Vineyard Blues Read Online Free PDF

Boston and, after a period of surprise at the variety of activities that people would pay to do or have done to them, had finally concluded that there really was no such thing as abnormal sex. Every imaginable act was normal for a lot of people, it seemed, even though many such acts were illegal.
    However, Zee and I were probably the last people in the United States without a computer, and I had never once even looked over anyone’s shoulder at the famous Information Superhighway, so I had never observed computersex offerings. I had, of course, read about the controversies having to do with such material: the fears of some that morality, especially that of children, would be destroyed by exposure to graphic sexual images, and the fears, real or faked, of others that their constitutional rights would be eroded if any sort of censorship was imposed upon the medium.
    My own view was that any sexual activity between consenting adults, barring sexually motivated murder-suicide, was okay with me. On the other hand, I did draw the line when it came to adults engaging in sexual acts with kids, because I didn’t think that kids, especially young ones, really knew what was going on. And older ones didn’t have the maturity to make sensible judgments. Of course, when I’d been on the Boston PD, I’d encountered some pretty childish adults and some pretty adult children, so just when a kid became old enough to be considered responsible for his or her sexual acts was a little elusive to me. I also had no notion at all whether exposure to explicit sexual images had any effect on the morality of children or anyone else.
    So I wasn’t offended by the notion that years back Susanna, like many a woman before her, had let herself be photographed doing things she later probably wished she hadn’t done, or at least regretted having been filmed.
    On the other hand, I wasn’t persuaded that I had gotten all of the story, or surprised that I hadn’t. Maybe there was still some cop in me, some expectation that people will lie when it suits their purposes: when they don’t want something known, when they’re afraid, when they’re protecting someone. When this, when that. It’s not uncommon for some to lie so much that they reach a point when they no longer realize that the lie isn’t the truth. Hadn’t Nietzsche commented that when our memory of having committed an ignoble act conflicts with our desire to believe that we are too honorable to have possibly committed the deed, memory always gives way to desire?
    I grazed my thumb with my hammer, and for a while carefully put Susanna Quick out of my mind and concentrated on my carpentry. I wasn’t so good at this kind of work that I could do it and think creatively about something else at the same time. I could do that while fishing and shellfishing, but not while house building.
    No matter. It was none of my business anyway. If Susanna had a secret she wanted to keep from me, it was okay with me.
    I hammered and measured and sawed and hammered some more. The sweet smell of sawdust and wood filled my nostrils, and I worked steadily. Then I stopped, holding three nails in my teeth.
    Susanna’s secret was okay with me, unless the secret was a dangerous one and she was willing to risk me rather than her husband. If it was that sort of secret, I wanted to know about it before I met the mysterious Man in Black.
    Maybe, for instance, he wasn’t as mysterious as she had indicated. Maybe she knew who he was and what he wanted and didn’t want Warren put in harm’s way when she confronted him. Maybe she figured that what with me being a head taller and pounds heavier than Warren, and being an ex-cop, I was a better bet to deal with the guy than Warren was.
    Maybe.
    Maybe not.
    Maybe I was imagining things.
    Maybe Susanna was the Queen of Siam.
    Was there still a Siam?
    I didn’t think so, but I’d lost track of a lot of