She Wakes by Jack Ketchum Read Free Book Online Page A

silly.”
        “Silly? I woke and you were gone. I looked for you. I called you. I couldn’t find you. Anywhere.”
        “Now you’re being irritating.”
        “Huh?"
        “Look. We fell asleep. I woke up. You weren’t there. I had to find my own way back from the beach alone. And I was still a little drunk, too. I was angry. I’m not anymore.”
        “That’s it, then.”
        “What’s it?”
        “You were drunk.”
        “I said a little. You weren’t?”
        “Well, maybe some. Not enough to…”
        “Robert. Let’s not make a thing of it. I’ve long since forgiven you. I told you that!”
        “You have.”
        “Of course. The rest of it was lovely, wasn’t it?”
        “Yes it was.”
        “Well then.”
        
***
        
        He sat down on the sand. It’s some sort of silly game, he thought. And if she has to win it then I suppose she has to win it.
        He looked at her lying on her back, eyes closed against the sun, at the lovely easy nudity, and he couldn’t figure it. He felt the first uneasy stirrings of doubt about her.
         I don’t like games, he thought.
         I hope she isn’t into that.
        Or it’s going to be a short relationship.
        
***
        
        Yet the rest of the day passed pleasantly.
        There was no more mention of the night before. The sun and sand worked on them and Dodgson relaxed again. They talked a little. She asked about his books and he told her. A serious and flawed first novel that had somehow after three long years found a publisher and which everyone-quite rightly in Dodgson’s estimation-ignored. Followed by a cynical commercial thriller that had found a home easily and, surprisingly, sold even fewer copies than the first book. He spoke of them without regret or anger.
        Which was something.
        
***
        
        “There are a few…perks, I guess you’d call them. I still have some of the advance money on the thriller for one thing. It got me here. And then I suppose there’s some cachet to being a published novelist. People figure you’re probably bright enough, possibly talented. So you’re accepted into circles you wouldn’t be, ordinarily. That’s sort of interesting for a while.”
        “Fashionable circles?”
        “Some, yes.”
        “You’re handsome, you know. Your looks can’t hurt you much either.”
        He shrugged.
        “Anyway, I accept you.”
        “Are you…fashionable?”
        “You mean am I rich. Obviously I’m fashionable.”
        “Obviously.”
        
***
        
        He wondered if she was rich. It wouldn’t surprise him. If so that would leave him the poor relation again. Michelle had private money and so did Danny-he’d inherited his father’s pharmaceutical company. It ran itself, he said. Working it was hardly more than a hobby for him at the moment.
        He wondered if he gave a damn. He didn’t think so. He worried, sometimes, what would happen after the advance ran out. He doubted that there was another book left in him-except for fee one about Margot.
        And he wasn’t writing that one, not ever.
        He’d probably end up teaching.
        And for a moment the depression was on him again, perched like a vulture. What was the saying? Depression was nothing but anger without urgency.
         You’re a bore, he thought. Cut it out.
        He lay back on the sand and baked awhile and his depression lifted. Here, eventually, it always did. So much of Greece was purely physical-it was his own particular brand of Zen. Oh, there were ruins, museums, monasteries. But Greece reached Dodgson through sun and sand and sea, through the senses, through good light eating and clean air, through women, through nude bodies and hot dry days and breezy nights, through the wine and liquor and the taste of clear fresh