The Sex Sphere Read Online Free PDF Page B

bed, right where Alwin’s sleeping, reassuring bulk should have been.
    “Is Daddy taking a bath?” Sybil asked.
    “Dada gone!”
    “Tom,” she called to her son, invisible in the bathroom. “Where did Daddy go?”
    No answer. She repeated the question. Still no answer.
    Sun was coming in the window. Sybil looked at her watch. 7:30. Nice and early, and good weather. They could do the Forum today. Maybe Alwin had gone downstairs to order coffee for them. But why couldn’t he have just phoned room service?
    She got out of bed, a tall woman with voluptuous features and a nice, willowy figure. When she stood still, as she did now for a moment, her body described a gracefully attenuated S. She had a way of standing still and staring, moving only her head and her lovely neck. Craning , Alwin called it.
    Sybil craned at the bathroom door, then went in. Tom was busy floating things in the partially filled tub. A toothbrush case, a dirty metal ashtray, two reddened wine glasses, the drawer of a matchbox, a folded bit of paper. As always, the sight of his bulging, intent forehead filled her with love.
    “Tommy, where’s Daddy?”
    “I don’t know. I didn’t see him yet today.”
    Sybil felt the first pang of fear. Alwin must have gone out in the night and gotten into trouble. They had drunk a bottle of the hotel’s cheap wine, then made love, and then…? He often got back up after sex, a habit which annoyed her, struck her as slighting; but where could he still be at 7:30 in the morning? How thoughtless could you get?
    “Let’s get dressed and go downstairs, children.”
    “Is Daddy downstairs?” Tom asked, looking up from his water-play.
    “Yes, I think so.” Her voice grew brittle with sudden anger. “Now, don’t make Mommy do everything. Find your clothes and put them on. You can wear what you had yesterday. I’ll give you new socks and underpants.”
    “OK.” Tom jumped up and ran into the bedroom, making a race-car noise at the corner. Ida gave an abandoned squeal of delight. When Sybil came back into the bedroom, both of the children were bouncing on the bed.
    “Double Ting!”
    “Triple Ting!”
    “ Ostrich Ting!”
    That was one of the children’s chants. They were such little people , the children, little elves with their own elvish ways. For a moment Sybil wished that their oldest child, Sorrel, the ringleader, were there too. To simplify the trip a bit, Sorrel had been parked in Frankfurt with Sybil’s parents, Lotte and Cortland Burton. Cortland was a big vice-president for Miltech, an international conglomerate of high-tech engineering companies.
    Tom threw a pillow and knocked the phone off the bedside table.
    “That’s IT!” cried Sybil, springing into action. “You get those clothes on now or there’s no breakfast!”
    “What’s for breakfast?” Tom asked in a put-on fussy voice.
    “Yeah,” Ida cackled, joining in the joke. “What are we eating for breakfast?”
    “Fried egg with spinach?”
    “Yucky hot milk?”
    “Pancake with pig gravy?”
    “Broken waggy waggy?”
    “Booger pie?”
    “Poo and pee?”
    “BAAAAOOOOUUUUUU!”
    “Gligeeglegleheehegligihee!”
    The children were on the bed, snorting and grunting and rolling around. Sybil lunged forward and caught hold of them. “I’VE HAD IT, KIDS!”
    As the children began to dress, Sybil harangued them. “I don’t know why you two can’t behave normally . Here we are in Rome for a lovely vacation and you roll around like animals . Now let’s go downstairs and find Daddy.”
    Alwin was not in the breakfast room, not in the lobby, not to be seen on the street outside. Sybil even walked to the Via Veneto and craned. Pale, empty sunshine. God damn him.
    Back in the hotel, she approached the desk clerk, a cadaverous man with a horse-face. This was Beppo, the night-clerk, tired and waiting to be relieved.
    “Have you seen my husband?”
    Beppo smiled broadly. “ Si, si . I see him go in the night. He no come back. Where