Busted Flush (Wild Cards 19) by George R.R. Martin

Author:George R.R. Martin [Martin, George R.R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction, Contemporary, Fiction, Fantasy, General, Science fiction; American, Mutation (Biology), Adventure
ISBN: 9780765357137
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2009-12-01T10:00:00+00:00

Ellen awoke the next morning to the sight of a used condom, a couple of asphyxiated wasps trapped in the tip. It was not a lovely memento. She turned back over, fresh tears stinging her eyes, but sleep wasn’t returning. Forcing herself, she got up, turned off the radio, and showered.

Ellen didn’t want to touch the clothes from the day before, not Aliyah’s, not Nick’s. She opened her suitcase. The final outfit was a twenties flapper gown, midcalf spangled black silk with jet beads, with a matching cap with black ostrich plume and a steel mesh purse fringed with ermine tails. It was beautiful for a night on the town, but utterly impractical for a hurricane.

To hell with it, she was wearing it anyway. Everyone already thought she was nuts.

At the last moment, she paused and set the plumed cap aside. She reached down and retrieved Nick’s fedora from where it had been crumpled into the pocket of his jacket.

Nick looked at himself in the dressing-table mirror, touching his fingers to the skin below his eye. “You’ve been crying, Elle. What’s the matter?”

Aliyah . . . Ellen thought, but she couldn’t lie to him, not Nick. The whole flood of memories came across in a tsunami.

“It’s okay,” Nick said. Her heart was now his and it calmed slightly, but only slightly. “I’ll take care of it.” He stood up, steeling his fingers on the dresser top, then surveyed the room, the wreckage of the night before. Reverently, he retrieved Aliyah’s earrings and shirt, placing them neatly in the ermine-fringed mail purse, then less reverently, he picked up the condom by its edge and stalked across the hall.

After three sharp raps, Jonathan opened the door, looking disheveled and even more hungover than Nick felt. “You left something.”

Jonathan sheepishly took the condom, and looked even more sheepish as the trapped wasps roused themselves, crawling out the bottom and buzzing up the leg of Jonathan’s boxers. “Uh, thanks, uh . . . Ellen?” Jonathan’s green eyes flicked to the dress, then the hat.

“Nick.” He pushed the fedora out of his eyes. “We need to talk. Man to man.”

“Man to man?”

“I’m being nice about it. I could say ‘man to bug.’ ” Nick pushed his way into the room, standing on tiptoes to look Jonathan in the eye. “A real man doesn’t treat a lady that way. Do you have any idea how upset Ellen is?”

Nick, please, you don’t have to make a big deal—

“Yes, I do,” snapped Nick. “A real man never treats a lady that way, and Elle is a lady. Do you know what I’d give to be able to touch her, hold her, just once? And you . . .” He fixated on Jonathan’s small paunch. “God, man, don’t you ever work out?”

Jonathan sucked in his gut and a cloud of fat wasps liposuctioned their way out of his navel and buzzed menacingly about his midsection. “Back off.”

“You’re forgetting who you’re dealing with, aren’t you?” Nick raised his hand and formed a ball of pure lightning floating on his fingertip.

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