“Poor, cold Steve-Steve. You warm up now?” Ti Nih stroked my legs and buttocks and they did indeed grow warm under her caress.
“If you’re cold, you can take the blankets,” Putnam offered. “But go!”
“You’re just jealous.” I warmed my hands between Ti Nih’s feverish thighs.
“I am not jealous!” he shouted, his voice shaking with jealousy.
“No be jealous. I never mind two. Is better than one for push-push. Merrier is more.” Ti Nih reached behind her and patted Putnam. At the same time the fingers of her other hand trailed tinglingly over my belly.
“You Tibetan trollop!” He jumped up out of the bed. “I’ll get even with you for this, Victor!” He stalked out of the room.
“Him much mad,” Ti Nih observed. Her hair tickled my stomach as she lowered her face to where her fingers had been.
“He’ll get over it.” I traced the triangle of curls beneath her navel until I felt the moist and straining proof of her passion.
“You much warm now,” she panted.
She was right. I was over the effects of my icy dip and my body was on fire with desire in response to her intimate wriggling. Her thighs parted and I investigated the pulsating funnel of her femininity. Ti Nih gasped and dug her nails into my buttocks. After a moment she flung herself over on her back. Her dark eyes shone up at me and her tongue fluttered out from between hot, red lips. “Now! Yum-yum! Bang-bang! Love-love!”
I ignored the redundancies and sprawled over her eagerly. Her body arched to meet me and then we were locked together, her legs clasped tightly around my waist. She was very strong for such a petite girl and she moved vigorously in the throes of our lovemaking. I guess I moved pretty vigorously myself. Ti Nih inspired me to a display of energy I hadn’t thought I had left after my recent arduous activities. It lasted for a long, drawn out moment, and then she subsided somewhat.
She was a long way from through though. As I felt my own passion reach the erupting point, Ti Nih suddenly reached behind me and forced her hand deep between my buttocks. “No over too quick,” she explained, still panting. “Make last longer.”
It worked. For the next fifteen minutes Ti Nih was like a string of firecrackers going off while I was like a bomb with a slow-burning fuse. But my fuse couldn’t be delayed forever, and finally she withdrew her hand and we exploded together. It was the greatest!
I was exhausted. I rolled over on my side, already half-asleep. “Push-push again!” Ti Nih shook me. I ignored her. I was just plain too tired. “You, Put-Putnam, all men alike,” she said disgustedly. “Why no go-go again?”
“Later,” I promised her. And I fell into a sound sleep.
I was awakened by a Tibetan roar. Ti Nih was beside me clutching the sheet to her bosom and looking scared. Papa Baapuh stood a few feet away and roared his anger a second time. He held a double-barreled shotgun in his hands and he was pointing it straight at me.
“What the hell is he doing here?” I asked Ti Nih.
The question was rhetorical, but she answered it anyway. “Me no know. Me sleepy with Putnam here much times and Papa never come. Sleep you one time and he here.”
It figured. I had all the luck. All bad. Putnam made the scene for months and got away with it. I made it one night and now I found myself staring down the wrong end of a two-slug shotgun. All the luck!
“But who tipped him off,” I wondered.
The answer came from over Papa Baapuh’s shoulder. Putnam was standing in the background there, and now he wiggled his fingers at me insultingly.
“You lousy double-crosser!” I snarled at him.
“It was you who double-crossed me,” he answered with a nasty grin. “You should have more respect for my gray hairs.”
“I’l1 show you respect if I ever get out of this,” I vowed. “I’ll scalp every last gray hair off that knobby pate of yours.” I looked at Papa Baapuh pleadingly. “You’re not really going to use that on me, are you?” I pleaded.
“He no talk English,” Ti Nih reminded me.
“Well then translate for gosh sake! And hurry it up!”
She spoke to Papa Baapuh in Tibetan. As he answered her a ghastly look of vengeance spread over his face. It didn’t look promising.
“Him say yep, him gonna shootum up all right. No kill right away though. First thing gonna blast off golden you-know-what.” She pointed. “Then gonna blow a hole in yellow hair. Him much mad.”
“Really? I never would have guessed it.”
“I don’t like your hair much that way anyway, Steve,” Putnam remarked. “You look like a chorus boy, or a Hollywood fag.”
“Shut up, you Judas!” Angry as I was at Putnam, I couldn’t help reflecting that if Papa Baapuh fired that first volley I wouldn’t just look like a chorus boy, I’d be a choir boy! Before that could happen, it might be wise to try to get Putnam back on my side. He was standing behind Papa Baapuh and he was the only one in a position to grab the gun away from the angry old man before it could be fired. “Putnam, you’re not really going to just stand there and let him shoot me,” I said in a more conciliatory tone. “After all we’ve been through together. You wouldn’t just stand by and let him shoot me.”
“Yes, I would,” Putnam replied blithely. “You should have kept your treasures in the vault.” He grinned fiendishly at my golden gonads.
Papa Baapuh raised the shotgun. Automatically, I clasped my hands over me like a fig leaf. Ti Nih shook her head sadly. Putnam didn’t move.
But before Papa Baapuh could fire, there came a sudden crash from another part of the dwelling. It was followed by loud noises and a hubbub of voices that sounded like a convention of Chinese laundrymen arguing about how much starch to use. Papa Baapuh-—thanks be!—was distracted. Putnam was alarmed.
“It’s the Red Guard!” he exclaimed. He pulled a pistol from his belt. “Victor, do you have a gun?” he asked.
“Nope.”
“Then take this.” Putnam yanked the shotgun away from Papa Baapuh before the old man could object and tossed it to me. “This could be rough,” he warned.
“How come? I thought you had all the diplomatic wires pulled so they’d leave us alone. Why are they after us now?”
“I’ve been expecting this,” Putnam said. “They’ve been leaning on us lately. I know their orders were just to observe and not act up until now. But my guess is they were just waiting until Papa Baapuh completed his ‘experiment.’ They didn’t know what it was, but they knew he was onto something. Somehow they’ve learned that whatever it was, it’s finished. So now they want to grab onto it immediately.”
“Everybody in village much excitement Steve back,” Ti Nih interjected. “I tell all him come home tonight like Papa tell you.”
“That explains it then,” Putnam said. “It’s you they’re after, Steve. They want the man with the golden you-know-what.”
“Great! What do we do now?”
“Make a run for it. There’s nothing else we can do.”
“Why don’t you just let them have me?” I wondered aloud. “A minute ago you were willing to let Papa shoot me.”
“Because once they have you and Papa Baapuh, they won’t have any use for Ti Nih and me. They’ll just kill us to make sure we don’t talk. Forget what just happened, Steve. We’re all in this together now.”
He was right. This was no time to hold grudges. The voices were getting louder. It sounded as if they were breaking up the house for the sheer hell of it as they drew closer to us. “What do we do?” I wondered.
“Window,” Ti Nih suggested. “Two yak outside. Take blanket, much cold.”
“She’s right.” Putnam grabbed a blanket. “It’s our only chance.”
Ti Nih grabbed another blanket and Papa Baapuh a third. I spied a pair of pants and a shirt lying across a chair and I grabbed those.