Second Nature

Chapter 36

36 

Jimi opened his eyes and yawned from a queen-sized brass bed. Lana was brushing her teeth at an antique washbasin that rested on a white marble and mahogany pedestal in a corner of the bedroom. On the wall in front of the washstand hung a round mirror with a porcelain art nouveau frame. Lana turned to him and smiled with a mouthful of blue-white toothpaste. "Time to get up if you're going to tag dolphins today."  

"Mmm. Good morning." He stretched, sat up in bed. Haven had tied his hair in a hundred slender braids that hung down his back like red ropes. "I'm not going to tag dolphins; that's obsolete now. I've got a dolphin in human form to interview." 

"Give her some space, Jimi. Don't push too hard." 

"Not today. I'm going to spend the next couple weeks out on the bay with Cade, recording dolphin chatter. Then I'll get Gen to tell me what they're saying."  

He got out of bed, nude. His elongated arms and legs and torso gave him the lanky look of a mantis. "She and I could create a human-dolphin dictionary on the computer, using a keyboard synthesizer and voice-recognition software. It'll be a translator program, see? I'll use underwater speakers to broadcast my speech, microphones to pick up theirs. We can have a dialogue, the dolphins and I." 

"Great idea." She spit toothpaste into the basin. "They can tell you exactly what they think of the guy who's been stapling plastic tags on their fins and sticking them with needles for the past five years."  

He came up behind her at the wash stand, wrapped his arms around her nude torso. It was like the sculpted marble of Winged Victory, only made of warm black flesh. 

Their eyes met in the mirror. "That was hot sex last night," Jimi said. 

She grinned. "I thought so." 

"Beyond hot. Volcanic." 

"You were the volcano. Think I slept in a lava pool all night." 

He lifted the thick, soft coils of her hair to kiss the long neck of his black swan. "I thought good Baptist women don't scream in bed." 

She laughed. "You kidding? You should hear us scream in church." 

He continued kissing her smooth, fragrant neck. "Lana, you're a wonderful lover."  

She pressed her palms together, bowed her head toward the mirror. "I am most honored, O Son of Heaven, that you take small pleasure in my homely self." 

He chuckled. "Homely, yeah-like Nefertiti." 

"I am most honored that you take delight in my titis." She turned to face him and cupped her hands under her generous breasts. He laughed and dutifully smothered the dark globes with happy kisses. "You make feel so good!" 

She shivered with pleasure. "Keep on kissing me like that and I'll show you how good you make me feel." 

"Shall we skip breakfast?" 

She smiled vampishly. "Well, I wouldn't put it that way." She took his hand and led him back again to the big brass bed.  

* * * 

An hour later, two languid bodies-one dusky, the other pale-rested entwined in each others arms and legs. 

Abruptly, Jimi said, "I think I may know what the progenitor race looks like." 

"Hmm?" Lana was half-asleep. 

"The ones who shipped out the life-starter kits. Our ET ancestors. I think I may know what they looked like." 

Lana opened one eye. "You're too much," she said. "You just had, what? Two orgasms? Added to last night's. And your mind is still busy? You don't need sex, baby, you need a dose of elephant tranquilizer."