“I just like to show my beautiful sisters a good time,” he said.
He and Gredel took Caro to the Volta Apartments, after which they intended to drive back to the Fabs to spend the dawn in one of Lamey's apartments. But Caro lingered in the car, leaning forward out of the back seat to prop her head and shoulders between Lamey and Gredel. They all talked and laughed, and the doorman hovered in the Volta vestibule, waiting for the moment to let Lady Sula past the doors. Finally, Lamey said it was time to go.
“Save yourself that drive back to the Fabs,” Caro said. “You two can use my bed. I can sleep on the sofa.”
Lamey gave her a look. “I hate to put a beautiful woman out of her bed.”
Caro gave a sharp, sudden laugh, then turned to kiss Gredel on the cheek. “That depends on Gredel.”
Ah. Ha, Gredel thought, surprised and not surprised.
Lamey, it seems, was looking for a return on his investment. Gredel thought a moment, then shrugged.
“I don't mind,” she said.
So Lamey took Gredel and Caro up to the apartment and made love to them both. Gredel watched her boyfriend's pale butt jigging up and down over Caro and wondered why this scene didn't bother her.
Because I don't love him, she decided. If I loved him, this would matter.
And then she thought, Maybe Caro loves him. Maybe Caro would want to stay with Lamey in the Fabs, and Gredel could take Caro's place in the academy and go to Earth.
Maybe that would be the solution that would leave everyone happy.
Caro apologized the next day, after Lamey left. “I was awful last night,” she said. “I don't know what you must think of me.”
“It was all right,” Gredel said. She was folding Caro's clothes and putting them away. Cleaning up after the orgy, she thought.
“I'm such a slut sometimes,” Caro said. “You must think I'm trying to steal Lamey away from you.”
“I'm not thinking that.”
Caro trotted up behind Gredel and put her arms around her. She leaned her head against Gredel's shoulder, and put on the lisping voice of a penitent little girl. “Do you forgive me?”
“Yes,” Gredel said. “Of course.”
Suddenly, Caro was all energy. She skipped around the room, bounding around Gredel as Gredel folded her clothes. “I'll make it up to you!” Caro proclaimed. “I'll take you anywhere you want today! What would you like? Shopping?”
Gredel considered the offer. It wasn't as if she needed new things-she was beginning to feel a little oppressed by all her possessions-but, on the other hand, she enjoyed Caro's pleasure in purchasing them. But then another idea struck her.
“Godfrey's,” she said.
Caro's eyes glittered. “Oh yes.”
It was a glorious day-summer was coming on, and warm breezes flowed through the louvered windows on the private rooms at Godfrey's, breezes that wafted floral perfume over Gredel's skin. She and Caro started with a steam bath, then a facial, a lotion wrap, a massage that stretched all the way from the scalp to the toes. Afterward they lay on couches, talking and giggling, caressed by the breezes and drinking fruit juice as smiling young women gave them manicures and pedicures.
Every square inch of Gredel's skin seemed flushed with summer, with life. Back at the Volta, Caro dressed Gredel in one of her own outfits, the expensive fabrics gliding over nerve-tingling, butter-smooth flesh. When Lamey came to pick them up, Caro put Gredel's hand in Lamey's, and guided them both toward the door.
“Have a lovely night,” she said.
“Aren't you coming with us?” Lamey asked.
Caro only shook her head and laughed. Her green eyes looked into Gredel's-Gredel saw amusement there, and secrets that Lamey would never share.
Caro steered them into the hall and closed the door behind them. Lamey paused a moment, looking back.
“Is Caro all right?” he asked.
“Oh yes,” Gredel said. “Now let's go find a place to dance.”
She felt as if she were floating, moving across the floor so lightly that she almost danced on her way to the elevator. It occurred to her that she was happy, that happiness had never been hers before but now she had it.
All it took was getting Antony out of the picture.
The first crack in Gredel's happiness occurred two afternoons later, when Gredel arrived at the Volta late due to a blockage on the train tracks from the Fabs. Gredel let herself in, and found Caro snoring on her bed. Caro was dressed to go out, but she must have gotten bored waiting for Gredel to turn up, because there was an empty wine bottle on the floor and the med injector near her right hand.
Gredel called Caro, then shook her. There was no response at all. Caro was pale, her flesh cool and faintly bluish.
Another long, grating snore shredded the air. Gredel felt her heart turn over at the pure insistence of the sound. She seized the med injector and checked the contents: endorphin analogue, something called Phenyldorphin-Zed.
Caro began another snore, and then the sound simply rattled to a halt. Her breathing had simply stopped. Terror roared through Gredel's veins.
She had never dealt with an overdose, but there was a certain amount of oral legend on the subject that circulated through the Fabs. One of the fixes involved filling the victim's pants with ice, she remembered. Ice on the genitals was supposed to wake you right up. Or was that just for men?
Gredel straddled Caro and slapped her hard across the face. Her own nerves leaped at the sound, but Caro gave a start, her eyelids coming partway open, and she gasped in air.
Gredel slapped her again. Caro gasped again and coughed, and her lids opened all the way. Her eyes were eerie, blank convexities of green jasper, the pupils so shrunk they could barely be seen.
“What-” Caro said. “What are you-?”
“You've got to get up.” Gredel slid off the bed and pulled Caro by the arm. “You've got to get up and walk around with me, right?”
Caro gave a lazy laugh. “What is-what-”
“Stand up now!”
Gredel managed to haul Caro upright. Caro found her feet with difficulty, and Gredel got Caro's arm around her shoulders and began to drag Caro over the floor. Caro laughed again. “Music!” she snorted. “We need music if we're going to dance!”
This struck her as so amusing that she almost doubled over with laughter, but Gredel pulled her upright and began moving her again. She got Caro into the front room and began marching in circles around the sofa.
“You're funny, Earthgirl,” Caro said. “Funny, funny.” Laughter kept bubbling out of her throat. Gredel's shoulders ached with Caro's weight.
“Help me, Caro,” she ordered.
“Funny funny. Funny Earthgirl.”
When she couldn't hold Caro up any more, Gredel dumped her on the sofa and went to the kitchen to get the coffee maker started. Then she returned to the front room and found Caro asleep again. She slapped Caro twice, and Caro opened her eyes.
“Yes, Sergei,” she said. “You do that. You do that all you want.”
“You've got to get up, Caro.”
“Why wouldn't you talk to me?” Caro asked. There were tears in her eyes. Gredel pulled her to her feet and began walking with her again.
“I called you,” Caro said as they walked. “I couldn't stand it anymore and I called you and you wouldn't talk to me. Your secretary said you were out but I knew he was lying from the way he said it.”
It was three or four hours before Gredel's fear began to ebb. Caro was able to walk on her own, and her conversation was almost normal, if a little subdued. Gredel left her sitting on the sofa with a cup of coffee and went into the bedroom. She took the med injector, and two others she found in the bedroom and another in the bathroom, plus the cartridges of Phenyldorphin-Zed and every other drug cartridge she could find, and she hid them under some towels in the bathroom so that she could carry them out later, when Caro wasn't looking. She wanted to get rid of the liquor, too, but that would be too obvious. Maybe she could pour most of it down the sink when she had the chance.