Michael Malone - Weebly

eaths to climb up back safe into her mind. She
thought about John, how his chest was smooth, how
that first time on her wedding night the pain had
surprised her but had still been less than she had
expected and been led to expect; how she dreaded to
feel that stiffened flesh poke at her in bed before she
could sleep, so she would have to know that John
wanted her to let him do it.
But how long had this been, a quarter-hour, an
hour? With John it had always been only minutes,
sometimes seconds, and she had taught herself even
while he did it to disappear. Was this man different from
other men, or was John? Judith could still hear the
television; earnest voices made promises, feverish
voices raved and sang about clean bodies, mouths, hair,
sinks, toilets, windows, clothes, and on and on, spliced
between the dirty news of the world. It must be, then,
eleven o'clock. Why couldn't she faint? What held her
here and wouldn't let her heart burst and kill her so that
she could escape?
Her hand, flung out, knocked against the cold metal
of the gun. Why couldn't she make her fingers close