by Peter David
He had been looking down as he cut his food, but he sensed—even before he looked up—that the temperature to his immediate right where Susan was sitting had just dropped by about ten degrees. He turned his gaze on her.
He had never seen an expression like that one on her face before. And he wasn’t exactly thrilled to see it now.
“What do you mean, George?” Each word was spoken very individually, with a slight pause between each one.
It was as if she were giving him the opportunity to say, “They’ve asked me to father the child, but of course, I said no.”
Which, of course, wasn’t at all what he was going to say.
“I’m going to serve as Gannaum.” He tried to sound as pleasant as inhumanly possible. But there was just enough of a hint of fact in his voice to make it clear that this was not a topic that he was throwing open to the floor for discussion.
Buck grinned broadly. “Cool.” Emily was also smiling.
Susan looked around at them, feeling that if they looked so chipper about this, then maybe there was some positive aspect to it that she had not quite caught on to yet. “Wait a minute,” she said, feeling a desperate need to clarify things. “You’re going to have sex with May?”
“No duh, Mom,” said Emily, using that annoying irony that only preteens can muster. “How else?”
Encouraged by the positive and enlightened reactions of his offspring, George said to them—but also, and mostly, to Susan—“Isn’t it wonderful that I can help them like this?”
“I don’t think it’s wonderful,” said Susan, so quickly that the words spilled over each other. “I think it’s highly . . . inappropriate.”
Her entire family stared at her.
George couldn’t believe it. The thought that Matt could have so accurately, and easily, been more correct about Susan’s reaction than George possibly would have credited, was simply overwhelming. Unable to muster any sort of coherent reply, he simply echoed her last word. “Inappropriate?”
And that was when, as far as George was concerned, his beloved wife completely lost her mind.
Her voice went up in alarm as she said, “Actually, it’s . . . perverted! Gannaums don’t go around servicing the wives of Binnaums . . . who aren’t supposed to get married anyway!”
“It happens,” said George lamely.
“When?! Name me one time!” She stuck an upraised finger in his face.
He pushed her hand aside and admitted, “All right, it’s unusual. But I don’t see why it’s perverted.”
She slammed her fists down with such force that she rattled everything on the table. “You’re having sex with Albert’s wife!”
“Albert had sex with you!” shot back George. “You didn’t object to that!”
Emily and Buck were astounded. Whenever their parents argued, it was usually about boring stuff like money. But arguing about sex! This was incredible! Usually stuff like this only happened on television. Their heads snapped back and forth, looking from their mother to their father and back again, as if they were at a tennis match.
“Albert didn’t have sex with me!” Susan said firmly. “He catalyzed me.”
“Call it what you will. The same body parts were involved.”
Then Susan made a mental leap that George really wished she hadn’t made. If she’d reacted this badly to something that he felt was nothing horrible, how was she going to take the really unpleasant part of this whole business. The answer was not very well.
“What about me?” she demanded. “To impregnate May, you’ll have to accumulate bahna fluid. We won’t be able to have sex for a month!”
“Can’t we sacrifice for our friends?” he asked plaintively, hoping to appeal to some remnant of the nice, sane Susan that he’d married.
“Some sacrifice! You’re out playing around with another woman!”
“ ‘Playing around’?” Finally, George couldn’t control himself anymore. He had managed to contain his temper thus far, but now his voice rose in volume. “You sound like a human!”
Susan blanched. “That’s a terrible thing to say!”
“You know what I think?” George pressed, finally forced to admit that which horrified him . . . namely, that Matt was right. “I think you’re jealous!”
Susan threw her napkin down and jumped to her feet. “My friend Jessica warned me this would happen! You men will do anything, say anything, to satisfy that little snake in your pants!”
She stormed out of the room. And now George was on his feet, shouting, “What snake?!”
He charged up the stairs after her and got to the top just in time to hear the bedroom door slamming. “Susan, I can’t believe you have this attitude!” He stood outside the door, trying to strike a balance between anger and rationality. “I’ll be sacrificing, too! I don’t understand your thinking here. Do you actually believe that I’m so . . . so desperate to sleep with May, that I’d willingly spend a month of not having sex with you?”
“All I know.” said Susan through the door, “is that I sat there at work today saying that you’d never have sex with another woman. And then tonight you announce that you’re willing to . . . to backburner me for a month so that you can have sex with Albert’s wife! Is she prettier than me, George? Or is it that you’re just going to have enjoyment knowing that it’s someone other than me?”
“And I sat at work,” retorted George, “telling Matt that you’d be understanding, and—”
She threw the door open and stared at him aghast. “Matt knows about this?”
“Well, yes, but . . .”
“Oh my God! Who else did you tell, George?! How many of your policeman pals know how I’m going to be humiliated? Or maybe they’ll just all be able to tune in to the evening news!” And she slammed the door in his face once more.
He stood there, staring at it.
Knowing that it was not going to be opening again for the rest of the night.
He hated sleeping on the couch. It always gave him a stiff back.
“If Matt notices that I’m sitting oddly,” said George grimly, “I can always tell him I slipped on some soap.”
C H A P T E R 9
“YOU SLIPPED ON soap?”
Cathy tried to keep the laughter out of her voice and failed miserably. She sat on the edge of the couch in Matt’s apartment and giggled helplessly. Sikes sat at the opposite end, his arms folded, patiently waiting it out.
“I’m glad you think it’s so funny,” he said.
“Did they believe it? I mean . . . did anyone believe it?”
“Of course.”
She looked at him skeptically. “Even George?”
“Even George,” he said defiantly.
“Uh huh.”
“Look, Cathy, why’d you come over here tonight? I mean, not that I’m not happy to see you,” he added. “I mean, heck . . . why pass up an opportunity for some more bumps and bruises, huh?”
“That’s not fair, Matt,” she said sullenly. “I warned you what might happen.”
“Yeah, well . . . I know.” He sighed.
“I guess you just didn’t take the warning seriously.”
“Maybe you should come with a notice from the surgeon general printed on your side.”
“No,” she sighed. “Humans don’t seem to take that warning seriously, either.”
They were silent a moment, and then he said again, “Cathy, why did—”
“I come over?” He nodded. She said gamely, “I wanted to make up for what happened the other night.”
“How? Wait, let me guess. You’re going to let me handcuff you to the bedpost. Right?”
For a moment she actually seemed to consider it, but then she shook her head. “I don’t really think I’d get any enjoyment out of that. Would you?”
He conjured a mental picture of Cathy lying naked and helpless, chained to the bed. She was writhing in ecstasy. He saw himself climbing on top of her . . .
And then, in the throes of rapture, s
he accidentally ripped out his throat with her teeth.
“Nah,” he said. “That wouldn’t really be fun. But . . . so what did you have in mind.”
“Let’s go in the bedroom.”
“My five favorite words,” he said, unhesitatingly.
They went into his bedroom and he obeyed her instructions as she told him to remove his shirt. “Now lie flat on your belly,” she said.
“You sure?” he asked. “Lying flat, I can’t . . .”
“Yes, I know. But I can.” To his surprise, she cracked her knuckles.
Not sure exactly what to expect, Sikes lay down on the bed as she had told him. And then she straddled him and dug her fingers deep into his shoulder blades.
“I am,” she said confidently, “the best massage artist you’re going to find in this entire apartment building. Plus, I know precisely how to help injuries of your sort.”
“You mean shower injuries?”
“Exactly.”
Her expert fingers worked the flesh, and Sikes relaxed.
“It’s not just your neck, you know, Matt. Your shoulders are one huge knot. You have got to be the single most tense individual I’ve ever given a backrub.”
“You ever massage another cop?”
“No.”
“That explains it.”
She moved from his shoulders and up to his neck. His head went completely limp under her ministrations.
“Better?” she asked softly.
Sikes murmured in the affirmative. “You got the healing touch, Cathy.”
“I’m a doctor,” she said, matter-of-factly.
He smiled. He hadn’t meant it as a confirmation of what she did for a living. She took everything literally. That was one of the things he lo—
Whoa.
Was he going to say, “Loved about her?”
Even though it had only been his private thoughts, he found to his surprise that he couldn’t bring himself to even think the word. That probably meant he had a long way to go when it came to actually saying it.
But her comment about being a doctor had set his mind in another direction. A direction that might be able to help him on his case.
“Listen, Cathy, do you know anybody over at county?”
She nodded, and then realized he couldn’t see it. “A couple people. Why?”
“Somebody abandoned this Newcomer baby. We’re trying to get a doctor to see her.”
She made a clicking noise. “They’re swamped at county.” She thought a moment, and then said, “If you want, I’ll take a look at her.”
“That’d be great. Thanks.”
She lifted her hands and flexed the fingers for a moment. Then she slid off him and said, “Okay, sit up. How do you feel?”
He sat up and shook himself out like a big cocker spaniel. “Incredible. Where’d you pick that up?”
“I simply found that I had a knack for it. I had this patient once who thought I could make him feel better just by touching him. Apparently he’d seen E.T. about a hundred times. So I just started working him over with my fingers and he practically melted under my touch. I took some lessons, developed some of my own techniques, and presto.”
“Magic fingers.”
“How’s your bruise?”
She took his chin gently in her hands and examined it. She was pleased and her guilt a bit alleviated to see that it was fading.
“If you kiss it,” said Sikes, the soul of innocence, “you’ll make it better.”
She looked at him doubtfully. “Really?”
He nodded sincerely. “Ummhmmm.”
She leaned over to kiss his cheek, and just as she did so, he turned his head quickly so that their lips met. She pulled back to see that he was grinning like a naughty little boy. “Matt,” she said scoldingly.
He moved closer to her. “Take off your blouse. I’ll give you a massage. You’re not the only one with magic fingers.”
She stared at him. “Matt, the first time, I could understand your actions because, well . . . you probably didn’t fully believe what could happen to you. But a second time? Good lord, Matt, you don’t really want to be hurt?” Then she gave it some thought. “Do you?” she asked. “I mean . . . I know some humans like that . . .”
“I’m not one of them,” he said sincerely.
“Well, then . . . in that case, have you forgotten the last time you touched my spots?”
“I won’t touch your spots. I just want to fondle your breasts.”
He sounded very reasonable in his tone. Cathy considered it. “Well, I suppose there’s no harm in that.”
She started to unbutton her blouse, and then paused. She didn’t have all that much experience with her breasts as sex objects. Although they were of particular fascination to earth men, she knew, there was nothing especially alluring about them to other Tenctonese. So as far as she was concerned, they didn’t particularly factor into the sexual equation.
But Matt . . . well, he had had a good deal more practice in using them to obtain gratification. And maybe it was possible that he might get her worked up using them.
“No,” she said firmly, and buttoned her blouse again. “I still might be aroused. It’s just too dangerous.”
He leaned back, unable to contain his disappointment. “So what’s this mean?” he said in exasperation. “I’m never going to be able to touch you?”
“You’ve got to be trained.”
Sikes moaned and flopped backwards onto the bed, his arms outspread as if he’d just been crucified.
Cathy could sympathize with him. If someone had come up to her, told her that everything she knew about medicine was wrong, and that she had to start all over again, she would certainly be as frustrated and disconcerted as Sikes was. But she had to convince him nevertheless that it was the only way. Otherwise their relationship was never going to head in the direction that she suspected they both wanted it to go.
“Look, Matt, they’re starting a Human/Newcomer sex class at UCLA. Let’s sign up.”
Sikes covered his face with his hands. “A class? They’re going to teach me how to have sex?”
“How to have sex with me,” she emphasized.
“Oh, no. Forget that. No way.”
She was taken aback by the stridency with which he protested. “Why?”
He sat up and ticked off the reasons on his fingers. “It’s personal. It’s private. And it’s embarrassing.”
Slowly she rose from the bed. She thought very carefully about the way things were going with them and where she wanted them to end up. Although she felt more at ease with the subject than Matt did, it still wasn’t the easiest thing in the world for her to talk about. But finally, in a low voice, she said, “Matt, I don’t want a platonic relationship with you.”
“Who’s talking platonic?” He sounded confused. Clearly he still didn’t understand. Tough, self-reliant Matt Sikes was having real trouble accepting something that, to Cathy, was self-evident.
She turned and faced him. “Unless we take this class, that’s all we can have!”
Slowly understanding crept into his eyes. But it was very reluctant, and she wasn’t sure that he was going to embrace the only course open to them.
“Matt,” she said, and her voice dropped down an octave, sounding thick and throaty. “You know . . . I fantasize about coming over here, ripping off your clothes and making love to you . . . up one side of this room and down the other.”
He gaped at her.
“Yeah?”
She nodded.
“I’ll take the class,” he said, unhesitatingly.
She clapped her hands in glee, went to him, and kissed him lightly on the top of the head. “You won’t be sorry.”
“I bet I will,” he said ruefully. “Promise me I won’t be forced to do anything embarrassing.”
“I can’t, Matt,” she told him. “You have such a low threshold of embarrassment that the least little thing could get you flustered.”
Sikes
didn’t look particularly thrilled with that assessment, and Cathy took the opportunity to change the subject quickly. “By the way,” she said, “I just thought you should know I managed to sell those tickets to Phantom. I got a fairly good price for them.”
“Oh, Cath. Now I feel lousy,” he said.
“No reason for you to, Matt,” she said. “There was a conflict. You weren’t available. And, well, frankly . . . and I hope this doesn’t overinflate your ego . . . there just wasn’t anyone else I wanted to go with. So . . . that’s that.”
She didn’t seem especially broken up about it, and yet Sikes felt like a creep. Especially since he knew more than he was letting on. And poor Cathy had simply assumed that he was leveling with her.
“Well, y’know,” he heard someone who had his exact same voice say, “as it turns out, there was a last minute cancellation. So I happened to come by an extra ticket to the dinner—if you’d like to be my date for the evening, that is.”
She smiled that beautiful smile of hers. “Oh, Matt! How lovely! Are you sure it’s okay?”
“Sure I’m sure. I said I’m sure, and I’m sure. Is it okay with you?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then it’s a date.”
Happily she embraced him. But even as he sat there, the warmth of her pressed against him, he couldn’t help but feel a sense of dread about the whole thing.
He hoped . . . he prayed . . . that, in the several years since he’d seen him, Perelli had changed in his opinions.
Otherwise the evening could turn out to be a fairly uncomfortable one for all concerned.
Uncomfortable, hell.
It would be a disaster.
C H A P T E R 1 0
SIKES WALKED INTO THE police squad room the next day, whistling cheerfully. He passed Sandy Beach, who called out to him, “Switch to baths to play it safe, Sergeant?” and then he laughed.
“You’ll get yours, son of a beach,” Sikes muttered to himself.
As always, George had beaten him to the squad room. The Newcomer was staring at the computer screen, his fingers flying across the keyboard. He barely afforded Sikes a glance as the human said, “What’cha doing?”
