Lakshmi pulled the two men in against her bosom. Either they were shrinking or Lakshmi was growing, but that couldn’t have been happening or she would have ripped right through the roof of the tent, which was spinning around them, faster and faster until it was a blur and Matt was fighting to keep his stomach down. Then the blur darkened; streaks of light appeared, then began to grow fatter, and Matt’s insides told him they’d begun to slow down. The djinna-tornado rotated more and more slowly as the streaks shrank into points of light swinging past, slowing and slowing until they came to a stop.
Lakshmi released the men. They staggered away stumbling and reeling. Matt caught hold of Papa; the two of them braced against each other until the world stabilized and they saw the Mahdi’s camp spread out below them, thousands of campfires imitating the stars that spattered the sky above. Matt realized they stood on top of a low hill. Relief surged, and Matt fought to keep from sagging to the ground. He managed to say, “Th… thanks, Princess Lakshmi.”
“Yes, a thousand thanks, O Gem of Djinn,” Papa said. He sounded a little shaky, too.
“It was my pleasure,” Lakshmi said with a sniff of contempt. “After all, what need have I to do anything that is not my pleasure? By your own spellbreaking, Wizard, I am freed to go where I will… or will not!”
Matt stared; she fairly seemed to glow against the sky. But the glow began to turn again, spinning, whirling, swirling, fading…
Gone.
Now Matt did let himself sag to the ground with relief. “I never knew such tantalizing feelings could be such an ordeal!”
“That’s not how I remember it from your high school experiences,” Papa said, but his voice trembled a little, too.
Matt took a deep breath and looked up. “Frankly, Father, you amaze me.”
“Did not know that the old man still had it in him, eh?” Papa managed a grin.
“Didn’t know you were a football player,” Matt said, “but you sure know how to intercept a pass!”
“It is a skill which, once learned, is always easy to recall.” Papa frowned, concerned. “I hope you do not think I have been unfaithful to your mother, Matthew.”
“Well… “
“Be assured I have not,” Papa said earnestly. “A man cannot help being attracted to a voluptuous woman … but he can help what he does about that attraction.”
Matt nodded. “He can say no… but he could hurt the woman really easily if he did.”
“Ah, I see you understand,” Papa said, relieved. “A woman will accept rejection more easily, if you make it clear to her that you wish you did not have to refuse her favors, but that you must be loyal to your wife.”
“Or your principles,” Matt said, remembering.
Papa flashed him a smile. “Yes, you have taught undergraduates too, have you not? There are very few women who will not honor faithfulness, though, Matthew, for they wish that same fidelity in their own men, when they find them.”
Matt nodded. “Must have been tougher on you before you met Mama, though.”
Papa was silent long enough that Matt turned to stare at him, appalled.
“I can only speak for myself,” Papa said at last, “and I have learned from some men that they have felt the opposite… but personally, I find that living with a beautiful woman makes all other women seem more wonderful, more spectacular.”
“And makes you desire them more?” Matt asked, mouth dry.
“That, it does not,” Papa said frankly. “It is more of an aesthetic impulse that allows me to admire other women but to desire my Jimena even more.” He turned to look directly into Matt’s eyes. “Does that stand to reason?”
“Only from personal experience,” Matt assured him. “Sense it makes not.” He grinned at his father. “But it does make me feel a lot better… less guilty about Alisande.”
“There should be no guilt at all,” Papa said promptly. “You cannot help physical responses, and must not distance yourself from any of your feelings, or they will leap out to overcome you when you least expect it. But you can control your actions.”
“And you do a great job controlling yours,” Matt said. “Must have been tough when you were a grad student teaching pretty undergrads, though.”
“I have never been sorely tried since my Jimena came to protect me from them,” Papa assured him.
Matt frowned. “Never?”
“Never,” Papa said firmly, then relented. “From what other men, tell me, though, I am exceedingly fortunate in that, and exceedingly rare in having so all-encompassing a love.”
Matt was still, reflecting on his relationship with Alisande.
“It does not come fully formed in an instant, my son,” Papa said softly, “not when you first see her, not when the priest pronounces you married, not even when your child is born. It grows and deepens slowly, year after year, not steadily but by highs and lows. However, if you both work at it and care for it as the most valuable treasure you will ever have, your marriage can become both the substance and joy of your life, and your proudest accomplishment.”
“Yes,” Matt said slowly. “I do have to remember that, don’t I? That you two have been working at it for thirty-five years.”
“Twenty-nine,” Papa said. “You forget that time has moved more quickly for you than it has for us, these last few weeks.” He pushed himself to his feet and reached down to pull Matt up. “Come, my son.
Where shall we go, now that we are free?”
“Yeah, I do have to figure that out,” Matt muttered. For a few seconds, he gazed down at the Mahdi’s camp. Then, without turning his head, he asked Papa, “How did you know Lakshmi would come?”
“Really, son! I know women well enough to be able to see the signs of fascination. I told you that you had enchanted her in more ways than one. Did you really think she would choose to be far from you?”
“Maybe I underrate myself,” Matt said. “Even so, it wasn’t me she was paying attention to, it was you.”
Papa shrugged. “You had made it clear that you admired her, but would do nothing because your heart was already pledged. I do not doubt that, since you were not available, she thought I would do quite well.”
“Yes,” Matt said, frowning. “It was your call she answered, not mine.”
“Genetically, we are nearly identical,” Papa said mildly.
“Now I know what Mama meant, about you being a charmer!”
Papa shrugged, looking out over the camp. “Women are wonderful creatures. You have only to treat them with gentleness, sympathy, and all possible consideration.”
Well, he had certainly done that. Again, maybe his experiences in developing a relationship with a woman he really loved had given him greater understanding and appreciation of all the other women who had come into his life. He had certainly fielded the djinna’s sex plays with an ease that his son found stunning. Matt glanced at his father covertly, studying the tranquil, smiling face in a new light, realizing for the first time since high school that his father was a very handsome man. He found himself speculating about Papa’s past, and wondering just how spectacular Mama must have been in her youth.
Papa turned to him with a disarming smile. “Tell me, now… what would you have done if that transportation spell really had taken us to Mandalay?”
“What?” Matt stared, thrown by the change of subject. Then he smiled. “Recited another verse to take us back to Merovence, of course! Or maybe King Rinaldo.”
“I should have thought of that,” Papa said judiciously. “But in the second line of that verse, didn’t Kipling say… “
“Not here!” Matt cut him off. “Please, not here! You don’t know what it would do.”
“Hmm.” Papa frowned at the ground, running through the verse in his head. Where there ain’t no Ten Commandments… “Yes, I can see that might be a problem. I shall have to be very careful what I recite.”