"I'm ready."
"And drink up. You'll need it."
She told him everything. Or at least everything her increasingly vodka-sodden brain could remember. How she'd first gone to Palomo Grove because Grillo was there writing a story, and how circumstances had elected her-much against her will-as Fletcher's cremator, or liberator, or both. How after his death she'd traveled down to his laboratory in the Misi6n de Santa Catrina to destroy whatever remained of the Nuncio, only to be shot in the attempt by the Jaff s son, Tommy-Ray. How she had been saved, and changed, by the very fluid she'd come to destroy, and then returned to the Grove with Raul-via the apartment they were sitting in-to find it close to destruction, Here she stopped. Getting this far had taken the better part of three hours, and she still had to speak of the most problematic part of the whole story. The party in the apartment opposite had quieted down considerably, the various rock-and-roll of earlier forsaken in favor of ballads for slowdancing. It was scarcely the most appropriate music to accompany what she had to say.
"You know about Quiddity of course," she said.
"I know what Friederika's said." "And what's that?"
"That it's some kind of dream-sea, and we go there three times in our lives. Edward says it's a metaphor for-2'
"Fuck metaphors," Tesla said. "It's real."
"Have you been there?"
"No. But I know people who have. I saw the Jaff tear a hole between this world and Quiddity-4ear it open with his bare hands." This was not strictly true. She'd not been in the room when the Jaff had done the deed. But the story played so much better telling it as though she had.
"What was it like?" "I don't want to live through it again, put it that way." Lucien poured himself another vodka. He'd started to look distinctly queasy in the last few minutes@is face pasty and moist-but if he needed the liquor to deal with what he was hearing, who was she to argue? "So who closed the door?" he asked her.
"That doesn't matter," she said. "Doors open, doors close. It's what's on the other side you need to know about."
"You already told me. Quiddity."
"Beyond Quiddity," she said, aware that the very words carried a palpable menace. He looked at her with his green eyes now bloodshot, breathing rather too fast through his open mouth. "Maybe you don't want to know," she said.
"I want to know," he replied, without a trace of inflection.
"they'rc called the lad Uroboros."
"Uroboros," he said, speaking the word almost dreamily. "Have you seen these things?"
"From a distance," she said.
"Are they like us?" he asked her.
"Not remotely." "What then?"
She remembered as clearly as her own name the words Jaffe had used to describe the lad, and repeated them now, for Lucien's benefit, though Lord knows it didn't help much.
"Mountains and fleas, " she said. "Fleas and mountains.
Lucien rose suddenly. "Excuse me@'
I'@ you-?"
"I'm going t@' He turned towards the bathroom, raising his hand to his mouth. She went to help him, but he waved her away and lurched through the door, closing it behind him. There was a moment's hush, then the sound of retching, and of vomit splashing into the toilet. She kept her distance. Her own belly, which was pretty strong, weakened at the smell of puke.
She look down at her vodka glass, decided she'd had more than enough, and walked out onto the balcony. She didn't wear a watch (the yellow dog had told her to bury her imitation Rolex in the desert) so she could only guess at the time. Certainly way after midnight; perhaps one-thirty, perhaps two. The air was a little chilly, but fragrant with nighthlooming jasmine. She inhaled deeply. Tomorrow she was going to have a splitting headache, but what the hell? She'd actually enjoyed telling her story, laying it out as much for her own benefit as Lucien's.
He has the hotsfor you, Raul said.
"I thought you'd gone to sleep."
I was afraid you'd do something stupid.
"Like try to fuck him?" She glanced back into the apartment. The bathroom door was still closed. "I don't think there's much chance of that tonight-2'
Or any night.
"Don't be so sure." We had an agreement, Raul reminded her. As long as I'm in here with you: no sex. That's what we agreed. I don't have a homosexual bone in my body.
"My body," Tesia reminded him.
Of course, if you wanted to sleep with a woman, I could probably stretch the point "Well you might just have to look the other way," Tesla said,
"I think my celibate phase is coming to an end."
Don't do this.
"Oh for God's sake, Raul, it's just a fuck."
I mean it.
"If you screw this up," she said, "you'll be sorry you ever got inside my head. I swear."
Raul was silent.
"Better," Tesla said, and went back inside. The shower was running in the bathroom. "Are you okay in there?" she called, but he couldn't hear her over the water, so she left him to his cleaning up and went through to the kitchen to look for something to fill her growling stomach. All she could find was a box of year-old Shredded Wheat, but it was better than nothing. She munched, and waited, and munched more.
The shower continued to run. After a couple of minutes she went back to the bathroom door, knocked and elled: "Lucien? Are you all right?"
There was still no reply. She tried the handle. The door was unlocked; the room so filled with steam she could barely see across it. His clothes were scattered on the floor, and the shower curtain closed. She called his name again, and again there was no answer. Concerned now-he must have heard her, even over the water-she grabbed the curtain and pulled it back. He was sprawled naked in the tub, the water beating on his belly, eyes closed, mouth open.
Some lover, Raul said.
"Shut the fuck up," she told him, going down on her haunches beside the tub and Lifting Lucien into a sitting position. He coughed up a throatful of watered down puke.
Very pretty.
"I'm warning you, monkey-"
That was the forbidden word: monkey-the word that always threw him into a fit.
Don't call me that! he yelled.
She didn't give him the satisfaction of a response, so he shut up. It worked like a charm every time. She turned off the shower, then gently slapped Lucien into opening his eyes. He looked at her dozily, mumbling something about feeling stupid.
"Have you finished throwing up?" she asked him.
He nodded, so she fetched a clean bath towel and did what she could to dry him off while he was lying in the tub. He wasn't in bad shape. A little skinny perhaps, but meaty where it counted most. Even though he was near as dainnit comatose, his dick swelled as she dried him, and she couldn't help but stroke it a little, which brought it to full erection. It was pretty. If he had the wit to use it well he might be fun in bed.
He was as dry as she was going to be able to get him, so rather than try to lift him out of the tub, she decided to let him sleep where he lay. She fetched a pillow and a blanket, and made him as comfortable as she could, given the cramped conditions. As she tucked the blanket around him, he murmured, "What about tomorrow?"
"What about it?" she said.
"Can we... do it... Tomorrow?"
"Well, that depends," she said. "I was thinking of heading up to Oregon@'
"Oregon... " he mumbled.
"That's right."
"Fletcher... "
"That's right." She leaned a little closer to him, until she was almost whispering in his ear. "He's up there, right? In ... in-"
"Everville."
"Everville," she said softly.
Have you no shame? Raul muttered.