"Bruce Holland Rogers - What the Wind Carries" - читать интересную книгу автора (Rogers Bruce Holland)

her nails bright red, long nails that must have taken a lot of care. In that, she reminded him of Ericka, but
temperamentally she was much more like Susan or Ronnie. Quiet. She preferred that most things remain
unsaid, and she wanted to be coaxed. In spite of what she said about almost not coming, he knew that
this would be the night.
Huge fans over the bar moved this way and that in unison like the oars of a Viking ship. That feature
was a holdover from the days when the Oasis was the Elephant Bar. What had it been before that? Bars
and restaurants came and went in Boulder, and sooner or later they were lost and blended in his memory
like the women. At sea. He was lost at sea.
The wind made the Canyon Boulevard windows rattle. In the corner of his eye, he thought for a
moment that he saw a face in the dark street, peering in. But no one was there when he looked.
"Come on," he said when she had finished her drink. "There's nothing happening here. Where do you
want to go?"
She didn't know, so he suggested her place-- that would make things easier-- and they walked there
together. She leaned into him as they walked slowly against the wind. Debris skittered past them on the
street. He held her tight around her shoulders, let her hide her face against his coat as the wind gusted.
He bent to inhale the sweet scent in her hair.
"I love you," he said, the wind whipping the words away as he spoke them.
"Do you really?"
"I do," he told her, pulling her even tighter. She held him around the waist, and the pull of her arm
electrified him. She loved him, wanted him. Right now, he was alive. Right now, he existed. Let now be
enough, he told himself. Maybe this time would be different.
Again he had the impression of a face off to the side, in the darkness. He looked, but there was no one
there.
Her apartment was a shabby little place on west Arapaho, but no worse than his. The walls were so
thin that as they fell to kissing on the one suitable piece of furniture, the bed, he swore he could feel the
wind blowing through the room.
He loved the passive but liquid way that she kissed. He inventoried everything else that he loved about
her, her shyness, her silences. It all might be over soon, everything he felt for her, so it intensified just
then. He melted for her. He shuddered at her touch, and he whispered her name again and again into her
downy ear. His hands memorized the shape of her legs, the curve of her waist. He put his hand behind
her neck when he kissed her.
Now and then, they paused to remove some article of clothing. He liked it this way, prolonging what
would be their best time together. When the last of their clothes were gone, still he kept exploring her
with his fingers, delighting in every part of her.
She opened herself to him. Bit by bit, he brought himself more fully into her, and bit by bit, he began to
fall out of love. Already, she was becoming a woman in his past. Even as she began to move with more
enthusiasm, he was looking past her. She kissed him, not seeming to notice that he was no longer there.
He thrust mechanically, trying to forget who she was, pretending that the woman underneath him was
someone new, someone he had just begun to love. Someone he burned for.
He imagined a face for her then, a face to see instead of Chrissy's face. An angular face, skin dark red
like sandstone. Black eyes. Long black hair tossing in the wind.
His passion flared. When he kissed Chrissy and rocked with her, he imagined it was this other woman
who said his name and moaned into his shoulder. When he stoked himself to a frenzy, it was this other
woman that he poured himself into before he rolled away from Chrissy, rolled all the way out of the bed
and onto his feet, padding to her sink to get a drink of water.
He came back and sat on the edge of the bed, letting her hold his hand and waiting for her to sleep.
Then he dressed and left.
On the way home, he was thinking about what he'd done, one more broken heart in his long, serial
crime, when he again saw, without quite seeing, the face. Dark eyes. Black hair. He turned, but there was
nothing there but the night and the wind.