by Karen Haber
“Meeting over?”
“Of course it is,” Melanie said sharply. “Your timing is perfect, as usual.”
“Sorry. I was, uh, delayed.” His look of mystery changed to chagrin as Alanna slipped in and stood next to him.
“I got lost in the woods,” she said. “Rick helped me find my way out.” She smiled at Rick in a way that Julian found amusing, but somehow, he didn’t think anyone else would share his glee.
“So chivalry is not dead,” Melanie said.
Skerry took a step forward. His face was deep red. “Alanna, I want to talk to you.”
“Later, Daddy.”
“Alanna,” Yosh said quickly, “would you like to ride with us to the hotel? Your folks are going to meet us …”
“I’ll bring her on my cycle,” Rick said. “Julian won’t mind riding with Mom and Dad. I know he’ll feel safer.”
Julian forced a laugh. “That’s the truth.”
“Oh, okay,” Alanna said. “Then we’ll see you at the hotel.” She and Rick were out the door before anybody could respond.
Narlydda turned to Skerry. “Not one more word, or I’ll make you the subject of my next altarpiece.”
In the skimmer, Melanie shook her head in admiration. “That Alanna’s got style.”
“I’d call it nerve,” Yosh said. “And considering her heritage, she comes by it honestly.”
“Maybe Rick will get smart and just keep on going,” Julian said.
“To Los Angeles,” Yosh added.
“Or South America.”
Melanie sighed. “I almost hope he does. Otherwise, I’m going to alert hotel security. I don’t want Skerry to kill him right in front of me.”
***
The Hedgehog’s dining room glowed with soft pink and yellow crylights. The soothing sound of strings flowed from the wall speaker. But the group at the table was tense and awkward.
Alanna chewed her meal without tasting it. Her father would neither look at nor talk to her. But Aunt Melanie seemed determined to make up for his silence.
“Alanna,” she said, “your mother tells me you’ve been accepted at Radcliffe.”
“That’s right.” Alanna stabbed a piece of calamari and regarded it carefully, avoiding her aunt’s gaze.
“Why, that’s wonderful. You must be so happy. Are you looking forward to school?”
“Yes,” Alanna said. “It should be very interesting.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic.”
“Well—”
“Of course she is,” Narlydda said. “Alanna’s work impressed the entire admissions panel at Whitlock. They told me how eagerly they’re looking forward to having her in the program.”
“Now we know how Whitlock feels,” Yosh said. “But how do you feel about them, Alanna?” His gentle smile was encouraging.
Alanna wanted to tell him that she felt uncertain, confused, anything but confident. Uncle Yosh might actually understand her ambivalence. But her mother was watching her closely. Alanna knew what was expected of her. She summoned a bright false smile. “I’m really excited,” she said. “It’s a marvelous opportunity and I’m lucky to have it.” She waited for applause. Certainly that was an award-winning performance. And sure enough, everybody around the table was nodding and smiling. Everyone except her father. He had turned to look at her now and his expression was skeptical, almost mocking. She gazed down at her plate, away from the cold fury in his eyes.
Beside her, Rick kept eating, oblivious to the conversation. A friendly warmth radiated from the spot where his leg pressed against hers. Suddenly she wished they were both back out on that hillside under the stars.
“Yosh,” her mother said. “When is the premiere of your Red Planet song-cycle?”
“Next month,” he said. “And I’m scoring the traveling exhibition of holovids from the Hubble III and IV.”
Alanna saw Rick begin to slump in his seat, sleepy with food and sex and drink. Did he think he could just ignore her now that he was satisfied? A sly telekinetic tweak between the legs straightened his spine. He sat up, eyes bulging, and turned to her.
“Alanna, you are really pushing your luck,” he whispered. “I’m warning you, don’t play mutant games with me.”
Across the table, her father was turning purple.
Better ease up a bit, she thought. I don’t want to make Daddy so angry he has a stroke.
But as the adults continued their desultory chatter, Alanna grew restless and annoyed. Her father’s ice treatment was wearing on her. Rick was pointedly snubbing her now, talking to Julian about something in the Berkeley lab while her mother was describing her newest commission. Carefully, she sent out a telekinetic probe, gentle, compelling. Under Rick’s jeans. Up the right knee. Then the left. Higher. There. Now concentrate.
Rick squirmed. “Knock it off,” he whispered.
Smiling, she intensified her telekinetic strokes. Sweat beads gathered on Rick’s brow. There was a distinct bulge in his pants now. Alanna took a sip of wine and smiled sweetly at her aunt Melanie without missing a beat. Was that a faint moan she heard beside her? She narrowed her focus, intensified the rhythm. Rick tried to stand up. Alanna answered a question from Uncle Yosh while pushing Rick back into his seat with a sharp telekinetic shove. His breath was coming in short gasps.
“Rick,” his mother said. “Are you all right?”
“Fine.” His voice was strangled.
“You don’t look all right.”
Just wait another minute, Alanna thought. Another minute and …
Splash!
Alanna gaped. She was dripping wet, covered in beer. The glass in front of Rick was empty.
“Sorry,” he said. His voice was casual but his glance was murderous. “Nervous twitch, I guess. I’ll get some napkins.” He signaled the tablemech.
“I don’t believe you,” Alanna whispered. “I was just kidding around.”
“Kid with somebody else, then.”
Two round black mechs hurried over, blue lights blinking. The mess was quickly mopped up. Rick tossed the last soggy napkin on the table and stood. “I’ve got to get going.” He leaned over and kissed his mother on the cheek. Without a backward glance, he strode from the room.
Alanna was on her feet and after him. She didn’t stop to think. She was furious that he’d doused her with the beer but she couldn’t let him go away like that.
“Hey, wait!”
The parking lot was dark, the air chill. Rick loomed, a tall shadow beside his cycle.
“What do you want?” His tone was curt.
“Are you just going to leave?”
“Yes.”
“Rick, I’m sorry.”
“Good.” He started up the cycle.
“Don’t go.”
“Why not?”
“Because I don’t want you to.”
His eyes glittered with anger. “Why? So you can play more witch-mutant games with me? Humiliate me in front of my parents? You’re lucky I only threw a beer at you.”
“I said I was sorry.” She clutched at his leather jacket.
“Nice words.”
“How can I make you forgive me?”
He laughed in an ugly way and pulled her onto the bike.
“Wait! I’ve got to go back. My parents …”
By way of answer he gunned the bike out of the parking lot and down the dark, wooded road. For fifteen minutes all Alanna could do was hold on. She was afraid of using her telekinesis. If she miscalculated, the cycle might go right off the road into a tree.
They came out of the woods into a sandy clearing. Rick killed the engine. The pounding of surf filled the air, and the wind was fierce, whipping bits of sand against skin in a stinging assault.
“Take me back,” Alanna said. “Now.”
“You’re such a talented little mutant bitch. Float yourself back.” He started to stride away.
She grabbed him by the arm. “You can’t just leave me here.”
�
�No?” Rick swung around. “What part are you playing now, Alanna?” He pulled her toward him. “Looking for another cheap thrill or two?”
She struggled as his fingers dug into her. “I was just fooling around.”
His eyes glittered with anger. “You can’t play games like that. Especially with me. I warned you.”
“I didn’t mean it.”
“Didn’t you?” He shook her. “Weren’t you looking to prove something to your parents? Well, I’ll give you something to show them. We’ll finish what you started.”
He shoved her down onto the sand. She twisted away, but he was on top of her, ripping her tunic.
“Stop!”
Sand rasped beneath them, clammy and abrasive. She tried to use her telekinesis to throw him off but her anger and fear fragmented the telekinetic pulses, making gouges in the beach all around them, sending clouds of sand up into the dark sky.
“All my life mutants have tried to play tricks on me,” Rick said. “Used me for some plaything when they saw I couldn’t fight back. Until I learned to fight harder and dirtier. It was quite an education. I don’t want to be your toy, Alanna. I won’t be any mutant’s toy.” He unzipped his pants.
“Rick, don’t! Please, stop it.”
He was like some wild animal, tearing at her clothing.
“Stop it!” She was screaming now, crying with pain. “Rick, you’re doing the same thing to me that you say everybody’s been doing to you.”
Something in her tone seemed to reach him. He recoiled, staring at her as though he’d awakened from a terrible dream. Then he sank back on his haunches, shaking his head. “Oh, shit. Oh, shit, I’m sorry, Alanna.”
Alanna covered her face and sobbed.
“Look, I—I just went crazy. Oh, hell, I knew I shouldn’t have gone near a mutant woman.”
He got to his feet and began to walk away.
Alanna wiped her eyes on the back of her hand. You wanted experience, she thought. Well, you certainly got it, didn’t you? Trembling, she stood up in the darkness. Behind her, the cycle engine roared to life.
“Rick,” she cried. “Don’t leave me here!” On shaky legs she ran toward the jet cycle and clambered on behind him.
“Get away.”
“No.”
“I’m afraid I’ll hurt you.”
In the moonlight, his face looked younger, defenseless. Incredibly appealing. Alanna touched his cheek. Her hand shook.
“You were blind with rage,” she said. “I promise I’ll never treat you like that again.”
“What do you mean?”
She took his hand. “Give me another chance.”
“No. You’ll be sorry. Or I will.”
“Then at least take me back to the restaurant. To a tube station. Somewhere.” Despite herself, she smiled.
His eyes flashed and she wondered if he would push her off the bike and go rocketing away.
“Somewhere,” he said. His voice was a harsh whisper. “Okay. I’ll take you somewhere.” He gunned the cycle engine.
The bike lurched beneath them as they moved away from the beach. The wind tried to batter Alanna free and she grabbed hold of Rick, pressing hard against his back. She heard a roar and felt the bike rise as he turned on the jets.
The trees turned into gray-black blurs. They were up the hill, over it. A town went by in red and blue and orange crylight streaks, then another. The Sausalito tube station was a silver blur. They dodged a green skimmer on the upper deck of the Golden Gate Bridge, pulled past a triple-rig semi with its fog lights blazing, and zipped through the darkened toll plaza. The wind whipped Alanna’s hair like a flag and dragged tears down her cheeks. She shut her eyes. When she opened them, the city had receded. They were driving along a dark, twisting highway. Ahead, on the right, was a battered exit sign marked Santa Cruz.
After what seemed like an hour spent driving down narrow mountain roads, Rick pulled the cycle into the yard of an old, gray Victorian house and turned off the motor. The light above the front door cast a yellow-green halo upon them.
“Where are we?” Alanna said.
“My house.”
“I thought you were going to take me to a tube station.”
“You thought wrong.” He walked up the steps to the porch. “The car service is ended, mademoiselle. Coming?” He pressed the doorpad and entered the house. Alanna hurried in after him.
A thin young man with pale skin, light blue eyes, and white-blond hair sat on a sagging red couch by the window in the front room. He looked to be about thirty. In his hand was a breen pipe.
“Aki. Who’s your friend?”
Rick turned. “Henley, this is Alanna.”
He put down his pipe and looked Alanna over twice. “She’s damned pretty, especially for a mutant.”
“So glad you approve,” Alanna said.
“If you’ll excuse us,” Rick said. “I’m giving her the grand tour.”
He put out his hand. Alanna took it hesitantly. They went up a flight of creaking stairs and out onto a landing.
“This is my room here,” Rick said. “The bathroom’s down the hall. That’s Henley’s over there. And that’s Tuli’s. Dave is two doors down, and Maria is next door to him.”
Alanna looked at the peeling wallpaper with its faded pattern of ducks in flight, the disintegrating brown carpeting, and started to laugh. “Do you really live here?”
“Yeah.” He leaned against the wall and gave her a sardonic smile. “It’s got a subtle rustic charm that soothes my savage nature.”
“It would.”
“Of course, not everyone appreciates it.” He opened the door to his room with a flourish. “If it’s not to your taste you can leave anytime. But it’s a long walk back to Marin. I suppose you might be able to flag down a truck on the highway.”
She walked past him and into the room. A hologram of Beethoven frowned down from the wall over the jellbed. His eyes were red crylights, lazily blinking.
“Is that a friend of yours?”
“Of my father’s.” Rick sat down on a wallcushion and watched her.
The jellbed took up one corner of the room. A tiny portascreen and bone-conduction headset sat next to it. The walls were lined with shelves that held audio equipment and discs.
“Music must be important to you,” she said. “I’ve never seen such a radical setup outside of a studio.”
“It runs in the family.” Rick leaned over and touched a silver button on a sleek black console. Lush chords whispered out of concealed wall speakers.
Alanna stared at him, intrigued. “It’s not what I expected,” she said. “Beethoven? And state-of-the-art audio equipment. It’s all so singular. You surprise me, Rick.”
“Good.” His eyes glittered.
The melody grew louder. Alanna shut the door.
“You can still go home,” he said. “Run back to mama.”
She reached for the wallpad and dimmed the light.
He pulled her into his arms with a fierceness that both frightened and excited her. “Alanna,” he said, and his lips were warm against her neck.
In less than a minute they were on the bed, their clothing in a pile on the floor. Without a word he moved over and into her. She met every thrust with ferocious energy, urging him onward. Keening, she dug her heels into the backs of his legs, fingers digging into his back. And soon the triumphant pounding of her own heart, spurring her impending climax, drowned out awareness of the music, the room, and anything else.
***
Rick awoke with a start. The place beside him in the jellbed was empty. Where was Alanna? Maybe gone to the john. He heard water running through the old pipes. A minute later she was pushing her way back under the covers.
“Hey! Those toes are cold.”
“Warm them up for me.”
He caressed her lazily, not really aroused, but not unaroused, either. “Mmmm, nice. I could get used to this.”
“Could you?” Alanna snuggled up closer to him. “Wo
uld you like it if I stayed around for a while?”
“Huh? Sure, I guess.” He scratched his head. “I’m not exactly accustomed to regular company—”
“I wouldn’t get in the way.”
He wound a black curl around his index finger, unwound it, rewound it. “I didn’t mean that. I like the way you get in my way. But I wasn’t exactly advertising for a regular roommate. And besides, you’ve got plans.”
“My mother’s plans.” Her tone was acid.
“Maybe. But regardless of whose idea it was, this Whitlock program sounds like a good opportunity for you. If you’re serious about your work.”
She gave him a somber look. “Of course I’m serious. But I hardly thought you’d side with my parents.”
“Hold on.” He sat up and switched on a crycandle. “I’m not on anybody’s side. In fact, I offer my services as an objective observer. I think you need one. You don’t really know what you want, do you?”
Alanna sighed. “I never have time to decide. If I so much as offer an opinion on anything aesthetic, my mother runs down and enrolls me in some program or signs me up for a study group. My life-style and welcome to it.”
Rick smiled sympathetically. “I think I know what you mean. My mother was sort of like that with me. When I flunked out of the university in Berkeley she pushed me to work for Cable News. And I tried it. But I couldn’t take all those vidhead phonies. I’ve met mechs with better personalities.” The smile became a grimace. “So then my father got me a job with the L.A. Philharmonic as a glorified gofer. Still, I kind of enjoyed it. The music was great. Dad even let me work with him on his synthesizer. But they were having budget cutbacks. The other chief gofer, Gayle, was a single mother. They would have laid her off anyway instead of me. I guess you can’t give the maestro’s son a pink slip. But I quit and let her keep the paycheck. I told myself that it was good for my karma.”
“So much for the privilege of rank,” Alanna said. “Can’t you go back there?”
“Dad said that he thinks they can afford me next year. I’ll see. Right now I’m having fun riding my cycle and repairing screenbrains. I’m even thinking about joining the circuit and racing jet cycles professionally.” He crossed his arms and nodded with satisfaction. “I think I’d be pretty damned good.”