Now! her mind screamed. Now!
The coal-black shadow moved upward, arms like struts that kept her knees pinned back. She could feel his hot, muscled flesh slide against the backs of her legs, and then he positioned himself. The penis nudged the entry of her sex, teased her as it threatened to enter-
Now…
– but that's when Nora woke up.
Her first sexy dream in ages, and look what happened. I don't believe it, she thought in the deepest frustration. I can't even get laid in a dream! The hot night was compressing her within the cocoon of the sleeping bag. She'd been sweating so profusely, it felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of hot water on her.
She'd been sleeping in her swimsuit. The cooler air caressed her when she finally got out of the bag. This was maddening; it was the middle of the night and she couldn't sleep. Worse was the dream's aftereffects, which left her skin prickly, her nipples aching as if plucked. Gotta get out of here, go for a walk or something…
She grabbed a lantern and unzipped the tent, crawled out as if fleeing a hornets' nest. Once outside, she stood in moon-tinted darkness, caught her breath, and let the frustration beat down.
She kept the lantern dim. Loren's tent remained zipped up; she could hear him snoring. Sounds like a busted chain saw-jeez! But the other two tents…
The strangest curiosity seized her. She wanted to look into the other tents-she didn't, of course, but she wanted to. They both stood unzipped.
Are they… in there?
Trent and Annabelle would be foolish to sleep with their tents unzipped. Their exhalations would summon droves of mosquitoes. But where would they be at this hour?
Who cares?
Nora walked down a trail, not even really aware of any direction. Her flip-flops crunching over twigs could scarcely be heard over the night sounds that pulsed all around her. Lizards scattered wherever she pointed the lantern light. An array of multicolored winged creatures buzzed around her.
The head shacks stood dark now, a row of lonely bunkers. She got her mind off the frenzied dream-and the utter letdown of its conclusion-and thought back on the details of the day.
Those things in the shower…
There was little room for error after so close an examination. She and Loren were indeed the experts, and they both knew now what the things had to be.
Motile ova. From some species of tropical annelid.
A worm.
She sat down on a stump and pondered. Some worms were sexed, some were asexual, while others were hermaphroditic. The phenomenon of ova motility among species of worms was well documented. The ovum, via its own means of locomotion, would seek out its own place to hatch, and certain parasitic varieties would seek out a living host for that purpose. But these were all marine species, and-
They're all tiny, she knew.
A mature worm ovum the size of a coffee bean? How big would the ovum be when it was immature?
Then the most obvious question struck her:
How big would the gestating worm be?
The question totally confounded her, and she knew it was doing the same to Loren. I can't wait to get those samples back to the college, she thought. If she told any of her peers she'd found a motile ova that big, they'd laugh at her.
But now they'd be able to see for themselves.
Let it rest there, she decided. For now she knew she needed to concentrate on the task at hand: finding a scarlet bristleworm for this smart-ass blond photographer.
Nora blanked her mind on the subject of Annabelle. It was like at school. Sometimes you had to work with someone you didn't like, and that's just the way things were. Nora had never had a problem with clashing personalities.
So why now?
Something felt ticking inside her. She turned the lantern all the way down, to draw fewer bugs, and to think about anything but Annabelle…
That's when she realized her eyes were focused on something…
With the lantern off, darkness reclaimed the cove.
So… what the hell is that light?
It wasn't coming from the first head shack that she and Loren were using as a lab. One of those down there…
She kept the light off, and walked quickly down the row of old missile units. She kept her eye trained, thinking it would go away as she approached, that it was just an odd reflection of moonlight, or some foxfire. But no…
A thin beam of light seemed to be leaking out of the roof of the head shack at the very end of the row.
She walked right up to the long brick building and stared upward. Yeah. That's definitely light. Electric light. The building's roof of corrugated metal was arch shaped, and there was very clearly a hole in it. The beam of light shot up into the trees.
Why would the inside lights be on? None of these head shacks had been used in years.
Then the obvious answer came to her. Trent checks these places every month for signs of squatters and vandalism. He probably forgot to turn the lights off last time he checked.
No big mystery.
But when she turned to leave, something else caught her eye.
More light.
At the very edge of the next building's roof, where the metal met the brick, she saw the faintest line of light leaking out.
Hmm.
She checked the rest of the head shacks and found no further evidence of lights on inside. Then she checked the doors and found them all locked.
I'll have to remember to tell him tomorrow…
She looked around and realized she was suddenly ill at ease. She supposed this was a creepy place to be alone in. Earlier, when she'd been studying the ova, she thought she'd heard voices outside, even a shriek, but she knew it was either her imagination or a night bird somewhere.
She strode hastily back to the campsite, or so she thought when she realized she'd taken the wrong trail.
She was about to turn the lantern back on when-
A voice fluttered.
"God, that's good…"
A woman's voice.
In another small cove, she saw pale shapes moving. She kept the lantern off, squinting as the moonlight brought out details. At first she wasn't sure, then-
I don't believe what I'm seeing.-..
It was Trent and Annabelle, both naked.
How tacky, Nora thought. They're doing it standing up.
Evidently Trent was stronger than he looked. Annabelle's arms and legs were wrapped around him as Trent's pelvis stroked her in an almost machinelike rhythm. Her breasts squashed against his chest, her ankles locked; she was hanging on to him-a monkey on a tree, only Trent was the tree. Judging the noises that came from Annabelle, it was apparent she was enjoying it, but-
Nora was aghast. This was making love? This was a physical gesture of passion? Nora's mind broke it down to bare parts: They're just standing there, screwing. They don't really even know each other! It was true, they'd only met this morning, and here they were, two animals in the woods.
Is that what it's all about? Nora wondered dismally. I guess that's just the way some people are…
Eventually, Trent lowered the blonde to the ground, to continue, and then she broke into a new round of gasps and moans, Trent's hips pounding onward, a mindless derrick. Nora continued to watch from behind a tree without even knowing why. She didn't have a voyeuristic streak at all, and there was certainly nothing enticing about the scene. Annabelle's back arched, her long, bare legs shooting up into the air in a wide V. Nora had never seen anything so perfunctory in her life.
Just leave, she told herself. This is depressing.
She should've obeyed herself, but she chose to watch a few moments longer, and in those moments, Annabelle's face turned toward her…
Nora's heart jolted.
In the moonlight, Annabelle's eyes met hers. Oh my God! She sees me!
Annabelle never said a word. She simply smiled.
Nora pulled herself back, turned, and ran away.
A crush of emotions buried her. She fled haphazardly back toward the campsite, images swimming in her head. By most people's standards, what she'd witnessed was of little consequence. So what? she tried to convince herself. There must've been some spontaneous attraction between the two of them, so then one thing led to another. Nora was a scientist; she should be able to understand that with no problem. But she knew what a psychologist might say: that the real reason the scene upset her was that Trent had selected Annabelle instead of her. It didn't matter that Nora felt no attraction to the army officer at all, it was merely the process of natural selection.