Agyar by Steven Brust Read Free Book Online

frowned. “Jack,” she said, “it isn’t like we have a relationship.”
    That stopped me cold. “We haven’t?”
    “No.” She started to pick up strength. “I like you, but that—”
    “It seems I’ve spent an evening in your bed.”
    She pressed her lips together and tossed her head back. “So?”
    “Isn’t that a relationship?”
    “You mean, sleeping with someone once or twice means you’re having a relationship with them?”
    I tried to make sense of that. I said, “What do you mean by ‘relationship’?”
    “I mean, you know, when you’re seeing someone regularly, and the two of you always do things together, and—”
    “Oh. Excuse me. I didn’t understand. No, as you define it, I don’t think we’re having a relationship.”
    “Well then?”
    “But I forbid you to see Don again.”
    You’d think I’d just announced that I intended to burn down her house. Her mouth fell open and she stared at me, then she said “What?” in a voice that sounded like highland pipes.
    I repeated myself.
    She said, “Who do you think you are—”
    “You will do what you’re told,” I said.
    “I will not—”
    “Let’s talk about it upstairs.”
    If anything, that made it worse. “If you think I’m going upstairs with you—”
    I shrugged. “Right here will be fine, but won’t you be embarrassed if your roommate comes in?”
    “If you think I’m going to—”
    I laughed, and took her in my arms. She tried to fight her way out, with profound lack of effect. She stopped fighting and said, “Jack, Jack, please stop. This isn’t—”
    “Keep still,” I said, and threw her onto the couch, and myself onto her. She gasped as the air was driven from her lungs. By the time she could speak again she had nothing to say.
    Sometime later I looked at her face, tear-streaked and pale. She reached up to caress me clumsily then let her hand fall back down to her side. “Jack?” she said in a whisper.
    “Hmmm?”
    “I don’t—I don’t think I can make it up the stairs.”
    “What’s wrong with sleeping on the couch?”
    “Please, Jack. I don’t want Susan to see me this way.”
    “You should have thought of that when I first suggested we go upstairs.”
    She tried to sob but seemed not to have the strength. “Please, Jack.”
    I sighed. “Very well.” I picked her up, carried her upstairs, and put her to bed.
     
    I’ve had to get up and walk around a little. I’ve spent some time wandering and seeing what’s here. As I was pacing through the house I met Jim in the parlor, his usual haunt, so to speak.
    “You’ve been type-typing away, haven’t you?”
    “I guess so.”
    “May I read it?”
    “No. Wait, yes. Go ahead. Only don’t talk to me about it.”
    (He’s going to be reading this. Will knowing that I have a reader change what I write? I hope not. If I think it does, I’ll ask Jim not to read it any more. Hi, Jim, how’s the ghost business?)
    “I won’t,” he said. (You said? How can anyone write for an audience? To Hell with it.)
    So he went up and read it, and after about an hour came back down. He said, “I don’t understand what this Laura Kellem is waiting for. If she’s going to stick it to you, why doesn’t she just do it?”
    I had to think, because I hadn’t wondered about it one way or the other. I finally said, “I should imagine that she has quite a bit to work out.”
    “You said something like that before, but what do you mean?”
    “Implicating someone for a murder he didn’t commit isn’t easy, modern forensics being what it is. If the authorities should discover my name, and succeed in tracing my movements, they might learn that I hadn’t arrived in this part of the country until after the crimes had been committed.”
    He frowned his particular frown, squinching his face as if to touch his eyebrows to his upper lip. “But that means she has to kill you.”
    “Well, yes, but that isn’t difficult, for her. The hard part is bringing in the