The time traveler's wife Read Online Free

keys on all 107 locks
and crack the door slightly. "It's gotten much worse during dinner. I'm
going to have to blindfold you." Clare giggles as I set down the wine and
remove my tie. I pass it over her eyes and tie it firmly at the back of her
head. I open the door and guide her into the apartment and settle her in the
armchair. "Okay, start counting."
    Clare counts. I race around picking underwear
and socks from the floor, collecting spoons and coffee cups from various
horizontal surfaces and chucking them into the kitchen sink. As she says
"Nine hundred and sixty-seven," I remove the tie from her eyes. I
have turned the sleeper-sofa into its daytime, sofa self, and I sit down on it.
"Wine? Music? Candlelight?"
    "Yes, please."
    I get up and light candles. When I'm finished I
turn off the overhead light and the room is dancing with little lights and
everything looks better. I put the roses in water, locate my corkscrew, extract
the cork, and pour us each a glass of wine. After a moment's thought I put on
the EMI CD of my mother singing Schubert lieder and turn the volume low. My
apartment is basically a couch, an armchair, and about four thousand books.
    "How lovely," says Clare. She gets up
and reseats herself on the sofa. I sit down next to her. There is a comfortable
moment when we just sit there and look at each other. The candlelight flickers
on Clare's hair. She reaches over and touches my cheek. "It's so good to
see you. I was getting lonely."
    I draw her to me. We kiss. It's a very..
.compatible kiss, a kiss born of long association, and I wonder just exactly
what we've been doing in this meadow of Clare's, but I push the thought away.
Our lips part; usually at this point I would be considering how to work my way
past various fortresses of clothing, but instead I lean back and stretch out on
the sofa, bringing Clare along with me by gripping her under the arms and
pulling; the velvet dress makes her slippery and she slithers into the space
between my body and the back of the sofa like a velvet eel. She is facing me
and I am propped up by the arm of the sofa. I can feel the length of her body
pressing against mine through the thin fabric. Part of me is dying to go
leaping and licking and diving in, but I'm exhausted and overwhelmed.
    "Poor Henry."
    "Why 'Poor Henry?' I'm overcome with
happiness." And it's true.
    "Oh, I've been dropping all these
surprises on you like big rocks." Clare swings a leg over me so she's
sitting exactly on top of my cock. It concentrates my attention wonderfully.
    "Don't move," I say.
    "Okay. I'm finding this evening highly
entertaining. I mean, Knowledge is Power, and all that. Also I've always been
hugely curious to find out where you live and what you wear and what you do for
a living."
    " Voila!" I slide my hands under her
dress and up her thighs. She's bearing stockings and garters. My kind of girl.
"Clare?"
    "Oui."
    "It seems like a shame to just gobble
everything up all at once. I mean, a little anticipation wouldn't hurt
anything."
    Clare is abashed. "I'm sorry! But, you
know, in my case, I've been anticipating for years. And, it's not like cake..
.you eat it and it's gone."
    "Have your cake and eat it too."
    "That's my motto." She smiles a tiny
wicked smile and thrusts her hips back and forth a couple times. I now have an
erection that is probably tall enough to ride some of the scarier rides at
Great America without a parent.
    "You get your way a lot, don't you?"
    "Always. I'm horrible. Except you have
been mostly impervious to my wheedling ways. I've suffered dreadfully under
your regime of French verbs and checkers."
    "I guess I should take consolation in the
fact that my future self will at least have some weapons of subjugation. Do you
do this to all the boys?"
    Clare is offended; I can't tell how genuinely.
"I wouldn't dream of doing this with boys. What nasty ideas you
have!" She is unbuttoning my shirt. "God, you're