Ralph Robert Moore

Breathing Through My Nose Ralph Robert Moore

RRM always makes you think.
--Des Lewis, Gestalt Real-Time Reviews




Roy took a deep breath. "There's something else."

"You want me to have your babies?"

"No."

Her face registered hurt surprise that he didn't laugh at her joke.

"While we were making love? I felt a small lump in your breast."

She said nothing. Tilted her coffee cup towards her, saw it was empty. "Wait. What?"

"I felt a small lump in your breast." He pointed at her right breast. "Is that something you're already aware of?"

She stared at him, eyes reddening.

"I didn't mention it at the time. For selfish reasons. And I thought maybe you already knew."

She slipped her left hand under the top of her blouse.

"Do you want me to show you-"

"Shut up."

He sat across from her at the small table, watching as her five fingers, underneath the front of her blouse, moved from one side of her right breast to the other.

Anger and relief in her voice, she said, as her fingers kept pressing, "Son of a fucking bitch, Roy, if this is some kind of sick, fucking joke-"

Her voice stopped.

Her fingers stopped.

Her dark eyes looked across the table at him.

Fingers moving again under her blouse.

In one spot.



He could tell she was pressing against the lump with her fingertips, trying to gauge its submerged size, and to see if it was painful.




Breathing Through My Nose documents eight cases in which Donald Duke entered someone's life.