Institute Read Online Free

he’d bite you, and bite you to mean it.”
    “I would have patted his nose.”
    “That he didn’t mind.”
    She pointed at a football mounted on a rack. “What’s that about?”
    “Touchdown I scored against Navy. They gave me the ball to keep.”
    “Then you played?”
    “That’s right. My senior year I was captain.”
    “But not professionally?”
    “It didn’t interest me that way. And to be realistic about it, in professional football, at 185, I’d have been a midget.”
    “Yes, of course; you’re really quite tiny.”
    She went on, moving sideways, while I stood behind her, watching the twitch of her bottom while trying not to. She admired pictures of me taking my bachelor’s degree, my master’s, and finally, my doctor’s, stepping in close to inspect that one and saying: “Just making sure they didn’t cheat you on that costume. It’s really a gold tassle.”
    “Yes, they gave me the works.”
    She moved on to me throwing a pass in some game. Then suddenly she sat down as though collapsed and began staring at me.
    “Mrs. Garrett—Hortense! Is something wrong?” She didn’t answer me. “Are you ill?” I asked, shaking her.
    She still didn’t answer. Then a lech that felt like a sea-nettle detached itself from the seat of my pants, moved to my rear, and started crawling up my backbone. I put one arm around her and the other under her knees and lifted. “No, no, no!” she moaned.
    I started for the arch, and she kicked and twisted and struggled. One leg slipped clear and fell down. I hung onto the other one and marched on, through the arch, through the foyer and hall to the door of my room. She had closed it. I kicked it open and carried her in. I dumped her on the bed and started peeling her clothes off. I stripped off her coat, the pants of her pantsuit, the panties, bra, stockings, and shoes. When she was naked I picked them up and dropped them on a chair in a pile. She jumped up and darted for them. I grabbed her, held her, and began undressing myself. One-handed, it was a job, but it didn’t take long. When I was naked, too, I pulled the spread back. Then I rolled her in and climbed in beside her. At last, when I held her to me, her mouth found mine, and from there on in, it was volcanic.

3
    W E LAY CLOSE FOR a long time in each other’s arms, mingling breath. Sometimes she kissed my throat but in an odd way, as though there was something special about it. In between, little by little, my mind came out of the fog. Thoughts began to run through it again. I remembered my sulk, the resentment toward her for blocking me off from her husband and his support of my institute. I wondered what had become of it. All I felt now was reverence, or something like it, for the lift she’d given me, up so high I thought I was in the clouds. I tried to think about it. Then I was inhaling the scent of her hair—so warm, clean, fragrant.
    She opened her eyes and whispered: “Why did you do that to me?”
    “Do what to you?”
    “I would call it rape.”
    “Then who am I to argue?”
    “I did my best to stop you. You can’t say I didn’t. But no, you had to go on by main force, by brute force. You’re very strong, you know.”
    “Yes, so I’ve been told.”
    “Well? I asked you something.”
    “Why I raped you—?”
    “I wish you’d tell me.”
    “My first answer to why is, why not? Why wouldn’t I rape you? The way your bottom twitched there in the living room as you looked at my pictures—first a step to the left, then another step, and for each and every step, a twitch.”
    “You rape every twitchy bottom?”
    “I never saw one before.”
    “That’s not a very good answer.”
    “You want a better one?”
    “I wish you’d give me the real one.”
    “You wanted me to, that’s why.”
    She wilted and closed her eyes. After a long time, she whispered: “Yes—I wanted you to. I may as well admit it. I fought you off, did everything I knew. And yet I was praying, not that it