Free The Glass House People by Kathryn Reiss Page B

writing and more time sitting with her over coffee after dinner. Iris was eager to hear about all the new plot twists, and eventually he began reading her each chapter as he finished it. Yet he found it hard to concern himself with the good people (or villains either, for that matter) of the Planet Notfilc—"Clifton" spelled backwards, but he doubted anyone would notice—when he could sit by the fire and watch the twinkle of tree lights with lovely Iris Savage. What a great name, he'd told her. A savage flower. It sounded like it should be in lights somewhere or, at the very least, on the cover of some stormy gothic romance. He told her he'd decided to work in a princess modeled on Iris as a tribute to her. She laughed—that soft, sweet laugh that caused a curious, sensual prickle along the back of his neck. (Abby had never caused him to feel such a thing!) And he began to think he'd found his true soul mate at last.
    On Christmas Day he kissed her for the first time—and learned that it was her first kiss. He wasn't surprised; she had led a very sheltered life. Her parents were too protective by far, he felt. And Mrs. Savage, maybe as a reaction to Iris's childhood bout with polio, was extra-indulgent and lavished attention on the girl. Mr. Savage, on the other hand, balanced his wife's excesses by favoring the little sister.
    Clifton and Iris had fallen in love at the very moment they opened their gifts: she'd given him a ream of thick, top-quality typing paper, new typewriter ribbons, and, best of all, an original oil painting—her interpretation of Notfilc. She had used him already to pose for several portrait sketches, one of which she later did in watercolor, but he liked the landscape best of all. In it she'd brought out more of the real Clifton than the portraits showed. The colors in the painting were glorious and clear. Bright blues and purples in the sky, with silvery stars and shimmery spacecraft. The planet itself was a series of red-rock lava islands dotting a stormy green-and-blue sea. The details on the islands were amazing: On each one some chapter of the novel unfolded. There was a laser-beam sword fight between the hero and villain on one, a sumptuous feast to celebrate the capture of the Evil Overlord on another, the dark castle where the lovely Princess Siri was held captive on a third, the lairs of the Notfilckian Beasts on the fourth. The painting was signed down in the left-hand corner with a single delicate blue flower—an iris. She told him she had been working on it for weeks, every day, while he was at the zoo. He told her he hoped the Christmas painting would someday become the cover of his novel. Then they would both be famous.
    He had given her an expensive jasmine perfume and—more intimate—bath oil of the same fragrance. (Although he searched everywhere for an iris fragrance, he'd found only rose and lemon and jasmine. The jasmine had seemed the most sexy. He hoped she got the message.)
    Funny how her leg didn't bother him. She was so ashamed of it, and he believed her mother did more harm than good by insisting Iris be treated specially because of her handicap. Not much more of a handicap than his own weak eyesight, really—Iris could move around as well as anyone; maybe she went just a little more slowly. But she told him about her childhood, how she'd been coddled because of her limp and how she was always made to feel different. She had already decided she would never marry because of it—Who could possibly want her? she'd asked him.
    He could only shake his head over such nonsense.
    An early April evening on the front porch had been special in more ways than one: Yes, he had asked her to marry him—but first, before he drew the little ring box out of his pocket, he had moved his hands down her soft body, caressing it through the light spring dress she wore. They had had little physical contact except kisses, and he hadn't minded. He knew she was