A Question Of Time Fred Saberhagen (reading the story of the .TXT) 📖

control, of herself and of the situation. “You’re right, names don’t matter. Jake, I mean I have to be sure of you first. I have to be very sure.”

      “Sure of me? Sure of me how?”

      “I have to know whether I can depend on you. Whether you want me enough to—take some chances for me.”

      Jake paused, trying to think. All he could come up with at the moment was that this girl might be talking about getting married. It didn’t really sound to him like she meant that, but what else could it be? He hesitated, trying without much success to see her eyes through the dark glasses.

      He said uncertainly: “I tried to tell you last week what I’m like, what my situation is. If I had a real job, if I had any money, I wouldn’t be here in the CCC.”

      “I know that. I understand about the CCC. If I’d had any money a year and a half ago, I wouldn’t be here either.” She paused, as if to contemplate her own situation, still mysterious to Jake. “That’s not what I’m asking, whether you got any money.”

      “What, then?”

      “What I have to know, Jake, is can I depend on you? If I asked you to do something really hard, would you do it for me? Don’t just blurt out yes. Take your time and think about it.”

      He took a little time. “I’d do it if I could. Anyway I’d break my ass trying.”

      Camilla seemed to be going through the various stages she needed to make her own decision final.

      “All right,” she said at last. It was almost as if she were talking to herself, though the dark glasses looked at Jake. “Come here,” she said. And she began to undo the buttons of her shirt.

* * *

      Twenty minutes later, lying naked beside this woman he didn’t know, on a patch of soft, dry, shaded sand at the very foot of the side canyon’s western wall, Jake was saying lazily: “I just can’t figure it, is all. A girl like you, as good-looking as you are, smart and everything, why do you want to get hooked up with a guy like me?”

      Their clothing was scattered every which way around them. Along with everything else, Camilla had taken off her dark glasses, revealing a pair of greenish eyes much like those that Jake saw daily in his shaving mirror. Now she reached out for the glasses and put them on again.

      Through the glasses she looked at him strangely. She asked: “What’s wrong with you? I don’t see anything wrong with you. I told you what I wanted, and you said okay.”

      Jake ran a possessive hand down her smooth side, along the ribs and down her hip. She was better looking, by far, than any other girl or woman he’d ever before managed to persuade to lie down and spread her legs.

      He said: “You didn’t really tell me what you wanted. Not yet.”

      Suddenly she seemed tenderly uncertain. “Oh Jake. I’m not sure where to start.”

      “How about starting with where you live? You wouldn’t even tell me that much last week.”

      Camilla hesitated, then gestured. “Right now I’m living a little ways up this canyon.”

      Jake raised himself on one elbow, squinting in that direction. He saw no sign of habitation. “You mean up on the South Rim?”

      “No, not quite that far. Just a little ways from where we are. Half a mile maybe.”

      “Jeez, the Rim is a lot farther than that. And I didn’t know anyone lived in the Canyon. Except us poor slobs in the camp. Live with your parents?”

      That made Camilla smile. “No. Where’d you get that idea?”

      “A lot of girls live with their parents. Hey, you’re not married, are you?”

      “No.”

      Jake, somewhat reassured, lazily wondering what to ask next, reached out again with a large, sun-darkened, callused hand. This time he just extended a forefinger and traced patterns on Camilla’s marvelous, taut white belly. At the touch her belly contracted slightly with some kind of tickle reflex. So white and smooth…

      “Got a cigarette?” she asked him, with a sudden, wistful yearning.

      “Poverty got me out of the habit.”

      Whatever else was worrying her wouldn’t let her fret about cigarettes for long. She was framing another question for Jake: “Would you still help me, if I was married? Not that I am.”

      “Sure. Damn right I would.”

      Camilla lay there in silence, letting him have fun tickling her belly.

      “So, you’re not married … what’s the story, then? You live alone?”

      Camilla heaved a deep sigh. “No, not that either, I’m afraid.”

      I was beginning to figure something like this, thought Jake. Otherwise this would have been too simple. His right hand kept on exploring, testing the fact that he was now allowed to put his hand anywhere he wanted. Anywhere at all. Wonderful.

      When Camilla spoke again, she seemed to want Jake’s full attention on her words, and so she first reached down her own hand and caught his exploring fingers and held them in a grip of surprising strength. Then from behind her dark glasses she asked Jake: “Did you ever hear of a man named Edgar Tyrrell?”

      “No, can’t say I have. Should I?”

      “No special reason why you should. He’s a sculptor. A man who carves statues.”

      “I know what a sculptor is.”

      “Sorry. Edgar’s pretty well known, among people who study art. Not really famous.”

      “All right. So you live with Edgar Tyrrell. I bet he’s used you for a model.”

      Camilla had nothing to say about modeling. She extended her right arm gracefully, turning her body a little, pointing almost vertically up behind her. “He used to live up there on the rim, near Grand Canyon Village, in a little house built right on the edge. He was there for something like thirty years. And then one day he left his house and his family and disappeared from human society. That was before I met him. He says he just walked down into the Canyon one day and never went back.”

      Camilla fell silent, looking at Jake. It was hard for him