calm, virtuous, fearless, tinged with a mild humor; the other quiet, thoughtful, resourceful, intuitive, confident. Confident... ?
Quentin's internal nature had changed since last I had seen him. Humor... ? Victor was changing, too.
Both of them had an aura of masculine power, which had not been there before; it was a nature that at once both sought to cherish, and sought to dominate; it was both gentle and fierce in a way I cannot describe. It was more forthright and forceful than anything I knew in myself, bold to the point of madness. There was something frightening about it. To think of the placid, icy-calm Victor or the polite, mild-spoken Quentin charged with such vehement, masterful, potent nature, not merely for a moment or two, but at all times, made me feel awed and aghast, and secretly delighted.
Colin said, 'Leader! Can you see the black ships?'
Oops. In my voyeuristic peep into the male inward parts of Victor and Quentin, I had forgotten the danger.
'There are five of them closing in on us. One is within a score of yards, and men-lizard- men, really, Laestrygonians-are casting grapples. Have the ship jump to the starboard, now! Wow...'
'What are you seeing?'
'Those black ships are as fast as we are. Like speedboats. There are also men in the water. They are in green and blue and ultramarine scale mail, and they swim merely by pointing their toes and having space-time bend around them. Atlanteans. They are pretty fast, too. I just saw some go past Victor's lifeboat... That's funny. I bet they cannot see them.'
Colin said, 'Vanity, can you ask your ship to stop glowing in the dark? That has got to be the only reason why they can follow us-'
I shouted, 'Vanity! Hard to port! Damn-'
Vanity said, 'What happened?'
'One of those black ships shot past us while we were sliding down a pretty big wave. It shot over our heads like a rocket. I think we did that to one of them a moment ago. Boy, that looked scary.
Oops! There are Atlanteans aboard! Four of them! No-jeez-eight. They are swarming up the side, negating the distance to climb in one bound...'
Colin said, 'Vanity, can you turn off the force field around the boat?'
Vanity said, 'It's not a force field. The boundary for the laws of nature-'
'Can you?'
'Yes. It's done.'
I said, 'Two of them just got swept overboard.'
Colin said, 'Leader, with your permission, I'd like to go topside and repel boarders.'
I said, 'Granted. Don't get yourself killed, or your one-fourth of Chaos will attack the universe-'
He bent his head and kissed me.
He kissed me. Just like that.
It was warm and nice. His internal nature was as dark and fierce and masculine as any of the other boys' (I suppose I should call them men, considering) but he had a streak of loyalty, of wolf-pack love of comrades, that made his male power gentler than the others'. You would never guess it by looking at his outside, but Phobetor, the prince of dreams, had the soul of a poet, an almost feminine desire to be caught up and swept away by his emotions.
I yielded to that sweet hot kiss, and, before I knew what I was doing, I was pressing up to his hard, stern body with eager hunger, a yearning to surrender to him. There was a long, low moan in my throat I could not believe came from me. Only girls in movies, during kissing scenes, made that noise. Didn't they?
He kissed me till I was out of breath, and then he relaxed his arm, so that I collapsed onto the mattress, too warm and too happy to move.
I do not know if he was using a magic power on me to make me feel this way, or if all good kisses have magic in them.
Wow. I sort of forgot that I didn't like him.
Be careful about looking into the inner nature of people you know. It might surprise you. Close your eyes when kissing, and your higher senses, too.
I did close my eyes for a moment.
My lips were tingling. So was my whole body. Wow.
'Now, you,' I heard. Then, a kissing noise.
I sat up. I sort of remembered that I didn't like him: 'Hey!' I said, outraged. What a cad. What a slap in the face.
I heard the noise of a slap in the face, right at that moment. 'Mm-mmmph! Get off! Get away! I belong to Quentin!'
