The Color Master: Stories Read Online Free Page A

begins, in a slow broil, to burn him up inside. Why all the mystery? He unties the ribbon late at night, while she sleeps, and screams when her head rolls onto the floor.
    Before, at summer camp, the story had always made Janet puff with righteousness. What a pushy spoiler of a husband.Wasn’t their happiness enough? Couldn’t he respect her one rule? One? But in the dressing room, her nose full of the clean smell of new turtleneck, she felt the story tugging at her. Something she couldn’t quite put a finger on. As she paid cash for the turtlenecks—three: cream, fuchsia, black—she told a quick version of the story to the blonde manager, a woman who clearly knew her way in the world. Strong shoulders, proud large hands, open smile. “What do you think it means?” Janet asked. Far off in the distance, she could see the saleslady of her choice rehanging blouses on a rack.
    The manager flattened out the receipt to sign.
    “I remember that story,” the manager said, sighing. “I had the cutest camp boyfriend.”
    “I mean, why not just be happy with the way things are, right?” said Janet.
    The manager took the signed receipt and put it in the register’s pile. She folded the turtlenecks, separating them with sheets of tissue paper, and then slipped all three into a bag. “But can you blame him?” she said, handing the bag to Janet. “I mean, I’m all for clothes, but at a certain point, they’re supposed to go away, you know? How long were they married?”
    “I don’t know,” said Janet, taking the bag. “Story doesn’t say.”
    “Take it all off!” said the manager. She winked at Janet. “Turtlenecks are good that way too.”
    Across the room, the woman with the red ribbon had finished lining up the blouses and moved on to the slacks. It was true, what the manager said. That ribbon was practically made to be removed. Even Janet herself wanted to slide over and undo the knot and unspool the choker from the woman’s throat.
    So—the man didn’t know what was coming, Janet thoughtas she walked to the escalator. They’d been married for years, and he wanted her to give up the last thread of cover so she would stand before him nude and he could make love to her entire skin.
    Well, of course that made her head fall off. Of course.
    At home that night, wearing her new fuchsia turtleneck, Janet made a simple dinner of spaghetti and red sauce from a jar. She and Daniel ate together in silence. When they were both done, he cleared the dishes and put them in the sink.
    “Thank you,” he said, at the counter. “That was very good.”
    She watched him run water over the forks. His hair needed a cut—it was getting too long on the sides.
    “It’s November 9,” he said.
    “I know,” she said. “Thank you again.”
    He dried the forks with a cloth. He seemed unusually quiet.
    “You know, you were right,” she said, brushing crumbs off the table into her palm. “What you said a few weeks ago. About your wife.”
    He didn’t turn from the sink. “When I brought you flowers?”
    “Yes.”
    “And what did I say again?”
    “That she does not love you very well.”
    He ran his finger under the tap, back and forth, and poured a glob of dish soap on the pile of plates. “Actually, I think I said something different.”
    She picked up the drying cloth. “Oh?”
    “I think I said that she doesn’t love me at all.”
    He cleared a dish clean with the sponge.
    She leaned over, to touch his arm. “Oh, Daniel,” she said. “You know that’s not true.”
    She could feel the turtleneck, climbing up to cover her neck, her shoulders, her torso. Pants, covering up her legs. Socks, over her feet. Underwear, over her pubic hair. A bra, over her breasts.
    “I want to do better,” she said, quietly.
    He placed a dish carefully in the dish rack, lining the circle up with the bent wire.
    “Do you ever think about leaving?” he asked.
    “No,” she said.
    He turned to her. His eyes were bright. “Sometimes