Read Taming a Sea Horse for Free Online

in the city it was dark and the streetlights were on.
    I turned from the window and looked at Ginger. She was sitting on the edge of the bed eating a cheeseburger and drinking beer. The room service table was in front of her with a pink tablecloth and a rose in a glass vase. "What about Robert?" I said.
    "Fuck him," Ginger said. "He don't own me. I give him his cut, what difference does it make to him?"
    "Doesn't he like to know where you are?"
    She chewed a bite of her sandwich and swallowed and pulled at the beer bottle. "Who gives a shit what he likes. He'll get his share."
    "Is he going to be nasty about this?" I said.
    She tossed her head a little. "I can handle him."
    I nodded and picked up a half a turkey and Swiss cheese sandwich on pumpernickel. I took a bite, leaning my hips against the windowsill. Ginger ate a french fry with her fingers. She drank some more beer.
    "How'd you get into this line of work?" I said.
    "Jesus, you don't quit," Ginger said, "do you."
    I shook my head.
    "You really worried about this new hooker, huh?"
    I nodded.
    She ate another french fry. "There more beer?" she said.
    "Sure," I said, and got one from the ice bucket and opened it and handed it to her. She drank it from the bottle.
    "What the hell is she to you?" Ginger said. "She been hauling your ashes for you? You jealous of Robert?"
    I shook my head.
    "You married?" Ginger said.
    "No."
    "Girlfriend?"
    "Yes."
    "But she's kinda cold, right? Don't like the kinky stuff. So you have to hustle a little on the side, buy a little strange pussy now and then and tell yourself you're saving her."
    "How'd you get into the business?" I said.
    Ginger drank from the bottle. She picked a piece of congealed melted cheese from the plate and ate it and drank some more beer.
    "Fuck you," she said. "You want to save some floozie, go ahead, save her yourself. I don't have to tell you shit."
    "How come you can't tell me how you got into hooking?"
    "'Cause it's none of your fucking business," Ginger said. "You probably one of those creeps likes to get off hearing about it. I thought you was gonna save me."
    "Not if you're where you want to be."
    "Goddamned right," Ginger said. "I'm where I want to be. I could show you some goddamned tricks too. You think I'm not good?"
    "Good's not what you do," I said. "It's how you feel when you do it."
    "You think so, huh."
    I nodded. Ginger ate the rest of her cheeseburger. I was quiet. When she finished she wiped her mouth with a napkin. Then she drank some beer and wiped her mouth again, and looked at me across the table.
    "Let me tell you something, you smug son of a bitch," she said. Eating and drinking and wiping her mouth had smeared away most of her lipstick. Behind me, down in the street, a bus downshifted. A horn sounded. Ginger closed her mouth and opened it and nothing came out. As I watched her, tears began to fill her eyes and when they had filled her eyes they began to run down her cheeks. She seemed to be trying to get her breath in big sighs, then she put her face in her hands and bent forward and rested her forehead on the room service table in the space between her cheeseburger plate and the water glass, and sobbed. The sobbing became harsher and her shoulders shook. A fork fell off the table and onto the floor and a water glass tipped and wet her hair and she didn't stop sobbing.
    I went over and moved the table away and sat on the bed beside her and put my arm around her. She pressed her face against my chest and sobbed. I patted her hair.
    She cried for maybe ten minutes, her chest heaving, gasping for air, her left hand clutched onto my shirt front, her right holding on to my back. Then she stopped sobbing and her body began to shake less. Then it stopped. Then her breathing began to get more controlled. Deep breaths but regular.
    With her face still pressed against my chest she said, "My father's name is Vern Buckey, toughest man in Lindell, Maine. When I was a little kid he used to fool around with