Drybread: A Novel Read Online Free PDF

the
travel pages. She'd been overseas once already and was
saving for a trip to Portugal and Spain. She bent Theo's
legs back so far that the cartilage popped. 'You've got a
nice bum,' she said.
    'I run a bit,' he said.
    'The squash players I see almost all have great bums,'
Becky said. 'It must be all that sudden change of direction
that firms the muscles.' She gave his back a final rub down
with yet another green towel, then asked him to turn over.
Even though he was then cock up, Theo found it more
natural to talk when he could see her face.
    Becky wore a short-sleeved blouse, and her breast was
close to him as she massaged. Theo was in a state of easy
relaxation.
    Becky was attractive and he wanted access to that
without the hassle of close engagement. 'How about you
massage me topless?' he said.
    Becky didn't halt, or alter, the rhythm of her massage.
    She was firmly stroking beneath his ribcage.
    'Forty dollars,' she said. She wiped her hands, and
took off her top with care: beneath it she wore a black,
soft fabric bra. She undid it at the back, shrugged it off
and began the massage again, without any inhibition, or
pause for conscious display. She had nice tits, with dark
areolae. As she massaged Theo, she allowed her nipples
to glance his face, her flesh to briefly touch his own, but
nothing was exaggerated in her movement; no honky-tonk
titillation. 'Anything else?' she asked him.
    'Nothing else,' said Theo.
    He didn't need anything else, not even to lift his hands
the short distance to touch her slanted breasts, or the
sleek belly visible above her skirt. He just lay with eyes
half closed and enjoyed the play of her hands on his flesh
and bones, and movement of her naked torso. She talked
about saunas, spa pools and massage. She had formal
qualifications, she said, from the Athene Academy in
Sydney, which was recognised worldwide.
    'Why are there so many towels?' asked Theo, and Becky
was for the first time mildly surprised.
    'How do you mean?' she said.
    'In here. So many towels everywhere.'
    'We never use a towel more than once before it gets
washed. That's a strict rule here. I reckon our rooms are
cleaner than the homes the guys come from. Alison's a
real stickler for it,' she said.
    Theo made no argument of it.
    He saw her once, weeks afterwards, in a mall. She was
at a café table half in the thoroughfare with a woman
about her own age. Theo paused close by, but Becky's
unhurried glance showed no recognition. Sleekness would
be replaced by bulk in middle age, he thought. He had a
repressed inclination to say hello.
    'Is there anything else?' she might have said, but
instead she'd asked her friend why a certain Michelle was
being such a bitch again.
    Nicholas was waiting in his car. 'I was just about to go,'
he said.
    'You weren't long,' said Theo. 'I expected to be back
first. I just had the regular massage, but topless — the
woman I mean.'
    Nicholas said he'd skipped the massage and gone
straight over to one of the other rooms.
    'Ah,' said Theo.
    'It was both good and bad,' said Nicholas.
    'You don't have to give me a blow by blow account,'
said Theo, but Nicholas always enjoyed recounting such
episodes in his life with a satirical gloss. The woman had
continually talked about showtime, which Nicholas had
found detrimental to performance. 'She kept saying,
"Showtime, Nicholas" as we undressed, and before each
manoeuvre, and I half expected her to crack a whip, or
introduce a ring of miniature trotting ponies.' Whatever
reservations he had about the session, Nicholas would
make it work for him as a raconteur. Theo knew the tale
would burgeon, and that he would hear it several times and
so chart its growth. Experience was only the raw material
of life for Nicholas, and subject to processing. 'And what
about your woman?' he asked finally.
    'Becky was bloody easy on the eye.' Theo felt a
slight superiority in mentioning her name: a sign of his
awareness of her apart from the transaction between them.
    Nicholas