It's Cold Out There by Braly Malcolm

Author:Braly, Malcolm [Braly, Malcolm]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Crime fiction
Publisher: Stark House Press
Published: 2016-04-08T00:00:00+00:00

Irving failed with her. After his big show of still hearty male vigor he had proved to be feeble, a creeping old man. And when, as a substitute, he had attempted something she couldn't bear, she had been quick to let him see her revulsion. Any gratitude and friendship he might have felt for her was burned away in the fire of his humiliation. He stood briefly at the edge of the bed looking down at her, a slumped, rounded old man, and she remembered what he had said over lunch—desire fading away as if someone were shutting off the gas and lights in a decaying house.

He left without another word, and she knew she had seen him for the last time. The job, his help and sponsorship—all lost. How could she have been so foolish? she asked herself bitterly. She should have known Irving was bluffing and she despised her own generous impulse that had forced him to expose himself. Once she had held her door open, he was bound in his pride to make a show of entering, but if she had had sense enough to keep it closed, Irving could have continued banging lustily for as long as the game lasted, content with the form, since it obviously helped him forget that the spirit was lost. Lost—how awful that must be for him.

But she could think no more of Irving. She had to realize she was in trouble and bring herself to a sense of urgency. But it was such nonsense when she knew with deep conviction that wonderful things were waiting for her, had always been waiting for her, and she had always known—even when she stood in the dusty fields where her father pitched his tent with her head thrown back to watch the airplanes crossing the sky, marveling as they seemed to burn as they passed the sun, and staring after them until they became tiny specks that blurred to nothing against the horizon. She dreamed of the great capitals of the world to which she imagined these glittering machines were bound, and came to love the airplanes for their promise of escape from the dreary and humiliating life she knew as the daughter of a traveling Evangelist, who was, she realized, though her love argued with her good sense, a small-time fraud. Soon after her eighteenth birthday she joined the WAF's and had worked near, even if only on paper, flying things ever since. She couldn't bear the thought of an ordinary job. It would be the end of the most magical part of her life.

She heard the phone. Listening intently, she let it ring four times before she rose and, walking like a dutiful child approaching a deserved punishment, went to answer it.

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