By Jove

by Marissa Doyle

  He laughed. “That’s not a problem I have with my fish, thank goodness.”

  She followed him down the hallway back to the living room and went to stare out the sliding glass doors to the bay below. The water was a glorious but very cold-looking blue. “Where’s this conference? Can I reach you on your cell phone if necessary?”

  “Well, er I’m not going to a conference,” Dr. Waterman said, turning faintly pink above his beard. He looked away from her and picked some invisible lint from his coat sleeve.

  “Oh.” Theo was nonplussed. It was none of her business where or why he was going away. “A vacation. That’s nice.”

  “No, not quite a vacation. Actually,” he said in a rush, “I’m going to visit my wife.”

  Huh? She blinked at him. “I didn’t realize you were married.”

  He grimaced down at his sleeve. “We decided some years ago—career demands, that sort of thing—that we were better off living our lives this way. But we get together as frequently as possible. I don’t like to talk about it—it works for us, but others don’t always understand. I should have known you would, but I never got around to telling you.”

  Oh, gosh. The poor man! “It’s no business of mine, Dr. Waterman. It must’ve been a hard decision to make, though, even if it’s what works best for you.”

  “It was. I miss ’Trite a great deal. But we’re both happier this way.” He looked up at her and smiled. “You’re a good girl, Theo. I’m glad you’re my student.”

  She walked him out to his car and waved as he drove down the long driveway, then wandered around the corner of the house to the patio that overlooked the water. But it faced east and was too shady and chilly this time of the year. Instead she went back around and sat down on the front steps in the fickle March sunshine.

  How sad for Dr. Waterman. Theo liked him very much, and found his friendly paternal manner with her comforting. He should have had a house full of boisterous teenaged children and a charming, loving wife instead of tank after tank of rare fish and sea life. What was this mysterious wife like, whom he could live neither with nor without? Probably a female Grant Proctor, she thought with a smile. If she were to stay with Grant, would they end up like this? Unable to handle being together but unable to part?

  “Mmmmreooow?”

  Theo started and looked around. That had sounded just like—but it couldn’t be. “Dido?” she called incredulously.

  “Mmmmrrurrph.”

  A large cat ambled up the driveway, sleek and gray, with a magnificent fluffy tail. It stopped in the center of the circular drive, stared at Theo, then uttered a joyous “prrrt?” and trotted up to her.

  “Hello, handsome,” Theo said, reaching down to let the cat sniff her before running her hand down its back. It didn’t feel like a stray. Too well-groomed and fed. “You must belong to a neighbor. I thought you were my Dido for a minute. You sounded just like her.”

  The cat closed its eyes as she rubbed the side of its face and sat down next to her.

  Theo chuckled. “I get the hint, buddy. All right, I don’t have anything else to do just now.” She smiled down at the furry face. The cat regarded her through eyes half closed in ecstasy, and began to purr loudly.

  “I’ll bet Dr. Waterman doesn’t like you hanging out here, just in case you take a fancy for a bit of fresh fish for dinner, huh? God, I miss having a cat around. Tell you what. I won’t tell him you were here if you promise to behave yourself, okay?” She switched to rubbing the cat’s other cheek, and the purr grew louder.

  There was nothing like a purring cat to help put life into perspective. “Maybe you’re what Grant needs,” she mused aloud. “A cat might be able to teach him a thing or two about immediacy and proximity. Not to mention the joys of snuggling.”

  Right on cue, the cat reached up and put a tentative paw on her leg. Then it climbed half onto her lap and gazed up at her worshipfully. She reached under its chin to scratch it there.

  Grant. And Julian. She would have to think about both of them now. Two men were trying to convince her to spend the summer with them, Grant with words of love, Julian with —what? What would Grant have to say to her on Sunday that was so important—and so mysterious that she might not believe him?

  “Murrrn,” the cat said with a reproachful glance as she stood up and dumped it to the ground.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.” She glanced up at the sun sinking behind the trees. “Anyway, it’s starting to get dark. Time you went home. Bye, kitty.” She bent down and rubbed its head for a minute, then turned to the door.

  “Mreeeee?” the cat said, close on her heels.

  “Hey, stop that! This isn’t your house,” she said, blocking the doorway with her foot. “Go to your own home. I’ll see you later.” She slipped through the narrow opening and shut the door firmly behind her.

  …

  It was nice to just eat and sleep and stare at Dr. Waterman’s hypnotic fish. She didn’t open even one of her books for the next two days, and exerted herself only enough to drive into school to feed the fish there and stop at the store for necessities. In the afternoons she pulled a chaise longue from the terrace around to the western side of the house and sat in the sun, happy to be outside for a little while after the vile weather of the winter. Every afternoon the cat came back to visit her and climbed purring into her lap to be petted as she relaxed in the chaise and thought of nothing. It was positively idyllic.

  But on Monday afternoon as she sat outside, the clouds began to thicken and the wind to blow.

  “I knew it couldn’t last,” she said to the cat on her lap as she gazed up at the gathering clouds. “It just figures. I’ll bet it snows tonight and is cold and gloomy for the rest of the week.”

  The cat blinked at her.

  But it didn’t snow. It did, however, start raining as Theo made a chef’s salad for dinner that evening. She stared out the dark kitchen window as raindrops struck it, and went back to rinsing lettuce. Rising wind muttered and moaned in the eaves, making her shiver. It was eerie to listen to, though the attic vents in her own parents’ house made a sound like a banshee when the wind blew hard enough in the right quarter. It was different when it wasn’t your own house and you didn’t know that that peculiar yowling sound you were hearing right now was perfectly normal, really—

  The lights flickered for a second before resuming their steady glow. She froze, then laughed out loud. “What are you so jumpy about, Fairchild?” she murmured to herself. “You’ve been here before. There aren’t any skeletons in the closets upstairs. Just a lot of fish. And they don’t make any noise, remember?”

  The yowl sounded again. This time she realized it came from outside, near the terrace. She took firm hold of herself, and wiping her wet hands on a towel went to the exterior light panel, turned on the outside floods, and peered out the sliders.

  Rain blew in sheets through the arcs of light cast by the floodlights, pounding on the bluestone paving. As she opened one of the doors an inch, she could hear the surf crash on the rocks below, but nothing else. “Filthy night,” she muttered, and had started to slide the door shut again when a flash of green caught her attention. She stared hard at where the light met the darkness, and realized that there was a pair of glowing eyes there, not far above the ground, staring back at her.

  “Meeeet?” said a familiar voice.

  …

  “You’d better swear to me on the other eight of your lives that you’re going to behave yourself, you,” Theo crooned as she blotted the dripping cat with a bath towel.

  It purred furiously and butted her arm.

  “I’m not joking,” she continued. “All right, I think I’ve gotten as much water out of you as I’m going to. Now listen to me. If you so much as glance at one of those fish with a funny expression on your face, you’re out.”

  The cat ignored her, jumped up on a kitchen chair, and started to wash itself. Theo watched it for a moment, then went back to making her dinner, gla
ncing at it now and again as she chopped tomatoes and ham and cheese and peppers. It was cozy to be in a large, comfortable house on a rainy night with a cat for company. Not that other company wouldn’t have been welcome too.

  Stop that, woman. You’re on vacation from men. A cat will do just fine for now. She put some bits of ham and cheese onto a saucer, thought for a moment, and went into the garage. Dr. Waterman kept a bag of kitty litter out there to sprinkle on icy walkways in winter. She poured some onto a square of newspaper, scooped up the cat, and dug its paw into the litter. “Just so you know. I don’t want to have to do any cleaning up later,” she said to it.

  The cat blinked at her, and she laughed. “You’re too clever by half, puss. Okay, here’s dinner.” She set the saucer on the floor next to her seat at the kitchen table, and smiled down as the cat sniffed judiciously at it and began to eat.

  “What do you know? I’ve got a dinner guest. This calls for a celebration.” She set her salad on the table and turned back to the counter. Julian had given her a bottle of his wine on Friday as she left the department. A glass of sunshiny Riesling would be just the thing on a night like this.

  After dinner the cat watched Theo wash their dishes, then followed her around the living room as she turned out lights after checking on the fish. Before she turned off the last lamp she patted a chair in invitation. “Sleeps?” she said brightly.

  The cat looked at her.

  “Well, it’s as good a place as any,” she said to it. They stared at each other for a moment. She had watched the cat all evening, but it hadn’t so much as glanced at any of the fish tanks. She had gone around the house to check on them just in case, but all were covered with mesh or with solid covers.

  “Fine, then. Sleep where you want. I suppose I can trust you. I’m going to bed now, fuzzball.” Theo picked up her wineglass, turned off the last light, and headed up the stairs to the guestroom. When she turned on the bedside lamp and looked around, the cat was sitting in the doorway. It watched her as she undressed and pulled on her pajamas and waited while she brushed her teeth in the bathroom. When she climbed into bed, it jumped up by her feet.

  “Oh, you think so, do you?”

  The cat blinked at her once more, then started to knead the quilt with its front paws, purring. Theo watched it, feeling half pleasure, half pain at the sight.

  “I’d rather have my Dido, but I guess you’ll do in a pinch,” she whispered, and turning on her side, switched off the light.

  …

  She was too hot. The quilt was suffocatingly warm, pinning her down when she wanted to move and stretch. She kicked the covers off and rolled over, dimly aware of the blowing rain and wind outside.

  The air in her room was warm and still, like a lazy Mediterranean afternoon, in sharp contrast with the weather. She sat up and reached for the glass by her bed. A wineglass: that was right, she had brought it up with her, hadn’t she? Well, it was wet and cool, and maybe Julian’s wine would help her sleep again. She took a long drink, sighing as sweet languor trickled through her limbs, then yanked off her pajamas and stretched out naked on the sheets. The smooth cotton felt so good on her bare skin, cool and caressing—

  Suddenly, she was thirsty again. There had been a little left in her glass when she drank before, hadn’t there? She leaned over and found it suddenly in her hand, and gratefully drained the cool brightness. Still so thirsty…but the cup was full. She drank twice more, then fell back into dreams.

  …

  Someone was making love to her. She couldn’t see his face in the darkness; whenever she tried to see, it was as if her eyes would not work properly. He held a cup of wine to her parched lips and fed her grapes, juicy and sweet, that seemed to burst inside her like tiny roman candles, and then yet more wine. She tried to turn her face away, to ask who he was and why he was doing this to her, but she had lost all will, all ability to move. Eventually she couldn’t even remember why she wanted to know those things. There were only the plump sweet grapes, and the cool liquid trickling down her throat, and the hard, tireless body in hers.

  …

  A phone was ringing somewhere. Its harsh, insistent jangle hurt, and Theo pulled her pillow over her head until it stopped. When blessed silence returned, she pulled the pillow off and tried to sleep again, but something bothered her. Her mouth was dry. She groped for the bedside table. Instead a hand put a rough heavy cup into hers, a cup made up of angles and facets. “Drink, Theodora,” said a rich, familiar voice.

  She nearly dropped it. But a warm hand was steadying hers.

  “Be careful, please, my dear. That’s my favorite cup. But what better one to let you use?”

  She knew that voice, the way it seemed to caress words even as it spoke them. It had spoken to her in her dreams—

  “Julian?” She gasped and nearly leapt from the bed. Dizziness seized her in its serpent coils, making her fall back weakly onto the pillow. “What the—how did you get in here?” She reached nervously around her. “Where are you?”

  He chuckled, capturing her flailing hand and kissing it. “Open your eyes, Theodora. You should be able to see me. You’ve had enough of my wine by now.”

  Theo blinked. “They are open,” she whispered. “How did you get in here?”

  “No. Open them. Look at me, and see,” he commanded, and touched her hand to his face.

  She turned toward her hand and blinked. And there he was, his eyes sleepy and amused and very blue, his sleek gray hair tousled, his elegantly muscular chest shaking slightly with repressed mirth at her expression of incredulity. Bare muscular chest. And bare torso, and bare— She sat up quickly again, and once more dizziness forced her back, dizziness so severe that she nearly lost consciousness.

  Oh. My. God. But she’d been dreaming, hadn’t she? All those endless hours of sex—it had been a dream, right? It had to be, because anything else was impossible. If only she could think straight—her thoughts felt as if they were dripping one at a time from a very slow faucet.

  “It started out as a dream, my dear, because that was the easiest way to reach you. But not for long. Not for long.” He held the cup out to her once more. It resembled what it had felt like, a piece of rock crystal but of a dazzling clarity and glow.

  Julian followed her gaze. “A diamond,” he said. “Pretty thing, isn’t it? Henry made it for me a long time ago. Drink again, darling.”

  She shook her head and began to inch away. “Julian, I—this is—”

  He held it to her lips and looked at her, and she found herself obediently drinking. The cool tingling smoothed down her throat, silencing her. It smoothed over her mind as well, making her sleepy. Making her forget.

  “Very good. That’s right. Drink it all.” When she had finished Julian took the cup from her lips and set it behind him, then pulled her into his arms and kissed her. “There’s nothing for you to worry about. Everything is going beautifully. Oh, my Theodora.” His arms tightened around her. “I knew as soon as I saw you that you’d be the one. But it’s even better than I’d hoped it would be.”

  …

  When Theo came to herself again it was daylight. She opened her eyes and saw Julian lying on his side, gazing down at her with a speculative intensity that relaxed into a smile when he saw her eyes open.

  “Good afternoon, darling,” he said cheerfully.

  “Julian!” Memory crashed down on her again like a cold wet wave. She was in bed with Julian—Julian!—and she’d been drunk—had he drugged her?—and they’d—

  “Drink, Theodora,” he said firmly and tipped his cup to her lips so that she couldn’t turn away. The golden honey-and-champagne-tasting drink filled her mouth and she found herself gulping it down. He nodded with satisfaction when she finished.

  “We’ve been a little busy, you see. It’s not an easy process, but you’re coming through with flying colors. Almost done by now, in fact. I didn’t expect it to go so well, but I should have known you’d excel.” He bent and kissed her.

/>   Theo felt the dreamy, pleasurable numbness that his drink gave her steal over her again, but she fought it. “Almost done with what? Julian, what are you doing here? What do you keep giving me to drink? This is not—”

  “Let’s see. Which shall I answer first? The drink is a concoction of my own. Ambrosia dissolved in Riesling—my Riesling, of course—and flavored with a little bit of nectar and a few other ingredients. Lovely stuff.” He smiled modestly. “You’ve been thriving on it. And the fact that my wine grapes are ambrosia-fed too makes it have twice the effect. If Arthur can feed it to his fish, why can’t I give it to my grapes?”

  Arthur—fish. A memory began to shimmer at the edge of her mind, but when she turned to it, it had vanished. Who was Arthur? Did it matter?

  Ambrosia, though—that she thought she could remember, from…from somewhere. “Ambrosia,” she said carefully, through the tingling silver haze. Ambrosia. The food of the gods.

  “But of course. What else would it be? I think my cocktail has worked well, though you also tolerated the straight ambrosia nicely.” He waved a hand and pulled a small silvery pellet from the air, then popped it into her mouth. She remembered the grapes he had fed her in her dream, and felt the same strange sensations within her.

  “But you’ve been drinking small quantities of my wine since November, which probably helped desensitize you and prevent over-reactions. Now, let’s see how things are progressing. Put the cup on the bedside table for me, darling. No, no,” he said gently. “No hands. That’s for humans.”

  “But I am human,” she whispered.

  “Not human any more, my Theodora, not any more. You’re mine now, and very emphatically not human. Weren’t you listening? You’ve had enough ambrosia now to make the entire population of Boston sprout wings and glow in the dark. I wanted to be very, very sure that you were completely changed. Oh, do be careful, love. That’s my favorite cup, remember, and Arthur wouldn’t like his window broken.” He smiled down at her triumphantly and waved the cup down from the ceiling, where it had been bobbing erratically. “But that was very good for a start, my dear. Very good.”