Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings

feel… so… so naked. Hold me."
    " 'Dame'? No one says 'dame' anymore."
    "Well, African-American, then."
    "You are not African-American."
    "I can't remember all the politically correct terms. Christ, Nate, what do you need, a diagram? Crawl in." Amy flapped the covers, threw them back, then struck a cheesecake pose, grinning.
    But Nate backed away. "You put your head in the water to listen for the whale. The only other person I ever saw do that was Ryder."
    "Look at my tan line, Nate." She danced her fingertips over her tan line, which to Nate looked more like a beige line. Nevertheless, she had his attention. "I've never had a tan line before."
    "Amy!"
    "What!"
    "You set me up!"
    "I'm naked over here. Haven't you thought about that?"
    "Yes, but -"
    "Ha! You admit it. I was your research assistant. You had firing power over me. Yet there you are, thinking about me naked."
    "You are naked."
    "Ha! I think I've made my point."
    "That 'ha' thing is unprofessional, Amy."
    "Don't care. I no longer work for you, and you are not the boss of me anymore, and furthermore, look at this butt." She rolled over. He did. She looked back over her shoulder and grinned. "Ha!"
    "Stop that." He looked at the wall. "You spied on me. You caused all this to happen."
    "Don't be ridiculous. I was just part of it, but all that is forgiven. Look how luscious I am." Amy did a presentation wave over herself, as if Nate had just won her in a game show.
    "Would you stop that?" Nate reached over and pulled the covers up to her chin.
    "Lus-cious," she said, pulling the covers down, revealing a breast with each syllable.
    Nate walked out of the room. "Put on some clothes and come out here. I'm not going to try to talk to you like that."
    "Fine, don't talk," she called after him. "Just crawl in."
    "You're just bait," he called from the kitchen.
    "Hey, buster, I'm not that young."
    "This conversation is over until you come out here fully dressed." Nate sat down at his little dining table and tried to will away his erection.
    "What are you, some kind of fruitcake, some kind of sissy boy, some kind of fairy, huh?"
    "Yes, that's it," Nate said.
    For a moment nothing but quiet from the bedroom. Then: "Oh, my God, I feel like such a maroon." Her voice was softer now. She came stumbling out of the bedroom, the sheet wrapped around her. "I'm really sorry, Nate. I had no idea. You seemed so interested. I wouldn't have -"
    "Ha!" Nate said. "See how it feels."
    * * *
    The Old Broad had given them iced ginger tea and set Kona up at one of her telescopes to look at the moon. She sat down next to Clay on the lanai and they listened to the night for a while.
    "It's nice up here," Clay said. "I don't think I've been up here at night before."
    "Clay, I'm usually in bed by now, so I hope you don't think me dense if I get things clear in my mind."
    "Of course not, Elizabeth."
    "Thank you. As I see it, for years you and Nate have been telling everyone that I'm a nut job because I said I could communicate with whales. Now you drive up here in a froth – in the middle of the night – to deliver the earth-shattering news that what I've been telling you all along is possible?" She leaned her chin on her fist and looked wide-eyed at Clay. "That about right?"
    "We never called you a nut job, Elizabeth," Clay said. "That's an overstatement."
    "Doesn't matter, Clay. I'm not mad." She sipped her tea. "And I'm not angry either. I've been in these islands a very long time, Clay, and I've lived on the side of this volcano for most of it. I've spent more time looking down on that channel than most people have spent on the planet, but not once did you or Nate ask me why. Didn't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, I guess. Easier to think I was just a few bananas short of a bunch than to ask me why I was interested."
    Clay felt sweat running down the small of his back. He'd been uncomfortable around the Old Broad before, but in a totally different way – the way one feels when a matron aunt pinches your cheek and starts to ramble inanely about the old days, not like this. This was like getting sandbagged by a prosecutor. "I don't think that Nate or I could answer that question, Elizabeth, so it's not out of order that we didn't ask you."
    "That's a load a shark balls, old Auntie," Kona said, not looking away from the eyepiece of the eight-inch mirror telescope.
    "He's a sweet boy," the Old Broad said. "Clay, you know that Mr. Robinson was in the navy. Did I ever tell you what