Read Monterey Bay for Free Online Page B

sat on the beer crate, the mattress shifting audibly beneath her as if dismayed by the sudden imbalance. She, too, felt dismayed. It hadn’t necessarily been pleasant to have him above her, to have him touch her on purpose.
Pleasant
, however, no longer seemed to be the point.
    She stood from the bed and moved to the doorway, toward the room from which, if she listened hard enough, the music still seemed to emanate, even though it had stopped hours ago.
    â€œWhere do you put them all?” she asked.
    â€œAll of what?” He was standing now, too, and watching her more intently than ever.
    She cleared her throat. Something was blocking her voice.
    â€œYou should lie back down,” he cautioned. “You might feel like you’re ready, but you’re not.”
    â€œYou go out there and take things.” He was right, sherealized. Reclined on the bed, she had felt fine. But now that she was standing, the blood was plummeting from her head and the liquor was staking its belated claim. Within seconds, she would pass out and fall over. “You take things from the ocean and put them in here, so when do you know when it’s enough?”
    â€œWell . . .” He grinned. “That’s the thing. It’s never really
enough
.”
    When the next urge arose, she aimed herself in his direction and steeled herself for the impact.
    â€œWhoa, there.” He caught her by the waist and guided her onto the bed. Instead of returning to the crate, however, he remained upright, his thigh within easy swatting distance.
    â€œI actually
am
,” she said. The fabric of his trousers felt slightly damp beneath her fingers. She was finding a seam, too.
    â€œExcuse me?”
    â€œI actually am . . . interested.”
What’s the other word?
she asked herself.
The less ambiguous one?
“Available.”
    Ricketts grimaced and shook his head.
    â€œRumor has it your father’s going to ride all over this town, guns blazing. Only an idiot would knowingly step into the crossfire.”
    â€œGood thing you’re a first-rate idiot.”
    â€œBarely a day together,” he said, smirking, “and it’s like we’ve known each other a lifetime.”
    â€œThen what’s the harm in getting to know each other even better?”
    Whose words were these? she wondered. Whose desire?
    â€œI don’t want to hurt you,” he said, a sparkle of sweat visible at his hairline.
    â€œToo late,” she replied.
    She had heard him laugh before, but not like this.
    â€œSome more music?”
    â€œPlease.”
    He ran from the room. She held her breath, expecting the return of that measured, careful polyphony. This time, however, the noise from the phonograph was something very different: a song that might have been popular during her father’s boyhood, a tenor’s excessively upbeat caterwauling.
    â€œNot this,” she said when he reappeared in the doorway. “I want what was playing earlier.”
    â€œOh.”
    He excused himself and made the switch.
    â€œYou were right,” he said upon his return. “Bach is a far better choice.”
    She scooted over to make some room for him on the bed. For several seconds, he didn’t move. Then it was just as before: a resumption of his earlier position, all four of their legs stretched out in chaste, nonconjoined parallel. At one point he started swiping his feet back and forth to the beat. After a bar or two, she joined in, and so it went until he purposefully broke the rhythm in order for their toes to collide.
Negotiation,
she remarked to herself.
I know about this.
So she made what shehoped was a persuasive counteroffer: flinging her entire left calf over his right shin. An error, though. It was too much and he was retreating now, his joints stiff, so she responded with the only remaining maneuver in her arsenal: doubling down and then some, tilting herself over and slightly up until