Free Me and the Devil: A Novel by Nick Tosches Page A

it to be Melissa’s. But if it could not be—and it could not be, not without draining her, not without turning her into a ghastly anemic wretch, even if she were to allow it—then,to spare her, to save me, I would have to hunt. I would have to hunt as I had done not so long ago, before I even knew what I was hunting for.
    I was living happily ever after right now, in this infinite moment, this present breath that was the sum of life’s promise, the only ever after we really had. As Melissa stood atop the little library stepladder, stretching to replace the borrowed book, the curve of the small of her back that I savored was level with my eyes, and as she nestled the book into its place on the shelf, the waistband of her sweater rose from her low-cut jeans to reveal the dimples at the upper cleft of her buttocks. I put my mouth to those dimples, stroking her haunches and flanks as she lingered on the stepladder, her hands on the bookshelf edge, steadying herself as she flexed to enhance the curvature of her lower spine and swayed her pelvis ever so slightly, ever so slowly. Lowering one hand from the shelf, she pulled her sweater higher from the front, baring the scalloped satiny black back-strap of her bra. I was a sucker for the loose-librarian look. If only she wore glasses, I thought as I stepped onto the ladder behind her and undid the fastenings of her brassiere with my teeth. The ponytail more than made up for the lack of eyeglasses. I kissed the pink crenulations left behind by the loosened cincture of the bra.
    Just as that lacy harness had bitten into her, so did I, but harder and more deeply. There was not much flesh to clamp between my teeth, and very little blood issued from it. I tasted more of her skin than of the red liquor that trickled thinly into my mouth. It was a taste that reminded me faintly of delicate Iranian caviar. Was it the trace of an ancient sea-magic, the pull of the moon on the tide within her as on the tides of oceans? Could I even have tasted what I thought I had: a scintilla of the suggestion of scented Caspian spray and roe of luscious life cut fresh from dead wombs? How had the taste of skin and droplets of bloodbrought such an imagining to my senses? All I knew was that this taste, this insinuation of a taste, real or imagined, left me hungering for more.
    I drew a hot bath for her, lathered her and washed her all over with neem oil soap, lingering long not only on the cut on her back but on her breasts and the secret beauty between her legs. Her hips rose to the level of the bathwater as I lathered there until her hips sank once again and she quaked and there came from her a small deep sound, like a last gasp before drowning, or a first gasp after being saved from it. Only then did she seem self-conscious of the scar near to where I had lathered her to orgasm, the scar where she had been stitched. I felt that she wanted neither my hand nor my eyes on it, even clouded as it was beneath the soapy water and further obscured by the dimmed lights and steam.
    I wrapped her in a big soft towel and dried her. I swabbed the cut with peroxide and rubbed some thick vitamin E on it with my fingertip. She smiled and raised her lips to mine. When I took her lower lip between my teeth, she stepped back and her smile did not return until she sat in my robe beside me on the couch, sipping Roquette 1797 from a pony glass. I had finally found some good
parmigiano reggiano
and had bought a hunk with a good deep tawny layer beneath the rind. I broke off pieces of it with a narrow chisel, put them on a plate, drizzled some unfiltered olive oil over them, ground some black pepper over them, peeled a blood orange, added the segments to the plate, and laid it down beside her glass of absinthe.
    I wanted to talk to her about stone houses and rolling hills and sunlight and shadows in the pines. I wanted to talk to her about the difference between hunting and infidelity. But I said nothing. She was stroking my