A Knight in Central Park(15)
He stepped up his pace. He didn’t have time to deal with Alexandra Dunn. His meeting next week could well determine the course of his future. And yet he still had much to do: notes to go over and documents to read. His life’s work would be summed up in a few hours and a decision would be made as to whether or not accept him into the Academy.
His heart skipped a beat.
His father would be there.
He inhaled the chill air, refusing to go there, switching his thoughts back to Alexandra. What if she really had come through time...swept through a black hole...
He stopped in his tracks, hands on his knees as he tried to catch his breath. Then, for the second time in less than an hour, he laughed out loud at the wayward path his thoughts were headed. He’d definitely been working too hard.
Turning about, he headed toward home, hoping Alexandra would be gone when he returned. And yet his arms pumped faster, quickening his pace, as if a small part of him hoped to see her one last time.
Chapter Six
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
—Arthur C. Clarke
Alexandra poked at another button on the little black box, making the picture on the big box change. She laughed. Amazing! Little people in a thick, solid box...walking and talking. The people moving and talking in the picture sounded impossibly real. As she stared at the images, she took another bite from the chicken bone she’d found in Sir Joe’s cold box, another amazing contraption to tell Grandfather about when she returned home. Tossing the remains on the floor, she wiped her face with her sleeve, then pushed the button on the people box, nearly choking at the sight of a man and a woman in bed together. The woman slithered her naked body over his, her lips making a path across the man’s powerfully built stomach. Unable to look away, Alexandra squirmed within her seat. The woman’s breasts were pressed hard against his thighs. The man raked his fingers through her hair, arching his hips impossibly closer.
Alexandra’s eyes widened. She had never imagined a woman doing such things to a man...and with such vigor. The woman’s tongue slid over his hard chest. Alexandra could hardly breathe. The woman moaned and groaned as if the man tasted of almond cakes or better.
With her gaze fixed on the couple, Alexandra reached blindly for her cup just as the kitchen door swung open. The cup flew from her hand, sending raindrops of milk about the room.
“Whoa!” Shelly said, finding safety behind a chair.
Milk dripped from the whitewashed cupboards and onto the floor. Alexandra put a hand to her chest. “Oh, it is you. You set me affright,” she said before turning back to the couple in bed, more interested in the unfolding scene than a few droplets of spilt milk. “This people box is highly extraordinary, is it not?”
“You mean the television?” Shelly headed her way, carefully stepping over crumbs and chicken bones scattered across the floor. “This is some mess you’ve got here.”
Alexandra glanced about. The place looked unsoiled to her, nothing to fret over. “I was hungry.”
“We better get this cleaned up. The Professor will probably be back any moment.”
“Nay, I believe he went hunting.”
Chuckling, Shelly grabbed a cloth and bent down on her knees to collect crumbs from the floor. “I don’t think so. He’s not big on killing animals. In fact, he’s not fond of messes either. I guess he’s not as perfect as I might have made him sound yesterday.”
That remark grabbed Alexandra’s attention. She stared at Shelly, waiting for her to continue.
“Overall, he’s a great guy,” Shelly told her, “but he has one little flaw that drives some people nuts.”
Alexandra did not like the idea of Sir Joe having too many flaws. He was to be her champion after all. She was already aware of his short temper. “What is his ailment?”
Shelly moved on to wiping milk from the cupboards. “He’s a neat freak,” she acknowledged sadly.
“A neat freak?”
“That’s right. He can’t stand anything out of order. Look at this.” Shelly opened a cupboard and then another. Every item was neatly stacked in perfect rows like Alexandra’s newly planted crops back home.
“He takes great care in squeezing his toothpaste from the bottom of the tube,” Shelly whispered as if Sir Joe was even now in the room. “He takes two showers a day, and he arranges his socks by color.”
Shelly looked appalled.