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"Well, I speak Spanish," David said. "Maybe you didn't notice our staff are Texan, Hispanics."
"Oh, seen, I notice them," Sticky said. This was the first time Sticky had used such a thick patois. "I noticed you sleep up in the castle tower." Sticky pointed upstairs. "While they sleep down here by the kitchen."
"Oh, you reckon so?" David drawled, stung. "You want those old folks to walk up two flights of stairs, I guess. While we keep the baby down here to wake our guests.
"I see what I see," Sticky said. "You say, no more wage slaves, equal rights in the big mother Rizome. Everybody votes. No bosses--coordinators. No board-a Central Com- mittee. But your wife still give orders and they still cook and clean. "
"Sure," Laura broke in. "But not for us, Sticky. For you."
"That's a good one," Sticky said, riveting his hot eyes on
Laura. "You talk a good line after those P.R. courses at the university. Diplomatic, like your mother. "
There was a sudden silence. "Chill out, Sticky," the old man murmured. "You gettin' red, boy."
"Yeah," David said, still smarting. "Maybe you better take it a little easy on that milk."
"There's nothing in this milk," Sticky said. He shoved the thermos at Laura, who was closest. "You try it."
"All right, Laura said abruptly. She had a sip. It was cloyingly sweet. She handed it back. "That reminds me.
David, did you feed the baby?"
David gri
There was nothing in the milk, she decided. Nothing was going to happen to her. She sipped her wine to wash the taste away.
Carlotta laughed suddenly, breaking the tension. "You're a caution, Sticky." She started rubbing his shoulders, "It's no use you bein' down on Mr. and Mrs. Married Life. They're straights, that's all. Not like us."
"You don't see it yet, girl. You haven't heard 'em talk upstairs." Sticky had lost his temper, and his accent. He was starting to sound more and more like a cable news a
Laura thought. That flat Mid-Atlantic television English. Global
Net talk. Sticky pulled Carlotta's hand away and held it.
"Straights aren't what they used to be. They want it all now-the whole world. One world. Their world." He stood up, pulling her to her feet. "Come on, girl. The bed needs shaking."
"Buenas noches," David called out as they left. "Suenos dukes, cuidado con las chinches!" Sticky ignored him.
Laura poured herself another glass and knocked back half of it. The old man opened his eyes. "He's young," he said.
"I was rude," David said contritely. "But I du
"Not America, no," the old man said. "You Yankees aren't Babylon. You only part of her, now. Babylon-she- multinational, Babylon-she-multilateral." He chanted the words.
"Babylon she come to get us where we live." He sighed.
"You like it here, I know. I ask the old women, they say they like it too. They say you nice, you baby's cute. But where she growing up, that baby, in your nice one world with its nice one set of rules? She have no place to run. You think that over, seen? Before you come down on us. " He stood up, yawning. "Tomorrow, eh? Tomorrow." He left.
Silence fell. "Let's go to bed," Laura said at last. They went upstairs.
The baby was sleeping peacefully. Laura had been check- ing her crib monitor with the watchphone. They pulled their clothes off and slid into bed together. "What a weird old duck that Stubbs is," David said. "Full of stories. He said
... he said he was in Grenada in '83 when the U.S. Marines invaded. The sky was full of choppers shooting Cubans. They took over the radio station and played Yankee pop music. The
Beach Boys, he said. I thought he meant the Marines at first.
Beach boys."
Laura frowned. "You're letting him get to you, David.
That nice old codger and his poor little island. His poor little island is taking a big bite out of our ass. That snotty remark about Mother-they must have dossiers on both of us, the size of phone books. And what about that Church girl, huh? I don't like that business one bit."
"We've got a lot in common with Grenada," David said.
"Galveston was a pirate haven, once upon a time. Good old
Jean Lafitte, remember? Back in 1817. Hijacking shipping, yo-ho-ho, bottle of rum, the whole routine. David gri
"Maybe you and I could start a haven, okay? Just a snug little one that we could run from the conference room. We'd find out how many teeth old Sticky's grandmother has."
"Don't even think it," Laura said. She paused. "That girl.
Carlotta. You think she's attractive?"
He sank down into his pillow. "A little," he said. "Sure."
"You kept looking at her."
"I think she was high on those Church pills," he said.
"Romance. It does something for a woman, to have that glow. Even if it's fake."
"I could take one of those pills," Laura said carefully.
"I've been totally nuts about you before. It didn't do any permanent damage."
David laughed. "What's gotten into you tonight? I couldn't believe you drank that milk. You're lucky you're not seeing little blue dogs leaping out of the wall. " He sat up in bed, waving his hand. "How many fingers?"
"Forty," she said, smiling.
"Laura, you're drunk. " He pi
A warm, solid, comfortable crush. "Good," she said. "Give me ten more." His face was an inch away and she smelled wine on her own breath.
He kissed her twice, then reached down and gave her a deep, intimate caress. She threw her arms around him and closed her eyes, enjoying it. Good strong warm hand. She relaxed, sinking into the mood. A nice little trough of chemis- try there, as scratchy pleasure melted into lust. The wariness that took her through the day evaporated as she relaxed into arousal. Good-bye, calculating Laura; hello, co
Here we go, she thought. A nice solid slide inside her.
Surely nothing was ever better than this. She smiled up into
David's face.
That look in his eyes. It had scared her sometimes, the first times, and excited her. That look of sweet David gone and something else in his place. Some other part of him, primal.
Something that she couldn't control, that could take her own control away. Sex had been like that in the first days of their affair, something wild and strong and romantic, and not entirely pleasurable. Too close to fainting, too close to pain.
Too strange...
But not tonight. They slipped into a good thumping rhythm.
A good mauling hug and a good solid pounding. Fine' solid, dependable sex. Building up to orgasm like laying bricks.
Angel architects laid bricks like this in the walls of heaven.
Level one, level two, taking their time, level three, almost done now, and there it was. Climax washed through her, and she moaned happily. He was still at it. It was no use aiming for another one, and she didn't try, but it came anyway, a small little twinge with a pleasure all its own, like smelling brandy in another room.
Then he was through. He rolled onto his side of the bed, and she felt his sweat cooling on her skin. A good feeling, intimate as a kiss. "Oh, lord," he said, not meaning any- thing, just breathing the words out. He slid his legs under the covers. He was happy, they were lovers, all was right in the world. They would be sleeping soon.
"David?"
"Yes, light of my life?"
She smiled. "Do you think we're straight?"
He laced his hands behind his head against the pillow. He looked at her sidelong. "Tired of the missionary position?"