Matadora (7 page)

"It's a dork, I looked at it," the woman on the bed said. "Forty thousand words of esoteric objectivistic capitalism, by somebody named Veelson, a Rand-Brandonist from one of the early wheel worlds, I think. A real sleeping potion. I dread reading it."

"Sounds like fun. I wonder why Pen wants us to bother?"

"Who knows? Pen's got a mind more twisted than a juniper bonsai. He's got some reason, you can be sure."

Geneva sat up on the bed, leaned forward, and stretched. She rubbed at the back of her neck with one hand, then moved her head slightly back and forth in a roll.

"Problem?"

Geneva continued the roll, stretching. "Sparring with Pen this morning, I tried something tricky. It didn't work."

Dirisha laughed. "Nothing ever works on Pen."

"Tell me. Anyway, I wound up ground-thunking at an angle I could have done without. I'm a little sore."

Dirisha finished dressing. "We'd better hurry. Class starts in five minutes."

Geneva came up from the bed in a smooth motion, set in her Center, in perfect balance. "Yeah, this'll be interesting. Mayli is supposed to show us something special today, so I hear."

"More physiology?"

"Applied physiology, is the scut. Sexual how-to."

"Could be interesting, all right."

"I also hear she's using Bork to demonstrate it." Both women grinned again. Dirisha said, "That could be real interesting."

When she had worked in the Jade Flower on Greaves, Mayli Wu had been known as Sister Clamp; she had been the most requested prostitute in the pub, if not the city, and stories of her skills and physical capabilities kept a line of customers waiting whenever she worked. Dirisha had never been with her, but she recalled the story of how Sleel had tried to outlast Sister.

He'd wound up being treated for phlebitis of his penis—by Sister, who had been a full-fledged medic before she'd gone into another line of work.

If half the stories were true, nobody was better qualified to teach advanced sexual techniques than Mayli Wu.

Ten students sat in desks around the auditorium, looking down on the sunken demo platform where the woman stood next to Saval Bork.

At first glance, Mayli seemed nothing special. She was a short, dark, vaguely oriental woman of standard or mildly altered stock; black hair, cut very short, capped her head; her eyes were violet or black, and she was thin—hardly the form one tended to associate with a voluptuary—almost boyish in her configuration. Not a person most would see as an object of passionate desire, Dirisha felt, judging by her experience in such matters.

Then again, there was something about the way the woman stood, the angle of her stance, her gestures, which invited a second look. Even this far away, the pull was apparent, to anybody with sense enough to pay attention. Up close, Dirisha knew Mayli was compelling, but for no reason easily discernable. Body language, pheromones, something was there. Even though sex had been a very small part of Dirisha's life since she'd left her homeworld, she had been tempted to try Sister Clamp when they'd first met; there was something there....

Mayli began to speak. A focused microcaster transmitted her voice clearly around the room.

"We've talked about anatomy and physiology," she said. "You should now know about hormones, pheromones, excitation response, psychology of orgasm and pretty much what goes where."

A few voices laughed. Saval Bork looked uncomfortable. He shifted his weight from one foot to another.

"But all that is merely background. There are more important things about sex, about lovemaking. Anybody want to hazard a guess as to what I'm getting at?"

"Technique," somebody said. The word exuded confidence.

Dirisha turned, to see the source of the comment, but she had already recognized the voice: Sleel, her former co-bouncer at the Jade Flower: Sleel, who fancied himself the leading contender for the galaxy's greatest everything.

Dirisha chuckled, but for a different reason than most of the class. Sleel saw her, and nodded, raising one finger in a mock salute. If there were gods, they must know Sleel had tried to get to Dirisha often enough. He had never managed it; he had never stopped trying.

Mayli's smile was radiant. "What would I do without you, Sleel?"

Sleel returned the smile, cat-full-of-canary.

"You're wrong, of course. Technique is an aid to the art, but not the essence. What really makes it work?"

Dirisha was looking at Geneva when the blonde spoke, as if she had known somehow Geneva would answer.

"Love," Geneva said.

Only Sleel laughed this time. Everyone else was waching Mayli, who beamed at Geneva as though she had just revealed the biggest secret in all the Universe.

"Love," Mayli repeated. "Love. There you have it, all in a word. Love is what makes it work. You can be crippled, ugly, or stupid; if somebody loves you, it doesn't matter. I tell you this from experience: there is no sensation to compare with being loved, or with loving. Inept sex, under the gleam of love, can be more wonderful than sex with the best technician, without love. It might not be as exciting or as nerve-tingling, but it is ultimately more satisfying.

"Love carries with it trust, and trust allows relaxation, caring, all the things which love conjures within its magic web."

"Define 'love' for me, then," Sleel said.

Mayli reached out and touched Bork's thick arm. The big man seemed to grow even bigger. He blushed.

"Here you see it," Mayli said. "Bork loves me; I love him. Oh, I can tell you the words—endearment, desire, attachment, lust, admiration, tenderness, altruism—and I can define each term, but it won't convey the true sense of it, what love is. I'm not sure that part can be taught. I do think learning how to love is possible; one can learn how to listen and really hear; one can learn how to look and really see; one can learn how to touch, and really feel.

"I speak not of lust, sometimes mistaken for love, nor am I confusing love with romantic self-delusion. There is nothing wrong with lust or romance, save what they lack, compared to love."

Sleel shook his head, but said nothing. A skeptic to the core, Dirisha had once felt, but she had changed her mind. At the end, in the Jade Flower, Sleel had shown his true colors: he was a frustrated romantic, a thing often mistaken for skepticism.

Mayli turned to Bork, and took his hand in both of hers. "Bork, would you kiss me?"

Bork looked at the ten students watching from the auditorium, then back at Mayli. He nodded. "If you want." "I want."

Bork bent and carefully wrapped his arms around the small woman. He lifted her more gently than Dirisha would have thought possible, and touched his parted lips to hers.

Dirisha imagined she could feel the heat of their passion even where she sat, ten meters away. The kiss was soft and slow, and Dirisha found she was holding her breath. Her own heart beat faster, and she felt somehow....

privileged to be watching this tender act. It was, in its way, more stirring than any pornographic presentation could have been. She could not have said why.

Mayli broke the kiss; Bork lowered her to the ground and stood looking embarrassed. "Thank you," she said to the big man.

He grinned. "You're welcome."

Mayli looked at Bork with a singleness of mind which made Dirisha feel as if she were invading their privacy. Then the woman turned to face the audience.

"Love," she said. "That's all for today."

As Dirisha rose, she saw Geneva looking at her, and she felt a stirring akin to that she'd felt when Bork and Mayli had kissed. Dirisha glanced away, feeling uncomfortable, but she saw Sleel standing there, arms crossed. She expected to see his perpetual sneer, but even Sleel looked as if he had been affected by the demonstration; he seemed lost in thought, a million klicks away.

When Dirisha started for her cube, she passed within a meter of Geneva.

The closeness now made Dirisha uncomfortable; she felt confused, somehow, as if she had just learned something of great import, but couldn't quite say what it was. It had only been a simple kiss, for Chang's sake—!

"Dirisha?" Geneva looked at her and raised one eyebrow.

"Yes?"

Geneva had her spetsdod raised. "-Pop," she said.

"Gotcha." But the expected sting did not come. Geneva lowered the weapon.

"You had me," Dirisha said. "I was completely lax, I admit it. Why didn't you shoot?"

Geneva's voice was soft when she spoke. "Ask Mayli."

Dirisha shook her head gently. "Oh, shit," she said. "Shit, shit, shit." Dirisha was overwhelmed by the suddenness of her emotion; she felt more vulnerable now than she had in almost fifteen years, and she didn't want to feel that way. "I—I don't think I can be what you want," she said. "There's too much vacuum past the port, too many years of being what I am—"

"But you feel it," Geneva said.

"I feel something..."

Geneva touched the bigger woman's wrist with her fingertips. The blonde's face was radiant, and she smiled.

"Shit," Dirisha said softly. "Oh, shit."

They lay entwined in Dirisha's bed, bare skin touching at legs and arms and breasts; Dirisha kissed Geneva's neck, blowing softly on the damp spot afterward. It had been a long twenty minutes so far, with hesitant explorations of each other's bodies, touching, kissing, stroking—

Geneva slid downward, and twirled her tongue around Dirisha's left nipple in a slow circle. Dirisha felt a warm rush; she stroked Geneva's hair, patting her head gently.

The blonde moved farther down Dirisha's body, darting her lips and tongue against the chocolate skin, raising goose-bumps.

Dirisha sighed, and parted her legs as Geneva moved her attentions lower; the warm tongue met damp vaginal lips, and traced them so softly it was like the touch of a feather. Dirisha groaned at the sensation.

After five minutes of Geneva's expert cunnilingus, however, Dirisha rubbed softly at the blond hair. "Hey," she said, "why don't you come back up here?"

Geneva shook her head, and spoke into Dirisha's mons. "Not done yet."

"You're doing fine, but I can't let go, hon. Come on."

Dirisha tugged at Geneva, pulling her upward until they could embrace and the bigger woman could kiss the small-er's throat.. "My turn," she said, sliding her body against Geneva's.

The salt musk tasted just fine; it only took a few moments before Geneva was shuddering and spasming against Dirisha's face, clutching tightly to her head as she arched her back. "Oh! Oh, yes!"

They lay side by side, holding hands. Geneva squeezed Dirisha's fingers. "I love you," she said.

Dirisha sighed. "I know. I wish you didn't."

"Why? You don't have to feel that way about me, it's enough that I do."

Dirisha smiled, and leaned over to kiss Geneva's forehead. "You deserve better, hon. I don't know if I can ever get to that place. There's too much you don't know about, riding my shadow, too much I have tied up and hidden away in my head. I like you, I trust you, as much as I can, I don't feel threatened by you—nobody has gotten this close to me since I left my homeworld. But... I—I just don't know."

"Can you tell me about it? Maybe I can help, somehow."

Dirisha looked at the gray eyes and angelic face of the woman lying next to her, and sighed. "It's a dull story, hon. Not much interesting in where I came from, and why."

"Please. I'd like to hear it."

"All right. For what it's worth, I'll tell you...."

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE PORT OF Sawa Mji baked under the hard glare of the sun called Ndama; Flat Town in the tropical summer, leached of color, the air so damp sweat wouldn't evaporate. The fifteen year-old girl felt the cheap cotton coverlittle she wore sticking to her flesh like a wet second skin.

It was going to get wetter, too, Dirisha saw. A thunderstorm was building to the West, and it wouldn't be long before it swept over Flat Town like a broom. Shitso, why did Tundu and Zawadi have to have the fucking room every afternoon?

Involuntarily, Dirisha grinned. It wasn't the room doing the fucking, it was her mother and half sister. With some dink-dong from a third class freighter, at guild minimum and no tip, she'd bet.

Dirisha started thinking about a place to sit out the rain. She'd used up her chits for the library for the week; Kivu's Emporium would be full of shippers who would go for her like dogs around a bitch in heat, she didn't want to spend an hour fending them off; the stolen admit cube she'd been using to get into the retail shops was blank-washed by now.

Damn. Who did she know who wasn't working today? Nobody, she could think of; the ships were in, and in a port town, that was stads in your pocket, gris-gris for your credit cube. If you were sixteen, that is. You couldn't join any of the guilds until you hit sixteen T.S. Oh, yeah, Dirisha thought, she could freelance, and take her chances on brain-stir or ice-time, when they caught her at it. No thanks, Deuce, bye that one. She'd wait another year and do it right, become a good-time girl like her mother and sister Zawadi. The merchandise was still pretty fresh, she had given it away a few times for fun or black market stuff, but the shippers liked it young—

"Hello," a man said. "Kinda hot to be standing in the sunshine, isn't it?"

Dirisha jumped at the voice. Through slitted lids, she looked at the man. A shipper, what else? and a young one. Dirisha figured him for a first-travel caddie, officer material, if he stuck with it. Pale skin, he had, hair so black it looked almost blue, cut in spike-and-locks, watery blue eyes. Not bad looking, but nothing special.

"I'm too young, shippie. Come see me in a year."

He blushed. Blushed! And said, "N-no, I—I—didn't mean, that is, I—I—don't want—"

Dirisha grinned. "You don't want me?" She tried to sound hurt. "You think Fm ugly?"

"No, you're beautiful! I mean... that is, I..." he waved his hands helplessly.

Dirisha laughed. Poor kid, he probably didn't know where his dork was much less what to do with it. She could manage him just fine.

She reached out and touched his arm, caught it with her sweaty fingers, feeling the richness of his synlin coverall as she tugged at him. "Come on, you're right, Deuce. It's too hot to be outside and besides, it's gonna rain in about five minutes. Let's go to the Emporium and you can buy me something cool to drink."