Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo

Author:Johanna Sinisalo
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 2000-05-14T17:00:00+00:00

ECKE

Angel looks shockingly beautiful standing there with the Eurén book in his hand, so beautiful my hand pauses, my hand that was just about to go to his shoulders and draw him down toward me, with his blond shock of hair. He’s pressing the Gustaf Eurén, a rare antiquarian piece, a pearl of great price, against his naked chest.

“It’s terribly old. And terribly expensive.” I can’t help feeling how sordid I’m sounding. Suddenly I’m a miserly, penny-pinching old skinflint hanging on to his merchandise, who can’t let a single dusty item slip through his claws.

“I’d really like to read this, an awful lot.”

I look at Angel desperately. I can see from the look in his eye how he’s sizing me up. How far am I willing to go because he’s gifted and successful and beautiful and hellishly sexy, and as far above me as a free-running lynx above a soon-to-be-skinned mink crouching in its cage with no weapons but its slipperiness and small but sharp teeth.

“And I’d really like an awful lot for nothing to happen to this. There are very few of them around in Finland.”

“Well, bound to be so.”

“I don’t normally lend my books. But, well, here, at my place . . . you can read them as much as you like.”

I know at once how it sounds. Why not come into my lair, young man? Come, and let me entangle you in my web, so you’ll never find your way out again.

Angel has a very serious look. He thrusts the Eurén towards me like a goodbye letter.

“Okay. No, then. I understand. This must be a thing you really value.”

And his tone of voice throws down the glove: if this book’s valuable, then how valuable am I then?

“You’d not believe its list price.”

Angel turns, sighs, and pretends to put the book back in the case. And I know just as well as he does that it’s an act, that he’s giving me an opportunity. And I pick up the cue: I seize Angel’s wrist—the golden swell of those wrist bones, that finely dewed skin—and stop him.

“Take it.”

Angel’s laugh has a low note of triumph in it. He slides the hands holding the book around my back and kisses me on the lips quickly and hard. A bony kiss, I think. A bone to a good dog. And his eyes glow.

“And don’t go using a slice of salami as a bookmark” is my parting shot, and Angel smirks with just the right delight, just the right casualness, to show me my Angelic visitation’s over, the magical moment has passed, and what’s left is just a cramp in my stomach and a floorful of rubber relics of joy.

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