The SVP had just awarded her the Romer-Simpson medal, and she was making her acceptance speech.
In her fantasy, she was wearing a wide denim skirt instead of her usual jeans. With one hand, she pulled the skirt up above her knees. Then she seized Leyster by the hair and forced his head between her legs. She wasn’t wearing any panties.
“Lick me,” she whispered harshly in a moment when her speech was interrupted by spontaneous applause. Then, cunningly, “If you do a good enough job, I might let you go.”
Which was a lie, but she wanted him to do his damnedest to please her.
Leyster was shockingly erect. She could tell by the earnest and enthusiastic way he ran his tongue up and down her cleft. By the small noises he made as he nuzzled and kissed her until she was moist and wide. By the barely-controlled ardor with which he licked and played with her clit.
But as he labored (and she spoke, to thunderous approval), the quality of his lovemaking changed profoundly. It became gentler, more lingering… romantic, even. This was—in her fantasy, she could tell—no longer an act of lust but one of love. In the heat of the act he had, all against his will, fallen in love with her. Inwardly he raged against it. But he was helpless before his desire, unable to resist the flood of his own consuming passion.
It was at that moment that she reached orgasm.
At the same time that she came in her fantasy, Salley grabbed the soft inner parts of her thighs—it was a point of pride with her never to touch her private parts at such moments—and squeezed as hard as she could, digging in with her nails until pain became pleasure and pleasure became release.
Afterwards, she leaned back, thinking about Griffin. She was aware of the irony of including Richard Leyster in her fantasies. But she didn’t feel that this was in any way being unfaithful to Griffin. Just because you loved somebody didn’t mean you had to fantasize about him.
She did love him. Salley inevitably fell for every man she had sex with. It was, she supposed, a genetic predisposition hardwired into her personality. But, still, the thought that this time was for real and forever was inherently odd.
Why him?
Griffin was such a strange man to fall for! She knew the smell of his cologne, and that he invariably wore Argyle socks (she had never before been involved with a man who even knew what Argyle socks were) and a hundred other things about him as well. She knew that the awful watch he wore was a Rolex Milgauss, self-winding, anti-magnetic, and originally designed to sell to nuclear power plant engineers. But she didn’t really know him at all. His inner essence was still a mystery.
When Gertrude had popped into her life like a demented fairy godmother, she’d said, “Trust me. This is the one. He’s everything you want. A week from now, you’ll wonder how you ever lived without him.”
But a week had gone by, and more than a week, and it was like every other relationship she’d ever been in. She was as confused as ever.
True love sure didn’t feel anything like she’d thought it would.
Not half an hour later, Molly Gerhard strolled casually out of the forest. Salley trusted Molly-the-Spook even less than she did Jimmy. Molly came in under your radar. She was such a pleasant woman, so patient and understanding. So easy to talk to. She was the kind of person you wanted for a friend, someone to confide in and share all your innermost thoughts with.
“So,” Molly Gerhard said. “How’s it going?” She’d put on a few pounds from her early days, and that only made her seem that much more comfortable and trustworthy. “I ran into Jimmy just now. Wow, is he looking sour. You really put a bee in his ear.”
“If we’re going to talk, let’s not pretend you just happened to wander by, okay?”
Molly Gerhard grinned. “Can’t put anything over on you, can I? Jimmy thought maybe you’d be a little more comfortable talking things over with me.”
“Just us gals, huh?”
“Jimmy can be a real jerk,” Molly Gerhard said. “Griffin too. I know I’m not supposed to talk about my boss like that.”
“Not unless you want to establish rapport with his girlfriend, no.”
“But we really do need to talk. Come back to the village. I’ll make you a pot of tea.”
“I was going to go upstream and…” Salley began. But suddenly she didn’t want any such thing. “Oh, all right.”
So far as Salley knew, nobody had bothered to give the village a name. It was a scattering of cottages with thatched roofs, indoor plumbing, and several appliances she couldn’t figure out. She’d seen motels that were bigger. “We have conferences here sometimes,” Griffin had explained.
“How come I’ve never heard of this?” she’d asked.
“They’re for government types—planners, bureaucrats, politicians. Not paleontologists.”
“Why is that?”
“To be perfectly frank, you’re not important enough.”
Upriver from the village loomed Terminal City, looking for all the world like a cliff of solid gold. When first she’d seen it from a distance, she’d thought it was two sea stacks miraculously stranded far inland, separated by a razor-straight line of sky and river. The color, she’d assumed, was reflection from the setting sun. Then that it was a structure built in imitation of eroded geological forms, rather like one of Ursula von Rydingsvard’s sculptures, only of yellow bricks.
But no. It really was made of gold.
“You know what?” Molly Gerhard said, breaking into her thoughts. “This would be the perfect place for a honeymoon.”
Salley snorted.
“Wrong thing to say, huh?” Molly Gerhard said quietly.
“There’s my cottage. Let’s go in. I’ll make the tea.”
Salley had just put the kettle on when she heard a familiar noise outside. She hurried to the ice box. “Here. Watch this,” she said, and went to the back door with a cabbage in each hand.
Something big was moving out in the bushes. She underhanded the cabbages lightly in that direction. Molly Gerhard came up behind her and waited.
They didn’t have to wait long before a glyptodon came lumbering out of the underbrush and onto the lawn.
Glyptodons were charming creatures, as armored as a turtle and as large as a Volkswagen. Their backs were covered with a pebbled shell that looked like a bowl turned upside down. They had matching armored yarmulkas atop their heads.
“Now that,” Molly Gerhard said, “is one ugly critter.”
“Are you nuts? It’s gorgeous.”
The glyptodon slowly approached the cabbages and examined them critically. Then it crunched first one and then the other in its beaked mouth, tossing its head as it ate. After which, it waddled away again. They were grouchy creatures, glyptodons were. They reminded her a lot of ankylosaurs.
And a little of Griffin.
The water was ready then, so she poured two cups and carried them to the kitchen table. “So,” she said. “How are the talks?”
Molly Gerhard looked discouraged. “They talk. But they won’t negotiate.”
“I’m not surprised.”
“How so?” Molly Gerhard leaned forward. “What have you figured out?”
“Nothing you wouldn’t have learned if you’d been paying attention.”
“What? What? Tell me.”
Salley sipped her tea, and said nothing.
Molly Gerhard changed tactics. “Listen to me. We’re running out of time. Our operational schedules are divided into cells, with an administrative intercept point for each one. We’re in a Priority D era, so the op-cell we have to work with is eight days long. Are you with me so far?”