"Aldridge, Ray - Filter FeedersV1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Aldridge Ray)

"No, no," Linda said. "We want you."

But not in your bed, Teresa thought sadly.

She let Linda show her to the guest cabin, which was small but pleasant. An overhead hatch let in the cool night air and a candle lantern threw a low dappled light on the woodwork.

"Sleep well," Linda said. Teresa watched her pass back through the main cabin, pausing to blow out the trawler lamp. Moonlight shone through the skylight; the white-haired woman slid a louvered door aside and went into a deeper darkness.

The bunk was comfortable and despite her expectations Teresa fell asleep quickly.

She woke later, from some vague, possibly lustful dream, a little overheated. She lay for a few minutes before she became aware of the sounds. They were very soft: a moan of pleasure, a gasp, almost a sob. Teresa raised herself on one elbow, turning her head, the better to hear. The sounds grew a tiny bit louder, and Teresa remembered her dream of several nights past. She noticed that the boat was absolutely still, no love waves. Her imagination attempted to picture a kind of lovemaking that wouldn't rock the boat, and at once a vivid possibility occurred to her. She noticed that her throat was dry; she had apparently been panting. Her hand slipped between her legs; then she resolutely pulled it up and held it with the other, gripping it so tightly that her hands ached.

She wasn't sure why she couldn't allow herself even that simple pleasure. Stupidity, perhaps.

Eventually the sounds faded into silence and she fell asleep again.

When she woke, it was to the sensation that some- thing was moving across her face. Her eyes opened to a painful glare. It took a moment for her vision to clear and then she was startled to see Thomas in the tiny cabin beside her, doing something to a curtain. She gasped and he turned toward her.

"I am too late," he said. "The tinkerbelle has already disturbed you."

"What?"

He moved the curtain aside briefly, to reveal the sun shining brightly through. "The tinkerbelle. So sailors call the sunlight that comes through an uncovered port. The boat's movement causes the light to dance about; it seems always to find the faces of sleeping off-watch crew."

"I see," she said, and looking down at herself she also saw that the sheets had become disarranged, so that she was more than half-naked. She hastily covered her legs but Thomas seemed not to notice.

"I serve breakfast in the cockpit," he said, and left.

Her disappointment annoyed her. What had she expected? That Thomas would crawl into her narrow bunk and set to entertaining her? Ridiculous. Besides, even if Teresa were irresistibly desirable -- a hilarious thought -- his night of revelry had probably exhausted his erotic energies.

She dressed and brushed her hair in a mood of sour self-criticism.

A plate of hot cinnamon rolls waited on the cockpit table.

"There is orange juice and coffee," Thomas said in his curious neutral voice, as earnest as a cruise-ship steward.

She took a roll and a glass of orange juice, which seemed freshly squeezed. "Thank you," she said. "Where's Linda?"

"Indisposed."

"Oh no. What's wrong? Can I help?"

He looked at her with those beautiful eyes. She could not describe his expression as cold, or empty -- it was simply an expression new to her and thus unclassifiable. "No, you cannot help. Not yet."

This seemed so strange a pronouncement that she was a little afraid. She nibbled at her roll and sipped her juice. She finally noticed how lovely the harbor was, in the glassy calm of morning.

"Well," she said, when she had finished. "I'd better go; today I work at the Chandler."

"Take the dinghy."