Lying In Bed Read Online Free PDF

surprise, lushly. His voice was dark and his head was down, so I couldn’t see the expression on his face and he couldn’t see the one on mine. For which I was thankful.
    Hearing the music, I thought it was the sound of a brook running through the forest. Smelling the perfume, I thought there were flowers growing deep in the woods. The taste of the air had to be the taste of the trees
.
    I didn’t expect you to be the source of both the sounds and the scents and tastes
.
    The tree trunk was as thick as two men and hid me well so I stood there holding onto the bark, letting it bite into my fingers while I watched
.
    I should be sorry I stole time that we could have been holding each other but I had to watch you there by yourself, I had to see you like that, unaware of me, but waiting for me
.
    The bed you had found for us had a canopy of leaves, interwoven, crisscrossed, filtering out all but slim rays of light that fell on your breasts. The headboard was made of rocks covered in soft moss, two inches thick
.
    I had never heard anyone read aloud what I had written. Even though I had consultations with my clients so I could tailor the content to personal taste, I composed the letters and stories alone, in my apartment, after I came home from work, dinner with friends, or one of the many disappointing first or second dates that rarely inspired me to accept any more.
    And so hearing Gideon read my story disoriented me. Listening to the phrases that until that afternoon had existed only as thoughts inside my head or in calligraphy on paper, filtered through his voice, was a violation of my privacy. Invading without invitation.
    Who was this man to walk in to Grace’s store to buy one thing and instead steal something else?
    I wanted to reach across the desk, grab the book and tell him to go away the way I might tell a man I didn’t know well to leave the room if he had accidentally walked in on me while I was getting undressed.
    Instead, I crossed my legs over each other, moved my arms into an X on my chest, shifted in my seat enough so that I was facing away from him, bit the inside of my cheek and waited for him to finish. I didn’t ask him to stop reading even though it was what I wanted to do. Instead I convinced myself I was overreacting and waited him out.
    Grace had taught me how to treat clients, to be polite and respectful even when I didn’t feel it they deserved it. So I sucked in my outrage and tried to think of something – anything – else so I wouldn’t hear his articulation of my secrets.
    But I couldn’t.
    You were naked, your skin dappled with the yellow light that sneaked through the trees. A single beam flashed off of the flute you held up to your lips as you pressed a kiss to the opening
.
    It was like watching you take another man in your hands and into your mouth. And I was jealous that you would treat an inanimate object so intimately: coaxing melody from its shaft the way you coax pleasure from mine
.
    There were leaves woven into your hair, caught up in the curls, and flecks of earth on your bare back and legs. Wide bracelets made of soft willow branches braided together decorated your wrists and ankles
.
    It was difficult, in that low, green-tinged light to know where you began and where the forest ended
.
    I tried to stay quiet and still but the moan escaped of its own volition. And when you heard it over the music and turned, when I saw how happy you were to see me, I wasn’t sorry anymore that I had stolen those five minutes to watch you when I could have been with you, on you, or inside of you. I would have missed the expression on your face if I had. And that, would have been a shame
.

5.
    Finally he stopped reading, slipped the letter back into its plastic sleeve and turned to the next page. But I couldn’t just sit there and watch him read another. I got up.
    “I feel sick…” I mumbled and I walked out of my office.
    I used to know what it was like to be stripped bare in front of