"I feel so stupid about throwing up," he said. "I never do that. Mind you, I never drink vodka." He gave her a sidelong glance. "You're teaching me bad habits," he said. "Kate says you have to purify the body if you want to be a vessel for the infinite."
"Now there's a phrase," Tesla said. "Vesselfor the infinite. What does that mean-exactly?"
"Well... it means... you know, we're made from the same stuff stars are made of... and... all we have to do is open our souls up... and the infinite, I mean, you know... everything becomes one, and everything flows through us."
"The past, the future, and the dreaming moment between are all one country living one immortal day. "
The quote had Lucien agog. "Where'd that come from?" he said. "You never heard it before? I learned it from@' She paused to think about this. "Fletcher maybe," she said, "maybe Kissoon."
"Who's Kissoon?" Lucien said.
"Somebody I don't want to talk about," she said. There were few experiences in her life she still kept filed away under untouchable, but Kissoon was definitely one of them.
"I want you to tell me, when you're in a good space to do it," Lucien said. "I mean, I want to share all the wisdom in you."
"You'll be disappointed," Tesla said.
He laid his hand over hers. "Please. I mean it."
She heard the monkey make a retching sound in her head, and could not keep a smile from her lips.
"What's so funny?" Lucien said, looking a little hurt.
"Nothing," she said. "Don't be sensitive. If there's one thing I can't bear it's sensitive men." they were heading north by seven-thirty, and made good time up the coast. Either Tesla, or Raul, or perhaps a combination of them both, had developed an uncanny instinct when it came to the presence of cops, and she gunned the cycle to a hundred, a hundred and ten when they were certain they were unmatched. By Thursday evening they were across the state line, and about ten at night decided they'd come far enough for one day. they found a motel and checked in. One room, one bed. What this meant went undiscussed.
While Lucien headed out for food, Tesla called Grillo. He sounded glad to hear from her. The conversation with Howie had not gone well, he told her, and suggested she might have to put a call in to the couple herself, to offer some support for his warning.
"What the hell happened to D'Amour?" Tesla wanted to know. "I thought he was supposed to be watching over them?"
"Want my best guess?" Grillo said.
"Yeah."
"He's dead."
"What?"
"He was closing on something big-he wouldn't tell me what-then he just ceased communication."
The news shook Tesla. While her relationship with D'Amour had never been that close-she'd met with him one time only since the Grove, when her trek through the Americas had taken her up to New York-she'd vaguely thought of him as both a backstop and a source of esotefica, as someone who would always be in the picture. Now it seemed that this was not the case. And if D'Amour, who'd been fighting this fight for fifteen years and had defenses against the enemy in every corner (including several tattooed on his person), had lost the battle, then what hope did she have? Little or none.
Lucien had not taken her hint about sensitivity, thank God; he knew the moment he saw her face that she wasn't as blithe as she'd been. He gently inquired as to why, and she told him. He reassured her as best he could with words, but she quickly made their inadequacy plain, and he turned instead to touches, and kisses, and before long they were getting naked and he was warning her that he was no great lover and that she shouldn't expect too much.
She found his modesty disarming, and, as it turned out, unnecessary. He was no great experimenter, to be sure, but what he lacked in range he made up for in depth, which wasn't to be despised. they coupled with the kind of fervor she'd not experienced since her college days, all of twenty years before the bed squeaking under them, the headboard deepening a' groove in the wall made by those who'd loved here before.
Raul kept his silence for the first bout. She heard not a peep from him. But when, after she and Lucien had eaten a couple of slices of cold pizza, the nuzzling began again, he piped up.
He's not going to do it again.
"He can do it all night," she thought, "if he's up for it." She put her hands down between their legs, and guided him inside her. "And it looks like he is."
Christ! Raul sobbed. How can you bear this? Make him pull it out!
"Shut up," she said, staring down at her and Lucien's locked groins. At least close your eyes, Raul said.
She was far too intrigued to do that. "Look at that," she thought, raising her hips to welcome his length. "Him meeting me meeting him-"
Damn you "Like crossroads." You're raving, woman.
She looked up into Lucien's face. He had his eyes half closed and his brows knitted.
"Are you... all right?" he gasped.
"Never better," she said.
The ape continued to sob in her head, the words expelled upon Lucien's thrusts. It's like-he's stabbing-us. I can't-take any-more!
As he spoke she felt his will impinging on hers, crossing the divide they'd established at the beginning of their cotenanting. It hurt, and she let out a moan, which Lucien took for a sigh of appreciation. His embrace became tighter, his jabs more frenzied.
"Oh yes," he started to chant, "yes! yes! yes!"
No! Raul hollered, and before Tesia could demand her body back he took control of it.
Her arms, which had been languishing on the pillow, suddenly flew at Lucien, her nails raking his naked back. From out of her throat came a bestial din she'd never known she was capable of making, and as he recoiled in mute shock her legs rose behind him, hooking beneath his armpits and pulling him back. All this in such a blur of noise and motion Tesla wasn't even certain what had happened until it was over, and Lucien was sprawled on the floor beside the bed. "What the hell was that all about?" he said, finding his voice now.
Satisfied with its efforts, the monkey's hold relaxed enough for her to say, "It... it wasn't me."
"What do you mean, it wasn't you?" Lucien said.
"I swear@' she said, getting up from the bed. But he wasn't going to allow her near him again. He was up on his feet in a flash, retreating to the chair where he'd thrown his clothes.
"Wait," she said, not making any further attempt to approach him. "I can explain this."
Watching her warily he said, "I'm listening."
"I'm not alone in here," she told him, knowing as she spoke there was no easy way to say what she was about to say. "There's somebody else in my skull." Still, she thought, he should be able to understand the principle. Hadn't he been talking about being a vessel for the infinite that very morning? "His name's Raul."
He looked at her as though she were speaking in an alien language. "What are you talking about?" he said, plainly incredulous.
"I'm talking about the spirit of a man called Raul being here in my head with me. He's been here for five years. And he doesn't want us to do what we've been doing."
"Why not?"
"Well... why don't I let him speak for himself?"
What? she heard Raul say.
"Go on," she said aloud, "you've done the damage. Now explain it."
I can't. "You owe it to me, damn you!"