"No. No. Not what I think of as sex. I undressed while I danced. Sometimes I sat in their lap, but they couldn't touch me."
"So you just get naked and men pay you money?"
"I used to. Now I work for Sam and I've left that behind. But I wanted you to know, in case it matters."
"Did they pay you a lot of money?"
"You are very beautiful. It is worth it I suppose."
"No. No. You and me… that's not about money."
"You want laundry soap instead?"
She punched him. "Now you're teasing me."
"Yes. I know about strippers. I don't care."
He put his hand in the small of her back, as if they were going to dance. The slight smile increased and they began kissing, and he put both his arms around her middle and pulled her to him. There was a rush in his mind and body, and they began pressing themselves together and he could feel the energy in her body and the strength of her supple back. They kissed deeply and hard, and their tongues ex plored without hesitation.
Michael closed the door with his foot. Grady began to unbutton his shirt. Taking her pullover sweater by the bottom, he pulled it up and she allowed it to slip over her head by ex tending her arms. Michael tossed it on the bed. Her blouse was a reddish orange, the color of a jungle vromillius. It was far from wilderness clothing, but he liked it.
Putting his fingers at the top of her neck, he began a mas sage and, at the same time, looked in her eyes.
"You are beautiful," he said.
Concentrating on her neck muscles at the base of her skull, he worked his fingers while he smiled at her.
"That feels so good."
"I have wanted to touch you."
And he tugged her to the bed, where she fell down, and he with her, and he continued on her neck and after a moment her shoulders.
She kissed him again and wrapped her leg around the outside of his thigh to draw him closer.
In order to facilitate the work of his fingers, he began with the buttons on her blouse while they each played with the ways of kissing. He succeeded with most of the buttons but popped one when pushing the blouse back over her shoul ders and then down over her arms. Her skin was smooth and slightly browned and there were a few light freckles like cinnamon sprinkles above her white satin bra. Her cleavage was noticeable and inviting, but he moved his fingers back to her shoulders as they kissed.
It did not seem possible that he could ever tire of putting his hands on her. She moaned, as if reading his mind. Gently he ran his fingers over her shoulders, neck, and chin, as one might feel the texture of silk or touch an object of veneration. He kissed the freckles on her back and slid his fingers lower, feeling a tightness unwind in her. Soon he sensed that the small of her back had some connection of sensation to her thighs, and he pressed in as she pressed herself to him. He could feel her start to breathe heavily as if finding a subtle rhythm. Her thighs wrapped around the meat of his leg while his fingers pushed in smaller circles.
She wanted to kiss again and they played with their tongues. When he left her lower back, they unzipped the front of the pants so that he could work his hands over her buttocks. He sank his hands into the flesh of her bottom and pressed her close and she breathed deeply in his ear and he knew it was good for her. He kissed her above her breasts and waited until she moved the bra to expose her nipples. Her breasts were brown in the areola and slightly rounded in their shape, and for him they were perfect.
Kissing her breasts, he let his lips feel the texture of them and of her nipples. She didn't finish with his shirt before moving to his belt.
As she loosened it, he willed her to slow down, playing his tongue over her ears. She shivered and laughed and he stroked her scalp, kneading it with a gentle touch, then smoothing her hair.
"You make love like you know me," she whispered.
"I make love like a student," he said, and she drew him in.
"I want to talk to you," Grady said as she lay with Michael in the quiet after their lovemaking.
"Yes. I want to talk to you too, but when you are naked like this for the first time… well…"
"I know. I know. You are ready for more. This will just take a minute. Do you think that you would be open to actu ally getting married?"
"I thought we just discussed that. I'm getting a job at a university and you're going to make babies."
"You're supposed to ask me."
"Okay. How many babies do you want?"
"Are you teasing me again?"
"Yes. But I'm not going to ask you until we go to the restaurant."
"You don't care about my dancing?"
"Is there some disease associated with dancing naked?"
"Will you be serious?"
"Okay. I will be very serious." And he rolled on top of her and began kissing her again.
"I want to show you something the shaman taught me."
"If you do that other thing again with the panties, I may need a shaman."
Chapter 23
The great mountain roars before the rocks tumble.
Sam looked at the hard rock of the mountains, the jagged, knife-edged ridges that plunged near vertically and the dull gray and black of the clouds that swathed their peaks, the dormant plants vying for life, the barren trees whose sap had receded into the roots, withering the leaves, the rust on the needles of tired conifers. It was a cold day. The animals would be gaunt with the miseries of winter, the songbirds gone to a better place. Most of the mountain seemed dead or struggling. It all brought to mind Russian peasants on the frozen steppe and the precious vodka that helped them to flee the pain. It was enough to make him weep.
Jill had called on the satellite phone and told him that the doctors had evaluated Anna and she was no better. That was a blow, but he insisted to himself that she was also no worse and prayed that she would recover. The miscarriage still haunted him. They still had no word from Benoit Moreau, but Jill was coordinating a massive private search, this in addition to an earnest government effort.
Sam had arrived one day behind Grady.
It felt like a path that Sam had walked before-dead or dying people that could not be mourned because live people could still be saved. Every time it took something from him, and every time he knew he got a little worse for the wear.
He was waiting for the right moment to tell Grady about Anna.
Standing by the cabin, he tried to let anger displace his sadness.
He watched Michael and Grady through the window holding each other on the couch. Grady had always seemed alive, but now her smiles were deeper, and he had also observed the angelic patience of new love. He had seen it in others with marriage and pregnancy and engagements, and it was always followed by realism-a necessary but unfortu nate end to infatuation. Living alone allowed for a certain frivolity, a good scotch, a wink and a nod at the Devil. It also allowed one not to worry about making someone else miser able. It avoided any analysis over whether Indian blood would ultimately be a turnoff for a celebrity like Anna, or whether someone like her could live with someone without celebrity status. If he lived out his days alone, it would be okay, but he had to quit thinking about it because thinking about life and meaning and that stuff would send him into despair. Right now he had to focus on keeping these people alive, finding Benoit, and eliminating Gaudet.
For some reason thoughts of death on a mountain brought on this kind of thinking. He wished Grandfather were here. Something was about to happen.
He imagined Anna again as he had left her, lying in a coma, and tried to shake the thought off. Shouldn't he be at her side while she struggled for her life? The thought was in terrupted by a second premonition of the sort he had now come to accept. At that moment Sam felt sure he could feel Gaudet. He looked up at just the visible edges of the vast expanse of the surrounding terrain. He saw countless places to hide, then dismissed the feeling as superstition.