Distraction - Bruce Sterling [87]
She looked stricken. “Look, I didn’t say any of that.”
“Well, that’s what you were thinking.”
She shook her head. “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”
“I agree that I can’t outthink you. Not from a dead start. But I do know how you feel.”
“You don’t know that, either.”
“Oh yes I do. Of course I do. I know it by the way you talk. By the way you move your hands. I can see it in the way you look.” He smiled. “Because I’m a politician.”
She put her hand over her own mouth.
Then, without warning, she embraced him and printed a damp kiss on his upper lip. He slid his arms around her lean torso. She felt magnetic, hypnotic, absolutely compelling.
She bent backward in his tightening grip and laughed.
He pulled her toward the inflated couch. They fell together on it with a bounce and squeak. He buried his face in the sweet juncture of her neck and shoulder.
She slid her narrow hand through the open collar of his shirt. He nuzzled her jawline. Those wondrous cavities beneath her earlobes. The authentic idiosyncrasy in the tendons of her neck.
Their lips parted stickily. She pulled back half an inch. “I like feeling jealous,” she said. “That’s new for me.”
“I could explain all that, you know.”
“Stop explaining. I’d bet anything Clare’s dresses are still in your bedroom closet.” She laughed. “Show me, I want to see.”
Once upstairs, she spun in place, swinging her purse, tottering just a little. “Now, this room is amazing. Your closets are bigger than my dorm room.”
He set to work on his shoes. He stripped off his socks. One, two. He started on his cufflinks. Why did it always take forever to strip? Why couldn’t clothes simply vanish, so people could get on with it? Clothes always vanished in movies.
“Are these walls really white suede? You have leather wallpaper?”
He glanced over. “You need some help undressing?”
“That’s all right. You don’t have to rip my clothes off more than once.”
Six endless minutes later he lay gasping in a nest of sheets. She sidled off to the bathroom, her hairdo smashed and her collarbones flushed. He heard her turning on the bidet, then every faucet in the room—the shower, the tub, the white sink, the black sink. Greta was experimenting, running all the local equipment. He lay there breathing deeply and felt weirdly gratified, like a small yet brilliant child who had snatched candy from under a door with a yardstick.
She came padding from the shower, black hair lank and dripping, her eyes as bright as a weasel’s. She crept into bed and embraced him, clammy, and frozen-footed, and reeking of upscale shampoo. She held him and said nothing. He fell asleep as if tumbling into a pit.
He woke later, head buzzing and muddled. Greta was standing before an open closet door, examining herself in its inset full-length mirror. She was wearing panties, and a pair of his socks, which she had jammed, inside out, onto her narrow, chilly feet.
She held a dress before herself and studied the effect. Oscar suddenly recognized the dress. He had bought Clare that sundress because she looked so lovely in yellow. Clare had hated the dress, he now realized groggily. She’d always hated the dress. Clare even hated yellow.
“What was all that noise just now?” he croaked.
“Some idiot banging the door downstairs,” Greta said. She dropped the dress on the floor, in a pile of half a dozen others. “The cops arrested him.” She picked out a beaded evening gown. “Go back to sleep.”
Oscar turned in place, scrunched the pillow, grabbed for slumber, and missed. He gathered awareness and watched her through slitted eyes. It was half past four in the morning.
“Aren’t you sleepy?” he said.
She caught his eye in the mirror, surprised to see him still awake. She turned out the closet light, crossed the room silently, in darkness, and slid into bed.
“What have you been doing all this time?” he murmured.
“I’ve been exploring your house.”
“Any big discoveries?”
“Yes, I discovered what it means to be a rich guy’s girlfriend.” She sighed. “No wonder people want the job.”
He laughed. “What about my situation?