- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
- All the Possibilities
- Next
- Prey
- Sphere
- Black Rose
- The Great Train Robbery
- Blue Dahlia
- Carnal Innocence
- Dance Upon the Air
- High Noon
- Lawless
- Sacred Sins
- Tribute
- Face the Fire
- Holding the Dream
- A Man for Amanda
Me Tanner, You JanePage 8
I squatted next to her and rubbed her little back. Her skin was warm velvet. I rubbed her back and found that I was grinding my teeth. I stopped grinding my teeth. “I took off all my clothes,” she said. “I hope you do not mind.” “It doesn’t matter to me,” I said. “So I thought. Since I do not exist for you as a sex object, you are untouched by my nudity. So I thought.” “Well, you were right.” “Yes. I enjoy the feeling of your hands on me.” “I’m glad.” “It is very pleasant,” she said. She rolled over suddenly and my hands were on her breasts. “Oh, Evan,” she said. “Oh, Evan, I love you.” Her mouth was warm and urgent and greedy. Her fingers hurried with buttons and zipper. I slipped out of my clothes and lay down beside her. My hands returned to her breasts. She thrust her hips forward, urged the warmth of her loins against me. A lot of little voices inside my head started talking at once, arguing with one another. The loudest of them all said, “Look, dummy, this is certainly a dumb time to start being a saint.” I kissed her mouth. I kissed her throat. I kissed her little brown breasts. She made purring sounds and I kissed her and stroked her. Her legs opened and her thighs beat at me like moths at a lighted window. Another little voice, a last little voice, asked me petulantly what I thought I was getting into, and what I was getting into was Plum, and it was very nice, very nice indeed. Afterward I put some more sticks on the fire and we shared the melon we had put aside for breakfast. Her flesh glowed pornographically in the firelight. She bit into the melon and the juice trickled down her face and onto her body. She looked marvelous. “Well,” she said, between mouthfuls. “That wasn’t so bad at all, was it?” “You lied.” “Did I?” “A woman of the world. A woman who ceased long ago to be a virgin.” “It seems long ago,” she said, thoughtfully. “It seems like twenty minutes or so.” “Perhaps.” “A woman strangled by sexual frustration. ‘When a woman is accustomed to sex, it is a hardship to do without it.’ Teller of untruths.” “It was a pre-truth.” She giggled suddenly and melon juice cascaded onto her breasts. “You would not have done it otherwise, would you?” “I don’t know.” I reached for her. She squirmed loose, giggling. I caught her and she threw her arms around my neck. Melon juice got all over us, but we didn’t notice this until quite a while later. When she said, “You wouldn’t have done it if you knew. Or not right away, it would have taken more provocation, and it was hard enough to provoke you as it was. And I wanted us to do this. It is silly not to, don’t you think? We are all alone in the middle of the country and we should be close together, and are we not close now?” “We are,” I agreed. “And you love me, don’t you, Evan?” “Uh-huh.” “And it does not disturb you that I am of color?” “Of course not.” “Or that I am fourteen?” “Fourteen?” She put her hand on my arm. “You are angry with me.” “I-” “It too was a pre-truth. Fourteen going on fifteen. Everyone who is fourteen years old is well on the way to being fifteen. It is the natural order of things.” I didn’t say anything. She curled up against me and her head nestled in the crook of my arm. She smelled wonderfully of damp earth and matted grass and leftover love. She said sleepily, “Fourteen, fifteen, just numbers. The number of times the sun goes around the earth.” “I think it’s the other way around.” “Oh. All right. I think I will go to sleep now. I love you. Good night.” She went at once to sleep, as she was apt to do. I lay awake breathing her smell and tending the fire and listening to predators howling in the distance. I felt an unwelcome kinship to them. I told myself I was a dirty old man and that what had happened this night would not be repeated. And I told myself the very same thing the next morning, and the next night, and so on each morning and each evening, as we screwed our way into the heart of the country. Chapter 6 The weather was really fantastic. I had expected it to be too hot, it being summer in Africa, but from the vantage point of a New York winter I had figured that too hot was just right. It wasn’t, though, not where we were. It was hot but not too hot, and it rained for about an hour a day, and the general climatic conditions were rather like Southern California. People move to California at an extraordinary rate, while hardly anybody ever goes to Modonoland. You might think there are reasons. There are reasons. More reasons, in fact, than one can shake a stick at. A cloud of biting flies, for example, to cite a reason at which we actually tried shaking a stick. I don’t know where the cloud of biting flies came from, or why, but in the middle of an otherwise unblemished afternoon they were suddenly upon us, doing as biting flies are wont to do. Flailing at them with our hands did no good. Beating at them with sticks did no good. Waiting for them to go away seemed overly passive. Plum said, “Run!” “It’s no use. They can move faster than we can. They-” “Run!” She ran off to her left at full speed, wagging her hands at the flies as she did so. I ran after her. The flies, like the poor, were always with us. “This way!” She darted. I followed. There were some trees, and there was a gap in the trees, and there was a still pool through the gap in the trees. Plum plunged in. I followed. The pool was about four feet deep with a soft stoneless bottom. We crouched with just our faces showing, and the flies decided to make do with our faces. When I tried slapping them away from my face, they settled on my hand. |
- The Loners
- The Saints
- Switched
- Fangtastic!
- Re-Vamped!
- Vampalicious!
- Tome of the Undergates
- Black Halo
- The Skybound Sea
- If You Stay
- If You Leave
- Until We Burn
- Before We Fall
- Every Last Kiss
- Fated
- Suspiciously Obedient
- Random Acts of Crazy
- Random Acts of Trust
- Her First Billionaire
- Her Second Billionaire
- Her Two Billionaires
- Her Two Billionaires and a Baby
- His Majesty's Dragon
- Throne of Jade
- Black Powder War
- Victory of Eagles
- Tongues of Serpents
- Empire of Ivory
- Crucible of Gold
- Delirium