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It was all incredibly unwelcome.

“Yes,” Babylona went on, “Lucy arrived in San Francisco four months pregnant. At first she wanted to leave the baby with us. She was always terribly afraid of what people would think. And you know she spends every godforsaken waking hour when she isn’t working at church.”

“It’s true,” Zaza breathed. “You really know her.”

“Of course, times have changed, but in those days . . . well, our parents would have thrown her out. So she lied.”

“She said I was yours?”

“There. You have the story now. She got to keep her child and continue to be, well, a plaster saint. Though I don’t want to speak ill of her to you. It was a good solution, although I have never been able to understand why she wasn’t more grateful. You know, she would never let me come to see her.”

“I guess she must think what you do is . . . um, wrong.” Now Zaza turned to face Babylona. She was again taken aback by the older woman’s pale voluptuousness. It did seem unfair that Zaza couldn’t have inherited certain family attributes.

Babylona was looking at her dolefully, pursing her scarlet lips. “Well, there you have the last piece of the puzzle, because I was foolish enough to send Michael to reason with her. As you have reason to know, I sometimes ask him to be my emissary when I have something delicate to achieve. He is very clever, you know, but he has
dreadful
taste in women. He managed to sleep with Lucy
before
telling her he’d come from me. Of course, she thought it was all some awful plot against her virtue.”

“No.” Zaza gaped. “Lucy and Michael Tyler?”

“As you get older, you’ll come to realize that adults are nearly always having sex with
someone
,” Babylona said. “Even when they don’t make a show of it.”

Zaza lay back, trying to process this. The strange, soothing feeling of the vibrations of the plane engine transferred through the water bed had become confused with the story of her birth; she felt as if once they landed, she would be able to step onto solid ground and have everything return to normal. But she wasn’t sure she wanted normal back.

At last she said slowly, “But listen—why did you send Michael to talk to me? It wasn’t . . .” Zaza swallowed. “I mean, Lucy’s going to be pretty upset if she ever finds out I work for you. So . . .”

Babylona laughed. “Do you mean, was I trying to get revenge on her? I suppose you could see it that way, though I think of it more as continuing an argument. However, the chief reason was that I wanted to get to know you.” To Zaza’s shock, Babylona’s eyes had filled with tears. “You see, as one gets older, family begins to mean more. And I lost my family, even though I’ve never regretted my decision. I suppose I thought . . . I hope I didn’t drag you into something you’ve hated.”

“Oh, not at all!” Zaza said hastily. “It’s been incredible! I don’t care what Lucy thinks. I mean, I care, but . . .” The fact that Lucy was her mother came back into her mind, and her thoughts got tangled. She swallowed. “Anyway, I’m so glad to meet you. You don’t have to worry about that.”

Babylona smiled at her gratefully, the tears still lingering on her eyelashes. “Thank you, Zaza—niece. I’m very glad to meet you, too.”

 

 

 

 

T
he bus from the airport had taken five hours, mostly spent on winding mountain roads apparently designed primarily to induce car sickness even in the most iron-stomached traveler. Jared was feeling queasy, exhausted, and depressed by the time he stepped out into the courtyard behind the Schloss Dreimöse. It was to the rear of the main castle building, at the center of the medieval village that had originally been filled with the vassals and peasants of the Margraves von Dreimöse, an undistinguished offshoot of the German nobility that had lost all its money and sold the castle (then falling into ruins) to a Greek toothpick manufacturer in the nineteenth century. The castle had been rebuilt, with the aid of a theatrical set designer, at that time. The present building was a fantasy version of a prince’s castle: white with three lofty towers and ornamentation that was a smorgasbord of architectural styles ranging from Romanesque to Victorian. Jared had never been here before, but he had seen innumerable photos of the place, notably on Babylona’s dinner plates, which all bore an aerial view of the Schloss with the words HAPPY HUNTING GROUNDS! across it in gold script.

Because he and Emily had been fast asleep when the plane landed, they had gotten on the third and last bus headed out to the Schloss. By now the festivities had begun in earnest. There was only one couple actually having sex, a tiny dark-haired girl and her improbably huge blond companion. She was half sitting on an ornamental table and wearing only a frilly blouse, her legs parted. The blond man was naked and beefy, with a classic football-player physique, and he was intently moving his hips to trace circles on her inner thighs and over her cunt with the tip of his dick. As Jared watched, the girl reached forward to grasp his hips and pulled him in to enter her, the blond man arching his back and shutting his eyes.

Everywhere else in the room, people were simply mingling, resisting the attempts of flustered interns—all strapping German college boys from the nearby university—who were trying to coax them to go to their rooms. They were in direct competition with teams of wait-staff circulating with trays of cocktails, coffee, and a distinctive blue beverage that Jared recognized as Babylona’s surefire hangover cure. Clearly, she was covering all the bases. As usual at any XTV function, the rule of the day was a blithe immodesty. Although the hall was chilly, several people had stripped to their underwear, and a few were simply naked, the girls among them still wearing high-heeled shoes. One nude black girl was standing with her arms stiffly at her sides while a group of men took turns fondling her breasts. As Jared passed, he heard her saying, “I think Joey wins. That’s heaven, Joey.” He felt subtly reassured by the scene; he was among his people. Even if the worst happened and he never saw Zaza again, he would have this sleepy, sexy fraternity to comfort him.

He circulated for a little while, trying not to catch anyone’s eye while simultaneously looking for Zaza. He didn’t find her, though one slender redhead almost fooled him. She was bending down over a carry-on bag, wearing a long XTV ROX! T-shirt that had hiked up to show the pale curves of her buttocks in a peacock blue thong. Then she looked up, wasn’t Zaza at all, and met his eye with a smoldering half smile. She put her index finger into her mouth and sucked it pointedly, raising her eyebrows. He smiled politely and shook his head, at which she shrugged and went back to rooting in her bag.

At last he decided Zaza wasn’t there, and gave his name to an intern who led him off to his room. The boy was obviously reluctant to leave the spectacle, but nonetheless checked a list and set off politely with Jared in tow. There followed a bewildering series of long corridors and stairways, all adorned with heavy oil paintings of horses, other castles, and members of the toothpick king’s extended family. The floors had rugs woven in dizzyingly complex patterns, over marble in garish shades of green or red. Jared’s brain was beginning to ache; he longed for color blindness. At last the young man opened an oak door that seemed to be a foot thick, and led Jared up a winding stone stairway. After a few minutes, Jared was beginning to wonder if this was all a complex practical joke. The walls here were white and unadorned. The stone steps were rough. He half expected to be led into an attic full of cleaning supplies.

But at the top, there was a similarly heavy oaken door, this one carved with two warring beasts (the nature of the beasts was unclear; both seemed to be a mix of horse/dog/lizard, in varying proportions). The helpful intern opened the door and stood back to let Jared go ahead of him.

“No, you should go ahead,” Jared said, a little befuddled with fatigue. “I don’t know my way at all.”

“This is it,” the boy said. “East Tower master bedroom.”

Jared was too exhausted to question this. He went up past the boy, through the door, and then stood dumbstruck as the door was shut behind him.

It was a huge circular room with big arched windows all around the walls, excepting only the section with the door where he had entered. It had a gleaming wood floor, and a few pieces of intricately carved Victorian furniture upholstered in off-white. Most of the room was empty, however, to leave room for the bed at its center. The bed had a heaping wealth of pillows and covers, all white; its canopy was also covered in white linen, with lace hanging in complicated folds on all sides. And in the center of the fluffy bed, wearing one of his own lumberjack shirts and a pair of semitransparent panties, was Zaza. The shirt was pulled closed but unbuttoned. Zaza in that shirt was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

“Baby!” he shouted, running toward her.

“Jared!” she shouted, and threw herself onto her back with her arms in the air.

He leapt onto the bed and right onto her, immediately pulling her into his arms and kissing her hard. Her slim body against him was the most beautiful thing he had ever felt. Then he propped himself up on his elbows over her and looked down into her eyes reprovingly. “Where
were
you? I had to go through that whole flight not knowing whether you were coming.”

She laughed delightedly. “You missed me! Hooray! I win! I win!”

“Stop it! Are we having a competition? Come on. Where were you?”

“I was in the plane,” she said, coy. “Where were you?”

“
I
was in the plane. You weren’t there!”

“I was in the other part of the plane.”

Jared scowled at her. “You were in the cockpit?”

“No, dummy. I was on the water bed.”

“With who?”

At this Zaza began to laugh again. “You’re jealous! I win! I so win!”

“Come on, Zaza, there isn’t anything
to
win.” He shook his head and then kissed her on the cheek. “Oh, well, I’m just glad to see you.”

“Likewise. Wow, I thought you were never coming. I’ve been here for, like, an hour. I kept posing for you, topless, expecting you to come in the door, but finally I was just freezing to death.”

“I don’t know how you could look any better than you do now.” He began to kiss her again, feeling an actual floating sensation that was a mix of euphoria and a sense memory from being in the plane. Nothing had ever made him quite so happy as seeing Zaza in that bed. No one had ever made him so happy. Just her tongue passing over his lips, slipping between them, made him drunk with love.

As he realized it, he was overcome by a wave of unaccustomed shyness. He pulled back from her slightly and looked in her eyes. They met his with their usual joyful openness. One of the things he loved about her was that her face was so expressive; even the light sprinkling of freckles on her nose now looked like an expression of mischievous delight. He said, his voice a little hoarse, “Are you . . . Can I make love to you?”

The freckles now became shocked freckles as her eyes opened wide. Immediately, her breathing turned shallow and fast. She said, with a faint, thrilled smile, “No.”

“No?”

“No, I’m going to make love to you. I’d already decided.”

“But—”

“No, I have a whole plan.”

Suddenly, he found himself flipped over onto his back. Zaza, sitting astride his hips, pulled the lumberjack shirt off and threw it to the floor, exposing her slim body with its small, pointy breasts. As she did so, he realized he was already hard. He could feel the pressure of her pubis against him as a current running through his cock and deep into his loins. He was actually going to fuck her now. It was happening, and he couldn’t believe he’d held out so long.

She said, “Pretend you haven’t given up.”

“Okay,” he said slowly. “So we can’t sleep together yet because . . .”

“Because you’re torturing me for no reason.”

He laughed. “Because I’m torturing you for no reason.”

“But this time I’m not taking no for an answer.”

“No,” said Jared, with mock sternness.

She began to move her hips against him, stroking her crotch up and down the length of his hard-on. “I can feel you,” she said softly.

He glanced down and saw the bright tuft of her red pubic hair through the delicate pink of the panties. Then he let his eyes move up her body slowly, taking in the rounded hips and flat belly, her slender body a smooth cream color accented by her soft, rosy nipples. His mind was shutting down; he found himself thrusting against her without knowing when he had started. Every thrust intensified his desire. He was imagining the moment of actually entering her, the moment when he gave up his long self-control and . . . she was opening his belt, her lips slightly parted.

Then she shoved herself down so that she was sitting on his shins. When he realized what she was going to do, his cock jolted with anticipation and he shut his eyes as if to shut out the rawness of his lust. She pulled down his zipper slowly, the casual pressure of her moving fingers against his dick almost intolerable. Then she was pulling his pants and his briefs down in one gentle movement, and her fingertips grazed the sensitive underside of his cock.

He moaned instinctively, and she said, “Don’t try to stop me. Anyway, I only want to look. . . .”

She stroked his cock lightly with her fingertips, up and down. When it jerked in response, she caught it in her hand and wrapped her fingers around it as if to hold it still. Then she moved it up away from his belly, in position for her lips. She kissed the very tip of it and let her lips rest there for a second before licking it once, a distinct stab of pleasure that made his whole body twinge. She licked it again and then began to move her tongue in circles over the tip. His breath was turning into a series of faint moans; he had lost consciousness of everything but the tiny movement of her tongue on him. It was all he could do not to grab her head and try to press his cock into her mouth, her throat. At last she let the tip of his cock slip past her lips; she was holding the first few inches of him in her mouth, sucking gently, luxuriating in her control of him. He couldn’t help thrusting into her mouth, and she made a high-pitched moan in response, letting his cock drive in and pass over her tongue, which cradled it and moved under it, exploring its shape. Her hand moved to his balls, weighing them, moving over the tender skin there, driving his need still deeper into his body until he couldn’t locate it. All of his nerves were concentrated on Zaza’s touch. Now she began to suck him in earnest, her mouth accepting the whole length of his cock until it met the back of her throat with an almost agonizingly delicious jolt, her tongue slipping up and down under it, its tip zigzagging maddeningly back and forth. He began to fuck her mouth, his body moving without volition, the pleasure overwhelming any conscious intention of his. When she suddenly sat back, letting his cock slip out of her mouth and spring back, painfully hard, against his belly, he groaned in protest.