Melinda Snodgrass - Double solitaire

“Where is your #@$** amp;#**?”

Jay leered. “A little lower.” He unzipped, and, by damn, she was a fast learner. Her hand had him out in a second, caressing and exploring his penis.

Jay began kissing her. Nesfa seemed to like that. So did he, once he got used to the strangeness of her taste, sort of pepper and lemon. Her hair was twining and coiling around his head, tickling his face. There was a new, moist weight on his arm. Jay opened his eyes and looked down. A wormlike thing was oozing out of the jewel-encrusted pouch, wrapping itself about his arm, climbing. Its torpedolike head was dripping gore.

Jay screamed hoarsely and threw himself backward off the couch. Nesfa was sitting like a sack of abandoned laundry. The lovely face had gone slack and empty. The worm was quivering, casting its head in small circles, searching for Jay.

It began to undulate its way back into the pouch. Jay jumped to his feet, gripped the top of the shift in both hands, and ripped. It fell away to hang like tattered seaweed over the heavy belt. There was a hole in the pouch. A hole in the shift. A hole in Nesfa. The worm thrust its head back into the woman’s body. The light and animation came back into her face.

“Jay, what is wrong? You do not wish to exchange?”

Jay stared down at his now-limp penis hanging through his fly. He shuddered as he remembered another crawling parasite: Ti Malice. With shaking hands Jay stuffed himself back in his pants and ran.

“Am I the only person who’s not bothered by this? These people are full of bloodsucking worms!”

Cap’n Trips ran one long, bony forefinger through a pile of Scrabble tiles. “And I suppose we could be described as people full of shit. Aliens are different, Jay, that’s why they’re aliens.”

“That’s sorta what Tachyon said, only she was a lot snottier.”

Jay returned to a glum contemplation of his tiles. A sharp cry of terror from the Doc drew the detective away to investigate. Jay crossed back from the bunk. The tiny whimpering sounds had ceased. Settling back into his chair, Jay jerked a head toward the sleeping Tachyon. “She seems all right now.”

“I think the nightmares are getting better,” said Mark.

“I think you’re dreaming.”

“I was hoping.” Mark looked back at the tiles. The selection hadn’t improved. Nothing suggested itself.

“Has he got anything in that bag of tricks to help?” Jay indicated the medical bag.

“Can’t… the baby.”

“Oh yeah…” A pause while Jay frowned at his tiles. “How do you spell titillate?” Mark spelled it.

“Shit. I need another l.”

Jay spelled out tit. Mark carefully recorded the detective’s three points.

TRY hung alluringly off on the left side of the board. Mark gathered up his tiles and spelled out tryptophan.

“What the fuck is that?” Jay yelped.

“It’s an amino acid.” Mark had hit a triple-word score, and double points on the y. He now led Jay by a hundred and eighty points.

Jay collected two new tiles, leaned back, folded his arms across his chest, and eyed Mark. “What did happen out on the Rox?”

Mark shrugged. “He got jumped.”

“By who? With who?”

“She hasn’t told you?” Jay shook his head. “It’s, like, really private to her, you know? So I probably shouldn’t…”

“I’m trying to do a job here, Meadows. A little information would help.” Mark remained stubbornly silent. “Look, from the performances she puts on every time she goes to sleep, I gotta figure her current condition isn’t due to her catlike Takisian curiosity to experience sex from the other side.”

“No.” Mark mournfully admitted.

“Judging by the way she reacts every time one of us touches her, I’m figuring she got raped.” Mark just kept staring, giving away nothing. Jay’s next words sent the comforting little delusion of his poker face fleeing. “By Blaise, right?” Mark tried to control the reaction, but his head snapped up. Jay smiled humorlessly. “You may be kicking butt in Scrabble, but don’t ever gamble with me.”

“Okay, so now you know.”

Jay shook his head. “It’s really disgusting.”

“It wasn’t the Doc’s fault!”

“Really? She’d probably disagree with you. So would I.”

Anger has a taste, almost a physical presence. Mark could feel it battering against the back of his teeth. “Oh, why?” He wanted it to sound casual, instead emerged in sharp razorlike exhalations.

“Tachyon had me searching for Blaise a year ago because she was scared to death of the little shit. And after my investigations I could see why.” The detective glanced back toward the bunk. “All and all I don’t know if Tachy is such a great candidate for motherhood… shit, fatherhood… fuck it – parenthood. He sure screwed up with Blaise.”

Mark hadn’t noticed when he’d picked up the Scrabble tile, but suddenly it was there, and he was twisting it through his fingers. “Blaise is crazy! Certifiably, clinically crazy. For years Doc tried to provide a stable and normal home environment. He tried with love to undo twelve years of sickness. And yeah, it’s a bummer he failed, but at least he tried.”

“He should have gotten some qualified help, but he’s so damn arrogant… I guess he thought he could be a kid shrink too.”

“That’s not fair!” Mark cried. “It’s real easy for you to sit there and throw stones, but you were partly to blame.” The flush appeared in Jay’s cheeks so fast he might have been slapped. The tile between Mark’s fingers snapped, and both men jumped. Suddenly horribly self-conscious, Mark tossed away the shards of the tile.

“How do you know about Atlanta?” Jay demanded. He was breathing hard.

Mark ducked his head. “The Doc told me. Not too bright, taking a thirteen-year-old off to play detective. Course you couldn’t predict that Ti Malice creature would possess him, and then use Blaise’s mind control to kill that poor joker, or that Blaise would enjoy it so much. Any more than Doc could predict how his spoiling would fuck with the kid. You guys were trying to care. It just all went funky and triggered the craziness.”

Jay didn’t say anything, just sat for a long moment with his head bowed. “Meadows,” he said finally. “I apologize. I was royally out of line.”

Mark cleared his throat selfconsciously. “Hey, I didn’t mean to rant at you. He’s just my closest friend… and personally, I think the Doc will make an awesome parent. She adores kids.”

“He must, otherwise she wouldn’t have let this one get her stretched out to here.” Jay demonstrated, then shook his head. “How do you suppose she’s handling it? If I suddenly got switched… had something growing inside me…”

“I don’t think Takisians are as hung up about gender as we are. Kids are also, like, the wealth of the family. And there’s the telepathy. If you had bonded mind to mind with your baby, could you kill her?”

“Probably not.”

Mark swallowed hard, past the question that lay like a lump in the center of his throat. “Hey, man, I don’t mean to be nosy, but I gotta ask it.” Jay nodded assent, but warily. “Why are you along on this trio

“I need to have my head examined.”

“No… seriously.”

The detective sat silent, his face an unmoving, uncommunicative mask. It went on for so long that Mark was beginning to writhe with embarrassment. Finally Jay sighed, and Mark also exhaled in relief.

“I don’t know,” Jay said in so serious a tone that it hung oddly on his lips. “Not out of friendship, like you. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I like Tachy well enough, but…” The shrug said it all. “Maybe it’s a funny kind of chauvinism. For years they’ve been sneaking in on us, manipulating us, watching us. Now we’re coming. Taking it home to them.”