Jonathan Carroll - Bones Of The Moon

VIP免费

2024-12-19 0 0 301.4KB 102 页 5.9玖币

侵权投诉

Jonathan Carroll

BONES OF THE MOON

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this

novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

BONES OF THE MOON

First published by Arbor House in 1988

thereof, in any form.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

An Orb Edition

Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

175 Fifth Avenue

New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

ISBN 0-312-87312-3

First Orb Paperback Edition: May 2002

Printed in the United States of America

0987654321

To Phyllis Westberg.

Here is another box for you.

It is the only one I knew how to make by

hand.

Part One

The Axe Boy lived downstairs. We were friendly because he was forever

walking an ugly little dog I patted when I bumped into them in the hall.

As you've seen from the pictures, he was nothing special to look at. The

only odd thing I noticed was his eyeglasses: they were almost always dirty --

that foggy, smudged look which makes you want to take out your own hanky and

give them a good cleaning.

"A good boy." Why do newspapers always use terms like that? "Everyone

who knew him thought of the murderer as a good boy who loved his parents, was

a member of the Eagle Scouts and spent his spare time collecting Asian

stamps."

Even my wonderful husband Danny said that after most of the grisly

details came out. "He seemed like a good kid, didn't he, Cullen? 'Axe Boy'?

Jesus, what a thing to call someone!"

"Danny, our young friend 'Axe Boy' Alvin Williams chopped his mother and

sister into _pieces_ exactly one floor below our apartment. A good boy he is

not." Danny had that quality and most of the time I loved him very much for

it: the world is to be forgiven. Axe Boys, dogs that shit in the middle of the

sidewalk, dangerous drivers . . . they know not what they do.

_I_ forgive nothing. If you stole my orange crayon in the fifth grade,

you're still on my hit list, buster.

We were eating breakfast and Danny was reading the story to me from the

paper. The thought of that murderous creep snoozing below us not long before

still made my fanny tingle.

"He says he didn't know what came over him."

"Oh, really? Well, I hope the next thing that comes over him is a

noose!"

"Cullen, you've interrupted me four times since I began reading this

article to you. Would you like me to go on, or would you rather do a

monologue?"

But he smiled when he said this because he wasn't really angry. When

Danny got angry, he became quiet. Then you ran and hid under the bed for a

very long time until he spoke again.

"You can go on, but he doesn't deserve any sympathy."

Danny ruffled the paper and cleared his throat. "He said he didn't know

what came over him because he loved his mother and sister very much." He shook

his head. "My God, what would it be like if that was your kid?" He looked at

me as if I had the answer. "Whenever you see the parents of a kid like this on

television, being interviewed, they always look so hurt and confused. All that

time and effort they've put in over the years. The new bicycles they bought,

trips to the doctor, packages from Grandma . . . So what ends up happening?

Mom borrows his pen and for some reason he goes totally berserk. I wonder if

it was this bad in the old days?"

"Danny, please don't start. 'The old days' were probably just as bad as

now; people just use them as an excuse to condemn things."

"I'm not going to 'start'. It's just that whenever I read about

something like this, I get all guilty. You know what I mean? Why should we be

so lucky? We still love each other, the baby's great, I make good money. . .

." He shrugged and drank his coffee. There wasn't anything I could say

because he was right -- we _were_ lucky people, and if I could do anything

about it, it would stay that way for the next fifty years. I fell in love with

Danny James when it was unfashionable to fall in love with anything but

causes. Spell that with a capital "C," please. That was back in the 1970s when

everybody hated the war in Vietnam and stores sold only incense and tacky

Indian clothes by the million. I shouldn't be so snotty, because I wore too

much patchouli perfume and carried my very own copy of _The Prophet_ with me

wherever I went. Thank God things change. Is there anyone around whose past

doesn't make them cringe?

We met in college in New Jersey and were introduced by the girl Danny

later married -- Evelyn Hernuss, who was my roommate in freshman year.

He was in love with her. But at the time I was in love with Jim

Vanderberg, so I didn't pay much attention to Danny James. Jim and I were

convinced we were destined to get married and go off to a Peace Corps posting

in some ravaged section of the world, where they would desperately need us and

we would go around feeling like little saints for a couple of years. But the

worm turns!

Jim and I later broke up over an advanced case of apathy. And three

months after their marriage in junior year, Evelyn Hernuss James died in a car

crash with her mother and father on their way home from one of Danny's

basketball games.

I had taken the semester off to campaign for a Presidential peace

candidate and was in Chicago when I heard about her death. There was little I

could do besides write Danny a letter telling him how sorry I was. Evelyn was

one of the good ones -- all the way down the line.

In what seemed a week, I received a thick letter back from Danny,

spilling every gut he had on to the page. I wrote back and he wrote back and I

wrote back. . . . And when I returned in the winter, he met me at Newark

Airport looking like someone who had barely survived Dachau. He looked so bad

he scared me.

All of my "Earth Mother" instincts woke right up. Believe me, I had no

intention of loving him -- I was there to be his friend in need. I had also

decided I was going to be "off" love that semester. I was going to be serious,

chaste, industrious, unapproachable . . . and eat only whole-grain foods.

We spent a lot of time together. He needed someone he could cry in front

of; I needed someone who would make me feel a little less self-involved.

Things worked out fine.

That was the year he set a school record for scoring and, hate sports as

much as I did, I went to as many games as possible. At the beginning I sat in

the stands and did my homework, but I couldn't help admiring how smooth and

graceful he looked on the court. Soon I stopped doing my homework, became a

great fan and knew more about basketball than a serious girl should.

When college was over, Danny was offered two tryouts with professional

teams, but true to his Marco Polo nature, he decided to play for a team in

Milan instead. I thought it was a nice idea but nuts at the same time -- and

had no hesitation in telling him that. He shrugged and said he didn't want to

play basketball for the rest of his life anyway, so here was a way he could

play and see things at the same time without the pressure and worry of

big-time American pro sports.

European pro basketball turned out to be rough and often about as subtle

as a brick over the head. The finesse and ballet of the game at its best in

the United States is lost. American players who come over are often appalled

at the steamroller way they go at it in the "elegant" part of the world.

Danny's letters to me that first vear abroad were full of wonderful

descriptions of games played in youth centers, military bases, gymnasiums that

doubled as town halls. The team gave him a car that blew up, and just enough

money to keep his elephant's appetite at bay.

I was working for a magazine in New York as a researcher and feeling

lonely most of the time. Live in New York when you're rich or in love, but

avoid it when all you have is a job, a smelly apartment on Tenth Street and an

empty dance card. That was the year I spent devouring all the books you're

only supposed to read at the beach in the summer. I learned how to cook, and

thanked God someone had had the compassion to invent television.

During the day I would call places like Alaska and ask distant-voiced

scientists about the mating habits of the musk-ox. I was good at my job

because I had too much time on my hands and didn't mind putting in extra

hours, asking a million extra questions and making perfect copies of my

research reports.

I dated a bunch of men with names like Richard and Christopher

(multisyllable names were "in" again) who, when taken together, didn't add up

to one Danny James. His letters from Italy were full of freshness and life.

The guys I was seeing were trying their damnedest to be cool and wise and

infallible. They took me to grim Bulgarian movies (in the original language)

and then explained the story to me afterward in lousy coffeehouses. Danny

liked to talk about the funny mistakes he'd made and how silly he'd looked or

felt as a result. He would write a whole letter about a meal of bad pasta that

would make me laugh out loud. So many of the sentences had his face.

Unfortunately for the Richards and Christophers, I would inevitably receive

one of these treasured letters a few hours before a date with one of them and,

as a result, I'd be a grump all night.

Yet, just before summer arrived that year, I did something incredibly

stupid. Tired of being efficient by day and lonely by night, I went to bed

with a beautiful German photographer named Peter (pronounced "Pay-ter") who

made me swoon in my seat the first time he entered the office. Casual affairs

had always repelled me, but I had never really experienced lust at first

sight. I slept with him on our second date. He took me out for dinner in a

very tall building that had a view over all of Manhattan. We ate the most

delicious things on the menu and he talked about the ruins of Petra, the game

the Afghanis play called _bushkhazi_, an evening he'd spent at a caf? in

Alexandria with Lawrence Durrell.

He never looked me in the eye once in all the times we went to bed in

the next months. He preferred to rest his handsome chin on my shoulder every

time we "made love." He wasn't good and he wasn't bad: he was just "Pay-ter"

who told wonderful stories and expected you to do more than he did once you

were in bed. Since there was little else in my life then besides letters from

the distant Danny James, I convinced myself I was in love with Peter.

Psychologists say you should never go food shopping when you're hungry,

because at that point everything you see looks delicious and you buy strictly

on impulse. Popcorn, oysters . . . it doesn't make any sense because your

stomach is saying yes to everything, whether it's logical or nutritious or

just junk. I met Peter when I was hungry and everything he was looked like a

feast.When I found out I was pregnant, it took me three days to get up the

nerve to tell Peter. He told me I was lovely and a wonder, but it wasn't love;

he said he had a friend who knew a good abortionist. I said I would do my own

shopping around and did. I was too young and sure of my wonderful future to

think about losing the child. Somewhere far-off in my mind I knew I wanted to

have children later in life, but not now. Not with a man who didn't love me --

and not with my mind full of fear and anger and blinking red lights.

What I remember most about the whole experience was the serene sense of

comfort and soft calm I felt when I woke up in a hospital bed late one August

afternoon, childless again. I never wanted to leave that bed with its

crunchy-white sheets and buttery light pouring in through the window.

I went back to my small apartment and opened a magazine. The first thing

I saw was a photograph of a family having a picnic in a bright green meadow. I

think I looked at that picture for ten minutes. I had left a child in that

hospital. I didn't want the child, even with that photograph in my aching lap,

but that didn't matter. I felt like there was nothing left -- not someone I

loved, not a child of that love, nothing.

I didn't go mad or anything so dramatic, but I did fall into a

depression as deep and dark as the sea at night. I became even more efficient

at my job and started reading books on advanced mathematics and architecture

when I went home at night. I wanted to keep my mind filled with things that

were clean and sharp and logical: pictures of buildings that rose straight off

the earth like rockets.

I went to a woman analyst who told me I was beautiful and witty and

absolutely right to abort because my body was my own. But her feminist

pep-talks only made me sadder and less sure of myself than before. I didn't

want to be independent; I wanted to love someone and feel comfortable with my

life. One night I realized that the only person I knew who could come close to

understanding my confusion was Danny. So I sat down and wrote him a ten-page,

single-spaced letter telling him about my relationship with Peter and the

abortion and how it was affecting me. I so vividly remember going to the post

office the next day to mail it. After I'd slipped it into the box, I closed my

eyes very tightly and said, "Please, please, please."

A week later I received a telegram from Milan saying:

WHY DID YOU WAIT TO TELL ME? THE FIRST THING

I'M GOING TO DO IS PUNCH YOU IN THE NOSE.

ARRIVING TUESDAY FLIGHT 60/TWA/KENNEDY.

I spent the entire weekend rushing around shopping, cleaning my

apartment (twice), shaking my head in disbelief that Danny was actually

arriving in a few days. What was even more unbelievable was that from all

accounts, his trip was in response to my confused letter. Did people still

rush to another's side to help and comfort? My whole spirit clapped its hands

at the thought.

Riding out to the airport on the bus, I kept smoothing the wrinkles in

my new dress and said again and again under my breath, "Flight 60 TWA. Flight

60 TWA."

The plane was forty-five minutes late in arriving and by the time people

started emerging through the gate, I think I'd gone to the bathroom three

times. I waited and waited; had gone up and down on my tiptoes a hundred times

before I saw this wonderful, familiar giant emerge behind all the other pygmy

passengers.

He bent down and gave me a big kiss on the lips. His smile was like

sitting by a warm fire with the best book you've ever read.

"That's the first time I ever kissed you like that, isn't it? How come I

waited so long?"

"And how come you're so tall? I forgot, sort of."

We walked toward the exit and I had to take two steps to match his every

one. I kept looking up at him to make sure he was really there and not just in

my best dreams. I envied no one else in the world.

Outside, waiting for a cab to take us back to the city, he towered over

everyone with both his height and his pure calm. People screeched and ran by,

buses blatted smoke thick as lead, planes carved the air overhead. Danny stood

there and smiled at it all.

"You know, it's nice to be back in horrible old New York, Cullen."

I got up on tiptoes and gave him a big smooch on his sandy cheek. "Only

you would get a kick out of this mess."

A shabby Checker cab rambled up and the driver came out so fast I

thought he'd been catapulted.

"The city? You goin' inna city? Hah?"

"How much?"

"We go the meter! What, you think I'm a crook or somethin'? "

Cabdrivers in New York are either autistic or philosophers; there's

rarely an in-between. We'd happened on a philosopher-complainer who kept

yakking the whole forty minutes into town. That was nothing new, but Danny

yakked right back. The driver's name was Milton Stiller and by the time we

were shimmying over the Tri-Borough Bridge, Danny was calling him "Milt" and

asking pertinent questions about his wife, Sylvia.

There are people who will talk to anyone and find something interesting

in them. I'm not one of them, but I learned fast that Danny was. People felt

comfortable and at home with him, innately sensing he'd neither judge nor

betray their confidences, no matter what they were. Our new friend Milton had

probably been griping his woes at captive customers for twenty years. But

Danny listened and talked and was the kind of human being we all want to

kidnap and take home forever and never share with anyone else. Milt invited us

over to dinner just before we got out in front of our apartment house. He said

he knew Sylvia would love us.

Danny paid and overtipped so much my eyes bulged out of my head. He

picked up his bags and moved toward the sidewalk.

"Hey, Colon. Come here a minute."

I'd never been called "Colon" before. Colin, usually. Even Collar once,

but Colon was a new one.

"Yes, Milt?"

"You take care of that big boy, you hear me? Christ, I wish _my_ son was

like him."

Fast tears came to my eyes and I had to turn away quickly or else he

would have seen me with a very wet face.

"I will. I promise."

Danny stood at the door with his suitcases and his smile. He was waiting

for me: Colon.

The table was set. I brought out the only _piece de resistance_ I knew

how to make well -- spinach lasagne. As I walked to the table, I suddenly

realized something and would have smacked myself on the forehead if I'd had

another hand.

"Oh _hell!_"

Danny lowered his glass of beer from his lips, leaving a white foam

mustache. "What's the matter? Did you forget something?"

"Oh Danny, I made _lasagne_! I completely forgot about what you eat in

Italy. You must have this three times a day there!"

He shook his head and gestured for me to put it down. Then he bent his

head over like a long-necked bird and scrutinized it.

"Cullen it's . . . _green_." He smiled beatifically.

"Of course it is! It's spinach lasagne."

"_Spinach_? Oh."

"Yes, spinach. I'm a vegetarian. That doesn't mean it's not good."

"Uh . . . oh." He was about to take a sip of beer, but put the glass

back on the table very gently.

"What's the matter with that? This is the first time I've felt like

crying all day."

"Don't do that. It's just that vegetarians make me nervous."

"_War_ wouldn't make you nervous, Danny James. Do you enjoy eating dead

flesh?"

"Uh . . . oh." He took his fork and poked at my masterpiece as if he

were inspecting a minefield. "Is it _really_ good?"

I squinted flame and acid his way and forked him up a piece as big as a

manhole cover. It sat firm and proud . . . and green on his plate.

"You eat that!"

"But it might be hot. Green things stay hot longer, you know."

"_Eat!_"

His smile fell but he began to eat and three helpings later he was still

going strong. He hadn't said another word, but his face had relaxed and his

cheeks stayed full. I know because I watched him like a hawk.

"So how is it, Popeye?"

He patted his tummy. "I stand corrected; spinach lasagne wins! So what's

for dessert, kelp cake?"

"I should feel insulted now, but I'm still too glad to see you. You're a

wonderful friend for coming, Danny."

He bowed his head my way and pushed a spoon a little to the left. "Are

you okay, Cullen?"

"I'm a lot better since I got the telegram saying you were coming.

Overall? I'm much better now. I think about the child sometimes, but that's

only natural."

He put his hands in his lap and leaned forward as if he were about to

whisper a secret. "I know it's easy for me to say it, but I don't think you

should worry about that if you can help it, Cul. You aborted because you had

to. You didn't love the man, I'm assuming. What better reason could you have

had than that?"

"Oh, Danny, I know. I've run all that through my mind, but it _was_ a

person in there. There's no way I can get around that." Tears came to my eyes.

It seemed I wasn't over anything yet.

Danny shook his head and looked at me very sternly. Then one of his

hands came up from his lap and he placed it on the table in a tight fist.

"You're wrong, Cullen. The seed _isn't_ the flower. I'm not trying to be

facile either. What kind of life would that child have had? Huh? Even if you

_had_ wanted it, there would have been so many times you'd have resented the

poor thing and your decision to have it. Look at our parents and how many

times they wanted to brain _us_ when we were growing up. All my life I've

heard people say it's a nip-and-tuck battle for parents to love their kids all

the way through. As good a person as I think you are, I do think you would

have scarred the kid somehow. It may not be a very nice thing for me to say,

but we really _don't_ need anymore walking wounded on this earth, you know?"

"I'm not saying you're in any way wrong, Danny, but life just isn't that

simple. If it was as easy and clear cut as you say . . . If it was as logical

as that, I wouldn't continue to feel as bad as I do. I know what you're

saying, and you're absolutely right in a way. _But_ logic and rationality only

go so far. Then you know what happens? Ha! Then your old heart adds its two

cents and everything reasonable goes right-out-the-window."

I took out a cigarette and lit up. We were quiet, comfortably quiet for

a while. Even with talk of the baby, I felt more at ease than I had in ages.

Danny sighed and frowned. "You're right, Cullen. A hundred percent

right. Remember how I was after Evelyn died? Every time I tried to tell myself

to just calm down and get back to living my life, my emotions said, 'Fuck you,

Buddy, we hurt!'

It was not a funny thought, but the way he said it made me grin. He

grinned back and I reached across the table and took his hand.

"You know something funny? You almost always blow smoke out of the side

of your mouth, Cul. I remember that from before. Are you aware of it?"

"Huh?"

"You shoot the smoke out the side; like you're making a little comment

or something. Never in front."

"Now I'm going to be self-conscious."

"Cullen, you're the prettiest woman I know. You have every right to be

self-conscious."

He said that without any hesitation, but wouldn't look at me when he

did. How many good men are there in the world who are both shy and

complimentary at the same time? The men I'd gone out with recently were full

of both compliments and eye contact, but I often got the feeling neither meant

a damn.

He took a coin out of his pocket and did a lovely little trick with it

-- flash, whoosh, gone! -- just for me.

"That's neat, Dan. Do it again!"

"Nope! Never ask a magician to do his tricks twice in a row. You'll

figure them out and they'll lose all their magic that way."

I went into the kitchen to get the dessert -- a giant, horrendously

gooey chocolate cake that looked great and broke all the rules.

Danny's whole face lit up as soon as he saw it. That night marked the

beginning of our many-year contest to see who had the greater madness for

sweets.

When I put it down on the table, he reached over and pulled the whole

thing in front of him. "Oh Cullen, that was really nice of you to get this for

me. And what are you having for dessert?"

Over coffee and cake we talked about everything. His words were so like

his letters; taking their time to get wherever, funny, self-deprecating. It

was plain he saw himself as a hell of a lucky guy who had been plopped down in

a fascinating, illogical world for no reason other than to have a good look

around, hands in pockets and a little surprised whistle on his lips.

Years before, I had taken his "way" for naivete when I first knew him,

but it wasn't that. It was a healthy, magnificently unpolluted sense of

wonder. Life was wonderful -- or at least full of wonders -- for Danny James.

He would look at a junkyard and be thrilled by the weird mix of colors in

there. When he prodded me into looking, I would see a junkyard. Not a good or

a bad one, simply a junkyard! Yet his wonder was not annoying or particularly

contagious either. Most of the time you didn't even know it was there until

you looked up at him and saw those quiet brown eyes staring at whatever it

was, a slight, pleased smile on his face.

I grew to hope for that smile; it was really the only way I could tell

what was going on in his mind. As I've said before, it was very hard to tell

when he was mad about something, and only slightly less difficult to tell when

he was happy. His wasn't a stone face, exactly, but rather a handsome one with

a set, bemused expression that rarely changed, and kept secrets -- both his

and your own -- like no one else I had ever known.

"Well, Dan, now you're going to have to spill the beans: have you been

gallivanting around Italy with contessas?"

"No, no contessas. Not many of them go to basketball games. There _is_

this one woman. . . ." His voice trailed off and he looked away. Embarrassed?

"Yes, all right; there's this one woman. _And_?" Unconsciously I took

out another cigarette. I was smoking up to two packs a day and climbing;

before the abortion it had been less than one.

He looked at me, smiled, shrugged. "It's very hard for me, Cullen.

Believe it or not, since Evelyn died I have been very low-keyed with women. I

go to bed with some and some go to bed with me -- if you get the difference --

but a lot less than some people think. Until recently I've had no desire to

jump into any . . . pool and get wet. There've been other interesting things

to pay attention to, like living in Europe for one. I think it's going to be a

very slow process, finding someone else to be with for the rest of my life."

I had the cigarette in my mouth and was squinting against the smoke that

curled up the side of my cheek. "But now you sound like you think you found

someone."

"I don't know. I've spent a lot of time thinking about it, believe me.

To tell you the truth, most of the time women make me nervous. Really! I often

feel like I'm either saying the wrong thing or acting the wrong way -- even

when I know they like me. Isn't that silly? I feel like a kid going to dance

class for the first time; which hand do I put where on the girl's body?"

We smiled at each other and the room hummed with comfort and

companionship.

"But you were married once, Danny. You should know all the ropes."

"Maybe some of them, but really I was only married long enough to know I

liked it, Cul. Then it went away."

"Danny, you're smart and you've got a good heart, so answer me this,

will you? Why do all the jerks do so well in life? And why do so many nice

people get stomped on? If anyone didn't deserve to lose their wife, it's you."

"It's not that simple, Cullen. Sometimes it works out fine." His voice

was soft and sad.

"Oh yeah? Well, I don't think it works out fine too often. Do you want

more cake? Say yes, please."

"Of course."

The new woman's name was Drew Conrad. Whoever heard of a girl named

Drew? But she was a model and that explained a lot about her, as far as I was

concerned. Every guy I knew in those days was going out with a model. My

definition of a model? Airheads with nice teeth.

"What's she doing in Italy, besides posing?"

"Are you telling me that you don't like models? Why don't you do it,

Cullen? You sure could make more money than you do at that magazine. God

knows, you've certainly got the looks for it!"

"Yeah, I'm pretty, but when people look it makes me extremely nervous.

What's more, I wouldn't want to spend my life posing on a car hood in a pair

of purple underpants. Hey, guys, look what you can have if you buy that Fiat!

It's tacky, Danny. I'm sure not the world's best person, but I work hard to

avoid being tacky if I can. Modeling _reeks_ of tack. Look, I'm sorry if I'm

squashing your Drew Conrad. Are you going to tell me what she's like?"

"She's tall and dark. We met at a party in Milan."

"And?"

"And . . . well, um, the sex is nice."

"And?" For the first time, the question of what Danny James would be

like in bed crossed my mind. I looked hard at him and imagined he guessed what

I was thinking because he quickly averted his eyes and scrooched around in his

chair like he had ants in his pants.

But I liked sex. I also liked my aloe plant and the International House

of Pancakes. My experiences with sex reminded me of a great new movie that

everyone talks about and loves. You go along hoping, _hoping_ it will be

everything they said it was. But then it's over and you walk out of the

theater, blinking hard at the sudden light -- tired, and sort of disappointed

and confused by all the hoopla the thing has received.

Most of my bedroom stories could have been divided into two simple

categories: "Bunny Rabbit Sex" and "Blackmail Sex." I'd had scads of Bunny

Rabbit Sex -- crazily eager, jackhammer stuff so repetitious and unoriginal

that your nose started twitching in frustration after a while.

Or there was the ever-popular Blackmail Sex: do it with me right now or

else I'll be depressed for the rest of my life . . . or at least the rest of

tonight. "Pay-ter" was a great one for that and I fell for it each time.

Now, sizing up Danny in a sexy light, I couldn't imagine him being

guilty of either approach, but like him as much as I did, I still had my

doubts.

"Cullen, did I say something wrong?"

"No, nothing, Danny. I was just thinking about sex."

His eyes smiled and he winked the nicest wink that ever was. "Cullen, I

wouldn't know what to do if you and I went to bed. You know why? I'd be too

busy staring at you to think of anything else."

It was said with such great humor and warmth that the only thing I

wanted to do was get up and give him a hug, which I did. He hugged back and

the next thing I knew, I was crying all over his gigantic shoulder.

"I don't want to cry, but I can't really help it."

He squeezed me tighter and stroked the back of my head again and again.

It was a wonderful feeling. He also had that man's bouquet of smells -- heat,

cologne, sweat, summer earth. It made you hot, comfortable; assured you that

for a moment or two you would be safe from the snapping alligator jaws of

life. Don't get me wrong -- good smells or not, putting your arms around most

men was either like embracing a chimp or a tombstone. Men either "let" you hug

them or quickly tried to turn that nicest of things into an orgy.

Not Danny James. His hands ran down my back in innocent rills that I

wished would go on forever. Hands are wonderful; they can disappear coins, or

they can iron out wrinkles in blue, rumpled souls.

"Are you crying because you're so sad to see me, Cul?"

I smiled and sniffed into his chest. His words, his hands on my back,

his _presence_ there was like someone had opened a trapdoor in the top of my

head and poured warm milk in, filling my body, soaking all of my cells,

soothing them all with its life, vitamins, whiteness.

I told him this and he chuckled. "I've never been called a glass of milk

before."

Jet lag caught up with him an hour later and he started yawning. I

steered him into the bathroom and told him that by the time he was finished in

there, I'd have the couch made up and he could flop right down and go to

sleep. He shuffled out a few minutes later wearing a pair of cute flannel

pajamas as big as an Indian tepee.

"The couch is all made up. I'll get out of here and let you go to

sleep."

"Cullen, I'm going to sleep with you. Don't say no, and don't think I'm

going to try anything. I came a hell of a long way to see you, so we're not

going to play any games with each other. We'll sleep and be good, but we'll be

sleeping together. Okay?"

"Okay." I couldn't look at him and my heart was beating very fast.

"That 'okay' didn't sound so good."

"OKAY!"

"Good. I'm completely exhausted. I'll see you later. Thank you for

dinner, even if it was green." He turned and started out.

"Danny? I'm so glad you're here."

"Me too." He half-turned and gave a little tired wave.

I watched him scuff off into the bedroom and lie down, Gulliver-style,

on my surprised bed. Then I went into the kitchen and did the dishes with

worried hands.

Naturally, nothing happened when I did get into bed. Danny was sound

asleep. Rolling over on my side, I smiled into the darkness and listened for a

long time to the hiss of his breathing.

I awoke when I felt a hand on my face and opened my eyes to see Danny

looking at me from ten inches away. His face was puffed and crinkled into a

sleepy smile.

"I think I'm jet-lagged. It's nine in the morning where I live so I'm

wide awake!"

Without a thought, I slid over and put my arms around his big

sleep-warmed body. We lay there for a little while and then fell asleep again.

The next time I awoke I smelled good things in the air, but was

disappointed to discover he wasn't there to smell them with me.

I like men's shoulders. Always have. The first thing I saw of Danny that

morning was his shoulders moving and jumping around as he worked at the stove

cooking breakfast. I leaned against the door and watched while he moved here

and there amidst cooking sounds and flying hands. He seemed to know exactly

what to do. And he had great shoulders. High and broad, they spanned the top

of a thin, well-kept body. I had spent the night with that body and the

thought made me smile; I had never slept with anyone without fooling around

before. I felt like a newly minted coin. What had happened last night reminded

me of a story out of the Middle Ages: one of those great ones, where the

virtuous knight sleeps with his lady-fair in the same bed, only he's placed

his trusty sword between them on the sheets to keep them both virtuous.

The only part of the story that didn't fit so well was that Ms. Drew

Conrad was Danny's lady-fair at the moment, while I was just his pal in need.

Had I fallen a little in love with him only because part of me was

nasty-competitive, or because everything he'd done since he'd arrived the day

before had been supremely adorable?

Without knowing I was there, he turned on the radio to a disco station.

Spatula in hand, he started dancing around. He was pretty good.

"Do you have any pictures of you when you were a little girl?"

I was startled that he'd known all along that I was there. He turned

around and, flipping the spatula, caught it with two fingers.

"You're a real bag of tricks, aren't you? Pictures of me when I was

little? Yes, I have a big bunch of them somewhere in a drawer."

"Terrific! Let's eat first and then you can get them out for me."

"How come you want to see them?" I sat down at the table. He'd already

taken my usual spot, but I liked to see him sitting there.

"I want to see if you were as pretty then as you are now."

He said this while putting a plate of scrambled eggs, toast and sliced

tomato in front of me. There was even a thin sprig of bright green parsley

laid over the eggs. It added an unnecessary, albeit lovely touch of color and

care to the whole thing that made it a hundred times better. Danny _cared_;

for the food he cooked, for me . . . for everything.

"I'm not used to being told I'm good-looking." Very unprettily, I

shovelled a large load of food into my mouth.

"Men don't tell you because they don't want to admit your advantage over

them. The better-looking a woman is, the more insecure a man gets."

"Why's that? How ridiculous! Would you pass the salt?"

"Because it's hard to walk down the street with someone who makes other

people walk into walls when they look. Plus, no one looks at _you_ when you're

with that pretty person. It's very humbling."

"Is Drew Conrad pretty?" I stopped chewing and realized my fork was

hanging in midair.

He hesitated a moment, then nodded bashfully, but he wouldn't look at

me. "What advertisements has she done? Anything over here I would have

seen?""I don't know -- all of the big ones, I think. They brought her over

from New York, so I guess she's known over here too."

"Do you bump into walls when you see _her_?"

"Every so often."

I pushed my plate away a little too hard and it skidded across the table

like a hockey puck. "Okay! All right, I admit it -- I'm jealous. No, I _hate_

her, Dan! I look at you and I'm thinking there are neat men in the world.

Look, there's one right here in front of me. So where the hell are they? All I

ever meet are squeenys and mud-balls."

"What's a squeeny?"

"Hey, just walk into any Singles' Bar and take your pick. Computer

dating. The New York Review of Books Classified Section: 'Docile Virgo seeking

文档加载中……请稍候！
如果长时间未打开，您也可以点击刷新试试。

下载文档到电脑，查找使用更方便

5.9 玖币 0人已下载

立即下载 VIP免费下载

摘要：

JonathanCarrollBONESOFTHEMOONThisisaworkoffiction.Allthecharactersandeventsportrayedinthisnovelareeitherfictitiousorareusedfictitiously.BONESOFTHEMOONCopyright(c)1987byJonathanCarrollFirstpublishedbyArborHousein1988Allrightsreserved,includingtherighttoreproducethisbook,orportionsthereof,inanyform.Th...

展开>> 收起<<

Jonathan Carroll - Bones Of The Moon.pdf

共102页,预览21页

还剩页未读，继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

Jonathan Carroll - Bones Of The Moon

相关推荐

开通VIP享超值会员特权

作者详情

相关内容

热门标签

举报选择: