“That costume,” said Jack, “looks awfully familiar.”
“It’s the houri uniform you gave me in Paradise,” murmured Megan. “I saved it for the appropriate moment. Tonight’s the night for your reward. Come on out onto the patio. We’ll be alone out there. And there’s no genies to disturb us.”
“That sounds wonderful,” said Jack, following his fiancée into the garden. A few minutes later found them on the same large glider in the center of the sea of red and white carnations.
“Forget the small talk,” said Megan, wrapping her arms around Jack’s neck. “Kiss me, you fool.”
He obeyed happily. And often.
“Sorry I’m not particularly seductive this evening,” declared Megan, her breath coming in short gasps, “but I’ve been a good girl long enough. Get out of those clothes, my love, before I rip them off you.”
Jack was in no mood to disobey a direct order. Especially that direct order. Hastily, he reached for his belt buckle. And froze, as he heard a rustling on the roof behind them.
“I love this part,” said a familiar voice.
“Yeah, me too,” answered the other. “I wonder if they’ll try that position where—
“Hey,” yelled Jack, “what the hell are you two birds doing here? Why aren’t you with my mother in New Jersey?”
“We’re cursed,” said Megan. “We’re cursed.”
“Your mom was glad to see us…,” said Hugo.
“…for about fifteen minutes,” continued Mongo. “She said the past few weeks were the first time she’s had peace and quiet for the last five hundred years. Evidently Freda enjoyed the silence. She sent us back to stay with you two for the foreseeable future.”
“Oh, terrific,” said Jack, as his sweetheart muttered something about a recipe for raven stew. “Then when do I get to be alone, without any observers, with Megan?”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”
Author’s Note
Zeno’s famous paradox, “Achilles and the Tortoise,” is based on the mistaken premise that the sum of an infinite series of numbers is infinite. It isn’t.
While many of the people and events in this novel exist only in the imagination of the author, the testing of an anthrax plague on unsuspecting citizens of St. Petersburg is true. Which proves that truth is much more frightening than fiction.