“Before, I meant.”
“I know.” Trouble looked away from the screen. In the old days, she had described herself on the government forms as a clerk-typist, freelance; Cerise had called herself a grade-three secretary, Trouble remembered, and not for the first time wondered if the other woman had actually trained as office staff. She said, “There must be a way we could check it out— or we could just hand it over to Mabry as is, I suppose.”
“You don’t sound any more eager than I am,” Cerise said.
“Well, I wouldn’t feel like I was living up to my part of the bargain,” Trouble said. “And I really don’t want him to think that way.”
“Yes,” Cerise said. She frowned at the screen, touched more keys to dump her responses into the main search matrix. “Let me start this running, then we can talk.”
Trouble nodded, stayed leaning over the other woman’s shoulder to watch as Cerise keyed in the first series of access codes. The regional database prompts appeared after a moment, and she keyed in the next codes. Even working off the wire, completely outside the nets’ virtual space, her work was precise and efficient, and Trouble caught herself watching again in fascination. Cerise found the main search program almost at once, and touched more keys to insinuate her own program, replacing the preset parameters with her own datasieve. There was a momentary hesitation, and then the system accepted her override. The screen went blank, the prompts replaced with a holding pattern. Trouble eyed it warily—she distrusted anything that tied up a machine long enough for the authorities to complete a trace, no matter how necessary she knew it to be—and Cerise pushed her chair away.
“This is going to take a while,” she said. “You want a drink?”
“Yeah, thanks.” Trouble watched her move to the low cabinet, touch her thumb to the cheap lock and open the main compartment. “Wine?”
Cerise turned back to her, already holding two half-sized bottles. “The glasses are in the bathroom.”
“How elegant,” Trouble said, but went to collect the tumblers. The sinkboard was cluttered with familiar items, brush, toothbrush, a dozen black-lacquer containers of makeup, all the same expensive brand Cerise had always used. Some things don’t change, she thought, and brought the glasses back out into the main room. Cerise handed her one of the bottles, accepted a glass, and they poured the wine in companionable silence.
“Well,” Cerise said, after a moment, and held up her glass in silent toast.
Trouble matched the gesture, old habit, tasted the wine cautiously. It was better than they had ever been able to afford—better than she had been able to afford on her syscop’s salary—and she took a longer swallow, savoring it.
“Expense accounts are a wonderful thing,” Cerise said, with a rather bitter smile.
“Useful, certainly,” Trouble said. “Is Multiplane really going to pay for all this?”
“It’s on their account,” Cerise answered.
The silence returned, broken only by the occasional whirring of the machine’s main drive as it accessed some other part of the program. Cerise turned to look at the screen, grateful for the interruption, saw that the holding screen had been replaced by something else, and went to see to it. Trouble trailed behind her, still holding her glass of wine, watched over the other’s shoulder while she stored the file—a massive one, Trouble saw without surprise—and extricated herself from the system. Cerise didn’t look up when she had finished, but recalled the main program and set up a second search routine.
“Sorting by profession?” Trouble asked after a moment, wanting to break the silence. Cerise nodded, preoccupied, fingers busy on the keys, and Trouble resigned herself to wait. To her surprise, however, Cerise touched a final sequence that dumped the new file into the sort queue, and pushed herself back from the machine.
“Yeah. I’ve set it up to break the list down by job listing, technie stuff at the top, and so on, but then we’ll have to go over it by hand.”
Trouble nodded. “Fun.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Trouble stared for a moment longer at the screen, its numbers now replaced by a mindless swirl of color. “How long, do you think?”
Cerise shrugged. “I don’t know. Fifteen, twenty minutes?”
“That long.”
“It’s a complicated file, and a complicated search,” Cerise said, annoyed.
“Sorry.”
The silence was less amiable this time. Trouble turned away from the media center, frowning slightly, found Cerise scowling back at her from across the room. Trouble felt her own frown deepening, temper rising in response to Cerise’s irritation, wondered suddenly what had happened to the ease they had felt—was it only that morning? I’m not letting this happen again, she thought, smoothed her expression with an effort. She took another swallow of the wine, said, “I did miss you.”
Cerise’s eyebrows flicked upward in surprise. It was on the tip of her tongue to remind Trouble that she had been the one who left—but she’d said that before, and Trouble had apologized, too. “Well,” she said. “I missed you, too.”
It was her turn to sound unreasonably annoyed, and Trouble laughed softly. Cerise stared at her for a moment, then, reluctantly, smiled back. “So now what?” she asked, and Trouble put her glass down, took a step toward her.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Ah,” Cerise said, and put her own glass aside. “Well.”
“Back rub?” Trouble asked, too brightly, and Cerise grinned.
“No. Come here.”
Trouble held out her arms instead, and Cerise moved toward her as though hypnotized, caught Trouble in a firm embrace. Trouble returned the hug, awkwardly, hampered by the other woman’s hold, and was very aware that Cerise was staring up at her, still grinning, daring her to pull away. They were close in height, but Trouble was the taller; she clung to that illusion of advantage as Cerise worked one arm free, reached up to tilt the other woman’s face down to meet her own lips. Her kiss was momentarily chaste, lips closed and cool, deliberately so, and she smiled again as Trouble’s eyes flickered closed.
Trouble caught her breath, pulled away for an instant, a familiar ache beginning between her legs, set one hand deliberately on Cerise’s breast, feeling the nipple hard beneath her palm, distinct even through the fabric of her shirt and bra. The bra was a surprise—Cerise had never used to wear one before, but then, they had both filled out since the old days, gotten older, gotten better—but the rest was startlingly familiar. They made their way into the bedroom somehow, locked in a stumbling embrace, still competing to end up on top because that was what had always turned them on, rumbled with shirts and jeans until at last Cerise sprawled back against the pillows. She was naked to the waist, shirt discarded somewhere on the floor, bra tangled under her, jeans half unbuttoned already, and Trouble sat back on her heels, too caught by the swell of breast and belly for a moment to even think of shrugging out of her own clothes. She had forgotten, somehow—had always forgotten, had always relearned, each time she saw Cerise naked—just how fine her body was, the alabaster skin and the dark brown- pink aureoles, the sleek black hair now tousled around her face.
“Come here, then,” Cerise said, and reached for the taller woman, drawing her down against her own embrace. Trouble came to her willingly, wrapping arms and legs around her, grunted in surprise as Cerise rolled deftly, so that she straddled Trouble’s hips.
“My turn,” Cerise said, and Trouble let herself be peeled out of the tangle of shirt and bra. Cerise slid her fingers under the waistband of Trouble’s jeans, fingers cool against hot skin, then, suddenly impatient, tugged the zipper open, dragged jeans and underwear down around Trouble’s hips. Trouble arched upward, ready to cooperate, but Cerise left the material where it was, tangled just below Trouble’s crotch, and leaned forward, drawing her breasts down the other woman’s body. Trouble whimpered softly—it had been a long time, too long —and she should know better, should stop now, but Cerise’s touch dissolved all thoughts of safety. She pulled Cerise down hard against her. Cerise grinned—Trouble could feel the movement of her mouth against her breast—and slid her hand down between Trouble’s legs. Trouble closed her eyes, giving herself up to the sensations, the too-slow touch, easing between her labia, thumb circling her clit while a finger pressed and entered her. Cerise mumbled something, sounded approving, tongue busy on Trouble’s right nipple, and Trouble
