bulky types with that focused look to the butt. Like for example my fellah here. Yup, girls just don’t basically compare.
“Now that is very odd,” he said at last. “The basic protectives have been renewed, yes. Here they seem to be intended to nudge minds toward harmony and cooperation, as well. But the external wards… the warnings of hostile intent, the twisting of paths towards ruin and disaster… they have not been renewed at all. Still there, still strong if old-fashioned, but they are precisely as the Brotherhood records indicate. Very few modifications.”
“That’s not in character for Adrienne,” Ellen said. “She likes to give these devil-may-care vibes, but she’s got a chess player’s mind. Careful and she thinks ahead.”
Adrian nodded. “Still, I would not care to be a human approaching this place with hostile intention.”
“What would happen?” Ellen said.
“You would make noises no matter how careful you were. Your belt would snap, your equipment would break, weapons would misfire. Dogs would happen to catch your scent and bark. If you came in a group, you and your friends would quarrel with each other. And if there was the slightest chance of a heart attack or a stroke or a detached retina or a fall that twisted your ankle and then your head happened to hit a stone…”
She shivered, and he went on: “But they are all directed outward. That is what I had to know.”
He hesitated. “I am afraid I must become the beast again to take you back.”
Ellen put her hands on her hips. “Why afraid?” she said.
He blinked, taken aback. “Because… well, it’s a large predatory animal. Ellie, you don’t even like dogs!”
“That’s dogs. Who said anything about cats?”
His smile was unwilling. “You are a very brave person, Ellie.”
“I hope so. But it isn’t courage. That sabertooth thing is beautiful. And that ride… if I weren’t scared of what’s going to happen tomorrow and the day after, I’d say that was just plain fun.”
“I… well, it is sort of… bestial. An abandonment of myself. And… I thought you would find it repulsive, Ellie.”
Now her smile grew into a grin. “Adrian, did you ever see Beauty and the Beast?”
“You mean La Belle et la B?te by Cocteau? Yes, of course… though, frankly, it bites a bit close to the bone. I liked the ending, despite knowing better.”
She nodded. “Yes, that’ll do. Though I had the Disney version in mind. What do you think of the ending? What went through your mind when you saw it?”
“It’s Disney… so of course the ending is happy. Well, to be fair, the Cocteau isn’t much different. The story always gave me a little hope.”
“I’ll tell you what I thought of it. Here I was, putting myself in Belle’s place… and inside I’m shouting at the end: What’s with this pansy prince? I want my Beast back!”
This time he laughed aloud. “But, Ellie,” he said gently. “Mine is not an animated beast.”
She shrugged. “Sure. If it was just a sabertooth… I’d be a bit nervous. But it’s got you inside it, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, certainly. But, Ellie, I am the most dangerous beast of all.”
“Nah. You’ve got you inside you too, if you’ll pardon the grammar. What you are is strong, Adrian. I can deal with that. I like it, actually. Women generally do-like strong, dangerous-but-safe men, you know? Bad boys who aren’t really bad down deep. It’s one reason I fell for you in the first place.”
His laugh had something of a groan in it. “Oh, please, please, tell me I am not Heathcliff!”
“No, no… Mr. Rochester, maybe… though we don’t have to remove the hand or make you blind to make you safe. Your conscience is a much more effective set of controls!”
“You flatter me,” Adrian said.
“Hey, we’re engaged. It’s my job.”
“And mine to see you safe,” he said, humor fading to grimness. “Come. We must get you home before anyone notices you are gone.”
“It’s a house, not a home, but I know what you mean. Here, kitty, kitty!”
His smile faded into the fanged grin of the sabertooth, like a Cheshire cat in reverse.
Let’s make my brave words true, she thought, and swung herself across the great animal’s back. Be what you want to seem, as the man said.
“Hi-yo Silver, away!”
Lounging by the pool in the afternoon felt good after a swim and a late rising.
In fact, I feel good generally, Ellen thought. Odd. Nothing’s changed, but I’m… hopeful. Why?
Somehow she didn’t feel really curious about that either; the thought faded from her mind.
There were a number of swimming pools in the grounds of the casa grande. This one was a rectangle of pale- veined Vermont marble with rounded ends, a hundred feet long and sixty wide. A fountain threw water high in the center, three stone basins stacked above each other on a central shaft. There were several pieces of statuary around it, done in the smooth French moderne style of the 1920s.
They included a classical-themed Leda and the Swan that grew more disturbingly realistic the longer you looked at it. Unnervingly so, if you were a lucy, with Leda’s splay-legged position and the expression of hopeless horror on her face beneath the great rampant bird that gripped her with wings and beak. That made you think about the truth behind the myth, and the mocking joke behind the statue.
Leila and Leon were playing in the shallow portion, like two lithe brown otters, with a nanny watching from the edge; Monica’s children were there too. The other end had a curving semicircular colonnade, two rows of stone pillars supporting a bronze trellis with wisteria growing woven through it, the purple-white-lavender bunches of blossom hanging overhead and scenting the air with a delicate, elusive scent amid the flickering shade. Adrienne and Dale and Michiko were resting on couches grouped around a low table, close enough for conversation, which was in some sneezing-clicking guttural language. Ellen suspected it was Apache, but couldn’t have been sure even if she’d been able to break the sounds down into separate words.
“I’m glad Josh and Sophie are getting to know the Do?a’s children,” Monica said to Ellen.
The lucies were lying on loungers underneath the pergola, a little aside from their Shadowspawn.
“You are?” Ellen said neutrally.
“Oh, yes. By the time Leon and Leila are old enough to need lucies, Josh and Sophie will be ready for initiation,” Monica said happily.
“Ah… well, that’s one career choice,” Ellen said neutrally.
“Wouldn’t it be marvelous? Well, it all depends on what Leon and Leila want, of course. I’ve got such bright kids, I’m sure they’ll have a lot of alternatives. They won’t have any problems with college!”
Dale’s lucy Kai was wearing nothing but a black bowler hat; the rest of them had bathing suits on, albeit topless for the women. She held up a bottle of lotion-cum-sunblock.
“Anyone want a rubdown with this stuff?” she asked brightly.
“No, thanks,” Monica said.
Ellen and Peter and Jose shook their heads; Wayne Jackson didn’t notice the invitation. He was thinner than she remembered from San Francisco, and occasionally tears dripped from his eyes. The other lucies ignored him courteously.
Or because it’s just too difficult to deal with it, Ellen thought grimly. It could be any of us, if Adrienne decided to destroy someone. Nobody talks about whatever happened to Jamal, either. Or maybe he’s destroying himself with guilt, too. Christ, I feel guilty enough, and I haven’t been helping plan the destruction of the world! “Hell, anyone want to give me a rubdown?” Kai inquired.
“No, thanks,” Monica said again.
Kai subsided and picked up a book of hentai manga; from a glimpse, it mostly involved tentacles and orifices. Ellen smiled a little to herself. Monica went on with a luxurious, but cautious, stretch: “By the way, Ellen, thanks for introducing Adrienne to that delicious silk whip thing.”
“Ah…” Ellen said. “You’re welcome, I guess.”
“I’ve always liked the smacking and spanking and smothering-well, I learned to get into that pretty quick after I came here-but I could never really enjoy being beaten with things before, however hard I tried. That riding crop just plain hurts. Adrienne chased me around with the silk whip last night after the first feeding; she used to use the riding crop for that. Those lovely silk thongs can give you a nice toasty glow, though.”
