The Pleasure Tube (21 page)

"Collette..."

"Just do as I say. Please, Rawley?'

When I leave the bath, dressed only in a terry-cloth robe I haven't tied, I find there are three attractive women in the cabin with Collette—dark-haired, Middle Eastern women with olive skin and rich brown eyes. One is as tall as Collette, the other two have their hair in pigtails, like twins. I am embarrassed for a moment, do up my robe. They are all looking at me with suppressed, sexual laughter.

Which leaves me awkwardly grinning. The cabin lights are dimmed and I detect a new scent, the scent of myrrh; I haven't smelled myrrh since Hong Kong. Someone's hung gauzy curtains by the recliner, and I realize I can see through the caftans the three women are wearing, they are virtually transparent.

"These are three of my friends from service," Collette says softly. "I did the best I could."

I start to speak, but Collette interrupts me. "Right"— she smiles—"and that's
good,
Rawley.
Your
friend asks me strange questions, but my friends see me through. There isn't anything they wouldn't do for me."

"Look, uh, who, uh..." I say a little breathlessly. The three women are flawless, stand with a deerlike sway watching me. Thank God, I think, I took some stimulants, not a time to feel sleepy. One of the women with pigtails crooks her mouth in a languid smile, reaches out and touches, strokes my arm under the terry cloth. "They're your
harem,
Rawley," Collette giggles, close to me, moving behind and rubbing my neck. "Mmmm. Your skin is dry. It's this ship air, Rawley. Delia, bring some oil." Her hands around my waist, Collette unties the firm knot of my robe, then begins to bring it down from my shoulders. The twins each kneel on one knee to guide the sleeves down my arms. "Sit the master down," Collette says as the tall woman brings a cruet of oil, passes the vial unstoppered beneath my nose, then takes my hand. The smell is sweet and musky, slightly like that of bananas, it makes my head swim. One of the twins brings a long, ornate ivory pipe. Collette walks toward the door.

This moment, my mind entirely clear: one of the twins lights three candles, then draws her hands along my body, her hair brushing against my thighs. "So strong," she says. "You look so strong, Rawley." The new silk sheet beneath me is cool and the air a cool ache upon my genitals

I watch as the woman stands at the foot of the recliner, slowly pulls off her caftan, the candle shadows moving behind her. The sight of her nakedness pierces me: she is a smallish woman, but her breasts are large, their curves not the curves of a pitcher, but of a dome; she has a cleavage even when they are naked. Her nipples darken as they come erect, her curves and hollows lapped by candlelight. I feel a sweet shock as the two other women kneel astride me, the light playing over them, and begin to rub the sweet oil on my chest and stomach, their breasts swaying as they work, their hair spilling over me. My body is aswarm with breasts, with moving lips and hands.

I open my eyes and Collette's face is near mine, her eyes slightly glazed and full of candlelight, she's come back.

"Because I love you," she says. "Because I love you, Rawley. And because we're here. I wanted to show you what it can be like to be here."

"Hungry?" Collette says later. "The girls left some food. Couscous. Lamb. But I made a special menu while waiting this afternoon, something just for you. You can ask for it any time."

Collette hands me a pad of gold ship's stationery; this is what she's printed:

COLLETTE'S MENU

Dutch Pecks// Hot Buttered Kisses//

Salade//
Fresh Green Kisses

Entree
//Hot Passionate Kisses Francais

Vegetable Kisses//

Dessert
//Whipped Cream Kisses//Chocolate Kisses//

Honey Kisses//

Kisses Espresso//

"And you can ask for anything," I tell her, "anything you want."

"It's close by," she whispers, touching my hand. "Love me, Rawley."

Massimo's "if one can trust such a woman" in my mind, I kiss her and tell her that I do.

Still later, after the women have gone, Collette calls me into the kitchen/bar of the cabin, she's among the clutter at the service range.

She is looking at two trays of cannelloni. "I didn't punch these up for dinner. Did you? I did a trace, there weren't any entries showing. These came through on the dinner program. Did you punch them up?"

"No," I say, my ears slightly burning. I have been mentally swimming in the self-indulgent way of a man who's fallen in love; I've forgotten what I did this afternoon.

"I thought I canceled the coq au vin we were supposed to have, since Delia... I know I did."

"Well," I say, tentatively touching the sauce with my index finger, then touching the tip of my tongue. "The cannelloni looks good."

She slaps at my hand. "Are you going to eat this?' she asks. "Where did it come from? Somebody's messing with the program, somebody who knows how to cover his tracks. I wouldn't eat this food."

"What do you mean, somebody?" I ask, reaching to pick up one of the cannelloni with my fingers. Collette grabs my wrist, squeezes hard.

"Rawley.
Taylor—or who knows? That friend of yours died, Rawley."

I look at Collette in puzzlement for an instant, but I'm shamed utterly. And to make it worse, the sauce is terrific.

"I'll just take a bite," I mutter, taking her hand from my wrist and reaching for a fork. Collette turns away, angry with me. With my back to her back I take a sizable bite. Absolutely delicious. "Incredible," I say. "This cannelloni is incredible." I keep eating.

After a minute Collette asks me quietly how I feel.

"Great," I tell her. "I told you this was still an adventure. Try some pasta."

"No," she says balefully. "I don't like cannelloni."

"All right. I think I can eat them all."

"Well," she says after another minute, the odor of the sauce having completely filled the cabin and the cannelloni already half gone, "maybe just one." I look at her; she has the beginnings of a resigned, chagrined smile on her lips. "An adventure, the man says. Hand me that silver fork on the counter, will you? I'll eat my last meal in style."

As we descend in the morning sun, the island Collette names Vietahiti is spread out beneath us as it would be on a chart, surrounded by a rich blue sea. It is shaped into a coarse figure eight by two volcanos, their craters among the clouds. A flat saddle lies between them and contains, I see, one long, wide runway, a starship launch tower, and a group of support buildings. It is a large island, at least five hundred kilometers square. Its entire windward coast is indented with bays and coves inside small islands, and a deep green jungle stretches inland on a rising plain. On the leeward side, steep valleys corrugate the slopes, rising to a band of light green on the easternmost volcano, a forest of tropical hardwoods, Collette says. There's hardly a sign of human presence, the sight is almost breathtaking after LasVenus. We pass through the clouds just over a mawlike, moonlike crater, break through over continuous jungle, then swing back toward the saddle over the ocean to make a gliding approach. For a long moment the window/wall shows a view straight down into the reef; I see coral alleys racing by with sand bottom, like fine veins in a blue and emerald sea. Then a flash of beach, wide and almost white, then the jungle, dense and ripe, deep green.

Ah, I think, what Guam could be, without the base, without Agana—what Guam could be.

Before we leave the ship, the message pager starts right in, signals live line. I flip the toggle, speak, give in. There is only a simple audio patch through the electronics to the resort; the wall screen is out. "Two-nine-two. Rawley Voorst. Patching through. I'll take what you have."

"Negative message," I hear the girl from traffic say, her voice crackling and hard to hear against the sound of steel guitars being piped through the ship. "There's somebody waiting for you."

"Traffic, this is two-nine-two. Do I read 'someone waiting'? Please identify."

"Two-nine-two, traffic. He won't say who he is."

I look at Collette, she has stopped packing and is watching me.

"What does he look like, traffic? Can you describe? A man with black hair, bushy black hair, glasses? Or short. You did say he."

There is a crackling silence for a moment, then a small noise. "Oh, no. He says I can't tell you what he looks like. He says he'll meet you at your cabana." "Traffic, what the hell kind of message is this?" There is another crackling silence, it sounds as if the operator  is  talking with  someone  standing offmike nearby. I swear she giggles. "Uh, that's all I'm authorized to say," I hear. "Uh, two-nine-two, traffic out."

Once through the crowded disembarkation chute, into the terminal, a Polynesian longhouse, most of the passengers filter toward waiting NaturBuses, third-class program. An older man wearing a ragged straw hat is swaggering drunkenly, jostling the crowd—nervous, I think, without spun-steel surfaces. I'm not so calm myself, wonder if now I'm about to see Knuth instead of Taylor. In the adjacent tramrun lobby the atmosphere acquires the sweet weight of the air of the tropical Pacific, a lush, flowery odor. Collette and I board an A tram for the beach; evidently the island is shared by both the tropical reserve and a resort complex. A dark-eyed, golden-skinned girl waves, smiling, as we whir away.

The tram takes us through a dense jungle that muffles its machine hum. The jungle's high canopy trees are entwined with lianas through which the sun filters down in sleepy patches the size of children. The green seems to go on and on, the air is marvelous. When we reach the palm-lined coast, the sun is barely obscured by the planet's mantle of haze—it is brighter and clearer than even the sun over Guam. Who? I wonder.

We're dropped at another Slot 9. A raffia-thatched cabana lies at the end of a synthetic path through a grove of very real palm trees and just above the high-tide line of a very real beach. Salt air. The ocean stretches away, blue and dazzling, to a vast horizon. As we approach the small cabana the sunlight pains my cabin-soft eyes.

He's sitting on the lanai of the cabana, in the shade of the thatch, his tan so deep he looks as if he lives in the place. When he sees us his grin goes from ear to ear, his hands rise in greeting.

"Surprise," he says, getting up to extend his hand in his old-fashioned way; he's laughing.

I'm laughing, too. "Good to see you, Werhner. Good to see your face. How do you expect to get back on time? How in the hell did you get here?" I shake Werhner's hand, we pump ridiculously, so dislocated yet so used to one another, we laugh at that, too. The beach stretches beyond us, the sea glassy in the morning sun, the air sweet. It's like a pleasant dream.

"Getting here was the easy part," Werhner laughs. "You loafers are resupplied through Hong Kong. I came to see your expression for myself. Have you heard the latest? Look at you, Rawley, I'll bet you haven't."