A murmur of agreement.
"Can everybody see Mr. Bottle here?"
Another murmur.
"In that case, let's go." He stepped outside the circle of girls,
reached in again for Ed Symes's foot, and set the gentleman spinning
once more.
Symes spun with a blinding speed, making a low, whistling noise.
Forrester watched the body spin dizzily, just as anxious as the girls
were to find out who the first winner was going to be. He thought of
Millicent, who chewed gum and made it pop. He thought of Bette, the
inveterate explainer and double-take expert. He tried to think of
Dorothy and Jayne and Beverly and Judy, but the thought of Kathy,
irritating and uncomfortable and too damned bright for her own good, got
annoyingly in the way.
He was rather glad he had promised not to use his powers on the spinning
figure. He was not at all sure which one of the girls he would have
picked for Number One.
And he had, after all, given his word as a God. True, he wasn't quite a
God, only a demi-Deity. But he did feel that Dionysus might object to
his name being used in vain. A promise, he told himself sternly and
with some relief, was a promise.
After some time, Mr. Ed (Bottle) Symes began to slow perceptibly. The
whistling died as Symes began rotating about his abdominal axis at a
more and more leisurely rate. Seconds passed. Symes faced Bette ...
Millicent ... Kathy ... Judy ... Bette again ...
Forrester watched, fascinated.
Finally, Symes came to a halt. All the elaborate instructions in case
the Bottle ended up pointing between two girls had been, Forrester saw,
totally unnecessary. Symes's head was pointing at one girl, and one girl
alone.
She gave a little squeal of delight. The others began chorusing their
congratulations at once, looking no more convincing than the runners-up
in any beauty contest. Their smiles appeared to have been glued on
loosely, and their voices lacked a certain something. Possibly it was
sincerity.
"All right, that's it for now." Forrester turned to the winner. "My
congratulations," he said, wondering just what he was supposed to say.
Not finding any appropriate words, he turned back to the group of six
losers. "The rest of you girls can do me a big favor. Go get a couple of
the Myrmidons to protect you, hunt around for the nearest wine barrel
and confiscate it for me. It's been a thirsty day."
"Gee," Jayne said. "Sure we will, Lord Dionysus."
"Now take your time," Forrester said, and the losers all giggled at
once, like a trained chorus. Forrester grimaced. "Don't come back till
you find a barrel. Then we'll play the game again."
In a disappointed fashion, the six of them trooped off into the darkness
and vanished to mortal eyes. Forrester watched them go and then turned
to the winner, feeling just a little uncertain.
"Well, Kathy," he started. "I--"
She flung herself on him with the avid girlishness of a Bengal tiger.
"I have dreamed of this night since I was but a child! At last I am in
your arms! I love you! Take me! I am yours, all yours!"
"That's nice," Forrester said, taken far aback by the girl's sudden
onslaught. His immediate impulse was to unwind Kathy and set her back on
her own feet, some little distance away, after which he could start
again on a more leisurely basis. After all, he told himself, people
ought to spend more time getting to know each other.
But he remembered, just in time, that he was Dionysus. He conquered his
first impulse and put his arms around her. As he did so, he discovered
that his face was being covered with kisses. Kathy was murmuring little
indistinct terms of endearment into his ear every time she reached it en
route from one side of his face to the other.
Forrester swallowed hard, tightened his grip and planted his lips firmly
on Kathy's. A blaze of startling heat shot through him.
In a small corner at the back of his mind, a scroll unrolled. On it was
written what Vulcan had told him about his mental attitude changing
after Investiture. When he had been plain William Forrester, an attack
like the one Kathy was making on him had pretty much chilled him for a
while. But now he found himself definitely rising to the occasion.
There was a passion to her kiss that he had never felt before, a rising
tide of flame that threatened to char him. The movement of her mouth on
his sent new fires burning throughout his body, and as her hands moved
on him he was awakened to a new world, a world of consuming desires.
He wished his own clothing away, and fumbled for a second at the two
fastenings that held Kathy's _chiton_ in place. Then it was gone and
there was nothing between them. They met, flesh to flesh, in a fiery
embrace that grew as he forced her down and she responded eagerly,
wildly, to his every motion. His lips traveled over her; her entire
body was drowning him once and for all in an unbelievable red haze,
unlike anything he had ever before experienced ... a great wave of
passion that went on and on, rising to a peak he had never dreamed of
until his body shivered with the sensations, and he pressed on, rising
still higher in an ecstasy beyond measure....
His last spasm of tension turned out the God-light.
* * * * *
She lay in his arms on the grass, holding him almost as tightly as he
held her. He felt exhausted, but he knew perfectly well that he wasn't.
A God was a God, after all, and Kathy was only the hors d'oeuvres of a
seven-course dinner.
"You're wonderful," Kathy said in a soft whisper at his ear. "Absolutely
wonderful. More wonderful than I could ever dream. I--"
She was interrupted by a strange, harsh voice that bellowed from
somewhere nearby.
"All right, bitch!" it said. "Get the hell up from there! And you too,
buster!"
Forrester jerked his head up in astonishment and froze. Kathy looked up,
fright written all over her face.
The man standing over them in the darkness looked like a prize-fighter,
one who had taken a number of beatings, but always given better than he
had received. His arms were akimbo, his feet planted as firmly as if he
were a particularly stubborn brand of tree. He glared down at them, his
face expressive of anger, hatred--and, Forrester thought dully, a
complete lack of respect for his God.
The man barked: "You heard what I said! On your feet, buster! If I have
to kick your teeth in, I want to do it when you're standing up!"
Forrester's jaw dropped. Then, as the initial shock left him, anger
boiled in to take its place. He toyed with the idea of blasting this
mortal who showed such disrespect to a God. He sprang to his feet,
ready to move, and then stopped.
Maybe the man was crazy. Maybe he was just some poor soul who wasn't
responsible for his own actions. It would be merciful, Forrester
thought, to find out first, and blast the intruder afterward.
He looked around. Twenty yards away, the encircling Myrmidons still
stood, their backs to the scene, as if nothing at all were going on.