“Does someone I know.”
“Hey! This is something new! Don’t tell me you’ve actually got a girlfriend hidden someplace?”
“Oh, she’s not here. She’s-she’s on holiday.”
“ Ach, I realize that she isn’t standing outside the door, man. I was just surprised because, after what you’ve told me, it hardly seems likely that your old battleship would approve.”
“I never take her home with me,” he said solemnly.
“Hell! As bad as that, is it?”
He laughed longer than she did.
Sick, that, him wanting to watch Clint gobble up a guinea pig. Things were now taking a little time to sink in, which was also nice. She’d never watched, even though it was just a fact of life like any other Clint had to eat, but nobody had to see him do it. Most people would think the same way she did, so he couldn’t be all that typical. He was weird.
“Are you weird?” she asked, sipping a little more.
“What a question!”
“I was thinking about you wanting to gawk at Clint having his num-nums.”
“I’d just be interested. What’s weird in that?”
Nothing, when you thought about how excited the same thing would make small kids. If they saw it happen in a game reserve, they’d love it and show no pity or other inside things. If the snake came for them, that would be a different matter, but their fear-like his-was an outside one. And she saw that happening all around her every night to grownups.
“What are you dreaming about?” he asked, making his voice friendly but not quite covering his nervousness.
“I was thinking.”
“Is it catching?”
As if able to read her mind, he reached out again to touch the python.
“Not too close to his head,” she warned.
“Pythons don’t bite.”
“Who told you that?”
“But they’re not poisonous.”
“Blood poisoning. You can catch blood poisoning from his teeth-they’re dirty.”
He winced. “Can’t it go in the basket?”
“Just now.”
So the girlfriend was away. Oh, yes, that began to explain a few things. Such as a bottle of champagne so big that two people could get very drunk on it. A bottle that had probably been shown to quite a few eyes in the club earlier on, and there had also probably been jokes about her. Even a few coarse bets laid. It was becoming clearer.
“You haven’t been to my dressing room before,” she said.
“I know. So?”
“It wasn’t so private at the table.”
“What-what are you hinting at?”
Quick as a flash, he was. Look at the innocent smile.
“You told your friends you were coming here?”
“What?”
“Friends, pals, closest buddies.”
He frowned, as if he didn’t understand.
“Am I right?”
“I don’t really have any,” he said. “Certainly nobody I’d tell this to.”
Tell this to.
She hesitated. This was the moment to kick him out. Yet she could still be the loser: he could go back and make up something filthy for his cronies that would have them all outside, banging on the door, waving bottles. Or waiting for her in the alley, or tailing her back to the boardinghouse. The bugger of it was she had allowed him to stay too long already, and so kicking him out wasn’t going to solve anything. If only there was some way she could stop him from telling anyone stories that could hurt her-make him run off home with his tail between his legs. If only…
There was a way! And by the time she had finished with him, he wouldn’t even want to think about it, let alone talk. She knew men.
“Equal shares,” she demanded.
“It’s not making you too… y’know?”
“Gives me funny feelings.”
He cocked his head at that, broadening his smile. Then concentrated on getting that extra bit more into her glass.
She adjusted Clint’s position, and her gown began to slip open in the front. She let it fall how it pleased, aware her bosom was gradually pushing out. Soon both patches would be catching the light.
“What sort of funny feelings?” he asked. “Do you think they’re like mine?”
“How should I know?”
“I-I can’t put mine into words,” he said.
“Nor mine either,” she said, letting her knees slowly part.
He gulped down what was left in his mug. Sweat seeped onto his brow. It must have felt like a wet dream coming true.
Her breasts were out. Round and full, but not so heavy she got a heat rash under them, as some did. Tanned a deep orange like the rest of her. Every bit.
“Something embarrassing you?”
“No!” He looked away.
Again, she knew what to do. She pulled Clint’s head around and guided him to slide down off her shoulders, parting her cleavage. This made the adhesive prickle and the patches feel as if they might pop off.
“Christ,” he said, staring.
She took Clint and redirected him so that he eased back up around her neck, his tongue flickering soft against her skin, his two little feet scratching as he twisted and used his belly scales. She moved as sensuously as the snake did, working him into a comfortable position, and then she held him there.
“I told you about staring,” she murmured.
“You actually… I mean, you really do get a…”
“Isn’t that why you came round here tonight?”
“No, I didn’t…”
“The show? Didn’t turn you on, too? Or is it only us girls?”
Clint was heading down between her breasts, running a sleek chin over her hard little belly. She let him think he was getting away, then clamped his head tight in her thighs, halting his slither, for just a second.
He went pale.
“Do you like the encore, baby?” she asked, parting her legs and allowing Clint to gain the floor. The python naturally went straight under the dressing table.
“Pardon?” he said, coming down off tiptoe.
“Does he make you feel jealous?” she asked, lolling back, an elbow in a mess of spilled powder. “That’s what most of them say. That Clint makes them jealous. Green, that’s the color they go.”
He took a pace toward her and then said, “Will it stay there?”
“My feelings are getting even funnier.”
“But will the snake…?”
“He’ll come if I whistle.”
“Will you?”
“What?” she asked, making her smile dirty.
The gown slipped from her shoulders. She stood, ankles well apart, hands on hips, then began humming an
