THE POLITICS OF PLEASURE Read Online Free PDF

and sixties, as well as a classified report on BZ, a powerful hallucinogen developed at Silverwood Centre prior to his employment there.
    All in all he was confident of his subterfuge. Didn't want to pursue any further illegalities. Didn't want to push his luck any more than what he had now there was increased security at his workplace. No, he would simply tow the line until his work contract expired, which was only weeks away.
    He kept pace with the late-afternoon traffic darting about him like a school of agitated fish. Molten hues burnished the skyline as the lowering sun edged toward distant hills. The colours were a pale reminder of sunsets from his childhood. His father had worked for the Australian Department of Defence at the Woomera Test Facility, a rocket testing range in a sparsely populated region of South Australia. The brilliant desert sunsets Goldman had viewed as a boy from Woomera Village defied description. The soul-stirring colours from those times were etched permanently inside him.
    He tapped the wheel in time to a catchy song on the radio. A young woman hitchhiking came into view. Considerate of hitchers, particularly when seeming so attractive, he indicated and pulled over. Pockets of gravel crunched under his tyres as he stopped in the breakdown lane several car-lengths ahead of the lone woman. He watched her hurried approach through the passenger-side mirror. Her denim-clad hips soon filled the mirror's reflective surface. He leaned across and pushed open the passenger door.
    'Hi ... are you heading to Rosedale?' she asked, her uncertain voice peppered with hope.
    'Not exactly ... but I guess it's not too far out of my way. Sure, jump in.'
    The pretty hitcher held the passenger door open and looked into the cabin. Caution bettered convenience as she studied Goldman's face and overall appearance, making the chemist feel like a caged animal on display. As if an inner radar detected nothing untoward, she slid into the passenger seat and shut the door, flicking back her hair and engaging her side's seatbelt with a sharp, committing click.
    She looked to be in her early-twenties. She had shortish blond hair with a long, angled fringe and wore no makeup other than a modest shade of red lipstick. Her feet were encased in expensive runners, while her svelte frame was clothed in figure-hugging jeans and a pale blue sweatshirt with an Esprit logo across its front. Afternoon sun highlighted the diamond studs in her ears and the whites of her almond-shaped eyes. She placed a trim leather jacket across her lap as Goldman fought his way back into the traffic.
    He looked across at her, inhaling her faint perfume, and smiled. 'Hi. I'm Scott.'
    'Um, Michelle. Thanks for the lift, um, Scott.' She paused poignantly. 'I don't normally hitch ... but my boyfriend's got my car.'
    Goldman noticed a light bruise about her eye and looked back to the road. The minutes following the brief introduction were laden with silence and the nervy energy radiating from the willowy female passenger. Goldman found her presence so disquieting he was forced to ask, 'Are you, okay?'
    'Well,' she said with a loud sigh, 'I just had a big fight with my boyfriend. Believe me, you don't want to know about it. He's just impossible, a complete and utter ...'
    Goldman realized he'd opened an emotional floodgate.
    '... he's so narrow minded and inconsiderate.' Her long-lashed eyes brimmed with moisture. 'I don't know if he's trying to give me the big nudge or what ... look, I'm sorry, I must be boring you.'
    'No. Really, it's okay.'
    She gazed out her window at the scenery streaking past the car. Goldman could only imagine her thoughts. Undoubtedly she was embarrassed to some degree. Most likely she was calculating her next move in the love-gone-bad struggle with her boyfriend.
    'Do you mind if I smoke?'
    'No, feel free.' He admired her features, her high cheekbones, her patrician nose.
    'Do you want one?'
    'No, thanks. I don't smoke.'
    'Really?' She