Cult Read Online Free PDF

her.
    â€œI wanted to buy you something,” he said, speaking slowly. It was always a sign of something deeply serious to come, something worked out carefully in his mind. “But what would it mean? Hell, I can buy you anything. It wouldn’t mean a thing.” He was right, of course. She never believed in gifts like that, much to his disappointment. As she had quoted Emerson once, “A gift must be a piece of one’s persona, the essence of one’s self.” Often she had written him a poem or given him a flower. Her biggest present would be their baby.
    â€œI searched my mind for something so special that it would mean a bond, a part of both of us.”
    She had sat up, reached out her hand, but he had, oddly, moved away.
    â€œI know we have some basic differences,” he had continued. His tone worried her. Was he going to give her the change in himself that she craved?
    â€œI just hope you won’t think it’s crazy. To anyone else, it might seem crazy.”
    â€œCrazy?”
    â€œIt’s symbolic.”
    Symbols? That was more the way her mind worked than his. He was being elusive, vague.
    â€œJust an idea,” he said with boyish embarrassment, as if he had regretted whatever it was.
    â€œFor God’s sakes, Barney.”
    â€œClose your eyes.”
    The whole process worried her, brought her to the edge of a hidden panic. But she obeyed him, closing her eyes.
    â€œNow,” he whispered.
    When she opened her eyes, nothing seemed to have changed except that he had cast aside his robe and stood naked before her, his long lean muscular body, with its thin coat of gilded hair, picking up the light. Then she looked down and saw what he had done.
    â€œIt’s still a little sore. It was nothing. Took ten minutes. Not ready for action yet. A few more days.”
    Even in memory, the flash of hostility could still burn. It was an act of futility, ludicrous and inadequate. Indeed, it was a symbol, and it crushed her with the force of its realization. She did not want that kind of proof and sacrifice of his love. It was a total misinterpretation, revealing the terrible gulf, the difference between them, and such a stupid act could not bridge the gap. It was superficial, a grandstander, almost pathetic. Her mother had merely been joking.
    She recoiled. If this was what he meant by getting inside of her…. In the giant burst of epiphany, she saw their life together, an endless series of misinterpretations. “You can’t become someone else!” she wanted to cry out at him, knowing that she had generated enough anger to do what she should have done from the beginning: save herself. Whatever his love meant, it would strangle her.
    It was absolutely the last clear image she had of him, standing there, naked, the circumcision scar still unhealed, her respect and love for him diminished beyond repair. And she had, leaving him standing there in her mind, an image now suffused with the glow of her regrets. She had killed the baby as well.

Chapter 2
    Holding the stem of her glass to quiet her nervous fingers, Naomi watched him come toward her in the crowded restaurant, the same sandy-hair, the eyes bright with a watery mist that could not disguise the pain. She had tried to chase away her doubts during the fury of her investigation. It hadn’t worked, not completely.
    He fell awkwardly into a chair, obviously exhausted with anguish, kissing her cheek perfunctorily, as if he had expunged the real memory of their relationship. Their parting had been soft. No harsh words, like a candle being snuffed. She had packed and left while he was at work. There had been tears, of course, but finally her persona absorbed her mind’s revolt. She hated the inference but accepted the reason. They were simply dissimilar. The awfulness of this conclusion plagued her to this day. But there were still embers of that old flame. She had not succeeded in exorcising him