Read Online The Wager by Donna Jo Napoli - Free Book Online

lay it on the ground by his feet.
    It would surely get filthy now.
    â€œSpeak to it.” He smiled dreamily. “In the softest whispers, like to your lovers. Say, ‘Dear one,’ yes, that’s the right word,
cara
—dear—such a nice double entendre, don’t you think? Say, ‘Dear one, give me money.’ That’s all. Be intimate, caressing. You know how to do it. Name the amount; it will give as much as you ask.”
    Could this be a hallucination? A vision that comes before death? Had Don Giovanni reached the end so fast?
    Starve anyone long enough and visions will come. Great pain does that, too—like from lack of sleep, or torture. Ask any saint. Any of the dozens that would be celebrated in the morning. Or was it All Saints’ and All Souls’ Day already? Had he been so groggy that he’d missed the midnight church bell announcing the holy day?
    He couldn’t sense the attention of a host of saints, or even of one saint. But he didn’t need them, anyway. Anyone would say the same: This was foreseeable.
    â€œThere’s a catch, though.” The man grinned.
    The devil. This vision was a nightmare in disguise. Now came the part where Don Giovanni had to trade his soul.
    â€œNo, no, no. You’re at once more dramatic and more ignorant than I anticipated. And after all the books you read under Don Alfinu’s tutelage.” He tsked again. “Not your soul. It would be crude to demand your soul right off. Crude and easy and uninteresting. No, no. Let’s do something to banish the ridiculousboredom of ordinary things. Let’s start with a test trade. Something much more rare than a soul. Your beauty.”
    Vanity. The one small indulgence that remained in Don Giovanni’s miserable life. Surely the devil could find a more valuable test trade.
    â€œHave you learned nothing? An indulgence held on to so tenaciously—that’s the most obvious of opportunities. The profligate way you behaved after you came of age, well, that seemed nothing but the vulgarity of youth. But then you showed me better. The night of the wave. Remember? The way you looked at the maidservant even as her words exposed your hubris. What a source of glee. I still savor that moment. And then the way you looked at old Betta . . .” He laughed. “That was a surprise even for me. But I still had to be sure.” He waited.
    More bait. Like dead rats for crabs. Don Giovanni should hold his tongue. But in the face of such a fateful decision, explicitness felt necessary. “Sure of what?”
    The devil smiled slightly. “Sure that all that desire, all that love, was of yourself, not others. A man who really loves women, all women freely, is the most innocent of all. Foolish, but innocent. Fortunately, that isn’t you.” He tilted his head. “Who do you think walked into the sea that night? Oooo, the pleasure of seeing you wait for your guests rather than rush into the cold sea to save her. Lust is fun, so long as it doesn’t cost you effort. Whose turn of the ankle caught your eye in the middle ofa disaster scene? It took you but a moment to leave behind the battered and bleeding to follow your member. Lust is much more fun when it means saving you effort. Exquisite.”
    Don Giovanni had no saliva to swallow. His Adam’s apple rose and fell, dry and painful. He ground the accusations in his teeth—let them become powder, they meant nothing. “Shape-shifter. Stalker.”
    The devil grinned. “And you wondered at sleet in September. You almost seemed stupid. But your resourcefulness these months has been quite enough to show the contrary. There’s no doubt we could have fun. So take the challenge. Prove me wrong. Surrender your beauty.
    â€œTemporarily, that is. Three years, three months, three days. Not so long for worldly wealth, wouldn’t you say? In that period you must not wash. You cannot wash