Page 109 of Edge of Eternity (The Century 3)

She had kissed him.

He stroked her hair.

She tilted her head back and looked at him. Her mouth was slightly open, the full lips a little parted, and she was smiling faintly, as if at a pleasant surprise. Dimka was no expert on women but even he could not mistake the invitation. Still he hesitated to kiss her.

Then she said: "Today we're probably going to be bombed to oblivion."

So Dimka kissed her.

The kiss heated up in a flash. She bit his lip and pushed her tongue into his mouth. He rolled her onto her back and put his hands up inside her baggy sweater. She unfastened her brassiere with a swift movement. Her breasts were delightfully small and firm, with big pointed nipples that were already hard to his fingertips. When he sucked them she gasped with pleasure.

He tried to take off her jeans, but she had another idea. She pushed him onto his back and

feverishly undid his trousers. He was afraid he would come right away--something that happened to a lot of men, according to Nina--but he did not. Natalya pulled his cock out of his underwear. She stroked it with both hands, pressed it to her cheek, and kissed it, then put it in her mouth.

When he felt himself about to explode he tried to withdraw, pushing her head away: this was how Nina preferred it. But Natalya made a protesting noise, then rubbed and sucked harder, so that he lost control and came in her mouth.

After a minute she kissed him. He tasted his semen on her lips. Was that peculiar? It felt simply affectionate.

She pulled off her jeans and underwear, and he realized it was his turn to please her. Fortunately Nina had tutored him in this.

Natalya's hair was as curly and plentiful here as on her head. He buried his face, longing to return the delight she had given him. She guided him with her hands on his head, indicating by slight pressure when his kisses should be lighter or heavier, moving her hips up or down to tell him where to concentrate his attention. She was only the second woman he had done this to, and he luxuriated in the taste and the smell of her.

With Nina this was only a preliminary, but in a surprisingly short time Natalya cried out, first pressing his head hard against her, then, as if the pleasure were too much, pushing him away.

They lay side by side, catching their breath. This had been a totally new experience for Dimka, and he said reflectively: "This whole question of sex is more complicated than I thought."

To his surprise, this made her laugh heartily.

"What did I say?" he said.

She laughed all the more, and all she would say was: "Oh, Dimka, I adore you."

*

La Isabela was a ghost town, Tanya saw. Once a thriving Cuban port, it had been hit hard by Eisenhower's trade embargo. It was miles from anywhere, and surrounded by salt marshes and mangrove swamps. Scraggy goats roamed the streets. Its harbor hosted a few shabby fishing boats--and the Aleksandrovsk, a fifty-four-hundred-ton Soviet freighter packed to the gunwales with nuclear warheads.

The ship had been headed for Mariel. After President Kennedy announced the blockade, most of the Soviet ships had turned back, but a few that were only hours from landfall had been ordered to make a dash for the nearest Cuban port.

Tanya and Paz watched the ship inch up to the concrete dock in a shower of rain. The antiaircraft guns on deck were concealed beneath coils of rope.

Tanya was terrified. She had no idea what was going to happen. All her brother's efforts had failed to stop the secret getting out before the American midterm elections--and the trouble Dimka might be in as a result was only the least of her worries. Clearly the blockade was no more than an opening shot. Now Kennedy had to appear strong. And with Kennedy being strong and the Cubans defending their precious dignidad anything could happen, from an American invasion to a worldwide nuclear holocaust.

Tanya and Paz had become more intimate. They had told one another about their childhoods and their families and their past lovers. They touched each other frequently. They often laughed. But they held back from romance. Tanya was tempted, but she resisted. The idea of having sex with a man just because he was so beautiful seemed wrong. She liked Paz--despite his dignidad--but she did not love him. In the past she had kissed men she did not love, especially while she was at university, but she had not had sex with them. She had gone to bed with only one man, and she had loved him, or at least she had thought she did at the time. But she might sleep with Paz, if only to have someone's arms around her when the bombs fell.

The largest of the dockside warehouses was burned out. "I wonder how that happened," Tanya said, pointing.

"The CIA set fire to it," said Paz. "We get a lot of terrorist attacks here."

Tanya looked around. The quayside buildings were empty and derelict. Most of the homes were one-story wooden shacks. Rain pooled on the dirt roads. The Americans could blow the whole place up without doing noticeable damage to the Castro regime. "Why?" she said.

Paz shrugged. "It's an easy target, here on the end of the peninsula. They come over from Florida in a speedboat, sneak ashore, blow something up, shoot one or two innocent people, and go back to America." In English he added: "Fuckin' cowards."

Tanya wondered if all governments were the same. The Kennedy brothers spoke of freedom and democracy yet they sent armed gangs across the water to terrorize the Cuban people. The Soviet Communists talked of liberating the proletariat while they imprisoned or murdered everyone who disagreed with them, and they sent Vasili to Siberia for protesting. Was there an honest regime anywhere in the world?

"Let's go," said Tanya. "It's a long way back to Havana, and I need to tell Dimka that this ship has arrived safely." Moscow had decided the Aleksandrovsk was close enough to reach port, but Dimka was anxious for confirmation.

They got into Paz's Buick and drove out of town. On either side of the road were tall thickets of sugarcane. Turkey vultures floated above, hunting the fat rats in the fields. In the distance, the high chimney of a sugar mill pointed like a missile at the sky. The flat landscape of central Cuba was crosshatched with single-track railway lines built to transport cane from the fields to the mills. Where the land was uncultivated it was mostly tropical jungle, flame trees and jacarandas and towering royal palms; or rough scrub grazed by cattle. The slim white egrets that followed the cows were grace notes on the dun landscape.

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