"Lisa Tuttle - Ghosts and Other Lovers" - читать интересную книгу автора (Tuttle Lisa)

too intense, for a single sexual encounter to heal. I understood, and it didnтАЩt matter to me; I wasnтАЩt
jealous, only grateful to be involved in something new, taken out of myself and the pain of my broken
marriage. I didnтАЩt say that, though; I didnтАЩt want us to argue, and anyway, there wasnтАЩt time. We would
have liked to spend the night together, but our roommates would be returning soon, so he had to leave.

That night I had my first dream about Jane. She looked a little like the actress Jane Seymour and a little
like my mother twenty years ago. Smiling and kind, she told me she was so glad David had found me,
that she knew I would be good for him. I basked happily in her approval.

All the next day we were discreet, yet discreetly let a few others on the tour understand how our
relationship had changed. The day after that, as we left Shanghai, we arranged with the tour leader to
share a room. The trip had been transformed, as holidays always are by romance. I still feel a little
annoyed with myself sometimes that I experienced so little of China, allowing my inner life to dominate
everything. At first everything was colored by regrets and mourning for my marriage, then the affair with
David became everything. We might as well have been in Manchester for two weeks, going from one
Chinese restaurant to another and spending all the time we wanted in bed. Sexual satisfaction kept me
from seeing anything very clearly. Sometimes I look at the pictures I took and canтАЩt believe mine was the
eye behind the camera. Only the ones with David in them remind me of anything. Yet at the time I wanted
nothing else, and certainly he was a better cure for what ailed me than half a dozen foreign countries
could have been.

The first test of our relationship did not come until we were back home in London. We were apart for a
couple of days, recovering from jet lag, and then weтАЩd arranged to meet in a West End wine bar, neutral
territory. I was nervous, wondering what would happen. Would we seem like strangers to each other?
Would he want to end it? Although he had told me he loved me, I knew that something said in bed, in a
foreign country, could be as worthless here as the pretty paper money I had kept as a souvenir. If he
treated me coldly I would feel miserable, yet I knew it would be a misery quickly overcome. What weтАЩd
shared had happened so far away that it would not be difficult to leave it behind, in the past, in China,
and get on with my life alone, refreshed and renewed.

IтАЩll always believe that David had meant to break things off with me, but that my attitude, the mental
distance I kept, made him fall in love with me. He had told me how emotionally self-sufficient Jane
seemed to him, and how irresistible he found her; sensing a similar attitude in me would have hooked him.

Once he became part of my real life, no longer just a story I was reading or a game I was playing on
holiday, I was hooked, too. Everything changed. I had been interested in Jane formerly; now, I was
jealous.

Yet I had no reason to be jealous anymore. He seldom spoke of her now, thought of her only rarely and
in a different way. The talking cure had worked: he was over her and in love with me.

But I couldnтАЩt stop thinking about her, even if he could. I wanted to talk about her, I wanted to see her. I
convinced myself that if we met my jealousy would vanish. I would stop dreaming about her. We might
even become friends. I suggested to David that he invite her over for dinner, or take both of us out.
тАЬAre you crazy?тАЭ

тАЬWhy not? YouтАЩre still in touch with her.тАЭ He had told me that once theyтАЩd both realized their affair was
definitely over, and had both cooled down a little, they had agreed to stay in touch, to try to construct a
friendship out of the ruins of their love. He had even written to her from China.