Read All That She Desires: The Stranger for Free Online Page A

whatever she wanted. Even read and write.
     
    * *
     
    After eating some lunch at the same restaurant,
Fiona drove back to the lake. Mike was at her cottage when she arrived, diligently
painting the walkway. "Hey," she said. "Sleep late?"
     
    "Oh, hello," he said. "You sure left
quietly this morning. You had me wondering if I dreamed the whole thing."
     
    "I'm real," she said. "As real as a
pop star gets, anyway. I went and got some books to read."
     
    "Cool," he said, getting up and wiping his
paint-stained hands on a rag. "What did you find?"
     
    "These," she said, holding open her bag.
" Written on the Body . Love story, I guess. Looks sexy or something. The Time Traveller's Wife . I thought the movie was okay, so why not,
right? And this."
     
    Mike looked at the stark black cover of the third
book. Nausea , by Jean-Paul Sartre. "Wow," he said. "That's
a bit heavy."
     
    "I like the title," she said. "Have
you read it?"
     
    "Yeah, I read it in college," he said.
"Give it a try."
     
    "Is the deck dry?" she asked. "I
thought I would read out there. Get some sun." He told her it was dry, and
she went inside. She dug into her suitcase and pulled out her bathing suit. It
was a scandalously small bikini, made of a shiny gold material, and she put it
on. There were some deck chairs folded up in the corner of the living room near
the door to the deck, and she took two out. She looked to see if Mike noticed
her taking them out, and sure enough, he couldn't miss it as he painted the
walkway. She smiled, glad that he was seeing her in the sexy little bikini.
     
    Fiona applied some lotion and lay out in the sun. It
was a warm, windless day, and the lake was gorgeous. She had her books, a
notebook and pen, and a bottle of water. She picked up one book and started to
read.
     
    Since she wasn’t in the habit of reading, it did not
go quickly or smoothly for her. It was a struggle to follow along. She read a
dozen pages, folded a corner to mark her spot, and tried another book. Again,
she read a dozen pages, and paused. She folded a corner and lay the book down.
She looked at the third book. Nausea . Fiona gave it a try, but it was
more difficult than the other two. Like Mike said, it was heavy. The words
seemed like small black weights on the page. Even so, it hooked her somehow,
even though she read only six pages before she felt she needed to take a break.
     
    "I don't have the attention span for
this," she mumbled to herself. The notebook was there, and she thought of
writing a song or something in it, but she had no idea how to start. She picked
up the notebook and the pen and joined Mike where he was painting. To avoid
walking over the wet paint she walked through the cottage, came out the front
door, and came up behind him. He was on his hands and knees, going back and
forth over the walkway's two-by-fours.
     
    "Nice ass," she said.
     
    Mike looked over his shoulder at her.
"Thanks," he said. "I'm pretty sure you're teasing me, but I'll
take the compliment."
     
    "I have a stupid question to ask you," she
said.
     
    "There are no stupid questions," he said.
"Well, actually there are. Lots of them, but let's assume this won't be
one. What's up?"
     
    "Have you ever kept like, a diary or a journal
or something?"
     
    "Sure," he said. "Usually
sketchbooks, but I would write in them too. Why?"
     
    "I want to start one. I think it might be
helpful to, you know, write some things. But I don't know what to write. I don't
want to just write stupid 'this is what I did today' shit. I don't want it to
just be like, Facebook on paper. I want to try and get a little deeper than
that, you know?"
     
    "Yeah," he said, and he turned around and
sat. "Okay, let me think."
     
    Fiona sat in front of him, crossing her legs. He
stole a look at her body in the tiny swimsuit, which pleased her.
     
    "You really can write whatever you want,"
he said. "There's no right or wrong. You can write the 'what I did today'
stuff, if you have