OCTOBER 25
6:22 A.M.
When Lewis Gruvver woke up with a start after almost eight hours of uninterrupted slumber, the jerking of his body set the unfamiliar hammock in which he lay in a tangle of bedclothes to swaying, which caused his stomach to roll over and expel a jet of soured wine toward his throat. His mouth, as he became more conscious of his body and dizzied heart, was hangover-parched; his eyes felt as if there were grains of gunpowder beneath the lids.
He lay very still for half a minute while the motion of the hammock and his heartbeat settled down. Whose demented idea had that been anyway, to put a hammock instead of a bed in the master suite? Gruvver doubted that many Brazilians slept in hammocks, because, for one thing, the birthrate in that country would be way down. Never mind finessing your stroke, just trying to maintain a workable erection while swaying side to side would be a difficult feat. He tried to imagine himself on his back, as he now was, but with Charmaine astride him, elaborating on a theme from her sonata for meat flute and trying to maintain her balance in spite of the swing and sway of the hammock. The absurdity of the scene he was imagining had him laughing until he choked up a little more of the soured wine. He flung out a hand, discovered that Charmaine wasn't there, asleep with her knees drawn up to her belly, the way he usually found her in the morning.
But she was habitually an early riser; liked her swim or a mile run to get the day started right.
"Charmaine?"
Gruvver relaxed for a couple of minutes, giving her time to stroll in wearing her faded gold Georgia Tech sweats and her ratty softball cap from Woodward Academy, where she'd gone to high school on a partial scholarship. Carrying a cup of coffee that she'd brewed for her Lewie in the villa's kitchen. Perky as hell and already getting in a sly dig at him for passing out on her so early.
He called again; no answer. And suddenly it was time for him to pee, or way past time; so he scooted woozily across the glass floor with fish scattering colorfully beneath his feet (another dumb idea, Gruvver thought, although you could actually watch the fish, reflected in a mirrored ceiling, while scrunched in the tricky hammock, a pastime possibly of interest only to ichthyologists).
Gruvver relieved himself copiously, then undressed and lurched into a cold shower, multiple showerheads massaging him top to bottom with what felt like cactus needles. Stepped out feeling so fine, almost a whole man again instead of a conglomerate of rusty old parts. He put on one of the courtesy robes hanging in the bathroom and a pair of flip-flops and went in search of Charmaine.
Who wasn't hard to find. She was lying full-naked on the pool apron out there in a cold sunless dawning, knees drawn up as was her habit, with everything he cherished and could never get enough of innocently but lewdly exposed. Sound asleep—he assumed, after his initial shock of seeing her like that faded—because a portion of her slender right thumb was caught between her lips and strong white teeth. That sad little reversal to blissful infancy he'd never seen before, in the months they'd been sleeping together.
When Gruvver picked her up in his arms he was shocked anew. The desert air had him shuddering, it must have been around forty degrees this early, but Charmaine wasn't cold. Her skin felt as warm as if she'd been sunbathing. When he rocked her, gently at first, then more urgently in his arms, she was slow to wake up; not a muscle moved in her smooth slack face. Gruvver carefully pulled her thumb from between her teeth. She apparently had bitten down hard in her sleep and there was blood around the quick of the polished nail. A little smear of blood lay across her front teeth, still with the slightly serrated edges from childhood.
Charmaine's throat muscles bulged as she swallowed. Then she opened her eyes, looked blankly at him for a moment. Recognition came like the light of the sun. She snuggled, touched her lips with the tip of her tongue, smiled.
"Oh, man," she said. "Did I ever have me a dream."