Read After Claude for Free Online Page B

jumped up. “Would you like a Nescafé, sweetheart?”
    “No. What is this disgusting darling-sweetheart routine?”
    “You look like a Greek god.”
    “Cut it out, Harriet.”
    I handed him a fluffy towel that I myself had transported to and from the laundromat.
    “Let me dry your back?”
    “I can manage.”
    Between you and me, Claude, naked, was a delightful surprise. In his corny French corduroys, fag turtleneck sweaters, and cowboy boots, he looked like any other Russian spy, but undressed, shazam, there appeared a long, lean, compact, subtly muscled runner’s body. All his parts, including the sexual ones, were firm and well placed and even attractive. I couldn’t avert my eyes from his smooth, strong bulges and curves.
    “Stop staring at me.”
    “I’m not staring, I’m admiring. Honestly, Claude, if you knew how desirable you are, at least to me, you’d stop tormenting yourself about my opinions.”
    He made a disgusted sound and pushed past me. I followed him into the bedroom.
    “Goddamn it, Harriet, quit crowding me.”
    “Your mastery of English is astounding. Not only your vocabulary, since any dummy can memorize lists of words, but you never even have to think when you talk. It just spouts out. That’s what I call learning a language. When you dream about me, is it in English or French?”
    “Go get me a cup of coffee. Sugar, no milk.”
    “Really, you silly. As if I could forget how my favorite customer takes his coffee?”
    I went tripping to the kitchen to do my Gunga Din number.
    “Here, Sahib.” I cheerfully handed him the chipped mug.
    Claude eyed the bentwood. “Do I have a clean shirt?”
    “Who cares about shirts? What’s your big hurry to get dressed?”
    “I have to be at the bureau in half an hour.”
    “Forget your pig career for one minute. You know what I’d like, Claude? I’d like it if we could lie down on the bed, quietly, just relax together and let nature take its course.”
    I watched his face go scarlet with self-doubt.
    “To hell with nature.” I quickly revised my scenario. “I’ll take nature’s course. You just lean back and pretend I’m your harem.”
    He located an immaculate shirt that my loving hands had tucked into his top drawer.
    “This is the last one. Will you remember to take my shirts out today?”
    “If I get cancer, darling, I won’t forget.”
    He cleared his frog throat. “And while you’re at it, pick up a
Village Voice.”
    “That Commie rag?”
    “They’ve got lots of apartment ads. I didn’t mean to be so harsh yesterday, baby. Of course I’ll help you find something to rent or share, and I’m prepared to help financially. You know my token salary?” he added quickly. “I can’t support anyone. But it will be good for you to work like the rest of us peasants.” His French cash register of a heart broke into a sickly smile. His loathsome efficiency stunned me, and I found my vocal chords paralyzed.
    “I’ll be home early tonight,” he pulled his shirt over his smooth shoulders and sat down on the bed beside me, “and we’ll go through the ads together.”
    He reached down and found his socks all by his wonderful self.
    I grabbed his hand and tried to hinder his progress. It was as though he were putting on armor, not clothes, to protect himself from my touch.
    “Aren’t you going to give me just one more chance? Are you too afraid to just lie down next to me?”
    “Look at that bed,” he said evasively, sticking his feet into his boots. “When were the sheets changed?”
    “I’ll call room service immediately. If you’d stop being so fanatically clean, we could be having a much better time.”
    “I’m late for work. How often must I repeat myself?”
    “So you’ll miss one mugging. Isn’t saving our relationship more important?”
    “I believe I made it clear last night that our relationship, as you persist in calling it, is over.”
    “But why?” I cried. “Why? Why? You haven’t given me one reason