Bloody spamming
If you wish to read the story without the wholesale replica inserts...
She was eleven years younger than he was. He had first seen her not much more than a year ago, as she rode up
an escalator in a department store downtown, one gray November Saturday while he was buying ties.
He was thirty-three years old and new to Kentucky, and she had risen out of the crowd like some kind of vision,
her blond hair swept back in an elegant chignon,s pearls glimmering at her throat and on her ears. She was
wearing a coat of dark green wool, and her skin was clear and pale. He stepped onto the escalator, pushing his
way upward through the crowd, struggling to keep her in sight.
It had been an excellent pregnancy, without medical restrictions. Even so, he had not been able to make love to
her for several months. He found himself wanting to protect her instead, to carry her up flights of stairs, to
wrap her in blankets, to bring her cups of custard. "I'm not an invalid," she protested each time, laughing.
"I'm not some fledgling you discovered on the lawn." Still, she was pleased by his attentions. Sometimes he woke
and watched her as she slept: the flutter of her eyelids, the slow even movement of her chest, her outflung hand,
small enough that he could enclose it completely with his own.
The clerk disappeared and came back a moment later with three robes in sturdy terry cloth. He chose blindly, hardly
glancing down, taking the one on top. Three sizes, the clerk was saying, and a better selection of colors next
month, but he was already in the aisle a coral-colored robe draped over his arm, his shoes squeaking on the tiles
as he moved impatiently between the other shoppers to where she stood. She was shuffling through the stacks
of expensive stockings, sheer colors shining through slick cellophane windows: taupe, navy, maroon as dark as
pig's blood. The sleeve of her green coat brushed his and he smelled her perfume.
