'What?' Victoria said.
'My bones sort of are coming out the ends of my toes.'
'Stop,' Victoria said, her tone unsure. 'Please stop.'
'All right.' They reached the bathroom. 'I'll be okay now. I just want to slop off the worst of the beer.'
'Will you come to bed?'
'I don't . . .'
'I only want to know you're there!' Victoria took his hand and held it between her own. 'It feels like forever since I've touched you!'
Stephen Thomas drew his hand away. 'This'll all be over soon,' he said. 'Soon. Then everything will be back to normal.'
Victoria let her hands fall to her sides.
CHAPTER 10
THE LIGHT TUBES HAD JUST BEGUN TO change from night to day, from sheer black touched with brilliant, multicolored stars to an antique-gray luminescence.
Victoria, Satoshi, and Stephen Thomas crossed the dunes. A silver crescent of beach curved around Starfarer's warmest lagoon. Cool night air, flowing over the surface of the water, turned to gilded fog. Phosphorescent waves crept like living tendrils over the sand.
Stephen Thomas had his doubts about this excursion. But he did not have the heart to turn Victoria down.
n, some
Not again. She deserved some fu
play. She had even persuaded Satoshi to get up early and come along.
Maybe it would work out all right. Stephen Thomas felt pretty good, especially compared to the way he had felt yesterday. His last toenail had fallen off, and his feet did not hurt quite so badly. He suspected they would hurt worse later; he could already feel the small sharp lumps of claws developing where his nails had been.
Last night's stabbing pain, from his penis to his spine, had not reoccurred. The pain had scared him. His bruises should be healed by now. Maybe the slugs had hurt him worse than he thought. A hairline fracture, something the health center could miss?
Victoria stood on the beach, up to her knees in dense fog, kicking off her jeans and stripping her shirt off over her head. Satoshi undressed beside her, slowly and deliberately.
'Come on,' Victoria called, her voice low and eager. Water condensed in her hair and caught the light, shining soft as transparent pearls. She splashed into the sea. The fog closed over her, muting sounds.
Naked, Satoshi folded his pants and laid them on a twist of driftwood. 'Reminds me of the genetics departmenthe said. 'During the attack. The fog . . .'
'I don't-' But Stephen Thomas did remember-
The missile struck. The building quivered and fell around Stephen Thomas and Satoshi and Fox. It crushed the freezer. Liquid nitrogen flowed out in a thick, unbreathable fog. A shard of rock foam struck Stephen Thomas across the forehead, and blood flowed into his eyes. Everything he saw after that, he saw through a red haze. When he saw his own blood, he fainted.
-The flash of memory disappeared. Stephen Thomas shivered.
Satoshi drew a deep breath. 'Oh, hell!' He sprinted across the wet sand. With a yelp, he launched himself and belly-flopped into the waves.
Stephen Thomas took off his shorts and shirt and kicked away his sandals. The new diver walked into the sea for the first time.
The warm water slid up his body, raising the fine new hair away from his skin. Air bubbles caught and sparkled beneath his pelt. Stephen Thomas stroked forward into the sea. The bubbles escaped, swirled away, spiraled to the surface, and burst with a velvety pop. The warm water soothed and relaxed his body. He wished the water were cold and exhilarating.
He opened his eyes.
He could see perfectly. The water was very clear, the bare white sand arrayed in ripples. His hair tendrilled in front of his face. He pulled forward with a long breaststroke, and the motion pushed his hair out of his eyes.
Victoria swam toward him, her stroke smooth and strong. Satoshi slid beneath him, nearly silent. Satoshi was close enough to touch Stephen Thomas, but he kept his arms close to his sides, streamlining his body. Victoria did touch Stephen Thomas, swimming past on the surface, stretching out her arm, stroking him against the direction of his fur from the back of his knee, up his thigh, across his buttocks, along his spine. He tensed, shuddered, relaxed. He kicked forward, rising beneath Victoria's hand, letting her fingers and the pressure of the water smooth his delicate pelt back into place.
When she swam beside him, he turned to face her. They sidestroked, slowed, and he caressed her. He wondered where Satoshi was. With the thought, Stephen Thomas found his partner treading water behind him in the faint, fuzzy sound picture of his surroundings.
Exhaling explosively as he surfaced, Stephen Thomas gasped in a deep breath and dove beneath Victoria. He touched and teased her, all over, with his fingers and his tongue. He slid his hands, his swimming webs, over her breasts. Her nipples hardened, their heat glowing. He could smell and taste her excitement, familiar, comforting, arousing, intensified by his changing senses. He listened for Satoshi; he opened his mouth
and let the sea water flow over his tongue. Satoshi hovered, near, yet out of reach, and the taste of his body in the water was cool, uninterested. Stephen Thomas blew his breath out in a stream of bubbles. Victoria touched his hand, then swam toward Satoshi. Stephen Thomas followed, kicking along easily beside her. lie touched her breasts again, stroked his fingertips down her body, and slid his hand between her legs. He let the rhythm of her kicking rub the swimming web against her clitoris. She gasped and pressed her legs together and lost her momentum. Stephen Thomas jerked his hand away, afraid he had hurt her with the strong, resilient edge of the web.
But Victoria grabbed his wrist.
'Yes,' she said. 'That's just right-it's like . . . like being made love to by a silk scarf.'
They trod water together, face to face in the warm sea. Victoria embraced both men, drawing them to her and against each other, clasping Stephen Thomas's hand between her thighs. She kissed Satoshi, then Stephen Thomas, her tongue quick against his lips, sliding between his teeth, hesitating as if she had never kissed him before. Stephen Thomas tasted her, with new intensity.
The triad sank. Breath bubbled from Victoria's mouth, from her nose, tickling Stephen Thomas's lips and face. She pulled back and kicked to the surface.
'Let's go where it's shallower,' she said. 'I can't breathe underwater!'
She grinned and plunged toward shore, diving between Stephen Thomas and Satoshi.
Stephen Thomas followed her, pressing himself past Satoshi, letting the whole length of his body stroke his partner's belly. Stephen Thomas felt no arousal in him, no excitement.
Victoria stood chest-deep in the water. The fog was dissipating; it swirled around her like a wraith. Gentle waves covered her breasts, then exposed her again. She hugged Stephen Thomas and wrapped one leg around his hips. Satoshi swam up behind him and touched him, tentatively, sliding his fingertips over his shoulders.
Stephen Thomas gave himself to the seduction of the water and his lovers' desires and his own.
Suddenly Victoria cried out. She pulled away. Off balance, Stephen Thomas and Satoshi both splashed forward, submerged, and tumbled apart. Stephen Thomas gulped a mouthful of salt water and struggled to his feet, gasping and coughing.
'Stephen Thomas, oh, I'm sorry, I thought-'
She stopped and patted his back gently till he got his breath again.
'I can't breathe underwater, either,' Stephen Thomas said. 'Yet. What .
. . are you okay? Did I hurt you?'
'Oh-not really. Not exactly. When we started, it was wonderful, but then-' She glanced ruefully at Satoshi. 'I guess you were right.'
'Yeah,' he said. 'I guess so. Sorry.'
They stood together, closer to shore, waist-deep in the water and nearly in full daylight. The fog had vanished with the breeze that chilled the air. Chagrined, Stephen Thomas shivered.
