All Good Things__ - Michael Jan Friedman [0]
He hated balalaika music, hated it with a passion. However, he would put up with it just this once. And not because he had to. He would put up with it specifically because he didn’t have to.
As he sat at his solitary table on a candlelit balcony overlooking the beach, sipping at his vodka and pushing a pitted olive around his plate, a woman emerged from the dining room within.
By local standards, she was quite beautiful, with alabaster skin and pale blond hair woven into a bun. She wore a safari outfit, though she had probably never been on a safari in her theoretical life.
“The nights are beautiful here,” she said.
He shrugged. “I suppose… if you like that sort of thing.”
She gazed at him from under long, straw-colored lashes. “Don’t you?” “I guess I don’t have much of an opinion,” he admitted.
“How strange,” she said. “An attractive man like yourself, alone on a night like this… usually has opinions about a great many things.”
He smiled at her. “If I’m not mistaken, you came into this place with such a man. I’ll bet he’s wondering where you are even as we speak.”
She moved and the moonlight glinted off her hair. “Perhaps he is. And he certainly does have his share of opinions. It’s just that I’m a little tired of them.”
‘I see,” he told her. “And now you’d prefer to hear some of mine.”
“You’re a very clever man,” she observed. “You catch on quickly.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “I do. And for just a moment there, you were almost interesting. But…” He smiled politely. “I think that moment has passed.”
The woman’s eyes went wide. “How dare you… ?” she gasped. For a moment, she seemed on the verge of slapping him in the face. But in the end, she decided not to, and simply disappeared back into the dining room.
Oh well, he told himself. I guess that’s the way the flaxen-haired tourist bounces.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw two figures hopping around down below—removing their shoes, he gathered. As he watched, they slipped away from the mellow, orange circle of light that emanated from the tavern. One was male, one female; one broad-shouldered and big-boned, the other comparatively slender.
He knew them, of course. Knew them quite well, in fact.
They were both barefoot as they made their way along the margin of the sea, leaving wet footprints in the sand. From time to time, one of them would reach for the other’s hand, then let it go again. It was obvious that they were still in the courting stage, feeling each other out, uncertain of how far to take this evening without overstepping some unstated boundary.
Such a waste of time. If they wanted to procreate, why not do so? Why this elaborate and confusing ritual, when they could be spending their time on more valuable pursuits? On the improvement of their backward race, for example?
But no. Not them. All they could think of was their own, petty concerns. He shivered at the inanity of it. At the sheer, unmitigated ego—a subject on which he was quite the expert.
The breeze ruffled the stars in the clear night sky, bringing him the primitive scent of the prize-winning goulash cooking in the kitchen below. It would have made his mouth water, if his mouth had had the prospensity to do such things.
Of course, it didn’t. But then, he wasn’t really here to soak up the scenery—or the local vodka, for that matter. He was making his plans—weaving his web like a big, fat, black spider, strand by dangerous strand.
And the best part was they had no idea what was coming… no idea how it would affect their puny lives, or what role he would play in it. They didn’t even know he was here in their holodeck fantasy, or they would have put their Shoes back on and railed at him to leave them alone.
Humans liked their privacy. They liked it a lot. And even if these two weren’t completely human, they still shared that particular trait.
So he remained a.part of the scenery and tolerated the balalaika music. Soon enough, he consoled himself, they’d be dancing to his tune. And not just the two fainthearted lovers on the beach, but the whole kaboodle of them.
A waiter emerged