'As may be. I got to the top and was landed without having to grab for it, or depend on safety nets - I didn't see any, to tell the truth. Through more doors that unlocked for me and into an enormous living room. Enormous! Very oddly furnished and rather austere. Jubal, there are people who think you run an odd household here.'
'I can't imagine why. Just plain and comfortable.'
'Well, your mnage is Aunt Jane's Finishing School for Refined Young Ladies compared with the weirdie Mike runs. I'm just barely inside the joint when the first thing I see I don't believe. A babe, tattooed from her chin to her toes - and not a goddam stitch otherwise. Hell, not even the home-grown fig leaf - she was tattooed everywhere. Fantastic!'
Jubal said quietly, 'You're a big-city bumpkin, Ben. I knew a tattooed lady once. Very nice girl. Intense in some ways. But sweet.'
'Well,' Ben conceded. 'I was giving you a first impression. This gal is very nice, too, once you get adjusted to her pictorial supplement - and the fact that she usually has a snake with her. She's the one who raises them, rather than Mike.'
Jubal shook his head. 'I was wondering if by any chance it was the same woman. Fully tattooed women are rather scarce these days. But the lady I knew, some thirty years back - too old now to be this one, I suppose - had the usual vulgar fear of snakes, to excess. However, I'm fond of snakes myself? I look forward to meeting your friend. I hope.'
'You will when you visit Mike. She's sort of a majordomo for him - and a priestess, if you'll pardon the word. Patricia - but called 'Pat,' or 'Patty.''
'Oh, yes! Jill has spoken of her? and thinks very highly of her. Never mentioned her tattoos, however. Probably didn't think it was relevant. Or perhaps none of my business.'
'But she's nearly the right age to be your friend. She says. When I said 'babe' I was again giving a first impression. She looks to be in her twenties; she claims her oldest child is that old. Anyhow, she trotted up to meet me, all big smile, put her arms around me and kissed me. 'You're Ben, I know. Welcome, brother! I give you water!'
'You know me, Jubal. I've been in the newspaper racket for years - I've been around. But I had never been kissed by a totally strange babe dressed only in tattoos? who was determined to be as friendly and affectionate as a collie pup. I was embarrassed.'
'Poor Ben. My heart bleeds.'
'Damn it, you would have felt the same way.'
'No. Remember, I've met one tattooed lady. They feel completely dressed in those tattoos - and rather resent having to put on clothes. Or at least this was true of my friend Sadako. Japanese, she was. But of course the Japanese are not body conscious the way we are.'
'Well,' Ben answered. 'Pat isn't exactly body conscious, either - just about her tattoos. She wants to be stuffed and mounted, nude, when she dies, as a tribute to George.'
''George'?'
'Sorry. Her husband. Up in heaven, to my relief? although she talked about him as if he had just slipped out for a short beer. While she was behaving as if she expected a trial mounting and stuffing any moment. But, essentially, Pat is a lady? and she didn't let me stay embarrassed-'
XXXI
PATRICIA HAD HER ARMS around Ben Caxton and gave him the all-out kiss of brotherhood before he knew what hit him. She felt at once his unease and was herself surprised, because Michael had told her to expect him, given her Ben's face in her mind, had explained that Ben was a brother in all fullness, of the Inner Nest, and she knew that Jill was grown closer with Ben second only to that with Michael? which was always necessarily first since Michael was the fountain and source of all their knowledge of the water of life.
But the foundation of Patricia's nature was an endless wish to make other people as happy as she was; she slowed down. She invited Ben to get rid of his clothes but did so casually and did not press the matter, except to ask him to remove his shoes, with the explanation that the Nest was everywhere kind to bare feet and the unstated corollary that street shoes would not be kind to it - it was soft and clean as only Michael's powers could keep things clean, which Ben could see for himself.
Aside from that she merely pointed out where to hang any clothes he found too warm for the Nest and hurried away to fetch him a drink. She didn't ask his preferences; she knew them from Jill. She merely decided that he would choose a double martini this time rather than Scotch and soda, the poor dear looked tired. When she came back with a drink for each of them, Ben was barefooted and had removed his street jacket. 'Brother, may you never thirst.'
'We share water,' he agreed and drank. 'But there's mighty little water in that.'
'Enough,' she answered. 'Michael says that the water could be completely in the thought; it is the sharing. I grok he speaks rightly.'
'I grok. And it's just what I needed. Thanks, Patty.'
'Ours is yours and you are ours. We're glad you're safely home. Just now the others are all at services or teaching. But there's no hurry; they will come when waiting is filled. Would you like to look around your Nest?'
Still puzzled but interested Ben let her lead him on a guided tour. Some parts of it were commonplace: a huge kitchen with a bar at one end - rather short on gadgets and having the same kind-to-the-feet floor covering as elsewhere, but not notable otherwise save for size - a library even more loaded than Jubal's, bathrooms ample and luxurious, bedrooms - Ben decided that they must be bedrooms although they contained no beds but simply floors that were even softer than elsewhere; Patty called them 'little nests' and showed him one she said she usually slept in.
It contained her snakes.
It had been fitted on one side for the comfort of snakes. Ben suppressed his own slight queasiness about snakes until he came to the cobras. 'It's all right,' she assured him. 'We did have glass in front of them. But Michael has taught them that they must not come past this line.'
'I think I would rather trust glass.'
'Okay, Ben.' In remarkably short order she replaced the glass barrier, front and top. But he was relieved when they left, even though he managed to stroke Honey Bun when invited to. Before returning to the huge living room Pat showed him one other room. It was large, circular, had a floor which seemed almost as cushiony as that of the bedrooms, and no furniture. In its center was a round pool of water, almost a swimming pool. 'This,' she told him, 'is the Innermost Temple, where we receive new brothers into the Nest.' She went over and dabbled a foot in the water. 'Just right,' she said. 'Want to share water and grow closer? Or maybe just swim?'
'Uh, not right now.'
'Waiting is,' she agreed. They returned to the living room and Patricia went to get him another drink. Ben settled himself on a big, very comfortable couch - then got up at once. The place was too warm for him, that first drink was making him sweat, and leaning back on a couch that adjusted itself too well to his contours made him just that much hotter. He decided it was damn silly to dress the way he would in Washington, warm as it was in here - and with Patty decked out in nothing but ink and a bull snake she had left around her shoulders during the latter part of the tour that reptile would keep him from temptation even if it wasn't already clearly evident that Patty was not trying to be provocative.
He compromised by leaving on jockey shorts and hung his other clothes in the foyer. As he did so, he noticed a sign printed on the inside of the door through which he had entered: 'Did You Remember to Dress?'
He decided that, in this odd household, this gentle warning might be necessary if any were absent-minded. Then he saw something else that he had missed on coming in, his attention earlier having been seized by the sight of Patty herself. On each side of the door was a large bowl, as gross as a bushel basket - and each was tilled with money.
More than filled - Federation notes of various denominations spilled out on the floor.
He was staring at this improbability when Patricia returned. 'Here's your drink, Brother Ben. Grow close in Happiness.'
'Uh, thanks.' His eyes returned to the money.
She followed his glance. 'You must think I'm a sloppy housekeeper, Ben - and I am. Michael makes it so easy,
