by Day Keene
“How come?” Latour asked. “I mean how come you’re blushing? And what’s this business about children?”
Her voice small, Olga said, “In the old country — that is, the country from which my grandparents came — when a wife is moved to such ecstasy that she unknowingly bites her husband during the act of love, it is said to be a sign.”
“A sign of what?”
Olga’s voice was even smaller. “That God has seen fit to plant one of His seeds. I hope so. I hope so sincerely.”
The thought of Olga having a child by him was pleasing. It would, of course, be a boy. The first of four or five children to inherit everything he had dreamed their children would have. His hand tightened spasmodically on the silk and the firm flesh it covered.
Olga misunderstood the spasmodic caress. “You are not too tired to wish me to retire with you?”
Latour killed the last of the mental tigers that had stalked him for two years. “With your brother in jail, because of me?”
Olga repeated what she’d said before. “I have no brother. I have only a husband.”
“Yeah. Sure. A two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-month small-town deputy sheriff.”
“The money you earn is sufficient for our needs.”
“Barely.”
Olga’s smile was sardonic. “Now you are being humorous. You have been in the Far East. You know what conditions are in most of the countries where I have lived. Yes, truly, we are very poor. All we have is a comfortable house and a motor car and a television set and electricity and running water and all we can possibly eat.” She added, “And a bed with an inner-spring mattress. But I believe that I asked you a question.”
Latour’s grin felt tight. “Well, when you put it that way — yes, I’m tired, but you come to bed with me.”
Olga lowered the shades on the windows. Then she pulled her slip over her head and lay beside him.
“It is for you to say. You are the husband.”
Latour held her without passion. That could and would come later. The twittering of the birds in the trees in the yard, even the distant pumping wells, were muted by the magic of the moment. He felt slightly breathless, like a man who had run a long way through a vast, almost impenetrable jungle and suddenly emerged into the sun.
For now it was enough to feel Olga’s heart beat rhythmically against his, to taste the sweetness of her lips, to savor the promise of her body pressed to his, to know he was safe in her arms.
THE END
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Carnival of Death
It’s a Sin to Kill
The Big Kiss-Off
Too Black for Heaven
Who Has Wilma Lathrop?
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Copyright © 1956 by Fawcett Publications, Inc.
Copyright Registration Renewed © 1984 by Irene Keene (W) and Al James (C)
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This is a work of fiction.
Names, characters, corporations, institutions, organizations, events, or locales in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously. The resemblance of any character to actual persons (living or dead) is entirely coincidental.
ISBN 10: 1-4405-5986-4
ISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5986-0
eISBN 10: 1-4405-5985-6
eISBN 13: 978-1-4405-5985-3