Green Earth. Kim Stanley Robinson

There was some quality to it, some combination of comfort and tension, their bodies simply breathing together, resting, almost touching, ever so slightly incandescent to each other … it was nice. Two animals resting side by side, one male one female. A lot of talk goes on below the radar. And indeed somehow it had come to pass that as they relaxed their legs had drifted outward, and met each other, so that now they were just very slightly touching, at the outsides of the knees, kind of resting against each other in a carefully natural way, her leg bare (her skirt had fallen down into her lap) and his covered by light cotton pants. Touching. Now the talk under the radar was filling Frank’s whole bandwidth, and though he continued his part of the conversation, he could not have immediately said what they were talking about.

      “So you must ride quite a lot?”

      “Yeah, pretty much.”

      She was in a cycling club, she told him. “It’s like any other club.” Except this one went out on long bike rides. Weekends, smaller groups more often than that. She too was making talk. “Like a social club really. Like the Elks Club or something, only with bikes.”

      “Good for you.”

      “Yes, it’s fun. A good workout.”

      “It makes you strong.”

      “Well, the legs anyway. It’s good for legs.”

      “Yes,” Frank agreed, and took the invitation to glance down at hers. She did as well, tucking her chin and looking as if inspecting something outside of herself. Her skirt had fallen so that the whole side of her left leg was exposed.

      She said, “It bulks up the quads.”

      Frank intended to agree by saying “Uh-huh,” but somehow the sound got interrupted, as if he had been tapped lightly on the solar plexus while making it, so that it came out “nnnnn,” like a short hum or purr. A little moan of longing, in fact, at the sight of such long strong legs, all that smooth skin, the sweet curve of the under-thigh. Her knees stood distinctly higher than his.

      He looked up to find her grinning at him. He hunched his shoulders and looked away just a touch, yes, guilty as charged, feeling the corners of his mouth tug up in the helpless smile of someone caught in the act. What could he say, she had great legs.

      Now she was watching him with an interrogatory gaze, searching his face for something specific, it seemed, her eyes alight with mischief, amused. It was a look that had a whole person in it.

      And she must have liked something about what she saw, because she leaned his way, into his shoulder, and then pressed further in and stretched her head toward his and kissed him.

      “Mmm,” he purred, kissing back. He shifted around the better to face her, his body moving without volition. She was shifting too. She pulled back briefly to look again in his eyes, then she smiled broadly and shifted into his arms. Their kiss grew more and more passionate, they were like teenagers making out. They flew off into that pocket universe of bliss. Time passed, Frank’s thoughts scattered, he was absorbed in the feel of her mouth, her lips on his, her tongue, the awkwardness of their embrace. It was very hot. They were both literally dripping with sweat; their kisses tasted salty. Frank slid a hand under her skirt. She hummed and then shifted onto one knee and over onto him, straddling him. They kissed harder than ever.

      The elevator phone rang.

      She sat up. “Oops,” she said, catching her breath. Her face was flushed and she looked gorgeous. She reached up and behind her and grabbed the receiver, staying solidly on him.

      “Hello?” she said into the phone. Frank flexed under her and she put a hand to his chest to stop him.

      “Oh yeah, we’re here,” she said. “You guys got here fast.” She listened and quickly laughed: “No, I don’t suppose you do hear that very often.” She glanced down at Frank to share a complicit smile, and it was in that moment that Frank felt the strongest bond of all with her. They were a pair in the world, and no one else knew it but them.

      “Yeah sure—we’ll be here!”

      She rolled off him as she hung up. “They say they’ve got it fixed and we’re on our way up.”

      “Damn it.”

      “I know.”

      They stood. She brushed down her skirt. They felt a few jerks as the elevator started up again.

      “Wow, look at us. We are just dripping.”

      “We would have been no matter what. It’s hot in here.”

      “True.” She reached up to straighten his hair and then they were kissing again, banging against the wall in a sudden blaze of passion, stronger than ever. Then she pushed him away, saying breathlessly, “Okay, no more, we’re almost there. The door must be about to open.”

      “True.”

      Confirming the thought, the elevator began its characteristic slow-motion deceleration. Frank took a deep breath, blew it out, tried to pull himself together. He felt flushed, his skin was tingling. He looked at her. She was almost as tall as he was.

      She laughed. “We are so busted.”

      The elevator stopped. The doors jerked open. They were still a foot below street level, but it was easy to step up and out.

      Before them stood three men, two in workers’ coveralls, one in a Metro uniform.

      The one in the uniform held a clipboard. “Y’all okay?” he said to them.

      “Yeah,” “We’re fine,” they said together.

      Everyone stood there for a second.

      “Must have been hot in there,” the uniformed one remarked.

      The three black men stared at them curiously.

      “It was,” Frank said.

      “But not much different than out here,” his companion quickly added, and they all laughed. It was true; getting out had not made any marked change. It was like stepping from one sauna to another. Their rescuers were also sweating profusely. Yes—the open air of a Washington, D.C., evening was indistinguishable from the inside of an elevator stuck deep underground. This was their world: and so they laughed.

      They were on the sidewalk flanking Wisconsin Avenue, next to the elevator box and the old post office. Passersby glanced at them. The foreman gave the woman his clipboard. “If you’d fill out and sign the report, please. Thanks. Looks like it was about half an hour from your call to when we pulled you.”

      “Pretty fast,” the woman said, reading the text on her form before filling in some blanks and signing. “It didn’t even seem that long.” She looked at her watch. “All right, well—thanks very much.” She faced Frank, extended a hand. “It was nice to meet you.”

      “Yes it was,” Frank said, shaking her hand, struggling for words, struggling to think. In front of these witnesses nothing came to him, and she turned and walked south on Wisconsin. Frank felt constrained by the gazes of the three men; all would be revealed if he were to run after her and ask for her name, her phone number, and besides now the foreman was holding the clipboard out to him, and it occurred to him that he could read what she had written down there.

      But it was a fresh form, and he looked up to see that down the street she was turning right, onto one of the smaller streets west of Wisconsin.

      The foreman watched him impassively while the technicians went back to the elevator.

      Frank gestured at the clipboard. “Can I get that woman’s name, please?”

      The man frowned, surprised, and shook his head. “Not allowed to,” he said. “It’s a law.”

      Frank felt his stomach sink. There had to be a physiological basis for that feeling, some loosening of the gut as fear prepared the body for fight-or-flight. Flight in this case. “But I need to get in touch with her again,” he said.

      The