The Drazen World: Release (Kindle Worlds Novella) Read Online Free PDF Page B

we knew it was not a foregone conclusion or something we even discussed. She shut me out in every conceivable way, and I called it happy. No feelings. Happy. We would chalk this up to me, my problem, and it would go into one of Jessica's neat little piles labeled: "bullshit."

eleven
     
     
    JONATHAN
     
    I collected shells on the beach. Soft and smooth on the outside. Some cracked. Some jagged on the edges. Something, creatures used to live inside them. I had found piles of them in the gray sand. Jessica looked amazing, spread out on her stomach in a white bikini, her legs in the air, bent at the knee, a book in her hands. Eat, Pray, Love .
    Jessica probably thought she was that person. The author. The introspective woman who would take a hard appraisal of her life and go on some spectacular spiritual journey. No. I had not read it, but I knew the bullshit synopsis. My wife didn't have an ounce of spiritual curiosity. She wouldn't even let me have my nonsensical fun.
    I sat beside her, near her waist with my legs crossed, busying myself with the important job of placing some of my newfound shells along her body. Her spine, shoulder blades, the small of her back. I lined them up. Rows. Soldiers. Havens. They must have felt exquisite on her skin. Her hair looked beautiful blowing in the wind. Her ass amazing. I tucked my fingers into the side waistband of her bikini as I began to place the shells over the wonderful curves of her bottom. I was making a village or something. Patterns. I don't know. Maybe I was going crazy. Too much vacation and wandering, or was it wondering? She shifted. A few shells fell off. I slapped her butt. Playfully. I didn't think anything of it. She let the book flop toward the white sand, white and dry, gray only where it was wet, as she glanced over at me.
    "Take those things off me." She wiggled. The shells rattled. "And don't smack me like that." She lifted the book up and focused. She pretended to read. She had ruined my hard earned fun.
    "I didn't smack you." I wanted to smack her ass. Hard. "I tapped you."
    She would know the difference. This ridiculous little conversation confirmed she wouldn't like it if I spanked her. I was still convinced I was wrong. A little part of me held onto the notion that maybe she was a closet masochist. After all, Jessica was a hard read. No tells. Even her words could be lies to hide what she really wanted. She was too prim and proper for a public ass "smacking." What about a private one?
    "What's happening in your book?" I rearranged the shells that had fallen. "Are you up to the praying part yet?" I didn't give a damn. She knew it.
    "Do you ever pray?" she asked. I couldn't see her face, but she had made the mistake of letting a grin slip. I could see the very edge of her lips. They curved. Now she was getting nasty. Her sweet little taunting voice, digging into me.
    "I'm a good Catholic boy." I may have batted my copper lashes at her with that comment. She wouldn't know. She kept her attention facing forward. She spoke over the sound of the waves and the children playing in the water and building sand castles.
    "Catholics don't pray. They recite."
    "Tell that to my mother. I'm sure she spent many nights with a rosary in hand, praying for her wayward children." Probably with pills in hand too. And booze. God. We are one fucked up family. Maybe I should pray. What could it hurt?
    Jess only made a noise. An mmm or a mhmm . I don't think she had prayed a day in her whole life. She didn't know what is was like to almost die, to have the world swept out from under you, to wake up and remember nothing. She didn't know the desperation. The drive to pray. She just didn't have it. I don't think she was even born with it.
    "This isn't the Our Father, Jon. This is meditation. It's communion."
    "Communion." Okay. I couldn't help it. There was laughter in my tone. "With whom?" Please don't tell me she suddenly believed in a god.
    "The Divine."
    "You don't believe in any of