Metaphase. Part 32

"Let's go where it's shallower," she said. "I can't breathe underwater!"

She grinned and plunged toward sh.o.r.e, diving between Stephen Thomas and Satos.h.i.+.

Stephen Thomas followed her, pressing himself past Satos.h.i.+, letting the whole length of his body stroke his partner's belly. Stephen Thomas felt no arousal in him, no excitement.

Victoria stood chest-deep in the water. The fog was dissipating; it swirled around her like a wraith. Gentle waves covered her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then exposed her again. She hugged Stephen Thomas and wrapped one leg around his hips.

Satos.h.i.+ swam up behind him and touched him, tentatively, sliding his fingertips over his shoulders.232 Stephen Thomas gave himself to the seduction of the water and his lovers'

desires and his own.

Suddenly Victoria cried out. She pulled away. Off balance, Stephen Thomas and Satos.h.i.+ both splashed forward, submerged, and tumbled apart. Stephen Thomas gulped a mouthful of salt water and struggled to his feet, gasping and coughing.

"Stephen Thomas, oh, I'm sorry, I thought-"

She stopped and patted his back gently till he got his breath again.

"I can't breathe underwater, either," Stephen Thomas said. "Yet. What .

. . are you okay? Did I hurt you?"

"Oh-not really. Not exactly. When we started, it was wonderful, but then-" She glanced ruefully at Satos.h.i.+. "I guess you were right."

"Yeah," he said. "I guess so. Sorry."

They stood together, closer to sh.o.r.e, waist-deep in the water and nearly in full daylight. The fog had vanished with the breeze that chilled the air. Chagrined, Stephen Thomas s.h.i.+vered.

"Yeah," Victoria said. "It is cold." She sounded disappointed, but also amused. "Maybe we should go back home . . . back to bed."

"I just can't," Stephen Thomas said. "I've got to get to the lab." The last thing he felt like, right now, was s.e.x. His p.e.n.i.s hurt, and it had begun to itch and sting.

Great, he thought. Just f.u.c.king great. I can't do anything for the people I love, and now I've got a case of jock itch, too.

"Yesterday, with Zev and J.D.," Victoria said. "It was awfully nice."

"Maybe divers have secret s.e.x techniques," Stephen Thomas said, trying to joke. "Maybe I don't get to find them out till I'm completely changed.

Maybe they're hard-wired."

"Maybe," Satos.h.i.+ said dryly to Stephen Thomas, "Zev is smaller than you."

He glanced at Victoria. "Is he?"

"I didn't notice," Victoria said lightly, and then, in 233.response to the skeptical glances of both her partners, she protested. "No, really. J.D. wanted to talk and Zev went on ahead. Then we were in the water. He liked . . . being touched quickly. You couldn't hold him, he'd slip away." She paused, thinking. "I never got a good look at him, eh? I certainly didn't say, 'Stand there while I look at you, Zev, and see how you measure up to my partners."'

They waded toward sh.o.r.e. Stephen Thomas was anxious to get out of the salt water. He hoped that then the stinging would stop.

"Good lord!" Satos.h.i.+ exclaimed. "What happened--did you go face forward in the sand? You're all sc.r.a.ped-""No, I never hit bottom." Stephen Thomas looked down.

The blood drained out of his face.

The darkening skin on his p.e.n.i.s had sloughed off, fading from its new deep tan to a sickly gray, hanging in flimsy strips, leaving the shaft angry-red, ugly.

Stephen Thomas knocked hard on J.D.'s door. No one answered. He banged his fist on the dense rock foam.

"Hey! Zev! "

He was about to be very rude and look through the open French windows when Zev opened the door. He saw Stephen Thomas and grinned.

"Hi-"

"Why didn't you reply to my message?"

"I'm sorry, I was busy."

"Busy!"

"Yes, J.D. and I were making love." Zev joined Stephen Thomas on the porch and closed the door. "Don't shout, she's sleeping."

"I need to talk to you!"

"Shh. Let's go for a walk."

He led Stephen Thomas through the wild garden, away from the house and the open windows of J.D.'s bedroom.234 "Are your claws growing yet?" Zev looked at Stephen Thomas's feet.

Because of the bruising, it was hard to see what was happening to his toes.

"Yes, and they hurt like h.e.l.l."

"I'm sorry."

"Stop apologizing! You're always apologizing to me.,, "But what's happening to you, it's my fault."

"It's done. Stop feeling guilty, and tell me what I should expect."

Zev glanced over at him, curious, troubled.

"But you know what. You're turning into a diver."

"I want to know what's normal and what isn't." He turned to Zev, shouting again. "Is it supposed to hurt this bad? Is my skin supposed to peel off?"

Zev took a step away from him. "I'm sorry-"

Stephen Thomas flung up his hands in exasperation.

"-but I don't know all those answers," Zev said. "Your . . . your skin is peeling? That doesn't sound right. Did you get sunburned?"

Zev's distress scared Stephen Thomas.

"You don't know?"

"If J.D. had accepted our invitation and come to live with the divers, Lykos would have been with her. My mother knows all about how the changes happen. But I don't. I was born this way."

"Great," Stephen Thomas said, disgusted.

"I'm . . . never mind."

"Victoria and Satos.h.i.+ and I went swimming this morning. We tried to make love in the water. But we couldn't because it hurt her. It didn't with you. Why not?"

Zev thought for a moment. "Maybe ordinary human men are bigger than diver men?" he asked.

"I'll show you mine if you'll show me yours," Stephen Thomas muttered.

"What?"

Stephen Thomas shrugged. "Nothing. Forget it."

He strode angrily along the path beside the river. A ghost of pain grew behind his pelvic bone, as if a knife 235.were tickling him, teasing him with the threat of the fatal stab. He slowed down and tried to stay calm, hoping to stave off the pain with caution. Zev caught up to him.

"Can I look at you, Zev? I don't even know what I'm going to look like when this is over."

"You'll look like Stephen Thomas, you won't look like me."

"I mean naked."

"You can look at me if you want. Can I look at you? I never saw-"

The pain hit Stephen Thomas. For no reason, and with too much warning, the pain flamed through his pelvis, along his backbone.

He gave up. He sank to the path, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping himself in his arms. The hair stood out straight all over his body. He s.h.i.+vered, and groaned.

"Dammit, Zev, what's happening to me?"

Zev sat on his heels beside him, upset and helpless.

"I don't know."

"I wish you'd quit saying that!"

"I better call Victoria."

"No!" He grabbed Zev's arm. Moving made the pain shoot through him again; his fingers clenched harder than he meant them to.

The young diver flinched but stayed where he was, balancing on his toes, scared for Stephen Thomas but not scared of him. Stephen Thomas had the feeling that Zev could break his hold in a second if he chose. He let 90.

" Please don't call Victoria, or Satos.h.i.+, or anybody. Just give me a minute."

"You'll feel better in the water. Can you stand up?"

"Yeah." The stabbing pain diminished to a throbbing ache. He stayed where he was. "But I can't walk all the way to the other end of campus. Not right now."

"You don't have to. Come swim in the river."

"Is that all you ever-" Stephen Thomas heard himself complaining to Zev about Zev's obsession with wa-236 ter the way Victoria complained to him about his being able to see auras.

It did not matter that he no longer saw them. Now he knew how Victoria felt, Except that it would feel good to be in the water. A warm bath, a cold swim-anything to ease the throbbing ache in the center of his pelvic girdle, and the itch that was turning sore and hot.

He lurched to his feet. "Okay."

They tramped through a meadow of wildflowers, a carpet of color like the pastel reflection of a rainbow. Stephen Thomas followed Zev down the riverbank to a beach ol'small rounded rocks, designed to look waterworn, ancient. They were of course no such thing. They were moon rock, reshaped and carefully placed during Starfarer's construction.

The river curved, cutting into the stratified bank, exposing one of Crimson's fossil beds. The water rippled and softly splashed. Downstream, the channel narrowed; the river roughened and raced with a hollow roar.Stephen Thomas took off his s.h.i.+rt, hesitated, and slipped out of his shorts. He moved gingerly.

Zev watched him, worried that he might collapse again.

"Is it swollen?" he said, when he saw Stephen Thomas naked. "Does it hurt?"

"It isn't swollen. It's sore."

"Then I don't blame you for leaving it out." The river rocks rattled hollowly as Zev crossed them. He tossed off' his clothes and picked his way over the treacherous footing to the river. Stephen Thomas followed slowly.

Zev threw himself into the midstream current, let himself be carried fifty meters through the rapids, then vanished beneath roiling white water.

"Zev!"

Upstream from the rapids, halfway back to Stephen Thomas, Zev reappeared.

He waved and beckoned.

It looked like fun, but Stephen Thomas lowered 237.himself into the cold eddy near sh.o.r.e. Today, a sitz-bath was about his speed.

The water did feel good, easing the soreness, ma.s.saging away bits of dead skin.

Zev splashed toward him.

Stephen Thomas got a close look at an adult male diver for the first time.

Struggling to stay calm, he patted the water. He slapped harder than he meant to, sending an angry splash toward Zev.

"Sit down."

"Does your p.e.n.i.s hang out like that all the time?" Zev asked suddenly.

Stephen Thomas s.h.i.+fted on the uncomfortable rocks. He was trembling.

Instead of replying, instead of asking all his own questions, Stephen Thomas started to laugh. Hysteria tinged his laughter, but this really was funny. He thought Zev looked strange, and Zev thought Stephen Thomas looked just as alien.

Zev smiled uncertainly.