Hunger and Thirst Read Online Free PDF Page A

room, she stopped in the middle of the floor. She held her arms toward him. “Will you dance with me? I haven't danced in years.”
    “My mother taught me some steps when I was thirteen. She said it would impress girls if I knew how to dance.”
    “It will impress me,” she said quietly. She stood near him. Nearer.
    “I'll step on you.”
    “I'll tell you if it hurts.” He felt her breath across his face when she spoke. Her hair blacked out everything but her face. Her face.
    He took her one hand and placed his other on the small of her back, on the low curve over her spine. His heart drummed in his ears. When she touched the side of her forehead to his temple, Jack no longer heard the music.
    They danced, they bumped toes and knees, but they danced.
    “I thought today I might die,” he whispered to her. “I never thought I'd hear music again... or dance... or eat till I was full.... Thank you for my life.”
    She put both arms around him. Her face suddenly appeared out of the blackness of her hair. Her breath bathed his face. He kissed her in a rush, and lingered.
    “Today was our lucky day,” she said. “But I need to tell you, it's eight o'clock and Artie is waiting for you.”
    He held to her.
    She gave him the look he was starting to recognize — sly, slightly amused, and sure of herself. “You should check. It's my credibility, you know.”
    He held to her and whispered, “I just want you to know — if I wake up chewing the asphalt, you've been a wonderful hallucination. And if I'm already dead and I'm in heaven, those Baptists in Missouri really sold this place short.”
    Natalie gave him a slow kiss.
    “Did that feel like you were dead?”
    “No, it didn't.”
    “I'm not finished convincing you, either.” She separated herself. “When you check for Artie, you should take this.” She had already put several pieces of rabbit on a small plate on the bar. She handed it to him. “I'm sure he's hungry.”
    He opened the front door.
    Artie looked up at him, wide-eyed and expectant.
    “Hey, pal.” He put the dish under his nose. “It's getting cold out. Want to come in, sleep with a roof over your head? Maybe we could work out a warm breakfast for you.”
    Natalie came up behind Jack.
    Artie dropped his head and ears and hissed fiercely.
    “Artie—”
    But he wasn't there anymore.
    “He doesn't like strangers,” Natalie said.
    “Usually with good reason. Artie! I worry about coyotes getting him. Artie! ”
    “You'll have to trust him to take care of himself tonight.”
    “I guess.” After a final hesitation, he closed the door.
    “One advantage he'll have is that predators tend to avoid my little outpost. Do you believe my bones now?”
    One look into her face and he would have believed anything she said. “You have wonderful bones.” He felt them under his hands. “And eyes. And hair.”
    “Stay with me tonight. Tomorrow, you can leave, or stay a few days, or as long as you want, Jack. But stay with me tonight. Then you can go anytime you want.”
    “I'll stay.”
    She circled the room and blew out the candles. She took his hand when she came back to him and led him down the short hall to her darker bedroom. Moonlight from the windows showed him a neat, stark room with only a white sheet covering the bed.
    “I'm so glad you're finally here, Jack. I've been waiting for you a long time.”
    Kneeling on the bed, facing each other, she pulled his shirt open, popping off the buttons. In the moonlight-marked room, buttons clicked on the floor and rolled away. Jack caught his breath.
    ....
    The next day, Jack and Natalie walked through the desert scrub, taking their time. He sometimes held her hand or touched her hair. She sometimes affectionately bumped him with her hip. He told her about Hewitt.
    “There are too many people like that.”
    “How long have you lived here?”
    “Quite a while. Long enough to know all my neighbors.”
    “Every single one of them?”
    “I may have missed a