Free Bodies and Souls by Nancy Thayer

against his face with such tenderness that it almost seemed to become as sentient as a limb of her body.
    “Ah, your beautiful hair, Judith,” he said to her. “So thick, so rich. It must be so long that unbraided it would cover your breasts.”
    “Oh, Carlos.” Judy laughed—which was usually the most she could muster when he went on like this.
    As Carlos spoke, he ran his hand gently along Judy’s face and down her thick braid, which fortunately had fallen down her back. Carlos’ hand slid from the end of her braid to her sweater-covered lower back, and rested there a moment.
    Judy shivered. She really did not like to be touched like this. She was always delighted to receive compliments from Carlos, because he managed to compliment her on something she was in fact proud of. But tonight his words—his hands—bordered on being openly sexual, and it annoyed her. If she thought of sex at all, she saw it as a sort of personal Loch Ness monster, and she did not understand why grown ups kept trying to entice the creature up from the murky depths when after all these years they should have finally placated and subdued it. She had worked this out a long time ago with her psychiatrist, and she knew that different people had different sexual needs at different times. Men were more demanding than women. She did not mind having sex with Ron once or twice a week, because it provided relief for him. She imagined it did for him more or less what Valium did for her. Ron was a sensitive and considerate lover. He did not expect Judy to throw herself about as if she were a teenager in the throes of a hormonal assault. They had come to an implicit, sensible arrangement: he would not pester her, and she would not ignore him. She did not think they were the only couple who had worked out their marriage this way. She did not like it when Carlos slipped from the verbal into the tactile, and she found the sensations he teased up to the surface of her skin irritating. He might as well have sat on her back and tickled her; it was the same sortof thing. She had outgrown all that.
    But Carlos removed his hand before she could speak, and studied her for a moment in silence. Then he took her right hand in both of his.
    Oh, no, not more of the same, Judy thought, and said aloud, “What courses are you teaching this semester, Carlos?”
    But he did not answer her question. He spoke as if he hadn’t heard. “I am going to read your palm,” he said.
    “Well!” Judy exclaimed, startled. “Can you actually do it? I didn’t know you were so talented. Oh, yes, of course, now I remember—you did it last spring at the fair for the hospital. But I thought it was all a joke.”
    “Not at all,” Carlos said. “You would be amazed at all the talents I possess.” He paused to let the innuendo settle, then went on. “But it is true, I can read palms. I have been trained, I have studied, and it is in my blood from Gypsy ancestors.”
    “That’s so interesting, Carlos, but you know I’d really rather not—” Judy tried subtly to withdraw her hand from his.
    “What’s the matter?” he asked, smiling, not releasing her hand. “Are you afraid that I’ll reveal some secret?”
    “Of course not!” Judy declared. She was trapped. She could not bear to let him think she had anything to hide, and she didn’t really believe in what he was doing.
    “Good,” Carlos said. “Then I will read your palm. The question is—how honest shall I be?”
    Judy smiled. “Be perfectly honest, Carlos, of course.”
    Carlos turned her hand slowly in his, studying it all around. Then, with a little flourish, he took the four fingers and laid them back flat in his right hand, exposing her palm with an air so triumphant that Judy quickly glanced at her hand as if expecting to see something amazing there. But it was only her familiar palm, crosshatched with two sets of parallel lines that ran like avenues, one horizontally, one diagonally, across it. Between one