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Jane walked to the bed and sat down. Her body felt heavy, lumpish, awkward. It was the starchy diet, the lack of exercise, the fact that there had never been any reason not to let herself go.
Sylvia sat down beside her, took out a brush, and began putting Jane's hair in order. How her hands flew! Contemplating them, Jane could imagine how graceful her mother must have been in her youth, how gay and flirty back before Jane had happened to her. "I saw your Aunt Lillian the other day," Sylvia said lightly. "She said that young Albert is going back to his wife again, can you imagine that? That's what—the third time? There's something off about that relationship if you ask me, something more than meets the eye." She paused to light a cigarette, eyed Jane critically. "How would you like it if I braided your hair in cornrows?"
Mom, she tried to say. I want to come home.
But nothing came out.
Nothing ever did.
She raised her head slightly and stared at the window again. Though it was not visible from this angle, in her imagination she could see the horrible thing she had been staring at when her mother entered. It was her own reflection. The round, puffy face, the carelessly applied makeup, the dark, resentful eyes. The cast of expression that said her attention was a million light-years distant.
Suddenly it came to Jane that things weren't going to get any better. She was trapped. She was going to stay in the institution forever, slowly growing older and heavier, draining off the sap of her mother's life a shriveling drop at a time until it was all gone. Then there would be no more visits. She would be alone, decaying, growing ever more silently bitter, creeping toward zero.
She began to cry.
Astonished, her mother dropped the brush. It clattered loudly on the floor.
The Baldwy
He released her.
In a panic she whirled and, dwarves scattering and falling away from her, fled the room. The door resisted her tugging, shuddering in its frame, until she thought to push. It opened onto the front office.
When she emerged, her party was gone.
Only the goblin remained. He waddled toward her, gri
Elves were fickle. They'd pick you up at a thought and drop you for no reason at all. They weren't to blame, really; it was just their nature. You didn't go out with one unless you were willing to take the chance of suddenly discovering yourself standing alone in a puddle in the dark with a pocket full of dried leaves, abandoned.
Those were the facts. Jane kept reminding herself of them, over and over, for all the long and fearful hour that it took her to make it back to Caer Gwydion. But what she really wanted was to feed the lot of them, with all their cousins and relations, to the mouth of the Teind. If she could have shoved them one and all through Hell Gate, she would have done so gladly.
By the time she got to the party, Jane had largely recovered from her encounter with the Baldwy
She discarded her mask and surrendered her cloak to a servant. Apollidon materialized in the foyer.
He saw her and headed straight for her boobs. "I'm nobody here," the parvenu said without preamble. "They all treat me like trash. Nobody here respects me for my ancestry."
"Well, they're pretty stuffy I guess," Jane said indifferently. He was still staring at her outfit. She could go home and change into a sweater and jeans, and he'd never recognize her.
"If I disappeared tonight and never showed up again, nobody would even miss me. I must be the most universally loathed individual in all creation."
"Really!" Jane was startled. Was it possible the answer had been staring her in the face all night long?
She resolved to find out.
Touching Apollidon's arm she sent a surge of desire up his nervous system. It was the same trick that Fata Jouissante had played on her earlier, and if she did not use it half so well, still, it was her first time. At any rate, to judge by the parvenu's reaction, she used it well enough. He shuddered and for the first time his eyes looked up and into hers. They co
Then Apollidon flushed with awareness of what she had done.
"You're perfect," Jane assured him before he could look away. "Come home with me."
— 21 —
CHEEK FLAT AGAINST TOMMY PADDLEFOOT'S THIGH, JANE waggled his penis back and forth. It was such a fu
It was only at times like this, immediately after sex, that Jane ever felt truly at peace anymore. She cherished this still, calm feeling of content, and prolonged it as best she could, wrapping the moment about her like a blanket that could briefly ward off the harsh shocks and chills of the world. She dreaded the rude instant that must inevitably come to end it.
"Hey. As long as you're down there anyway, how's about blowing a little tune on the mouth organ?"
Jane let it drop.
"That won't be necessary." She scraped up a bit of something from the wet spot and, holding the tip of her nail directly over his cock, whispered a summoning. "Stand up, Mister Bumble. Arise and grow larger." With her other hand she formed the mudra of spiritual expansion. And because she knew his organ's name and the proper techniques, it engorged with blood and stood erect for her.
Playtime was over. Back to work.
She sat up, twisted around, and crouched over Tommy's torpid form. With one hand, she guided Mister Bumble into Little Jane.
"You going to do the thing with the scarf again?"
"I'm going to do something better," she promised. "But to do it, I'll need your true name."
"Aw, no," Tommy Paddlefoot mumbled. "I really shouldn't."
"No?" She brushed her breasts lightly over his face, drawing them back from his questing mouth so that he only got the slightest sweet taste of nipple, and then reached a hand behind her to rake her nails lightly up his balls. He drew in his breath. "But you did like the game with the scarf?"
"Well, yeah, but—"
"You'll like this a whole lot better. I promise."
There was a pantry cupboard off the kitchenette that Jane had no use for. She opened the door and threw Tommy Paddlefoot's clothes inside. The cupboard had amassed quite a pile of silks, cottons, and leathers. Apollidon's plumed hat must surely be crushed flat. She slammed the door. "Ferret was asking questions today," she said.
"Oh?"
"Is that all you have to say—Oh? Doesn't the thought of Ferret sniffing after your trail even bother you?"
"No."
"It should. He knows there's something wrong about my background. It can only be so long before he finds out what."
An angry hiss of steam rattled the walls. But the dragon's voice was cool and aloof. "So you are being pursued! What a weak and pathetic waif I find myself harnessed to! You don't know the least jot of it. We have been more closely pursued than you can imagine and by powers that would freeze your blood to think upon. Eight times in the last year have we come close to discovery. Even now, all sources of flight-octane fuel are being carefully watched. They know I'm out here and they know how much fuel I took with me. They're sure I'll try for more sooner or later. And so I would, if we hadn't worked out this alternative source of energy."