Skyfall

It was hot and the air conditioner was overloaded, they were all in uniform and drank a lot of toasts. Patrick realized that it took three good blinks before he could focus his eyes well enough to read his watch. After two in the morning. Time to go. He had brought the car and he still wasn't so wiped out that he couldn't drive it home easily through the wide, empty streets. But no more drink. Stepping over a broken glass, he found the front door. On the steps two Russians were holding up the unconscious form of a third. Patrick walked around them digging out his keys. Someone was standing quietly under a tree near the cars and as he came close he realized it was Nadya.

“Good-night,” he said. “See you in Baikonur.” He walked on, then stopped. “Having trouble?”

“No. It is nothing. I just don't want to drive with those three.”

“I don't blame you. If they don't pass out before they get to the car they'll add to the highway mortality figures by morning. I'll drive you home.”

“Thank you. But a cab has been called.”

“Many are called but few arrive. This time on a Saturday night you stand the chance of a snowball in August. Get in, you're only a block away from me.”

Knowing he had drunk a lot, Patrick drove with slow concentration. Staying under 35 and obeying the stop signs instead of easing through slowly in the traditional Hollywood Stop. Despite this, and the empty roads, they almost added to the mortality figures themselves.

The car roared around the bend towards them, high beams blinding, on the wrong side of the road.

Patrick responded with a test pilot's trained reflexes. The other car might swerve back, so if he tried to pass it on the left there could be a head-on smash. Small houses on the right, set back from the road, lawns and shrubs in front, no trees.

He twisted the wheel hard, smashed into the curb and up over and on to the sidewalk, the grass. Hitting the brake and fighting the slewing surging machine. The other car was gone by in an instant, never stopping. Then Patrick had the twisting ton of metal under control and back into the street, stopping.

“You dirty son-of-a-bitch,” he said, watching the tail lights vanish around a turn in the distance.

“Is everything all right?”

“It is now — but that screwball bastard was out to kill us.”

The street was silent. No lights had come on in the dark houses, no one was interested. Maybe screaming brakes were the norm around here. The careening black marks of their tires sliced through the lawn and flowerbeds. “I'll get you home. Call the police and report this thing. My insurance will buy this guy some new rose bushes.”

All of the drink had worn off, quite suddenly. He parked in her driveway and Nadya unlocked the front door of her apartment. By the time he was off the phone he wondered why he had bothered. No one hurt, no cars smashed, the Houston police were massively uninterested in even recording the details. He gave them all the information in any case and slammed the receiver back down. Nadya was standing behind him with a very large scotch on the rocks; he realized suddenly he was completely sober and very much in need of a drink now that the burst of adrenalin was wearing off.

“Blessings on your head,” he said taking the glass and drinking deep. He put it on the table and placed his hands lightly about her waist. “You know that was pretty hairy for a moment.”

“It did look dangerous.”

“Deadly. Those nut cases were out to kill us. Set back the joint American-Soviet space program ten years it would.” Suddenly it did not seem funny at all. “I was frightened. For you, not me. I didn't want anything to happen… to you….”

Words ran out and, without conscious thought, he pulled her tight to him and kissed her with a passion that was not artificial, that surprised him with its intensity. Kissed her and she returned the kiss, her lips and tongue hot in his, nor did she pull away when his hands went down her body, moving with their own will.

Her underwear was very non-proletarian, dark lace, very delicate. The rug was soft under them and everything was just right. Until he realized, suddenly, that he was all alone. She was there, yes, naked and lovely beyond belief, but she apparently felt nothing. Her body did not move and her hands lay at her sides. What they had felt together, what they must have felt together, was gone. He ran his fingers over her breast and down the firm roundness of her stomach and she lay quiet.

“Nadya,” he said, then did not know what more to add. Her eyes were open but she was not looking at him. “I'm too old for rape.” He sat up, regretting the words the instant he spoke them.