
    Edwina started. Heavens! Up till now, she realized, she had carefully avoided forming in her mind any word for that part of a man. Even the scientific word made her vaguely uneasy; her sensibilities veered away from it. Still, she'd known immediately what Mr. Tremore referred to when he'd said that. His word seemed friendlier. A fond name. Were men fond of that part of themselves? It was certainly not the best part of statues; she made a point not to look there. And it changed, it grew. She'd read that astounding piece of information in a book. That was the worst part, the horror—or it had been the worst until this very moment, when it occurred to her that, goodness, a man might have hair there, too. She did. Oh, something that grew larger, up and out of a tangle of hair. How disgusting.
    No, no, she mustn't think of it anymore. Enough. She must think of something else.
    The mustache. From down the hallway came ka-plosh, ka-plosh. Mr. Tremore getting clean. Truly clean—taking off all the thick, wiry hair that grew on his lip. Good. With that satisfying thought, punctuated by the pleasant, occasional lap of bathwater down the hall, she fell into a doze. There was no telling for how long, but she came to herself with a start, her reading light still on, the house quiet.
    Then no: she rose up onto her arms, for a different sound reached her. The noise of movement, someone walking in the dead of night. Edwina sat all the way up, thinking, What the blazes. It seemed to come from the direction of her father's study.
    She hopped off