“But even allowing that you’re a strong man and I’m just a weak little girl, I don’t have your tone.”
“Maybe you don’ work right,” said Freddy.
“Now that is a distinct possibility,” said Carla Sue. She looked at Lance with her lips trembling between a pucker and a pout. “I follow the regimen, but the regimen just might not be right for me. I think I need a coach.”
“Well—” Lance felt himself melting under the intensity of her blue eyes, the earnestness of her milky smile.
“Lance a good coach,” said Freddy. “He know the body, the human body. He can coach you real good.”
“Freddy—”
“Could you, Lance?” Carla Sue squeezed his hand. “I truly would appreciate it.”
“Well, you see—”
“Sure he could,” said Freddy. “You just name the time.”
“I usually work out about nine,” she said. “It leaves me plenty of time to cool down before bed.”
“At nine I’m supposed to—”
“He’ll be there,” said Freddy.
“The exercise room at nine this evening. See you then.” Carla Sue sailed out of the wardroom before Lance’s stammering could resolve into a negative response.
“What did you do that for?” asked Lance.
“You need to get your mind off Becky.”
“But I’m supposed to help you with your project. I do every night.”
“I don’ need your help tonight.”
“I can’t exercise with her. People will get the wrong idea.”
“There’s no idea to get.”
“But she’s Jaeckle’s girlfriend. You remember what that guy said back at the Cape.”
“Lance, my frien’,” said Freddy. “That guy don’ know shit. You work out with this lady at nine, eh?”
“This is how you do it,” huffed Lance between pulls on the rowing machine. “Extend and pull, extend and pull. Full range of motion.”
Carla Sue, wearing a white Danskin to set off the remains of her tan and hot-pink leg warmers to bulk up her nonexistent calves, floated beside his shoulder. She and Lance were the only people using the exercise equipment. In the farthest corner of the ex/rec room, Chakra Ramsanjawi and Hisashi Oyamo were at their nightly game of chess. Carla Sue could feel them staring in between moves.
“You try,” said Lance. He released the belt and drifted off the rowing machine.
With her ankles and knees primly pressed together, Carla Sue positioned herself over the machine and pulled herself onto the seat. She cinched the belt at the last hole, but her waist was so thin that some play remained. On her first pull, she rose slightly off the seat.
“Extend,” said Lance.
“I can’t,” Carla Sue said with a helpless trill. “I’m bobbing against this belt like a cork.”
“Oh,” said Lance. He brought one hand to his chin and inspected the situation. “Belt’s as tight as it will go.”
“I know that,” said Carla Sue. “I’m too slim.”
“Try again,” said Lance. He spun so that he had a proper view of the seat and Carla Sue’s butt. Carla Sue tugged at the oars.
“That’s the problem,” he said. “Belt’s too loose.”
“Does that mean I can’t exercise?”
“No. It means we should fix the belt.”
“Oh,” said Carla Sue. She gathered her lips into a classic pout. “Fix the belt if you want, but a real gentleman would hold my shoulders down.”
Reluctantly, Lance swung himself into position behind her. He hooked his feet to the bottom of the machine and placed his hands on her shoulders. He looked over at the chess game; Oyamo and Ramsanjawi stared at the board.
Carla Sue started to pull. Lance could feel the thin strands of muscle gathering and rolling beneath her skin with each repetition. He could hear the soft hum of her breath. He looked at the ceiling, at the other exercise machines, at the dart board, the chess game, anywhere but at the mane of blond hair and the thin thighs working below him. Chakra Ramsanjawi caught his eye and winked.
Lance felt something touch his hand. It was smooth and soft, with a hint of moist warmth. Carla Sue was nuzzling his hand with her cheek. He tried to move, but the pressure on his hand was too insistent.
At the urging of Freddy, Lance was wearing gym shorts and a tank top. He always hung loosely inside gym shorts and felt naked, as he often did in dreams. Now he was anything but hanging loose. He turned slightly so that Ramsanjawi could not see that he had an erection.
After the workout, Carla Sue suggested that they go to the observation blister.
“There is no better way to cool down,” she said, “than to watch a few thousand miles of Earth turning below you.”
Lance followed like a puppy dog.
They closeted themselves in the blister as Trikon Station passed over midday on the Indian subcontinent. Lance chattered about the jagged lines of rivers visible through large breaks in the cloud cover. Carla Sue dabbed a towel behind her ears. Whenever she moved too close to him, he seemed to drift away. But eventually, she maneuvered him to the edge of the bubble, against the bulkhead. Lance grew quiet, like a jackrabbit who senses a predator. Carla Sue hooked her ankle around his and, turning, wedged herself between him and the dome. He started chattering again, but she quieted him by pressing a toweled finger to his lips. She slowly withdrew her finger and replaced it with her mouth. He resisted with clenched teeth, but eventually he relaxed and accepted her tongue. She nudged her hand beneath the elastic band of his shorts. He tried to recoil, but there was nowhere to go.
“Feel good?” she said into his mouth.
“Uh-huh.”
“Just wait until I wrap my lips around it.”
“What?” A spasm coursed through Lance’s body, dislodging Carla Sue from her position atop him and tumbling her across the blister.
“Lance!”
But he was hitting at the doorlatch with the heel of his hand, his gym shorts riding low enough to expose a block of firm flesh. He pushed open the door and flew up into the Mars module, his feet fluttering like a bullfrog’s. “Well, I’ll be …” said Carla Sue. She felt like her grandmother.
Harry Meade poked his head out from the bristling shrub. The canyon wall was dark gray. Only a few bright stars and a smudge of moon were visible in a dirty sky turned orange by the distant lights of Los Angeles.
A breeze kicked up a dust devil near the footlights that fringed the driveway. Meade tucked his chin beneath the collar of his jacket, his two-day stubble grating like sandpaper on the leather. The days were hot, but the heat dissipated quickly in these canyons after dark. And everything was so dry. Even the plants seemed as dry and lifeless as theater props. They had spines and needles and branches that seemed to twist into barbs. One kept sticking him in the ass every time he moved.
The house resembled a Mexican hacienda, nestled between the loop of a circular driveway and the base of the canyon wall. A souped-up sport Jeep, its red finish reflecting the driveway’s footlights, was parked at the front steps.
Meade checked his watch. It was nine-thirty p.m. local time, which meant that it was five-thirty A.M. in London. Sir Derek had ordered him to phone at eight o’clock sharp.
Meade nervously slapped a pair of black calfskin gloves in the palm of one hand. The front door opened and out walked a thin man with a mass of dark curly hair, wearing a dark leather jacket. The man threw a briefcase onto the passenger seat of the Jeep, then climbed behind the wheel. The engine ignited with an explosion that echoed off the canyon walls. As the Jeep sped down the driveway, Meade noticed its vanity license plate: PW ESQ.