Parallel 59 by Natalie Dallaire & Stephen Cole

Author:Natalie Dallaire & Stephen Cole [Dallaire, Natalie & Cole, Stephen]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Science-Fiction - Doctor Who
ISBN: 9780563555902
Publisher: BBC Books
Published: 2000-02-14T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seven

Digging Holes for Yourself

Fitz opened the front door to find Anya waiting outside.

‘You’re early,’ he told her.

‘Nikol left early,’ she replied, checking there was no one about to notice her slip inside.

Her voice made Fitz smile. It was deadpan, almost halting in its delivery. Her eyes were pale blue and flirtatious and her hair was brown and bushy. She had freckles all over her long nose and was skinny, almost painfully so. She was also about eight years older than he was and married.

So, naturally, he had started an affair with her within days of his arrival.

‘Drink?’ he asked her, gesturing at the dozens of full bottles lining his kitchen worktops.

‘Sex,’ she countered, lying back on the bed.

‘You want ice with that?’ he asked her innocently. By the time he’d fixed himself an Ethel – his terribly witty name for the only booze round here, a potent spirit called ethalol – she was already pulling off her clothes.

He sighed, not really in the mood. An affair had suited the pair of them, he guessed, first of all. Nikol, Anya’s husband, who had to be twice Fitz’s age, was a veteran of some war or other back on Homeplanet. The old guy couldn’t remember it of course, but then he couldn’t exactly forget it, either – he had only one arm to raise to the world, and a whole load of scars that no one could see cutting him up inside.

The couple had arrived here together, but Anya could now say with total impunity that she didn’t know what she’d ever seen in Nikol; she cared about him, felt sorry for him, but really couldn’t remember what more there had ever been to their relationship other than companionship. That had seemed justification enough for Fitz when they’d first met. She’d made him feel less lonely, and better about himself, in that slightly fraught time after his arrival. And she in turn got someone younger and prettier than her husband to make her feel attractive and vivacious.

Her undressing was a perfunctory act, nothing sexy, just a means to an end. As ever, Fitz thought, knocking back his drink, it was time to cut to the chase. ‘You’re not falling in love with me, are you?’ she’d be whispering to him soon enough, as always. ‘Only you must never fall in love with me.’ As if the pyramids dotting the landscape were conjuring up the tomb of the pharaohs around them or something, like some dreadful curse might befall him if he ever developed deep feelings for her.

He felt as if he already had, if truth be told. She was a lovely woman, intelligent, sharp. She didn’t want to own him, she said, which suited him; after all, how could she? She’d told him up front, she’d never leave Nikol. ‘It just goes on until it stops’ had sounded easy at first. Increasingly, though, when they were close, she would look in his eyes as if searching for some secret truth he could barely admit to himself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.