Free The Hunter's Prey by Diane Whiteside Page A

and he was able to offer me all sorts of tips, which I just tried to soak up. I was upset when the closing bell rang. I didn’t want to let go of the best talk I’d had on history since arriving at school. He teased me about my disappointment and offered to help me study the next night, just before my final.  
    I wanted to say yes but I knew that my landlady would never consent to a man visiting me after hours. She had standards that would put the minister’s wife back home to shame. I tried to explain this to Jean-Marie. He just smiled at me and told me not to be surprised if I had a visitor the next evening.  
    The next day was awful. My landlady had a list of chores for me that would amaze Cinderella’s stepmother. I didn’t even start scrubbing the oven until after doing the supper dishes. So there I was, newspapers spread over the floor and windows wide open to the cold winter air. Even with wearing an enormous apron over my faded pink dress and heavy rubber gloves, I still had smudges on my face. My hair was escaping from the bandanna like rats off a sinking ship.  
    You know, Joan, you really don’t have to laugh quite that hard! Why do you think I have a maid now?
    So, that’s when my landlady came to tell me that a lady had come to call on me. I didn’t want to see anyone and told her to say no. But she kept insisting and finally I had to go see the person who’d managed to get the Landlady From Hell to carry a message.
    You can imagine my surprise to see the most picture perfect lady waiting in the front parlor. She was wearing a peppermint pink suit with its full skirt carefully laid out over the sofa. Her outfit was complete down to matching hat, gloves, purse and shoes. Then she turned her head and I saw… Jean-Marie.  
    My mouth dropped open. I swear that he made a prettier girl than I ever have. Even his voice was gorgeous—like Ava Gardner with a French accent. I wanted to scream that it wasn’t fair. I wanted to ask him how he got his makeup to look that good. And I was suddenly miserably conscious of just how much I looked like Cinderella’s poor relation.  
    I was angry and upset that he was wearing a dress. I started to yell at him but realized quickly that my landlady would be furious. She’d probably throw me out if she knew that a man was visiting me in her house, a man who wore women’s clothes to make things even worse. I bit my lip, not knowing what to do or say.
    Jean-Marie caught my eyes then. He looked tense, which didn’t match the self-confident student who’d aided me in the library’s stacks. He silently urged me to calm down.  
    I took a deep breath and sat down. I looked at everything in that over-crowded room except Jean-Marie.
    Then I heard my landlady offering to finish in the kitchen so I could visit with Miss Marie for as long as I liked. Jean-Marie accepted that offer promptly, watching the woman serenely. He reminded me of our barn cats back home: they always presented themselves at the side door at the same time every day for their saucer of food. They never bothered asking for it; they simply expected you to provide it as soon as they appeared. Jean-Marie had the same overwhelming confidence that my landlady would provide what was necessary, just because he wanted it.
    I studied Jean-Marie then, trying to see how he did it. How could he look so absolutely confident in a dress? He had been so masculine in the library.  
    My brother and I had lots of arguments about peppermint candy when we were children. You know, the red and white striped kind? We argued endlessly about whether it was a red candy or a white candy. I started to wonder whether Jean-Marie was masculine or feminine. I started to look for signs of him being a man, under all the stripes of women’s clothing.
    I could see his shoulders, layered with muscle where a woman’s would be fragile bones and smooth skin under the dress. I noticed his wrists, rich with tendons and veins, unlike a woman’s