Chapters (55)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Acknowledgments
- Cast of Characters
- Part One
- One
- Two
- Three
- Four
- Five
- Six
- Seven
- Eight
- Nine
- Ten
- Eleven
- Twelve
- Thirteen
- Fourteen
- Fifteen
- Sixteen
- Seventeen
- Eighteen
- Nineteen
- Part Two
- Twenty
- Twenty-one
- Twenty-two
- Twenty-three
- Twenty-four
- Twenty-five
- Twenty-six
- Twenty-seven
- Twenty-eight
- Twenty-nine
- Thirty
- Thirty-one
- Thirty-two
- Thirty-three
- Thirty-four
- Thirty-five
- Thirty-six
- Thirty-seven
- Thirty-eight
- Thirty-nine
- Forty
- Forty-one
- Forty-two
- Forty-three
- Forty-four
- Forty-five
- Forty-six
- A note on the Author
Ruby inched the taps into action, opening the hot tank wide. Presently, she dipped her toe into the water and, finding it just this side of bearable, stepped into the tub, where she sat with her knees up by her chin. Captain of a synchronized swimming team consisting of one, she suddenly kicked her legs up into the air and let her torso fall back into the water until her hair was submerged, but her face hovered prettily above the water level. Then her arms stretched back behind her head, her hands resting on the rim of the tub, her toes on its southern counterpart. Arching her hip she raised her tummy up into the air. It glistened, rounded, like the body of a prepubescent child.
She stayed that way as long as she could hold it and then flipped onto her tummy. Taking a deep breath, she ducked her face beneath the surface. She felt her newly grown-in hair take flight on the water, just long enough to float behind her pale neck like a fashion accessory. Beneath the water, she blew out bubbles. In one bubble was Rachel, dressed in pink, like Glinda the Good Witch. When Rachel had floated so far into the distance that she could no longer be discerned by the naked eye, Ruby came back up for air. She shook her wet hair, splashing water across the room, and then stepped, neatly, precisely and purposefully, out of the bath. No one was there to hand her a towel. She handed herself her own towel and went back outside.
She imagined what she had gone through since she was a kid, experienced by a grown-up man about to hit middle age. She felt suddenly sickened by him and envisioned, in a flash, all the people who had felt sickened by her.
Aware that she was thinking deep thoughts, but unsure what they were, he guessed quick and wrong. “We could try to make this work, Ruby. When you get out of here.”
She imagined Liev brushing his teeth, the two shiny front teeth that rested on his wet lip coated in Colgate. She imagined him pissing in the toilet bowl. Well, yes, she had touched his cock, with her hands when it was hard. But to look at it when it was soft. How could she not laugh? She never wanted to laugh at him or be embarrassed by his body.