She walked to the edge of the trimaran. "Far enough," she went on, "for as much privacy... as anyone could ever need." She smiled as if at a secret memory or thought, and then flat-dove into the bubbling, CO2 -charged water. Kea's mouth was dry.
The cabana had four bedrooms, each of them made up. It was staffed by four blank-faced men. They asked if Kea wished anything, or any service. Showed him where drinks were iced and snacks were kept. Told him he had but to touch the com and someone would be there within minutes. Then they disappeared. The cabana's main room was circular, with glass walls that would opaque at the touch of a switch. In its center, a huge sunken sofa was around a hooded fireplace, with wooden logs arranged to roar into flames at the touch of a match. A fireplace? On Mars? Not likely, between pollution laws and the incredible permits required to do anything to a tree. It was, of course, false, as Kea discovered. After a few moments, he found the correct setting, so that the logs were guttering down, flames flickering shadows against the walls. Now, for the drinks.
And Tamara was there. She wore a teal-green pair of flaring pants, and a matching sleeveless top. The pants were scooped far below her navel, and the top ended approximately at Tamara's rib cage. Approximately. Tamara picked up two already-filled glasses she must have poured from the cloth-wrapped bottle that sat in a bucket beside her.
‘To... to the night," she said They drank. And they refilled their glasses, and went back to the couch. They talked. Kea could never remember the exact conversation. But he had told her his life story—and Tamara listened, completely fascinated, sitting very close to him. He ran out of words.
Tamara put her glass down. Somehow they'd emptied that bottle of sparkling wine. She reached out, and touched his lips.
"Soft," she murmured. She leaned closer, and her tongue flicked across Kea's lips. He started to kiss her—and she pulled back. She unfolded, and walked away from him—hips swaying. There must have been some sort of hidden fastener on the halter top, because it was suddenly gone. Tamara flipped it over her shoulder. Turned back and looked at him. Her face serious.
She touched her midriff, and the pants fell into a silk pool about her ankles. Tamara stepped clear of them. She stretched, long and lingeringly. Kea stared, unable to speak or move. She walked slowly into a darkened room. She looked back at him and smiled. Then she disappeared into the bedroom. Light flared, as a mock candle was lit
Kea was free. Free to follow her.
"No," Tamara said. "This time... this time you'll just watch." She unwound the scarf, and began knotting it at intervals. "Next time... that's yours."
Mars became a shadow, a blur. The center of the world was Tamara's body. Nights were a swirl of movement, ecstasy, a sudden flash of sweet torture. Days were exploration and daring, making love anywhere and everywhere. Tamara's passion seemed to increase the greater the risk of discovery or embarrassment. Particularly if the discovery might be made by a member of the family. Not that Kea came to Tamara's bed as an innocent. She learned from him, as well. She wanted something new. And so, reluctantly, he showed her some of the techniques he'd heard of or even, once or twice, had demonstrated in the cribs of Maui.
She learned well and then eagerly practiced those dexterities. She combined them with other skills she was already familiar with. The style of lovemaking she preferred was prolonged, exotic, and would have a lightning-shock of pain/pleasure at the climax. Kea felt as if he were a bit of wood, floating at the edge of a maelstrom, and then being drawn down, deep into its center.
He was in love with Tamara. That could mean disaster. Ruin. But it was a fact. What made it worse—or, perhaps, better—was that Tamara seemed to be as besotted, as passionate and overwhelmed, as Kea. Kea allowed himself to dream of a future—a very different future than he had conceived of before. One which would be for two people.
Kea was amazed. Anything he wanted to do, Tamara seemed delighted to oblige him in. It was as if he were the ruler, instead of... His mind shied away from the rest. Once, they went to the dockyards at Capen City. He was fascinated by the array of ships of varying types. Here, torchships were landed in great aboveground cradles rather than ported in water, and Kea could even walk under their bulging enormity and fully realize just how huge they were. Tamara, not terribly interested in the ships themselves—"Darling, we own half of them"—was fascinated by the color, squalor, and lurking danger. Several times she told him how safe she felt with him.
Something was bothering Kea. Why were the spacecrews dressed in such a slovenly manner—very different from the heroic posturing of the vid that still occasionally dealt with space travel? Why were there so many notices tagged outside the local hiring hall? And why were the notices so weathered, as if they'd been posted for a long time, with no one desperate enough to answer them?
Tamara and Richards found seats in a crowded dive that called itself a cafe, drinking some terribly sweet concoction Tamara'd ordered from the barkeep, and he tried to think it out. Ignoring the groundpounders, almost everyone they had seen was a spaceman(woman). High vacuum and all that. So, why were all of the conversations he overheard about drink or drugs and how iced they had been the previous night. Or else how terrible the conditions were aboard ship, and which was the least ghastly hellship to sign aboard on. Their language wasn't that of science or engineering, but the lazy-palated monotones or drunken sudden rage of the poor and desperate. It sounded like Wino Row. Why were the eyes of these brave space pioneers so dull? So dead?
He heard, for the first time, of Barrier Thirty-three, the term used as if it were some sort of gateway to Hades. He asked— and found it was the standard bulkhead division between the crew/engine spaces and the cargo/passengers. Something was very wrong. But he didn't know what. He drained his glass and took Tamara's hand. She was staring, entranced, at a woman down the bar whose tattoos covered every inch of skin that could be seen outside the stained cut-down shipsuit. The woman seemed as interested in Bargeta.
Tamara frowned when Kea said he wanted to hat up—but didn't say anything. She gave the tattooed spacewoman a long smile—and Kea remembered that smile from other, private times—as they left the bar. That night, he slept alone, not wanting to disturb Tamara with his dark mood, still disturbed by what he had seen and still wondering what it meant. She laughed away his apologies the next day. She had gone back into Capen City. And looked up some "old friends."
The end came in bright sunlight, on the deck of the trimaran where it had begun, about an Earth-week later. Kea had spent the morning preparing himself. Making sure he had the correct words. Then he was ready—as prepared, he hoped, in this matter of the heart as if it were the most important examination he would ever take. Which it was.
Tamara listened quietly to his stammer that grew into fluency. Then he was finished. Kea waited for her response. It came as a giggle. Then a full laugh. "Kea," she said, when the laugh died away. "Let me understand. You're saying that you think the two of us should... be together? When this summer is over? Back on Earth, even?" Kea, feeling his guts writhe, as if he'd just stepped into a gravshaft and the McLean power was off, nodded.
" Live together? Or—do you mean like a covenant? Kea, darl‘, you sound like an oldie, talking about marriagel Oh dear. This is delicious. You? With me? Oh, my, my." And she dissolved into laughter. Kea got up, and walked numbly across the dock, and found the elevator up to the clifftop.