AZOTUSLAND chapter Forty days and Forty nights

As Maugham was walking toward the Theater Martine was walking down the stairs.

"Where have you been boyfriend?" she asked.

"Boyfriend?" he smiled. Then he held her close and looked into her brown eyes and kissed her.

"Hey, can you come with me?"

"Sure."

Renata rode home in the semi-dark as it was past 9. She was tired and felt gross.

When she got home she locked up the bike and hiked up a flight to their studio apartment. When she got in the door her shoulders slumped. The dishes were in the sink and Rand was reading Bateson.. She kissed him on the forehead and went into the bath and slipped into the hot shower a minute later.

She didn't hear the door really, but was just unfolding under the water when he stepped in. She blushed. He could still do that, and more.

He sat down on the floor of the shower and let the steam roll around them. She pretended to pay him no mind until he kissed her kneecaps gently. His head slumped against her legs and she laughed a bit. Then he began to croon, off-key and on purpose, an old Frank Sinatra song as he started to make his way up her legs.

"The Summer wind...came rolling in...."

She grabbed his curled frollicks and led him into her and moaned gently then wildly.

God she loved this man.

After he had driven her to shudders she wanted his face ...his eyes, his smile. She wanted her husband, her love.

He was a gift, and she knew it. Someone had once said that no gift was ever received until it was thanked.

She was thankful as he stood up in the shower (which was now getting colder) and looked her in the eyes, pressed his body and hardness against her and held that special part of her that he loved so much with his hands and mouthed her warm lips. Then he moved his hands up as she did and they interclasped them high against the tiles. He entered her softly and she moaned and held his hands up high.

Rand felt the presence of God not in a religious way, but like a scent or vision that you cannot quite explain. He looked at Renata and smiled and she bit her lip a bit and they touched temples and they talked with God for a bit like a holy and joyful threesome. They talked about love, and people they knew and life and they made jokes and laughed every once and awhile when Rand would suddenly thrust.

Then Rand turned off the water (it had gotten cold) and he walked her into the small bed area where he laid her down and grabbed her shoulders and they conceived a child. When he came, Rand laughed.

And no one did the dishes for two days. But that's another story.

********

Martine poured a glass of Merlot and Maugham joined her and they slumped down into the chairs and Maugham hit the button and qued up "A,B, and C."

Her hair smelled good and he liked the way it lay across his arm. It was heavy and dark. She looked up at him every now and again with her almond eyes and he felt good.

********

Jim had gone up to survey his "shop" and it seemed good and well to him. He walked into the Library and saw Ted studying in one corner and Jacob reading a comic book.

When he entered the Cafe proper he saw Jonathan.

"What a Wonderfulness to see you Sahib!" Jonathan chirped.

Then Manfred came out from the back and said "Sahib?! What a Wonderfulness to see yous!"

Everyone laughed. Manfred looked confused.

"Look Jonathan," Jim said. "I have a little errand for you tomorrow at noon, okay?"

"Fine Bloss," Jim said "But is bad for glass...very bad for glass"

Jim said "Chinatown," and walked away.

********

Jim had been a bit shaken by his encounter with Delphia. She had hit him out of nowhere and it shook him.

He wrote her later and tried to express what he had felt at the park, but it was no use. He was simply haunted and he didn't like it. But then he did like it. Life.

That night he left the door to the Bunkhouse open and went to sleep around 11:30. He was not surprised when he woke up at 2:30 and she was curled up behind him. She read him pretty well and between the lines.

He got up and had some water then came back in. She looked like an angel in her blue skirt and mauve top and her bare feet and her black Keds at the foot of the bed.

Jim wasn;t ready for anything but this. Not sex. Just be next to her, feelin her hair, swinging his long arm over her middle curve. She was good. Very good.