of wine, Cheryl reached over his shoulder for a glass. As she did, a small, firm breast pressed unmistakably against his upper arm and then stayed there while she spoke to someone at the next table, her arm very nearly around Gideon’s shoulder. A few strands of her long, dark hair, held back with a barrette, grazed his neck.
This was something that didn’t happen to him very often these days. He had long ago learned that he was attractive to women-six-one, broad-shouldered, with an only slightly middle-aged version of the fighter’s body that had seen him through the brief professional boxer’s career with which he’d paid his way through graduate school. And the broken nose that had come with it was an intriguing counterpoint to his sometimes pedantic manner, or so he’d been told.
All this he knew. But he also knew that no woman had to check his ring finger to tell whether or not he was married. It was written all over him. He was one of those men who emanated husbandly contentment, and women on the prowl were quick to sense his unavailability. He was taken, happily married, and couldn’t have hidden it if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t.
Still, his forehead was warm as he tried as nonchalantly as possible to separate himself from the undeniably stimulating pressure of that warm, pokey little mound of flesh. Now wait a minute, he lectured himself. What are you getting embarrassed about? You haven’t done anything to feel ashamed of.
When Cheryl smiled knowingly, and a little patronizingly, at him as he shifted gingerly away, he turned grumpy. Now he felt stodgy, and old-fashioned… and just plain old.
“Everybody?” Standing in front of the bar, Kozlov was calling for attention. Gideon took advantage of the opportunity to turn his chair still farther around. In doing so, he caught Julie’s eye from across the room. She blew him a discreet kiss that instantly whisked away his sulk. He returned it somewhat less discreetly, and Julie gestured something to him. He knit his eyebrows to show he didn’t understand.
She repeated the message, emphasizing the movements a little. With a couple of tips of her head she indicated that she was referring to Kozlov and to the welcoming speech that was apparently on the way, then mouthed: “Be… good… You… promised.”
Gideon bowed his head and placed his hand over his heart to show his good intentions.
FOUR
He had no trouble sticking to them during Kozlov’s presentation, a witty, charmingly accented, and unobjectionable condemnation of the existence of close-mindedness in scientific inquiry, followed by an introduction of the five Fellows, who then described the subjects of their papers. The Fellows had known this was coming, so it went smoothly, if dully, each one standing in his or her place and reading a brief, dry abstract in AcademicSpeak.
Julie was first, soberly explaining the importance of “fire management polices that replicate as closely as possible the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of natural fire regimes, taking into account the importance and reality of anthropogenic fires in woodland subsystems and thereby achieving the maintenance of biodiversity in a form adhering as closely as possible to its natural facets and fluxes.”
Damn, he thought with pride, she’s almost as good at that stuff as I am. When she took her seat again and glanced furtively in his direction he gave her a vigorous thumbs-up.
The others followed with equally turgid descriptions of their work, and although he took mental issue with a few things that were said, it wasn’t too hard to keep his peace through most of them, including even Victor Waldo’s rattling on inscrutably and at length about holistic and naturalistic paradigms that would reconstruct the nature-human dynamic of the postindustrial world.
But Donald Pinckney, speaking last, broke through his self-restraint when he dipped a toe into the treacherous waters of Darwinian theory.
“… and
This was something that didn’t happen to him very often these days. He had long ago learned that he was attractive to women-six-one, broad-shouldered, with an only slightly middle-aged version of the fighter’s body that had seen him through the brief professional boxer’s career with which he’d paid his way through graduate school. And the broken nose that had come with it was an intriguing counterpoint to his sometimes pedantic manner, or so he’d been told.
All this he knew. But he also knew that no woman had to check his ring finger to tell whether or not he was married. It was written all over him. He was one of those men who emanated husbandly contentment, and women on the prowl were quick to sense his unavailability. He was taken, happily married, and couldn’t have hidden it if he’d wanted to, which he didn’t.
Still, his forehead was warm as he tried as nonchalantly as possible to separate himself from the undeniably stimulating pressure of that warm, pokey little mound of flesh. Now wait a minute, he lectured himself. What are you getting embarrassed about? You haven’t done anything to feel ashamed of.
When Cheryl smiled knowingly, and a little patronizingly, at him as he shifted gingerly away, he turned grumpy. Now he felt stodgy, and old-fashioned… and just plain old.
“Everybody?” Standing in front of the bar, Kozlov was calling for attention. Gideon took advantage of the opportunity to turn his chair still farther around. In doing so, he caught Julie’s eye from across the room. She blew him a discreet kiss that instantly whisked away his sulk. He returned it somewhat less discreetly, and Julie gestured something to him. He knit his eyebrows to show he didn’t understand.
She repeated the message, emphasizing the movements a little. With a couple of tips of her head she indicated that she was referring to Kozlov and to the welcoming speech that was apparently on the way, then mouthed: “Be… good… You… promised.”
Gideon bowed his head and placed his hand over his heart to show his good intentions.
FOUR
He had no trouble sticking to them during Kozlov’s presentation, a witty, charmingly accented, and unobjectionable condemnation of the existence of close-mindedness in scientific inquiry, followed by an introduction of the five Fellows, who then described the subjects of their papers. The Fellows had known this was coming, so it went smoothly, if dully, each one standing in his or her place and reading a brief, dry abstract in AcademicSpeak.
Julie was first, soberly explaining the importance of “fire management polices that replicate as closely as possible the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of natural fire regimes, taking into account the importance and reality of anthropogenic fires in woodland subsystems and thereby achieving the maintenance of biodiversity in a form adhering as closely as possible to its natural facets and fluxes.”
Damn, he thought with pride, she’s almost as good at that stuff as I am. When she took her seat again and glanced furtively in his direction he gave her a vigorous thumbs-up.
The others followed with equally turgid descriptions of their work, and although he took mental issue with a few things that were said, it wasn’t too hard to keep his peace through most of them, including even Victor Waldo’s rattling on inscrutably and at length about holistic and naturalistic paradigms that would reconstruct the nature-human dynamic of the postindustrial world.
But Donald Pinckney, speaking last, broke through his self-restraint when he dipped a toe into the treacherous waters of Darwinian theory.
“… and
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