Contours of Darkness Read Online Free PDF Page A

towers of downtown San Francisco. For a moment his interior monologue was captured by the external environment, and he experienced a margin of relief. He took shelter in the image of himself as a young man, earning a good salary at a secure job, living in a beautiful urban area, in a deep and complex relationship with a handsome woman, about to enjoy a healthy meal which had been cooked with care and concern, and entertaining a somewhat bizarre schoolboy.
    'Americans don't know what good food is anymore,' Conrad was saying. 'We've forgotten. We can't just eat wholesome fresh food without giving it some esoteric or fashionable name, linking it to a movement. Health foods are the new kosher. It's almost subversive not to buy prepacked foods. When they start rounding people up for the concentration camps, not having DDT on your lettuce will be as incriminating as having mat-zohs in Germany.'
    'Smash the state,' said Cynthia, smiling again.
    'Coming to Berkeley has turned you into a revolutionary,' Aaron said. 'We should have stayed in San Francisco.'
    They gave their attention to the food, not talking, relishing the texture of each of the dishes, getting high on simple taste and nutrition. A silence pervaded the space, a quality that sustained > the sounds of wood hitting glass, tooth grinding against tooth, the unceasing hum of the refrigerator, the occasional noise from outside. Conrad, who was feeling the first rushes of the mescaline he had taken earlier, read it as the sense of psychic pressure which always builds up prior to the full onset of the drug's effects. Aaron rationalised the experience by considering himself in a serious mood. Cynthia sat in perfect solitude, feeling herself equidistant from the two men, tasting the flavour of Aaron's cock and Conrad's mind, exciting at the memory of the bulge in the younger man's jeans when he stood up, and wondering whether she would ever penetrate the fog that seemed to surround Aaron's understanding of life. She had changed since their move to the college town, in ways she was still too frightened to look at in all their implications. She knew Aaron to be a good person, sincere in his efforts to lead a blameless life, but he lacked a certain sharpness of insight which Conrad, for all his youthful pretentiousness, possessed in large measure. She had gone to several of the countless meetings that were always being held in Berkeley, once to a group that called themselves Radical Psychiatrists, and then to a poetry reading, and twice to seminars held by a women's liberation organisation. She had come to disdain the large city newspapers, and now regularly perused the underground periodicals. One night, when Aaron had gone to Big Sur for a few days by himself, she read all the sex ads in the back of the Barb and with a burst of surprising courage, called one of the numbers. It had run: 'Super hung black stud. Wants white woman under thirty-five. 546-8739. Charles.'
    She had reached for the phone three times before going through with it. 'If I panic I can just hang up,' she thought as it rang on the other end. 'Maybe he won't even be at home.'
    But the man answered. His voice was like rose thorns dipped in honey. 'Hello,' he said.
    She didn't reply, and all at once felt very foolish.
    'Is anybody there?' the voice went on.
    'Yes,' she said, the word sticking in her throat. She coughed once and said again, 'Yes, I'm here,' and then blushed at the phrase.
    'Well, what do you want?' he said.
    She blinked at the effrontery of his question. 'I. . . don't know what to say,' she muttered. The deference in her attitude surprised her. In the clear light of electronic impersonality the basic monkey male-female gestures stood out sharply. In a bit, if she got to know him better, she would use her power of redress before law as a fulcrum to wield the lever of dominance in her relationship with him. Her brief exposure to the liberation thinking of the intensely political town had already served