“Do you?”
“Yes, very much.”
“I enjoy them on occasion. Although I prefer ones with erotic content,” I say lightly. I am also partial to stories of horror and treachery and murder—but never lovestories. I know too much about the limits of human love to enjoy such trash. “Who are your favorite writers?”
“I have many, really. The Brontës, Mrs. Gaskell, Trollope, and Thackeray. Dickens, of course. Bulwer-Lytton. Wilkie Collins, I must admit.”
“A sensation writer! Your father would be appalled, I’m sure, until he discovered your green book.”
“If he knew of my reading, yes. But I have worked to keep that proclivity a secret from him. He would disapprove. And that is without knowing about the—green book.”
“Would he really object to something so harmless?
“He is a strict man. And I have been trained all my life to be a credit to him.”
“Was your father harsh with you?”
“I suppose he would think not. And for many years, I would have said his strictures were necessary. But now I am not so sure.”
“Because you have found that you have not burst into flame for experiencing an orgasm?”
I should not mock him. But I cannot help it.
“Perhaps,” he says. “My father gave me many books as a boy and young man on how not to despoil myself. When I was caught doing so, he called me depraved and made clear that self-abuse was off limits. Although release at night, unconsciously, was not blameworthy. It is nature’s way of giving relief, the books made clear.”
“Do not call itself-abuse. Abuse has nothing to do with it. And such a provision would not have helped you. You cannot spend in that fashion.”
“No. Never. I used to pray for it. But it never happened. And so I had to—I had to find occasional release.”
“Of courseyou did. No one could blame you for that.”
I cannot believe that Alfred listened to such nonsense from his elders.
“I was never proud of myself when I did so. But once a month, or once a fortnight if things were desperate, I would—I would make myself come. Just to have relief.”
His pathetic story has my core pulsing afresh.
“Come,” I say. “I want you again.”
He pauses. I wonder if he senses that I am cutting our conversation short.
Maybe I am.
But talking about the past is not how I want to spend my time with him.
“Then you will have me,” he says into my ear.
Chapter 20
Alfred
Iwill do anything to please her. I want her approval, her admiration, so badly that my chest aches with the force of it.
“Tell me what you want,” I say to her.
“I want you behind me,” she says, a sly smile unfolding on her face.
My pulse quickens. I am not sure what she means.
