“There’s something in that,” he laughed. “But all I ever wanted to own was the sky. Did a tour of duty in F-104’s, took a bunch of engineering courses because I wanted to build better airplanes, married a girl who thought I was going to be a nice, steady, rich airline pilot.”
“Lord, I know better than that already. Why would she get that idea?”
“Because I told her so,” he shrugged. “But I was wrong. I got a chance at something really wild and woolly to fly so I stayed in, and that’s when she started packing. Then in ‘sixty-five I climbed into a Blackbird, an SR-71, at Beale Air Force Base.” He sighed. “That’s where all the engineering paid off; I figured it would. Boy, that thing iswell, the only thing I’d rather have is parked right here. It’s a different kind of freedom. Found out, a year later, that I could resign from the service and still fly a Blackbird. Of course, I flew ‘em for CIA, but I had some freedom too. Stationed in a place called Tak Le in Thailand, sometimes flying out of Kadena in Okinawa. I met Dar Weston over there; flew recon during the Tet Offensive in ‘sixty-eight in another kind of plane, a Lockheed Quietship. The Q-ship could be hairy as a bear. The hellbug is kind of like a Q-ship gone to heaven.
“Eventually I picked up a fungus over there, practically grew moss in my ear. Inner ear infection can put you right out of the flying business. But Dar pulled a string or two for me with another spook agency: NSA. I thought it was just a fill-in job, until I realized I might be building things that fly. With some, uh, occasional test flights, I was pretty happy there until one weekend when I went on a fishing trip with an old buddy. And you know how that turned out. I can’t tell you what I’ve done since then. Mostly soak up desert sun,” he said. He had said “Nevada” to her once; twice would be overkill.
For a moment, from her regular breathing, he thought that she had fallen asleep. But, “What was she like?” Petra asked suddenly.
Somehow he knew instantly, as a gazelle knows in open country, that he was being stalked. To his own surprise, he enjoyed it, perhaps because Petra Leigh did a very nice job of stalking. Or maybe just because she was such a spectacular little stalker. “My wife, you mean.”
“No, your ear infection; yes, your wife,” she said, the tone making her sarcasm unmistakable.
He knew that she would resent him if he laughed. “Blond, tall as I am in heels,” he said, “and dynamite in a garter belt.”
“Stop it,” she said, low in her throat. “Not how she looked; what was she like?”
“That’s what she was like,” he said, “image was everything for Peggy. What she could see reflected in other people’s eyes was all that counted.”
Petra surprised him again with her giggle. “I thought she’d be smart, but I’m losing interest already.”
“She was valedictorian at Torrance,” he objected.
“Sure, if that was all that counted for her at the time. At Brown we call it ‘barfback’; she can feed back what she’s been given. Trained memory but retarded at the analytical level. I’ll bet you a really good kiss I can tell you something about her that you haven’t mentioned.”
“You’re on,” he said without thinking.
“She never, ever once did anything inventive or original,” she said. “And she probably never will.”
He fell silent a moment, then began to laugh. “That’s right.”
“Well, didn’t that bother you?”
Her tone became more urgent, almost pleading. “Didn’t you ever wish she’d come up with something new, something uncanny and maybe useful?”
“I may have,” he said. Yes. Sure, a hundred times, but then she wouldn’t have been Peggy. “It was a long time ago, Petra. She could be a gray-haired old woman by now.”
“Barfbacks are born old,” she said.
Rolling onto his side toward her, his head propped on one hand, he said, “Sounds like you’ve given it a lot of thought.”
“You bet I have. And it may be too soon to tell, but I’m developing some very definite ideas about you.”
He reached a hand out, felt the softness of her hair, caressed it down to her chin and left it there. “I know that, Petra; I’m not a completely insensitive clod. But you’re probably wrong about me, and there’s something I must…”
“Why don’t you just shut up and kiss me as if you meant it, and let me decide whether I’m right or wrong,” she urged, turning toward him.
He found her mouth with his own, gently, and tasted Classic Coke and felt the firm softness of her lips, parted in acceptance and, gradually, with increasing desire. Then her hand was in his hair in a gentle caress, more sensual than insistent, and now he tasted only her femaleness, and they moved together until she was lying supine, her breasts swelling wonderfully beneath his arm, his tongue evidently with a mind of its own, she accepting that too and responding in kind, and her breath filled his lungs, an almost-forgotten sense of sharing for him. He lifted his head then, knowing she must feel his erection growing against her hip, and rolled away with a manful attempt to quell his impulses.
She moved again to face him and uttered a sigh that was almost a moan. “Marvelous,” she whispered, her fingers blindly tracing down his arm. “For such a muscular devil you can be awfully tender, Kyle.”
He had his breathing under control, enough to say, “To think I’ve been calling you ‘kid.’”
A giggle. “We’re even, then; I started out thinking of you as a hardened old bastard.” She eased an arm around his chest and placed her face in the hollow of his throat and then murmured, “Well, listen, old bastard, we were both wrong.”
He put a hand up to her hair, stroking lightly, turning to kiss her forehead, and then she lifted her face and initiated a kiss that began in tenderness but soon became a long, lingering wonderment for him as he flung his caution aside, his tongue tracing her lips, kissing her throat as she held his head cradled in her arms.
And when he lifted his head again, she was unbuttoning her blouse for him, and for herself. “Must I tell you ‘yes,’ Kyle? This is why yesses were invented.”
“No,” he said, suddenly, almost truculently, sitting up, leaning forearms on knees, staring into the starlit sky. “This is fucking crazy,” he muttered.
“Sounds good to me,” she teased, sitting up too, her chin on her knees.
“Stop it,” he growled, and faced her. “Listen, you: I didn’t think a woman could bother me, let alone get me questioning my own motives, anymore. I like you, Petra, a hell of a lot, but”
“I could get to be almost lovable,” she murmured.
He laughed helplessly, and snapped his fingers. “Like that,” he agreed. “That’s why I won’t make love to you for the wrong reason. You said vengeance was my worst quality, and you were right.”
“Ah,” she said, and fell silent. After a long pause she said, “And you’ve only been making me fall in love with you for revenge. On my uncle,” she accused.
He raised his hands and shook them. “Don’t make it sound like I’ve done it on purpose. But revenge is the last passion remaining to old men, and it has crossed my mind that nothing could possibly even my score with that uncle of yours more than for him to know I raped you before I let you go.”
“I can think of something worse,” she said. “If I told him I raped you! Wouldn’t be far off the mark, either.”
He began to chuckle, his shoulders shaking with it. Then, “God, it’s ingenious. You’d do that?”
“No. I could say ‘yes’ if all I wanted was to get laid tonight, but, Kyle, I think we feel the same. I’m not certain I could fall in love with anyone on such short acquaintance, but I like you, I really, really do,” she said, massaging his upper arm with gentle fingers. “I know you’re twice my age, I know when I’m forty you’ll be Methuselah. But that’s a long time from now. Maybe I wouldn’t care then, either.”