Free Falling in Love by Dusty Miller Page A

tangy,
spongy cheese and a hunk torn from a loaf of dark, coarse bread to
go with it.
    “ Thank you.” She was
ravenous.
    The man nodded thoughtfully, and took
a bite of his own bread and then both he and the horse seemed to
listen carefully to the night, which was oddly bright now that they
were out in the open.
    They sat very quietly and had their
meal.
    He had a bow, a quiver full of
arrows…the horse and the blanket and little else but a breechclout
or loincloth, on top of leggings with fringe along the outer legs.
They seemed to tie onto the same belt, but only at the front. A
good deal of his hard buttocks were exposed. He wore some kind of
high lace-on boots of thin suede dyed in dark blue. If he had a
proper shirt, it would have to be in one of the bags.
    For the time being, they could live
without it, she thought.
    If only the fellow could speak
English. It really was fascinating, once you sort of got over the
inconvenience. It might have taken away some of the worry about
getting back to the hotel.
    Letting go of something inside, she
heaved a deep sigh of relief.
    Oh, thank God.
    And, one more thing: Oh, my,
God.
    What a hunk.
    But even objectively speaking,
this was an improvement.
    It was better than sitting around all
night in the dark, alone in some church, wondering if you were
going to starve, freeze, bake, die of thirst…or be eaten by
rats.
    She took some more dates, which went
very well with the bread and the cheese.
    “ Thank you.” She studied
him in unabashed fashion. “Thank you, oh, handsome stranger, for
rescuing me especially, and for the lovely little snack as
well.”
    The floor show wasn’t bad
either.
    He munched his food in an unhurried
way and seemed to get it on some level, as he listened to the
inflections in her tone with what looked like approval. He looked
up and nodded, again with the sharp glint of intelligence and
something else—something feral, as the lady wondered just how in
the hell she was going to get out of this or even if she really
wanted to.
    Not all that much, she
decided.
    Not right now, anyways.
    Hospitality had its rules in spite of
all language barriers and at least some effort had to be made. It
cost nothing to be polite and patience was a virtue.
    She must find some way to repay
him.
     
    ***
     
    It was dawn and the world was
glorious.
    She stood, watching with interest as
he prepared the horse for riding. He didn’t have a saddle, she
realized. He strung the bow, and leaned it against a bush along
with the arrows. Its casing, once loosely bound, now fit it snugly
and there were tie-strings on the sides of it.
    Jayne had had her morning tinkle in
the bushes nearby and so had he.
    The fellow beckoned towards her feet
and said something. Interpreting correctly, she slipped off her
sandals and handed them to him. He put them in a bag and tied the
top securely. He put that down beside the bow, along with two water
containers and the quilted horse-blanket they had slept on, him
anyways, through the long vigil of the night. She gave him her
purse and he stuck that in the bag as well.
    She might have dropped off just before
true dawn, although the birds were up and there was a dim glow in
the east. He slept with his arms around her, but was otherwise
scrupulously polite in his silent fashion. She’d lain there
blinking a lot and wondering what to do next. The half an hour or
hour’s worth of fitful sleep hardly rendered her amenable to new
faces and new experiences this morning. Not at first. She might
brighten up after a time. She was just praying he was taking her to
some nearby place where they would have a phone, and for the love
of God, maybe even a real bathroom.
    The gentleman folded the larger,
thinner blanket into a long rectangle and then he put that on top
of the horse-blanket and smoothed them out on top of the big white
stallion. Surely the evidence of that was unmistakable, hanging out
there as big as a man’s arm for the world to marvel at, and