The Iron Dragon's Daughter

— 16 —

RAVEN HAD BEEN TALKING OF GETTING A FEW FRIENDS together and organizing an orgy for the naming. Jane liked orgies well enough, but she didn't relish the thought of making a big event out of it. Something quiet and meaningful was more her speed.

So the last day before winter break she had a few words with Jimmy Jump-up in the hall after class. Jimmy was a decent sort, if a bit stolid. He contrived to smuggle her into his dorm room without being seen. It was a cold day and sleet was gathering in the corners of his window. He clattered down the blinds and carefully remade the bed.

They necked for a while, and then they took off each other's clothes.

"Where's that booklet?" Jimmy asked. Jane handed it to him and sat back on her heels at the head of his bed, knees wide apart. He lit a joss stick, then bowed down low before her cunt.

"Small beauty, flower of life," he began.

Already his cock was stiff. Because he was nearsighted, Jimmy had kept his glasses on. He held the missal out to one side, face solemn as he read the liturgy praising her cunt's every quality and appointment, her colors, texture, shape, and scent. To Jane this was irresistibly comic. She had to struggle not to laugh.

"May all visitors show you proper respect." He let a drop of the red chrism fall from its bottle onto her belly. The oil tickled slightly as it crept downward. The air was chill. It hardened Jane's nipples and raised gooseflesh on the backs of her arms.

"May you never want." He unstoppered the bottle of gold chrism.

With each prayer he bowed lower, and his mouth came closer. She could feel his warm breath on her thighs, stirring the hairs of her crotch, soft as a thought on her cunt. His rumbling words went right through her flesh and still he did not touch her. By slow degrees Jane had lost her impulse to laugh. She ached with desire. But it was important to wait.

At last Jimmy straightened and put down the booklet. "What name have you chosen for her?"

"Little Jane."

"So be it."

Jimmy Jump-up poured the clear chrism. Then he put his glasses aside and, mingling the oils, worshiped Little Jane with his hands. After a while he worshiped her with his mouth. And finally Jane grabbed him by the hair and pulled his mouth up to hers, and he worshiped her with everything he had.

Technically the ceremony was over. But as a practical matter, what came next was vastly important. The purpose of naming Little Jane was to render her cooperative and pliant, to make of her a friend and an ally for life. Her future conduct would be greatly influenced by the quality of her first postnaming experience.

For a while Jane concentrated on making it a good experience. Then she got distracted. Time passed. Jimmy's face turned red and he began making chuffing noises, like a malfunctioning steam engine. Jane wrapped her legs tight around his waist and hugged him to her as hard as she could.

She came then, and the room filled with butterflies.

Jimmy looked up, astonished. His face was blank and gaping. Then he began to laugh. There were bright wings everywhere. Flakes of red-orange-cobalt blue winked in and out of existence, in fleeting patterns that could be glimpsed but not grasped before dissolving into new forms. It was like being inside a kaleidoscope. Jimmy inhaled a tiny swallowtail and almost choked, and by the time Jane had done pounding him on his back they were both laughing helplessly.

They hurriedly pulled their clothes on and, waving towels, shooed the majority of the insects out into the hall. The hall monitor came out from his room just as they shut the door, and went roaring up and down the hall, trying to find out who was responsible. Jane had to lie facedown on the bed, biting a pillow to stifle her giggles. Her sides ached. At one point the monitor came right to their door and stood listening and they were almost discovered.

It seemed an auspicious begi

The next day was unseasonably warm and Jane went out on the Campanile with only a windbreaker. The Campanile had never rung that Jane could recall. Perhaps there was no money for it. But on a good day it was a fine place to hang out with a few friends, catch some sun, and maybe get stoned.

An erratic breeze whipped Jane's hair back. She stuck her hands in her hip pockets and leaned into it. From the top of Tintagel she could see the three other University buildings and beyond them the clustered ranks of buildings great and small that made up the Great Gray City. They were an army of stone, marching to a battle somewhere beyond the horizon. Gray and hazy they looked against a sky that was as white as a blank sheet of paper.

Sirin wasn't here yet, but Jane rolled herself a smoke anyway. It took three matches to light. She drew in, closed her eyes, exhaled slowly. Leaning back against one of the Campanile's support beams, she stared up at the black bronze bells, streaked white with pigeon droppings.

A kind of bleak exhilaration filled her then. Somehow she was going to survive, raise the money to complete her education, and make a place for herself in the world. The blind, clifflike surfaces of the City convinced her of it. Surely there must be niches enough in so vast and anonymous a habitat for one as small and insignificant as she to get by.

"Bitch of a view, ain't it?"

She turned. The speaker crouched on the lip of the stone railing. He was monkey-browed, chinless, squint-eyed, loose-lipped, pugnosed, batwinged, potbellied, goat-horned, hunchbacked, sphinx-haunched, and altogether charming. A thuggish light gleamed in his slitted eyes. A gargoyle.

"Yes," she said. "Yes, it is."

"You going to hold onto that thing all day?"

Jane looked down at her hand, then up at the gargoyle. She dug through her knapsack looking for something the right weight. Then she put the joint down on the rail and anchored it with a compact. "Want a drag?"

"Don't mind if I do." The gargoyle shuffled closer and extended a long, apish arm. His blunt fingers closed about the cigarette. He took a slow, careful drag, then offered it back at arm's length. Jane shook her head. She knew something about gargoyles' hunting strategies.

"What's your name?" the gargoyle asked.

"Jane."

He made a brusque, clumsy, almost comical bow. "Sordido di Orgulous, at your service. Come here to sort things out, did you?"

"No, there's somebody I'm hoping to meet." Jane was looking for Sirin and Nant had told her that she liked to hang out here about this time of day.

"Me too."

Jane stared out into the City, enjoying its complexity, its size, its silence. Finally, more to be polite than because she actually cared, she said, "Another gargoyle?"

Sordido guffawed. "Haw! We rock people are too territorial for that. I got the south face, top fifteen floors. North face, top, belongs to Lordo di Branstock. Down below you got Sozzo di Tintagel. A local boy. One of those sleazebags sets foot on my turf, and I'll teach him a little lesson in how to fall.

"No, I got a regular little clientele comes out to talk things over with me. I'm a good listener. Comes of having such a slow metabolism. I don't get bored easily."

"What sorts of things do they talk about?"

"You'd be surprised. Shit they wouldn't tell their best friends. Most of 'em are just having a little flirt with danger. Others have got a serious self-destructive streak. They talk. I listen. They ask my advice. I give it. Every so often I manage to sweet-talk one over the edge. Then I eat. Nine times out of ten, that's what they were really after from the begi

A dark suspicion seized Jane. "You wouldn't know her name, would you?"