The Time in Between: A Novel Read Online Free

intuited it from the depths of his gaze, the sonority of his voice, from the fact that he had approached me rather than Ignacio and the length of time he held my hand. I knew that he had been watching me, considering my erratic wanderings around his establishment. He had seen me arranging myself in front of the mirrored cupboard: readjusting my hair, conforming the lines of the dress to my shape, and fixing my stockings by running my hands up my legs. Perched in the shelter of his office, he had absorbed the outlines of my body and the slow cadence of each of my movements. He had appraised me, calibrated the shapes of my silhouette and the lines of my face. He had studied me with the sure eye of someone who knows exactly what he likes and is used to getting what he wants with the immediacy that his desires dictate. And he resolved to show this to me. I had never seen this before in any other man; I had never believed myself capable of awaking such a desire in anyone. But just as animals scent food or danger, with the same primal instinct I knew that Ramiro Arribas, like a wolf, had decided to come for me.
    “Is that your husband?” he said, gesturing toward Ignacio.
    “My fiancé,” I managed to answer.
    Perhaps it was only my imagination, but I thought I sensed the trace of a satisfied smile at the corners of his lips.
    “Perfect. Please, come with me.”
    He made way for me, and as he did, he positioned his hand gentlyat my waist as though it had been waiting to be there its whole life. He greeted Ignacio pleasantly, dispatched the salesclerk to the office, and took up the reins of the matter with the ease of someone who gives a clap and makes pigeons take flight. He was like a conjuror combed with brilliantine, the features of his face marked with angular lines, a broad smile, a powerful neck, and a bearing so imposing, so manly and decisive, that beside him my poor Ignacio looked like he was a century away from reaching manhood.
    He learned that the typewriter we were planning to buy would be for teaching me to type, and he praised the idea as though it were a matter of great genius. Ignacio saw him as a competent professional who offered technical details and beneficial payment options. For me he was something more: a tremor, a magnet, a certainty.
    We took a while longer to finalize the negotiations. Over the course of that time the signals coming from Ramiro Arribas didn’t stop for a single second. An unexpected, glancing touch, a joke, a smile; double entendres and looks that pierced the depths of my being. Ignacio, self-absorbed and unaware of what was happening before his very eyes, finally decided on the portable Lettera 35, a machine with round white keys on which the letters of the alphabet were set with such elegance that they seemed to be carved with a chisel.
    “Superb decision,” the manager concluded, praising Ignacio’s good sense. As though he had been the master of his own free will and hadn’t been manipulated with the great salesman’s wiles to buy that particular model. “The best choice for slender fingers like those of your fiancée. Do please allow me, miss, to see them.”
    I quickly sought Ignacio’s gaze to gain his consent, but I didn’t find it: he had gone back to focusing on the typewriter. I held my hand out shyly. Faced with my fiancé’s innocent passivity, Ramiro Arribas stroked my hand slowly and shamelessly, finger to finger, with a sensuality that gave me goose bumps and made my legs shake like leaves in a summer breeze. He only let go when Ignacio looked away from the Lettera 35 and asked for instructions on completing the purchase. They agreed that we’d leave a deposit of 50 percent that afternoon and make the balance of the payment the following day.
    “When can we take it away?” Ignacio asked.
    Ramiro Arribas consulted his watch.
    “The boy from the warehouse is doing a few errands and won’t be coming back this afternoon. I fear it won’t be possible to get