“So how are you going to lose the ship that might be following us?”
“With difficulty, possibly.”
“So what was the other alternative?”
“Employ some method to obscure your exact destination. That should be easier. The android Eglyle Parinherm might be useful at that point. I’d like to wake it.”
“Fine by me. See if you can convince it it’s not all a sim.”
xLOU Caconym
oMSV Pressure Drop
So, our little group has grown with the inclusion of the You Call This Clean? as well as the Empiricist. And something called the Smile Tolerantly is another accomplice of the long-lived Mr Q. Only, looking at my edition of the relevant ship lists, the Smile Tolerantly disappeared up its own wazoo some 140 years before the Warm, Considering was even built, and was itself only brought into being just under four thousand years ago, so leaving open the question of who else might have been aiding and abetting the elusive geezer in the various meantimes. Any ideas?
∞
None. Further research is required.
∞
Wait. I want to write that down.
Fourteen
(S -14)
“Does she touch you… like this?”
“Ah… ah yes, very much like that. Just… like that.”
“And kiss you, like this?”
“…Somewhat like that. Only a little like that.”
“Only a little?”
“She kisses me differently. Oh, this is not… I shouldn’t… I really shouldn’t be telling you any of this. This is so… You are the most terrible man.”
“I know, I know. I hate myself. Am I not just the most terrible, terrible man?”
“You are, I don’t know… Oh, now what?”
“Let me see… does she kiss you like that?”
“No. Again, no, not quite like that.”
“In some other way?”
“In some other way.”
“How many ways are there, to kiss? I… I really have no idea. I am not so well versed as you might… let’s see…”
“…Well, then. Now. She kisses, let me see… more lightly, just as… passionately, but with less, less… less intensity, less muscularity.”
“Muscularity?”
“I think that is the word.”
“And, with the touching, is it like this…?”
“Oh, ah, yes, sometimes, though…”
“Yes?”
“Her hands, her fingers.”
“Like this?”
“No, not… something like… her hands, see, are more slender, the fingers are longer, they are more delicate. Yours are… fuller, more…”
“Filling?”
“Yes. And grasping.”
“Grasping? Grasping? I’m shocked, Virisse! Am I really grasping?”
“Ha, I mean… hungry, given to clutching, gripping, even grabbing.”
“And now grabbing! Good gracious!”
“You grabbed me, don’t you remember? That first time, when we were in the garden of the parliament. That evening? You said you wanted to talk about some long-term aspect of her schedule, do you remember?”
“Of course I remember. Here is more comfortable, though, don’t you think? I swear if we weren’t all departing so shortly I might have to have this bed reinforced, just to cope with our exertions.”
“Her birthday, the following year. You said you wanted to plan something special for her because it would be her sixtieth. Then. That was when you grabbed at me, almost as soon as you had me alone, in that night-shady bower.”
“I grabbed you? Are you sure this was me?”
“Oh, now. Who else? You know this. You did.”
“I thought you wanted to be grabbed.”
“I might have.”
“Just as well I did, then, wouldn’t you say?”
“I think I will say anything, when we are like this, when you hold me like this.”
“Really? I must think up something extremely terrible, then, to exploit that admission.”
“You mustn’t. You can’t. I’m at your mercy; it would be cruel, wrong.”
“To the contrary! It would only be right. You offer me this, I must take it. You lay yourself open; I must in.”
“Ah. Ah… yes. Oh, dear Scribe… But… not anything. Not anything at all. I am not so totally… I am not so… I am not…”
“Not what, Virisse?”
“I can’t remember. I have forgotten what I am not.”
“Well. Better that than forgetting what you are.”
“You steal all I have away, like this, when we lie like this. I feel laid bare, all washed away.”
“Does she do this? Does she have that same effect?”
“Oh, my love, why do you always have to ask me to make these…?”
“Because I’m fascinated. Everything about you fascinates me. How can I not be consumed by… not envy, but interest, to know how you lie with her, how much of what you do with me is what you do with her?”
“Is it not enough to know that you and I do what we do? Do we have to compare? Must we always compete?”
“How can we not? The urge to compare and compete is as basic as any. As basic as this.”
“Must it be, though?”
“It is; that’s all that matters. And does she touch you like this?”
“Oh. Oh. Oh. Yes, yes she does.”
“How I’d love to compare. How I’d love to see. How I’d love to watch.”
“See, my love? Watch?”
“Is that too much to ask?”
“Prophet’s kiss, Septame! You want the three of us…?”
“Septame, is it, now! Why…”
“Oh, don’t stop, don’t stop to laugh. Laugh if you must, but don’t stop.”
“Well, I plough on. But no, I didn’t think to suggest that she and I might have you both, together.”
“No. That would be too… I couldn’t… anyway, she would never…”
“No, of course not. When I have you, I want you all to myself. And I want you to have me, all to yourself. I’d have no dilution of this… concentration, this… tenacity.”
“What, then?”
“Just to watch, just to see you with her.”
“She still would not.”
“I know. I wouldn’t expect her to. And secreting myself within some hidden space, like a courtier in some ancient tragedy, would be absurd.”
“Put it from your mind, my love. Concentrate on this, on now, on us.”
“The more I do, the more I want to see you and know you in all your states, in all your moods and passions, and that must include with her. Just once, just to see, later, not at the time. And it would be so easily accomplished; I can source the sort of means no civilian or journalist can find.”
“Oh, dear gods, you’ve thought about this. You’re serious! No, no, still; don’t stop…”
“Serious, ardent. Please. It would mean so much.”
“It might mean my job! My career; all my standing. She’s the president!”
“She is president for thirteen more days, as I am a septame for thirteen more days. All that means nothing then and already starts to mean even less now. What does matter is that she is a woman, you are a woman and I am a man.”
“But still…”
“Still nothing, my love, my beautiful love. We strip off our importance with our clothes. That’s all that matters; not our titles. They only have meaning in public, not in moments like these, when we are purely, perfectly ourselves. Only a man — a weak man, a hopelessly curious, desperate-to-know man — asks this of you, my Virisse, not a politician. Just a man. Your man, your man, your man.”
“But if… if… if…”