“Ialso know everything there is to know about Shakespeare. He’s the one who wrote the story about that woman named Julie. She drank poison and died when her lover, Hamlet, couldn’t get that damned spot of blood off his hands. And you want to know how the Great Stinks got its name? It stinks, that’s why, and no wonder. There’s probably a thousand Egyptian kings buried inside it. If those Egyptians would only bury their dead in the ground the way we do, they wouldn’t have had to name that sculpture the Great Stinks. Now, what else do you have to read?”
Theodosia burst into laughter. She simply couldn’t help it. “You, sir, are the most amazing storyteller I have ever chanced to meet.”
Her laughter gladdened Roman, for he didn’t hear it often. He liked seeing her this way, happy and carefree.
Of course, he also liked seeing her in the throes of desire, unable to catch her breath or resist his caresses.
With those ends in mind, he looked at the books she’d shown him and screwed up his facial features. “Don’t you have anything else I could read?”
She laid down the medical volume about the human spleen. “I have the sexual enchiridion.”
“Enchiridion? What’s—”
“The handbook,” she translated.“The Sweet Art of Passion.But when once I asked you how long you would need to understand its contents, you led me to believe that you were already well versed in the art of passion.”
His mind whirled. “I am. Versed, that is, and very well. Passion—I know everything about it. You name it, I’ve done it. It’s just that—well, skilled at the art as I am, I’m curious about whether those Tibetan sex scholars knew as much as I do. They might have made a lot of it up, just to impress the Tibetan girls.”
“Mr. Montana, are you serious about your desire to review the treatise?”
Desirewas the key word, Roman mused. “I’m very serious, Miss Worth.”
Nodding, she collected the other books he didn’t want to read, put them away, and unpacked the sexual treatise.
Roman fairly grabbed it out of her hand and stretched out on the bed to read.
“Perhaps we could discuss sections of the treatise later,” Theodosia proposed as she gathered writing materials with which to pen a letter to Upton and Lillian while Roman read. “I would be exceedingly interested to know how you compare the Tibetan practices with those you may have employed yourself in the past. I’m certain there will be a wealth of cultural differences.”
Her suggestion aroused him instantly. Damn! He hadn’t read the first word of the sex-treat book yet, and he was already raring to go!
So she wouldn’t see his reaction, he opened the book and laid it over his hips. He then tried to think of an academic-sounding reply to her proposal. “Uh—yes. Yes, of course, Miss Worth. I would be more than scientifically glad to teach you the differences between Tibetan moves and American moves.”
“Teach,Mr. Montana?”
“Show. I mean…”
“Discuss,I think, is the word you seek.”
Discuss, hell, he thought, but said aloud, “Yeah, that’s what I meant.”
Satisfied, Theodosia returned to her letter.
Still swollen with desire, Roman turned to his side, giving her his back while he opened the book.
The first page was tri-folded. As he began to unfold the paper, he realized it was folded because it was much longer than the other pages of the book. When he had it completely unfolded, he saw it showed a diagram of a fully erect male member, which by his best estimation was about twelve inches long and the width of his fist. Beneath the diagram a caption said, “Woe is the man who is not endowed thus, for he will never satisfy a woman’s passion.”
Roman stared at the diagram, wondering if it was a self-portrait of the Tibetan sex scholar’s own lower anatomy. If so, the man was a damned liar. Either that, or he’d had a horny elephant pose for the drawing.
Relieved by his own hypothesis, Roman refolded the diagram, turned the page, and saw another sketch, this one of a couple in the act of making love in a flower garden.
Roman frowned. The man and woman’s limbs were so twisted together, he couldn’t tell which legs and arms belonged to whom, or which two ends were which. Thinking perhaps he was studying the drawing wrong, he turned the book upside down, but that way made it look as though the couple were going at it in the sky.
Damn, he thought. A man had to be a contortionist to make love to Tibetan women.
Engrossed as he was by the bizarre sketch, he failed to hear Theodosia approach the bed. The slight touch of her hand on his shoulder startled him so badly, he let out a shriek and dropped the book. “For God’s sake. Miss Worth, don’t sneak up on me like that!”
“But I was only wondering what your initial thoughts were concerning the Tibetan scholar.”
He sat up and dragged his fingers through his hair. “He was a lying acrobat, that’s what I think! You don’t really believe the stuff in this stupid book, do you?”
