"What's that supposed to mean?"
Peter sat up.
"Come on," he said.
"You know exactly what I mean.
Nicci's not bad looking, if you like them tall with black hair.
And
I'm told he can be very charming, when it suits him."
He smiled.
"Does the thought of having sex with him excite you?"
Jacey smiled back.
"What an odd question," she said, sweetly.
"Does the thought of me having sex with him excite you?"
Peter lazed back on the bed.
"Maybe.
I think it could be great fun to watch you perform.
To
watch
Nicci undress you slowly, and go to work on your mouth, and your neck
and your nipples, and then go down and warm up your clitoris with his
tongue.
I'd like to see you panting and losing control, and bucking
and writhing, until he gave you the kind of climax you deserve."
"You're a closet voyeur," Jacey accused.
Peter shrugged.
"Most men are."
She had a sudden suspicion.
"Schlemann didn't suggest anything like that to you, did he?"
Peter laughed.
"No.
But I wouldn't mind betting he'd go along with it if you were the
star performer."
"Not a chance," Jacey said.
"I'm not an exhibitionist and I've got no intention of jumping into bed
with Senor Nicolas!"
But was that really the truth?
Jacey asked herself, as she tried to
decide what to wear to the Marquez party.
Unwanted thoughts about
Nicolas Schlemann were distracting her.
She was not vain but she was
sure Peter was right about Schlemann's intentions.
If he considered
all beautiful women to be candidates for his bed, he was probably
planning to add her to his list of conquests.
Thinking back on their
meeting, she realised how cleverly he had played his hand.
It was a
variation of the Mr.
Nasty and Mr.
Nice Guy interrogation technique.
He had made her angry, and then totally disarmed her by being the
opposite to what she had expected.
Clever bastard, she thought.
I was determined not to like you and you
almost persuaded me to change my mind.
But although you didn't know
it, you started off with a few advantages.
I always did have a soft
spot for tall, slim, dark-haired men.
But fancying you, and going to
bed with you, Senor Schlemann, she admonished him, are two totally
different things.
She held her favourite little black dress against her naked body and
surveyed her image in the mirror.
Too short?
Too sexy?
Her other
choices included a silver, beaded gown, with a high neck and a very low
back which was more suitable for a nightclub, and a sedate, designer
ball-gown, which hugged her figure just tightly enough to be discreetly
provocative but which she felt was too formal, for the kind of party
Peter had described.
It has to be the little black number, she thought.
She hadn't worn it
for some time and so slipped it over her head just to check that it
still fitted in all the right places.
The HEMLINE came just above her
knees.
She turned.
The skirt fitted neatly over her behind, and the
cut of the bodice lifted and held her breasts so well that she had no
need for a bra.
Just right, she thought.
Sexy but nice.
She was sure
Peter would approve.
Another thought teased her.
Would Nicolas
Schlemann be at the Marquez party?
She had a feeling that he would
be.
She turned again, looking at her reflection.
She did not look much
like the professional, white-coated woman he had met.
She lifted her
arms and released her hair, letting it tumble to her shoulders.
Because the dress was not properly fastened, the movement lifted her
breasts upwards and for a moment her nipples were visible.
She smiled
and adjusted the neckline decorously.
Well, Senor Schlemann, she
thought, if you're at the party, sorry, but this is all you're going to
see!
On the day before the party Jacey arranged to go to El Inviemo for the
first time.
Some of the staff at La Primavera had expressed surprise
that she was visiting the hospital, let alone intending to work
there.
But when he came to collect her, Paulo was delighted.
"Where you're going, the people need you.
Eh" Muldaire Not like the
patients here."
"Some of the people here are ill, Paulo," she said.
"They are more seriously ill at El Inviemo," he answered.
She soon discovered he was right.
She had been prepared for
overcrowding and antiquated equipment but the reality of El Inviemo
appalled her.
Peter had not been exaggerating when he told her
patients brought their own mattresses and slept on the floor.
She
picked her way carefully over sprawled bodies and family groups who
were camping out next to their sick relatives.
When she found Dr.
Rodriguez he was swabbing an open wound on a young boy's arm.
He
looked tired and hot.
"Dr.
Muldaire?"
His eyes assessed her without welcome or
enthusiasm.
"Are you willing to get your hands dirty?"
"I'm a doctor," she said crisply.
And added, with the trace of a
smile, "Just like you."
She did not get a smile back.
"Not like me.
You get paid ridiculously high wages at La Primavera,
and I guess that you do very little."
He thrust a swab at her.
"Here, carry on with this.
Don't take too long.
There's a queue of people outside who need attention."
He glanced at
her white blouse and pale, linen skirt.
It was a totally impersonal
appraisal.
"I hope you've got an overall in that expensive bag of yours.
Those
fashionable clothes won't look so good with blood all over them."
She refused to take offence.
"I've got an overall," she said.
"And I've also got some antibiotics."
She saw no change of expression
in his dark eyes and added hastily, "I didn't steal them.
They're a
gift, from Dr.
Draven and the staff at La Primavera."
"I wouldn't give a damn if you had stolen them," he said.
For a moment
she thought he almost smiled.
Then he turned to go.
"Thank Peter, and the others," he said abruptly.
Thrown in at the deep end, she looked at her first patient.
Two
mournful brown eyes stared up at her.
Quickly she found a new swab and
started work on the boy's arm.
His mother watched her as she worked,
her face as smooth as a carved mask.
"There you are Jacey said, as she finished cleaning the boy's wound.
"That will soon be better."
She smiled at him and received a solemn
stare back.
"How did this happen?"
she asked the equally impassive mother.
"They won't answer you."
Jacey turned and saw a plump young woman in a
white overall standing behind her.
"I'm Paloma," the woman said.
"Your helper."
"You're a nurse?"
Jacey enquired.
Paloma smiled sunnily.
"No, I'm not qualified at all.
But I've picked up lots of knowledge
since I've been working here."
She turned to the boy and his mother
and said something in a guttural language Jacey did not recognise.
The
woman smiled, turned and walked away.
"What language was that?"
Jacey asked.
"Chachte," Paloma said.
"One of the old languages.
You know, the ones the people spoke before
the Spanish came."
"And you speak it too?"
Paloma shrugged.
"I had to learn some of it.
Lots of the Indians won't speak Spanish.
They think it'll bring them bad luck.
And when you read how the early
settlers used to treat them, you can't blame them.
I mean, I'm Spanish
but some of the things my ancestors did make me ashamed."
Jacey soon realised that Paloma was a non-stop talker.
As she dealt
with a succession of patients, some silent, others chattering volubly,
she lea mt more about public opinion in Techtatuan than any of Major
Fairhaven's carefully worded briefing papers had taught her.
"That's it," Paloma said, at last.
She glanced at her watch.
Time for
a quick coffee."
She led Jacey to the tiny staff restroom.
A sluggish ceiling fan
stirred the hot air.
Travel posters were pinned to the walls in an
effort to brighten up the rather dismal decor.
Paloma unlocked a cupboard.
"You mustn't leave any valuables here unless you lock them up," she
warned Jacey.
"That includes coffee and cups.
The people are poor and they will
steal things to use or sell."
She added aggressively: "You can't blame them.
You'd do the same, if