We all toasted that remark.
It was based on that conversation that I started to wonder-if the human world were a false face, what lay under the mask?
Why were the gods in hiding, if men were their cattle?
My cash was still trapped in my fourth-dimensional pocket, but I had no chance to go to the ladies' room and rotate it into being. Colin, with grand and solemn drama, swept up the bill when the waiter brought it, and he left a healthy tip, bankrupting himself for a gesture.
"Now you have to put out," he said to me with his crooked smile. "It's tradition."
Insults bubbled up to my lips (a natural process brought on by exposure to Colin). Victor spoke before I did, though, saying in the cool, remote voice, "I believe the American tradition, in cases where the gentleman propositions a lady after paying for her meal with money she secured for him, is to take him out back and drub him. Quentin, would you care to join me?"
To my surprise, little Quentin did step up to Colin and grab him by one arm, while Victor grabbed the other.
"Hey!" shouted Colin. Heads turned at the shout. Patrons of the restaurant murmured in alarm.
I said, "The Dark Mistress is amused by the circus of gladiators, but this is not the place! If you boys can peer through the cloud of manly testosterone you're emitting, note the approach of the maitre d'hotel! Don't do anything that will make them call the police!"
Victor nodded at Quentin, and in a trice, they had Colin hoisted up to their shoulders (lopsidedly, since Victor is taller than Quentin) and were singing, "He's a jolly good fellow! So say all of us!"
The patrons, relieved, smiled and turned back to their meals. One or two even clapped.
The maitre d' approached anyway. "What is the meaning of this?"
I said, "Well... we're British."
He blinked, but the answer seemed to satisfy him. Victor and Quentin staggered out under their load, who waved and smiled at the other patrons, especially the ladies. Once outside in the parking lot, away from other eyes, the two unceremoniously dumped him to the pavement.
"Ow!" Colin stood and tried to rub both his bum and his head at the same time, which had collided loudly with the pavement, also at the same time.
Vanity uttered a moan of disappointment. "There is a Dumpster not five steps away! You could have at least tossed him in the trash!"
By that time it was dark, and there was really no point in setting off into the sea at night, rather than wait till morning. And a comfortable bed in a hotel with room service and cable television was preferable to sleeping aboard the ship, right? And we did not have to save our money, since we were about to travel to some uncharted island, right? So why not rent the penthouse suite?
All were pleased with that decision, but less pleased when I announced, once we were alone in the room, the girls were taking one room and the boys were bunking in the other. Vanity scowled and wondered aloud when I had gotten so prissy in my old age.
I said sternly, "It is a matter of maintaining unit discipline, troops! Vanity, you will have to do your snogging with Quentin in the daytime, with no extramarital temptations to put added stress on this group. We were properly brought up little gods and goddesses, all except for Colin, and I see no reason to descend into lusty barbarism merely because we are in America."
That got me boos and catcalls (one catcall), but there were only two rooms in the suite, and I was not going to bunk with Victor and Colin.
Vanity said, "You sound like Boggin. This is out of your jurisdiction, Leader! What we do with our time off is not your business."
I shrugged and said, "Elect Colin leader if you like, but while I am Dark Mistress of the Merry Wee Titans of Chaos, we are going to maintain our dignity and decorum. Makes the boys fight harder."
Well, it was put to a vote of confidence immediately. Vanity voted against me, but could not bring herself to vote for Colin, so she voted for Quentin; Victor and Quentin supported me. I voted for Victor. Colin voted for himself, of course.
Quentin caught my eye and gave me a nod of approval. Quentin was no more likely to offend the sacrament of marriage than Grendel Glum had been. Humans might have some option about which laws to obey and which to ignore, but I don't think monsters and warlocks do.
"A clear and overwhelming plurality," I sighed. "That's it, people: While in America, we act like Puritans. It's tradition."
Vanity, at this point, asked if we could depart America as soon as possible. She started pointing out the advantages of camping out on some deserted island, and saying how our limited funds had been used for extraordinary extravagances lately.
"A quick trip to the all-night sporting-goods store, to pick up a few needed supplies," Vanity said,
"and then we should be on our way."
Colin nodded somberly and said, "By 'needed supplies,' you mean birth control, right?"
That was too much for Quentin, who did not want to see his beloved called a harlot. He muttered a curse under his breath and made a small gesture with his walking stick. Of course, when Quentin mutters a curse, it works: Colin hopped as if stung by a bee, yowling in pain and clutching his bum.
Yes, there was an all-night sporting-goods store in San Francisco. The store's loudspeakers were vibrating with energetic dance tunes, and the clerks working there were bright-eyed and hyperactive, no doubt as a side effect. They even had a little elevator just for the sports shoes to ride. What a country! The cash that Victor and Vanity still carried was enough to cover the costs of tents and tarps and sleeping bags made of shiny space-age materials I had never heard tell of.
Quentin paid for the cooking gear, knives, a hatchet, and an axe. Victor invested twenty dollars in a Boy Scout Handbook and a U.S. Army Survival Manual.
Vanity called her ship to her, and we all flew over to the deck, either levitating magnetically, or by warping space-time to deflect gravity, or by uttering a charm to the unseen spirits of the middle air, or by jumping off the docks with a scream that turned in midscream into the shrill of a hawk.
Vanity rode on my back amid wings made of flame-colored music-energy.
Of course she would have preferred Quentin to carry her in his arms, but the nervous shyness of his familiar spirits made that unlikely. She complained while we flew that she could have found a shortcut through a phone-booth door or something directly to the deck. Then she said I was too close to the water, and then that I was too high, yak, yak, yak. Backbone driver!