Love Is Red Read Online Free PDF

one, depending on the restaurant. And the girl,” he adds as an afterthought.
    The air solidifies into ice. We stare at each other.
    â€œGet up.” My voice is dangerous, soft.
    There must be something in my tone. He unfolds from the chair, languorously, like a cat.
    â€œCome here.”
    He moves toward me.
    â€œStop.”
    He does. Now he stands, waiting.
    I walk around him to the bedroom door. I turn the key in the lock. Then I walk back to the very chair from which he watched me. I sit down and stare at him. Our tables have turned. “Well?”
    â€œWell?” he echoes. His smile is insolent.
    I keep my voice expressionless. “Take off your clothes.”
    He looks at me for a long time and I wonder if he’ll laugh or leave the room. Time thickens. I will never get away with this.
    Then, deadpan, not dropping his gaze, his hands start at the buttons of his shirt.
    â€œSlowly.” My mouth is dry. I keep my voice calm, as if I often utter instructions of this nature.
    Each button is undone.
    His shirt.
    Eased off.
    His shoulders are smooth.
    His chest is cream with a dime-sized mole in stark contrast to the rest of him.
    Shirtless, he looks at me; again the corners of his mouth twitch up.
    He doesn’t think I have the balls for this.
    I swallow. I force myself to meet his gaze. “Take off your jeans.”
    He’s not smiling now.
    I don’t know what I’ve started, but I have to continue.
    He wouldn’t apologize.
    He pushes down his jeans and steps out of them.
    He stands looking at me, clad only in his boxer briefs, black with white elastic. He remains utterly poised while I look at him.I allow myself to stare. His body is wonderful. I feel a prickle of sweat start between my breasts, under my arms.
    I will finish what I started.
    â€œThose too,” I say.
    This must be a dream. It is not a dream. It has the languid motion and the strange heaviness of a dream.
    A man, broad-shouldered, muscled and lean, stands naked in front of me.
    Somehow the gravity in this room has increased in strength. I don’t know if my legs will hold me, if they will support my weight. Part of me wonders, Was it this easy all along, all I had to do was ask? His face gives nothing away, but I can see. Men’s bodies give them away. He is aroused.
    I force myself to get up, to walk toward him. As slowly as I told him to undress.
    He merely looks at me. He waits to see what my next move is.
    I place my hands lightly upon his shoulders.
    I go up on my tiptoes.
    Standing on tiptoe, I lean in and whisper one word into his ear: “Five.”
    Then I walk past him toward the door. I turn the key. It clicks and the door opens, letting in the thudding beats of the music, the raucous laughter, the hoarse yelling that passes for banter at 1:35 on a Sunday morning.
    I leave. I don’t look back.

3
    The third girl loved this grocery store.
    Here in the gourmet grocery store there is warm butter light. Not harsh fluorescence but a soft glow, and shelf upon shelf and row upon row of everything she did not need but wanted.
    There’s a counter and behind the counter there are people who sometimes smile and sometimes don’t. The guy behind the counter who she liked is James. He knew she wouldn’t buy anything but he always gave her full samples in those little sample cups, teriyaki chicken salad or wild rice and cranberries, filling them up generously. Maybe he saw in her face that she would have if she could have.
    In the gourmet grocery store the vegetables and fruits are bright and beautiful and shining with inner light. These vegetables and fruits are in the prime of their lives, much like the shoppers of the gourmet grocery store.
    Here are the milks. There are rice milks and soy milks and coconut milks and almond milks, vanilla and low-fat vanilla, chocolate and low-fat chocolate, and strawberry and original and low-fat original, and whole milk and half-and-half milk,