John Wright - Fugitives of Chaos

I leaned over and tugged Vanity's shoulder till she stood up, blinking. I said, "Okay, Victor. You boys stand watch over us helpless girls. If anyone comes into our bedroom, we'll both scream. How's that?"

Three days of sailing passed without incident. Surrounded by the luxuries and entertainment of what was certainly the finest ship afloat, we simply could not take Victor's worries seriously. We tried to keep watches at night, and the boys did not mind taking turns staying up late, watching the miraculous television.

There were two or three channels that had nothing but rock-and-roll, to which half-nude starlets jumped up and down to truly primitive jungle-drum music. Colin was fascinated, and spent hours absorbed in music television.

Quentin thought the act of casting his circle of silence might attract more attention than it deflected, and he asked us to rely on Vanity to tell us if the wind were listening to us. And yet he also seemed relaxed; he dreamt he read his book at night, and his book hinted that, over the sea, the gods of land had less authority, less power.

At Victor's insistence, we always traveled in pairs, or stayed within shouting distance. More or less. I mean, a person can really shout a long way, right? This was not really a burden, either; Vanity and I did not want to be alone when we explored the ship, and we sort of needed each other's protection to ward off the gallantries of passengers and crew, all of whom seemed old, so very old to me.

1.

It was our own fault. Vanity had bought us both bathing suits in Paris. Hers was a peach bikini the hue of her skin, that made her seem nude at five paces; mine was a black one-piece, but hardly demure, for it had lace panels down the sides, with a neckline that opened almost to the belly button. And it tied up the back and front with such a thorough web of laces that I am sure Grendel's opposite number among human bathing suit designers had drawn up the plans.

We went swimming the first day in a nearly empty pool. By the afternoon, the pool was crowded with onlookers and men and boys splashing near us and trying to show off. The handsome young lifeguard came by every few minutes to make sure I hadn't drowned. I also caused a sensation just by swimming laps. I do not know what I did wrong or did differently from anyone else, but if I could swim faster than a human being, or hold the pace longer, or hold my breath longer, it might have been obvious to them and not to me.

I jogged on the deck and played some games they had there; I visited the spa; I played racquetball with a handsome young man named Klaus, who owned his own business doing something with computers or telephones, or both, which he tried to explain to me while he was trying to get Vanity to go away so he could molest me.

I saw a movie in a real movie theater, and found out I could borrow movies on tape from the ship's library and watch them in the stateroom.

There was one, a black-and-white Western starring Gary Cooper and Grace Kelly, about a man who has to save an ungrateful town from four bad guys coming to kill him. Everyone tries to talk him out of it, his friends, his newlywed wife, everyone. She leaves him. In the end, when he does away with the bandits, they don't even thank him. It made me cry. I don't remember the name of the film, but I hope it won an Academy Award for its year. Marshal Kane was the character's name. I told Vanity that this was the way I wanted to act: to do what was right without fear of failure, without expectation of reward. The wife came back, in the end, Grace Kelly's character.

We rang in the New Year that night. The ballroom was splendid with decorations. I found the images of Father Time with his scythe a bit sinister, though. We went dancing, both swing-time dancing and formal ballroom dancing. Victor is always fun to waltz with because he never loses the beat and never makes mistakes, but Colin was fun to waltz with, too, and he seemed almost polished and polite when he spoke.

Colin and I spun around the dance floor to the lilting strains of "The Blue Danube" by Strauss, and I said,

"Have you been replaced by a Colin-shaped robot duplicate?"

"What's the matter, Amelia?" He smiled down at me. His eyes were blue and warm.

"A whole hour has gone by, and you haven't used the word 'breast' or even 'nipple' once in the conversation. You said 'Please' earlier this evening. I heard it. It's like seeing a wild boar use a litter box.

Has someone domesticated you?"

He grinned his normal the-devil-may-care-but-Colin-does-not-care grin and said, "Well, Amy, being poked by Dr. Fell and sneered at by Boggin and ear-pulled by the porcelain Daw, and ruler-whipped by baggy Mrs. Wren gets to a fellow after a while. I was never the teacher's pet like you were, and I couldn't be the iceman like Victor. And I couldn't even shut up and keep my head down like Big Q.

Vanity could hypnotize the male teachers and staff with her industrial-strength, king-sized breasts, of course, or threaten to hose down rioters with milk from her nipples. What did I have? I could take the heat for you guys. So I took it."

"Took what?"

"You know. When you guys got in trouble, I would throw myself on the hand grenade for you. When you broke some small rule, I'd break some huge rule, and you'd get off with a little delicate slap on your little delicate wrist while I went into the hotbox."

"Hotbox" was Colin's word for solitary detention in the library, which, in summer, was quite hot.

'Then when I got out of the hotbox, you guys would be finishing up some game I was too late to get into, or you'd be playing tennis doubles and there was no room for me. If I didn't make a fuss, you guys ignored me. And if I did make a fuss, Amelia the Great Blond Valkyrie would kick my ass. That was back in the days when your arms were longer than mine."

"You must be from a parallel universe, Colin. None of it happened that way."

"You think I made trouble for myself because I like trouble? You think I enjoyed having Mr. Glum threaten me with an awl?"

"When did Mr. Glum ever threaten you with an awl?"

"The time he thought I stole his pornography magazines he had hidden in his tool shed."

"You did what?"

"Now you are doing it again, Amy. Instead of, 'Thank you, Colin, for deflecting trouble from me,' now you are trying to change the subject to Mr. Glum's pornography. Anyway, that is why. Every day before today, I've been under someone's boot Now the boot is gone. I'm a new man. Want to feel my new manhood, Amy-doll?

I said, "Don't call me Amy."

"Melly?"

"No."

"Melanomia."

"No."

"Melon breasts. Megamammary."

"You just turned back into the boar. The dance is over."

"The music is still playing!"

"The dance is over for you and me. Take me back to my chair."

He walked me back, frowning.

But then, at the chair, I turned and I kissed his cheek, and said, "Thank you, Colin, for deflecting trouble from me."

He said, "You're welcome. Oh, and, Amelia…"

He kissed me on the lips. Before I could decide whether to pull away or not, he just kissed me, just like that. He was certainly a better kisser than Quentin in midair, or Vanity. It was warm and nice, and I felt my limbs go soft, so he put his arms around me to hold me.

He pulled his head back.

"Damn you," I said. I had been trying to save at least one of my first few kisses for Victor.

He just grinned his little half-grin. "You are welcome, too. Thanks for breaking us out of Devil's Island."

"Let go of me."

He put me back on my feet. "About that favor you owe me… ?"

I looked at him. "Yes?"

"What did you promise exactly? And did it involve a can of chilled whipped cream, warm fudge, and a lot of licking?"

A girl can only take a finite amount of Colin at a time.