Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [41]
“I wonder what she told the others,” Brianna said, meditatively.
“Well, she didn’t say she didn’t sleep with them now and then,” Roger pointed out. “Just not every night.”
“Once is enough to get pregnant,” Brianna said. “Or so my mother assured my high school health class. She’d draw pictures of sperm on the blackboard, all racing toward this huge egg with leers on their faces.” She’d gone pink again, but evidently from amusement rather than distressed memory.
Arm in arm, he could feel the heat of her through the thin T-shirt, and a stirring under his kilt that made him think leaving the pants off had been a mistake.
“Putting aside the question of whether sperm have faces, what has that particular subject got to do with health?”
“Health is an American euphemism for anything to do with sex,” she explained. “They teach girls and boys separately; the girls’ class is The Mysteries of Life, and Ten Ways to Say No to a Boy.”
“And the boys’ class?”
“Well, I don’t know for sure, because I didn’t have any brothers to tell me. Some of my friends had brothers, though—one of them said they learned eighteen different synonyms for penile erection.”
“Really useful, that,” Roger said, wondering why anyone required more than one. Luckily, a sporran covered a multitude of sins.
“I suppose it might keep the conversation going—under certain circumstances.”
Her cheeks were red. He could feel the heat creeping up his own throat, and imagined that they were beginning to attract curious glances from passersby. He hadn’t let a girl embarrass him in public since he was seventeen, but she was doing nicely. She’d started it, though—let her finish it, then.
“Mmphm. I hadn’t noticed much conversation, under those particular circumstances.”
“I imagine you’d know.” It wasn’t quite a question. Rather late, he realized what she was up to. He tightened his arm, pulling her closer.
“If you mean have I, yes. If you mean am I, no.”
“Are you, what?” Her lips were quivering slightly, holding back the urge to laugh.
“You’re asking if I’ve got a girl in England, right?”
“Am I?”
“I don’t. Or rather I do, but nothing serious.” They were outside the door to the dressing rooms; nearly time to fetch his instruments. He stopped and turned to look at her. “Have you? Got a bloke, I mean.”
She was tall enough to look him in the eye, and close enough that her breasts grazed his forearm when she turned to face him.
“What was it your great-grandmother said? ‘Is fhearr an giomach …’?”
“ ‘ … na ’bhi gun fear tighe.’”
“Uh-huh. Well, better a lobster than no boyfriend.” She lifted a hand and touched his brooch. “So yes, there are people I go out with. But I don’t have a bonny lad—yet.”
He caught her fingers and brought them to his mouth.
“Give it time, lass,” he said, and kissed them.
The audience was amazingly quiet; not at all like a rock concert. Of course, they couldn’t be noisy, she thought; there weren’t any electric guitars or amplifiers, only a small microphone on a stand. But then, some things didn’t need amplifying. Her heart, for one, hammering in her ears.
“Here,” he’d said, appearing abruptly out of the dressing room with guitar and drum. He’d handed her a small brown envelope. “I found these, going through my dad’s old bumf in Inverness. I thought you’d maybe want them.”
She could tell it was photographs, but she hadn’t looked at them right away. She’d sat with them burning a hole on her knee, listening to Roger’s set.
He was good—even distracted, she could tell he was good. He had a surprisingly rich deep baritone voice, and he knew what to do with it. Not just in terms of tone and melody; he had the true performer’s ability to pull aside the curtain between singer and audience, to look out into the crowd, meet someone’s eyes, and let them see what lay behind both words and music.
He’d got them going with “The Road to the Isles,” a quick and lively