"Almost like being back home."
He bent down to nuzzle her neck, to rub his cheek against her short brown hair, still damp from the shower.
"You like her, too."
"Very much."
"Will she go swimming with us again?"
"I think so. She might even come over and spend the night."
He sat back on his heels away from her.
J.D. turned around. "Wouldn't you like that?"
"I don't know," Zev said slowly, sounding surprised by his own reaction. "Would she come to stay with you?"
"With both of us."
"I like . . . sleeping just with you. Making love just with you. At first it was strange. All land manners are strange at first. But I like being able to think just about you. About what you want. What you need."
She kissed him. His lips parted over his sharp, dangerous teeth. She wondered if he felt jealous, but dismissed the absurd idea of a jealous diver.
"I like that, too," she said to Zev. "We won't give it up. But we can include Victoria sometimes, too."
"Okay."
He bit her earlobe gently. "I'm hungry!"
She laughed. "Me too."
"But I don't want to eat oranges!"
In the main room of the partnership's house, Stephen Thomas slouched on one chair with his feet up on another. He had thrown a towel over his toes to hide the bruises, the loose nails. The bento box containing his half-eaten dinner sat open on his lap.
Victoria wanted things back to normal. Stephen Thomas could not blame her. Tonight was the normal night for the regular potluck for their grad students.
Stephen Thomas wished she and Satoshi had asked him before they scheduled the dinner. He was trying to make the best of it.
As usual, other people came besides the students. Stephen Thomas had invited Florrie Brown, without considering his motives for doing so. He liked her. Unfortunately, Victoria did not, and the feeling was mutual. Florrie thought Victoria was stuck up, and Victoria thought Florric was condescending. Both of them were right. Victoria could be stuck up, and Florrie could be condescending. But Stephen Thomas thought they would like each other if they could ever get over their first encounters. That did not look like it would happen tonight.
He shrugged. Give them time.
Nearby, Lehua and Bay bent over a display of the new cells. Mitch, on the other hand, stood in the shadows gazing mournfully at Fox.
Even Fox had come to dinner. Stephen Thomas was glad; it must mean she had no hard feelings because he had turned her down. He was glad she accepted his point of view. She had not talked to him, but that was understandable. She stayed on the opposite side of the room; about all he had seen of her tonight was her back. Sometimes he had the feeling she had just turned away.
Stephen Thomas poked through the remains of his dinner with a pair of chopsticks, searching each small compartment of the bento box for something he felt like eating.
Maybe I ought to try catching a fish and eating it raw, like Zev, he thought.
J.D. had brought him an orange. "The great hunter offers you the spoils of her kill," she said when she handed it to him.
And we thought we'd opted for the intellectual life when we came up here, he thought.
She had not mentioned Gerald's altercation with Infinity, but Stephen Thomas knew about it. Everyone on campus knew about it. Infinity had not come to the potluck.
Did we ever invite him? Stephen Thomas asked himself with a shock. To any of them? Fuck, I don't think we did. Stephen Thomas made a note to himself to ask Infinity to the next one.
All that was left of his orange was torn rind. He could get himself another piece of fruit, but his feet hurt.
He hoped the potluck would not last too long. If it did go on forever, that would be partly his fault. He had stayed up talking till all hours with almost every guest here, often after Victoria and Satoshi had given up and gone to bed.
It was already getting on toward midnight, and nobody showed any sign of leaving. Most of the kids clustered around J.D. and Zev, asking questions about Nemo, like children anxious to hear an old story told again. The room glimmered with multiple copies of the LTM transmissions, floating like bubbles in free-fall, all different sizes.
On the other side of the room, Florrie Brown and Fox sat with their heads together, talking seriously. Stephen Thomas pushed away a twinge of discomfort. He had no reason but egotism to assume they were talking about him. They spent a lot of time together. Fox had been at Florrie's almost every time Stephen Thomas had stopped by to see if Florrie needed anything.
Fox gave Florrie a quick hug and a grateful smile. She went over to the table and poured a couple of glasses of beer.
Great, Stephen Thomas thought. With everything else that's happened, now somebody will tell our honorable senators that we're giving drugs to the President's underage niece, and that's what we'll get thrown in jail for when we get home.
Oh, fuck it, he thought. A little beer won't hurt her. Didn't hurt me when I was her age, swilling home brew in the basement of the biology department.
On the porch just outside, Victoria and Satoshi stood face to face, framed by the open French window, talking and laughing softly. Just watching them together
shot a ray of happiness through his depression, like light probing a thick curtain that cut Stephen Thomas off from the world. Victoria stroked the back of her hand down Satoshi's cheek, a gesture so loving, so erotic, that Stephen Thomas's eyes filled with tears.
His body responded to his sexual impulse with a stab of pain so sharp he nearly fainted. He caught his breath and froze. His left hand clenched. The chopsticks snapped, ramming splinters into the new web between his thumb and forefinger. His right hand gripped the arm of the bamboo chair, his nails bending against the hard wood.
He breathed cautiously and shallowly for several minutes. When he finally chanced a deeper breath, the pain had faded. He sighed shakily, with relief, put the broken chopsticks into the bento box, and released his death grip on the chair arm. As far as he could tell, no one had noticed his distress, no one knew or cared that he felt disoriented and dizzy. He picked chopstick splinters from his hand.
"I'm disappointed in you, Stephen Thomas."
He looked up.
Florrie Brown glared at him. Her feathery voice had an edge like a paper cut, invisible and shocking.
"Disappointed?"
"I didn't think you were a tease," she said.
Oh, fuck, he thought. What did Fox tell her?
He decided to take no chances on his answer.
"Florric, what are you talking about?"
"I think you know."
Up till now, he had found her coquettish way of dancing around a subject to be old-fashioned and charming. Up till now.
"No.,,
"You make promises, but you never intend to keep them."
"Promises?" What had Fox told her. "What promises?"
"For one*thing, you promised me a tea ceremony."
Thank god, they weren't talking about Fox after all.
"Jesus, the tea ceremony? Florrie, that takes a whole day. You can't just do it, you have to prepare for it. When have I had a whole day free since your welcome party?" Her welcome party seemed like months ago. He had promised her a tea ceremony, and the truth was he had not thought about it since. He still intended to do it, but he still had to finish teaming the damned thing. Not that he was about to admit it to Florrie.
She pressed on, insistent. "You shouldn't make a promise you don't intend to keep."
"I do intend to keep it," he said. "I just haven't kept it yet. There was this rebellion, remember? And then some aliens-it complicated my schedule."
"And you flirt with people without any intention of carrying through."
He laughed. He could not help it. Victoria and Satoshi teased him-even Merry had teased him, and Merry was hardly one to talk-about carrying through all too often.