Forests of the Night

CHAPTER 14

Nohar had an intense fear he would wake up in a hospital.

However, no disinfectant assaulted him when he awoke. He could smell alcohol, a much sharper and cleaner scent. There was also the faint coppery rust smell of his own blood. There was the dry dusty smell of old cloth and paper.

And nearby was the smell of roses and wood smoke.

Nohar opened his eyes.

He was in the attic. His old room still had no air-conditioning, and should have been hotter than Hades—but the omnipresent rumble and the breeze through his whiskers told Nohar the old ventilation fan still worked, pulling a crosswind through this two-room insulated oven. His eyes quickly shifted into nocturnal monochrome.

Her scent had betrayed her presence. Stephie Weir was asleep in a claw-scarred recliner across from Nohar's bed.

He gave the room a brief scan and was thankful Manny wasn't overly sentimental. The chair and the bed were the only remains of his old furniture. The attic was now a haven for boxes, old luggage, and older clothes.

Nohar's gaze lit on the small end table that jutted out the side of the antique headboard. After a decade and a half, the table was still familiar. Nohar remembered the scratches that marked its surface. His name and idle crosshatches had clawed through five layers 254

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of paint to reveal the black finish underneath. The desk lamp was still clamped to it, still with three or four knots of electrical tape holding the cord together.

Orai's picture was still in its cheap gold-plated frame, cocked at an obsessively perfect forty-five degree angle toward the bed. Its lower edge rested in a groove worn in the last two layers of paint. The gold was flaking and rust spots dotted the gray metal beneath. The glass was hazy with dust and, in the dark, Nohar could barely make out the picture.

Nohar sat up on the edge of the bed—his hip objected, but only slightly—and turned on the desk lamp which, to his surprise, still worked. Now he could see the picture. In it, Orai was in her combat harness, but unarmed. She was center frame and holding up one end of an American flag. The other end was being held by some friend from her unit. In the background he could see the Statue of Liberty and part of the Manhattan skyline. Orai and her friend, both tigers, were smiling, totally oblivious to the show of teeth. Orai was already beginning to show her pregnancy. The writing on the old picture was faded a bit, though the picture itself was still in good shape. It read, "Rajas-than Airlift—March 2027."

Nohar sighed.

He realized Stephie was awake now. She was leaning forward in the recliner, probably trying to get a glimpse of the picture. Nohar didn't know what to feel about that. It was a personal part of his life. But Stephie was just sitting there. She seemed to know it was his decision to tell her. She didn't ask.

Nohar realized he liked this pink woman.

He handed her his childhood icon. "She's the one on the left."

Stephie took the picture. "Who is she?"

"My mother. She was already pregnant when the company defected. Her name was Orai."

Stephie's eyes raised from the picture. "You used the past tense."

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Nohar was about to evade the question, but why shouldn't she know? He cleared his throat. "Died when I was five, just old enough to remember. She'd gotten inseminated, wanted to give me a little brother or sister. She'd saved for the procedure since getting to the States. Things went fine. Then, three months in, she went for a prenatal checkup—" Nohar sucked in a breath. "Those damn idiots at the Clinic—do you know what Pakistani gene-techs had done with feline leukemia?"

Stephie shook her head. The color drained from her face.

Nohar went on. "Those doctors didn't know either. They misdiagnosed a Jaguar, put him in with the other felines, including Orai." Nohar's voice cracked a bit. He brought it under control. "They could 've quarantined the Jaguar. But they don't give moreys private rooms. Every feline in the ward started dying. Then they knew. She was near to term. She died miscarrying two cubs—"

Nohar fell silent. There wasn't much left to say. He closed his eyes and tried to remember when he had told anyone that story in full. No one came to mind. Not even Manny, though Manny knew the story well enough.

The smell of smoky rose was suddenly very close, and Nohar felt a tiny naked hand on his cheek, brushing his whiskers. He opened his eyes and saw Stephie's face, close to his own. Her breath was warm on the skin of his nose. Her eyes were a liquid green, nothing like the eyes of a cat—visible whites, tiny round pupils.

Nohar had never realized how alien human eyes were.

Her lips parted in a whisper. "Lord, how you must hate humans."

Nohar shook his head. "No, no hate. Not for people."

The hand left and Stephie replaced the picture, in

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its groove and at its forty-five degree angle. She did it in one fluid motion, stretching across Nohar to replace the picture. Again Nohar found himself admiring her muscle tone and her economy of movement.

She sat down next to him on the bed. The springs barely noticed her weight.

Her nervousness was back. Just like at the table at the Arabica. She shook her head and looked up at him. Nohar wished once again that he was better at reading human expression.

"Nohar, would you tell me, who's Angel?"

Back to business. "I told you, she's a lead. She saw the sniper—"

Stephie was shaking her head again. "Not what I meant. I want to know who she is to you."

Huh? Maybe not. "What? Only met her yesterday— We sure as hell aren't lovers. If that's what you mean."

Stephie turned a bright red. She clenched a fist that made her knuckles whiten. "I'm sorry, forgive me. I didn't mean to offend—"

Nohar got a sensation he often got when talking with humans. There were two different conversations here. Stephie was, he felt, about to bolt off somewhere and cry. He didn't want to be responsible for that, even if he didn't understand what was going on. He placed his hands on her shoulder.

Nohar didn't know how to do this gracefully, so he just told her the truth. "I wasn't offended. But the idea of having relations with that little twitch is ludicrous."

Nohar could tell Stephie almost laughed. She was still flushed.

"Why ask?"

Nohar could sense a slight tensing of her muscles under his hand. "Angel was bragging all the tune while you were unconscious. I just wondered, you're such different ... "

Ah. "Different species? I'd admit, me and her, it would be unusual, but not unheard of."

"Isn't that bestiality? Would it be possible?"

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"Some human taboos, like nudity, can't wash with moreys for practical reasons."

Stephie was still looking up at him, and Nohar realized he'd only answered half the question. "And, uh, some morey characteristics came out the other end of the labs remarkably similar. I think it might be linked to bipedal . . ."He trailed off.

Great, now he was getting embarrassed.

Stephie had a questioning look in her eyes. The flush was fading. "Who do you have, Nohar?"

Nohar thought of Maria. "No one, anymore."

"You're lonely, aren't you?"

He would have objected, but he had trouble lying to people he felt something for. He nodded. "You?"

They faced each other, on the bed. He was feeling her breath on his nose again. No longer warm, hot. Beads of perspiration were forming on her forehead. Her voice was a whisper. "My nonexistent boyfriend." She tried to laugh, but it died. "No girlfriend either."

' 'Why did you get so upset when I asked if you were a lesbian?''

"Too close to what I was feeling."

They were very close now. He could feel her pulse under the hand that still rested on her shoulder. It was incredibly rapid, like her heart belonged to a kitten or a small bird. His heartbeat was racing to catch up with hers. Her sweat was beginning to lend a tang to the air that was alien to him, one he liked. What was going on had dawned on him gradually, and a small part of his mind was screaming at him, asking him what the hell he was doing. It wasn't the time for that question.

Her alien—human—eyes were staring deep into his own. "You saved my life. Have you ever heard of Chinese obligation?"

Nohar had. "I'm responsible for you now."

She sucked in a shuddering breath, and her lips touched his. He had seen kisses in human videos—but

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a feline skull and lips didn't move the right way for it. Even so, he tried.

He let her small lips part his mouth and felt her amazingly smooth tongue

alight on his own, caress one of his canines, and withdraw, to be felt, briefly, under his nose. When her eyes opened, the nervousness was gone.

Nohar, what are you doing? He ignored the questioning voice because he needed her, human or not. He moved his hand up from her shoulder and undid the bonds that were keeping her hair in a ponytail. He nuzzled the top of her head, thankful not to smell any heavy chemicals, and began to groom her hair. The taste and texture of her human hair was different from Maria's fur. The ritual perhaps seemed as strange to Stephie as kisses did to Nohar.

When Nohar had cleaned her hair, he began to move to her ears and the back of her neck. He expected the taste and feel of naked skin to repulse, but it was quite the opposite. The sweet acidic taste of her sweat and the smooth surface of her walnut-colored skin was beginning to excite him.

The questioning voice shut up.

By the time he had reached her shoulders, he realized she did have fur, of a sort. Tiny, downy hairs were scattered over her arms and her back. Somewhere along the line, he didn't know where, her blouse had disappeared.

They both reclined on the bed as Nohar worked his way down her body. He groomed both her arms. Her skin broke into a burning flush under his tongue.

He cleaned the small puddle of perspiration that pooled between those odd human breasts. When he cleaned her breasts, she began to moan loudly. Nohar thought he was too rough, so he lightened the pressure. Stephie immediately responded by locking her hands in the fur on either side of his head and pulling his face back down.

He worked his way down her abdomen. She continued to urge him lower with her hands-

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Humans kept their hair in the strangest places.

When Nohar could no longer restrain himself he rolled over on his back, ignoring the pain in his hip, and pulled her on top of him. She drew him in and shuddered, arching her back.

Nohar added his voice to hers.

It took them a long time to expend each other.

Nohar awoke.

He could still smell Stephie—between them they had drenched the bed with their scent—and he realized it wasn't a dream. Now was the time to ask the question. He opened his eyes and whispered, "Nohar, what the hell are you doing?''

The desk lamp was still on. The small fluorescent tube was now overwhelmed by the morning light. Ste-phie was curled up next to him. Her head rested on his chest, spilling her black hair across his upper body. It contrasted with the areas where his russet stripes faded to near-white. In the sunlight, where his color vision reached its optimum, he could appreciate the similarity of their coloring. Her black hair and golden-tan skin formed a near-perfect match to the shading of his stripes. They both had green eyes-He had been perfectly prepared to blame last night on the emotional pit he had fallen into. But when he considered the way he was watching the light from the window curve its shadows around her tailless rear, he couldn't blame that night on any temporary condition.

Stephie stirred, and turned to face him. "Morning."

"Do you realize how much this complicates things?"

He could feel her twisting the tip of his tail between her toes as she spoke. "You're as romantic as five lanes of new blacktop."

"Please, I'm serious."

Her foot was going up and down the undamaged

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length of his tail. "I know." She rolled over and sat up, looking down at him. "Is this going to be it?"

Nohar tried to answer the question, but his thinking process was a mess.

"Damn, I don't know how I feel about it. What prompted you to—with a morey—why me?"

Nohar damned his mouth, it was still running away with him. At the worst times. He'd just parroted one of the five stupidest questions anyone had ever uttered in any situation.

Stephie closed her eyes. "Don't ask that. I don't know why. Until I met you, I didn't think I could care for anyone—male or female."

She exhaled. Nohar didn't interrupt her. She was quiet for a few seconds. Then she opened her eyes and looked at him. "You've asked me twice, I might as well tell you. I was a lesbian—for about four months at Case Western I was the most radical bull-dyke feminist lesbian you could want. It didn't do a damn thing about my inability to have a relationship with another human being. I was posing as much as Phil and Derry ever were."

She idly ran her fingers through the fur on his abdomen. "Then I met you. I was set to be lonely for the rest of my life, and you screw everything up. After I met you the first time, I couldn't wait to see you again. All during that drive from the hospital I desperately wished you were human. Last night I decided I didn't care."

Nohar knew the kind of repulsion most humans held for tnoreys. Stephie had to be feeling even more confused than he did. He didn't know what to say. "I should dump you. For your own good."

There was a hopeful note in her voice. "Why don't you?''

Nohar thought of Maria. "I may be stupid and self-destructive, but I'm not going to do that to you."

Stephie gave him a hug that made him forget moreys weren't supposed to get involved with pinks.

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He left Stephie to clean herself up and hobbled down to breakfast. As loud as they had been with each other, there was no question Manny and Angel knew what had gone on with him and Stephie last night. They didn't mention it.

He walked into the kitchen and found Angel watching Manny with rapt attention. Manny was involved in one of his passions, cooking. Angel actually seemed interested in Manny's omelette-making procedure. She wasn't even wrinkling her nose as Manny started adding raw hamburger to the cooked sausage. They both seemed to avoid watching his entrance.

"Found a disciple, Manny?"

Manny added the sausage/hamburger mixture to the omelette in the large skillet and folded the eggs over perfectly. "Don't make fun of an appreciation of good food, even if she's never heard of olive oil."

Manny got out a platter and let the omelette slide out on to it. Angel was trying to act spellbound. "Doc, how you keep the eggs from sticking?"

"You just have to remember not to start with a cold pan-"

Stephie came down, interrupting what might have been an endless speech—Nohar had always seen Manny's cooking as obsessive. Nohar noticed, with some pleasure, Stephie wasn't put off by the lack of clothing on him and Angel. Stephie, however, was fully clothed, and she'd worn the outfit long enough that it was beginning to broadcast her scent on its own, even over the sausage.

Manny cut his omelette speech short. "What will you have? We have a vegetarian and a carnivorous version."

"Could you do both?"

"No problem—"

Nohar and Angel had the same reaction. "In the same omelette? "