Naked in Saigon by Colin Falconer Read Free Book Online Page A

spring shut.
     

     
    That night he made love to me, nervous as a teenager. We seemed to be so out of tune with each other now, I was only partly engaged, and he grew frustrated when I could not come. He kept trying until I made him stop. I eased him on top of me and he made love to me with something like desperation. Even after he came he wanted to stay inside as if this was our very last time.
    Did I want it to be?
    “I've lost you,” he whispered.
    “Shhh,” I said and stroked his hair and held him. I felt his weight on top of me, suffocating me, like the guilt of my secret knowledge. At last he rolled away and we lay in the darkness, staring at the ceiling, listening to the slow whirring of the overhead fan. I was naked in Saigon, my husband’s fingertips resting on my thigh, my mind lost to him, far away and far back in time.
    I loved Connor because Connor was safe. There were no highs like there were with Reyes but at least I knew he loved me and he’d never leave me. With Reyes there was always that doubt. Besides, he scared me. If I gave him my heart and it all fell apart again I’d lose the last of my dreams. This was my last buck, and if I gambled and lost, what was there left? Maybe I’d rather leave it in my purse for a rainy day.
    Twice now we had walked away from each other. We had such volatile temperaments, how could we ever make it work? Perhaps I needed someone like Connor. He needed me, Reyes didn’t.
    I missed how it was with Reyes. It wasn’t because of the passionate sex; it was that the sex was so passionate because of everything else. Somehow we were made from the same stuff he and I. It was what brought us together and what dragged us apart. He was like a drug to me, and I got angry and scared when I wasn’t getting enough.
    Maybe love was meant to be peaceable. Reyes was the kind of man you have a wild affair with but he wasn’t a guy who could build you a white picket fence.
    So what was I going to do?
    I resolved to stop this and drag myself back to our marriage. My feelings had to be reined in. I would not let them endanger the meagre safe house I had finally built for myself.
     
     
     
     

Chapter 12

     
    It was six thirty in the morning and we were sitting on the terrace of the Continental Hotel, watching two young bonzes going from shop to shop on the other side of the square with their begging bowls. The terrace was separated from the footpath and the phalanx of bicycles and mopeds in the square by long cement flower boxes littered with cigarette butts. I wondered if they were ever going to clean them.
    A white-jacketed waiter brought our breakfasts - boiled eggs, slices of paw paw, café au lait. So this was an unexpected luxury, having breakfast with my husband. He hadn’t rushed out this morning; last night’s fight had stayed with both of us and he was making an effort to placate me, though twice I caught him stealing glances at his watch when he thought I wasn’t looking.
    Connor wasn’t classically good-looking, what had attracted me to him was his intensity, the way his eyes shone when he talked about the world and politics and his work. They were ice blue and they reminded me of Reyes. But Reyes’ passion had always been reserved for me. With Connor I always had to compete with his work and most times, like now, I came off second.
    When I married him I thought I could relax; no more pretty boys who break your heart and marry into the mob, no more gun runners who disappear off the face of the earth every few months then come back and expect to take up where they left off as if nothing had happened. Here was a guy who knew right from wrong, someone I could rely on. I had imagined a man like my papi.
    But it hadn’t turned out like that.
    When I looked back, the only time I had ever found happiness was the one time I hadn’t planned for it to happen, with the one man I never trusted, the one least like my father. It had scared me out of my wits. When you have