The Stars at Noon by Denis Johnson

Author:Denis Johnson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: General, Fiction
ISBN: 9780060976101
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 1986-07-15T07:00:00+00:00

THE PART for the car didn’t come and didn’t come. Nearly a week went by. We didn’t mind.

One day as we were done making love, the sheet held a rusty stain in the shape of a tulip.

I dragged the sheet from the bed and ran cold water over the spot. He had to stand in the corner of the room as if he’d done something bad. “No, lie down,” I told him. “We don’t need a sheet every minute, do we?”

He lay back down on the bare mattress on which one more stain wouldn’t be noticed. “Does that mean we’re over for a while,” he asked.

“What for? I don’t care, as long as we don’t send them down a lot of bloody bedding—that would be a little embarrassing, I guess.”

“You really don’t mind.”

“I don’t know. Should I mind?”

I wet the towel and left the sheet there in the sink while I went to the bed and wiped him off.

“You’re gentle.” And we kissed.

He was thinking about something and looking at the bloody towel.

“My wife . . .”

“Oh, no. Don’t start,” I pleaded with him.

“No,” he insisted, “it’s nothing, it’s just that my wife, I was thinking, won’t ever make love to me during her time. It isn’t her way. That’s all. I find it very—well,” he decided, “I’m glad you let me, it's delightful.”

“Good. Good.”

He was different. He was quiet. He was thinking about his wife.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.