"Yes.,,
"Serious play." She smiled.
Zev surfaced behind J.D. He slid his hand over J.D.'s shoulder and around to trace the lines of her collarbone. He nibbled the nape of her neck. Victoria placed one hand over his, and slipped her other hand down J.D.'s side, from her waist to her hip and between her thighs. J.D.'s nipples hardened and her heart pounded. The rhythm reached her center, and flowered like a whirlpool, opening.
At her garden gate, Victoria kissed Zev and J.D. Zev's lips were very warm, J.D.'s cool and soft. Victoria held J.D., letting herself relax for a moment within J.D.'s embrace.
"See you later, okay?"
"Soon."
She smiled and watched them walk together, hand in hand, along the path to J.D.'s house. Arachne's holographic image of Nerno's chamber appeared nearby, and paced them.
Victoria asked the computer web to show her the alien scene. It had remained static since Nerno's chrysalis hardened.
Victoria turned through the opening in the rounded earth wall that bracketed her yard. Carnations covered the slopes, blooming wildly, pink and white and red, filling the air with their spicy fragrance. Crocuses and irises covered the lawn. This was Victoria's first experience with planting flowers. She felt a surprising sharp shock of pleasure every time she saw them.
She stepped up on the porch, beneath the roof of shaggy grass that drooped to make the house look like it had eyebrows.
Victoria felt exhilarated, hungry, and scratchy with dried salt water.
It was still very early. She entered her quiet house through the open French doors of her room. Satoshi snored softly in her bed. He had not moved since she left to go swimming. She glanced into Stephen Thomas's room; it was empty.
Now she was worried about him. It was not unusual for him to spend all night working in his lab, but no one from the genetics department had seen him since yesterday. Nor was it unusual for him to spend the night with someone else. But it was unusual for him to disappear without a word about where he had gone or who he was with.
Besides, Feral was the only person Victoria knew of who had attracted his attention recently. Feral's death had affected him deeply. But he had pulled himself together quickly after Merry's death. He surely would not fall to pieces now.
He managed better than I did, when Merry died, she thought. Better than Satoshi did. I don't know how he did it, but I'm grateful that he could. As she headed for the shower, she decided that if he had not come home or left a message by midday, she would ask Arachne where he was. She seldom resorted to having the web chase someone down.
She walked into the bathroom, slipped in a puddle, and nearly fell. Even as she thought, At least I know Stephen Thomas has been home, she saw the damp towels he had left in a tangle and the muddy clothes he had left in a heap.
She kicked the dirty laundry aside, annoyed, and glared at the tracks her younger partner had left on the floor.
Dammit! she thought. I know you're upset and distracted and excited and everything else. But that's no excuse-!
A line of clayey mud ringed the tub. Now she was mad. She was particularly irritated to have anything spoil this morning.
And why do I have to scrub the bathroom down
twice, she thought, because Stephen Thomas can't bother to do it once?
She sprayed out the bottom of the tub so at least she had a clean place to stand.
She washed her hair and rinsed the salt from her skin. The tub was luxuriously large, with a rim wide enough to sit on, and a heater that would turn the enclosure into a sauna. Victoria wondered if Starfarer would ever have enough cedar trees to allow a few to be used as lumber.
Or maybe Crimson's driftwood technique could grow some cedar boards. A sauna that did not smell like cedar was no sauna at all.
She had to use the last clean towel; damned if she would try to dry herself off with the cold clammy dirty ones Stephen Thomas had left on the floor. Grumbling, she gathered up all the dirty laundry she could find. Her house had no laundry facilities; the AS housekeeper was supposed to take care of that.
Satoshi was up now, sitting in the main room with a cup of coffee. He always took a while to get going in the morning. Victoria dumped the laundry by the front door, then turned on the kettle to make a pot of tea. Today the coffee smelled almost good enough to drink. Feral had made good coffee, and he had showed Stephen Thomas and Satoshi how to make it, too.
"Don't take a shower," she said to Satoshi.
"Huh?" Satoshi sounded sleepy-not surprising, since he had been over at the geography department till two o'clock in the morning. But he was awake enough not to be grumpy.
"No clean towels."
"Again?"
"Yeah.,,
"He promised."
"I know."
Satoshi sighed. "He promised to give the laundry to the housekeeper. No housekeeper-"
"I'd split hairs for him, too. Usually. But he did promise. And the tub was filthy."
"So much for learning quaint Japanese customs,"
Satoshi said. "He forgot the one about showering first and soaking afterwards." Stephen Thomas was studying the partnership's ethnic background. Satoshi's mother was of mostly Japanese ancestry, though that branch of his family had been in Hawaii almost as many generations as Victoria's family had lived in Canada. The other side of Satoshi's family, being Hawaiian, had been in Hawaii since people started living there. Victoria could not help but chuckle. "He must have skipped that chapter." Satoshi sipped his coffee and Victoria scalded the teapot and filled it with loose tea and boiling water.
"Let's try not to fight with him," Satoshi said. "The last fight was kind of hard on us all."
"It was," Victoria said. "I will try."
"You were up early this morning," Satoshi said.
"I went swimming with J.D. and Zev," Victoria said, grateful for the change of subject. "And if I'd known how much fun it'd be, I'd've made you get up and come with us."
"Swimming at dawn in this season doesn't sound fun to me. It sounds cold." She brought her teapot over to the table and sat down to wait for the tea to steep.
"We swam in the gulfstream, and the lagoon. Divers don't just swim. They play." She rubbed her foot against his leg, stroking his calf with her instep. "It isn't quite sex, it's too quick. But it's very sexy."
"Quick?" he said doubtfully.
"Quick touches, over a long time." She touched his shin with her toe, like brushstrokes. He looked at her quizzically. "It'd be fun to go swimming with you and Stephen Thomas and make love in the water."
"I don't know," he said doubtfully. "I tried that once, back home. Wasn't very successful."
"Why not?"
"Salt water interferes with the natural lubrication. My partner . . . took exception to continuing."
"Worked for me," she said with a grin.
He put his foot in her lap. She rubbed it, massaging
his sole and stroking her fingertips up the sharp strong tendons. She bent down and nipped his toe gently. Satoshi yelped in surprise.
"I'm starved!" Victoria said. "Is there anything to eat?"
"Not much," Satoshi said. "I made some rice."
Victoria had never warmed to the Hawaiian custom of having white rice with practically every meal.
She jumped up and opened the refrigerator.
"Don't-"
"Wasn't there a tomato in here someplace?" Victoria said. "I could broil it."
She picked it up. It collapsed in her hand.
She made a sound of disgust.
All the vegetables were wilted, the leftovers moldy. The housekeeper had kept the kitchen clean, too, and before Feral came to stay with them they had kept very few perishables around. They never had time to cook, and none of them was very good at it. They had ordered most of their meals from the central cafeteria.
"This is awful," Victoria said.