Starfist: Wings of Hell Read Online Free PDF Page B

of God and will return someday to resume his ministry. Fortunately they are few and impotent. But once we pound the piss out of the Skinks it won’t matter if the bastard comes back.”
    “The ‘Fickle Finger of Fate’ is what it was, Marcus. It sure didn’t bother sinners like us.”
    “Well, if what we did together is sin, bring it on! But you know the biggest disappointment? We don’t get any presents!” He snapped his fingers. “And you know what else? No goddamn wedding cake!”
    “Only each other.”
    “And these.” He produced a small box and flipped it open. Inside reposed two rings, one sized for a man, the other for Chang-Sturdevant’s finger. The small stones sparkled in their settings.
    Chang-Sturdevant smiled. “They’re beautiful, Marcus. Putting them on will seal the deal.” She held out her left hand and Berentus slipped the beautiful ring on her finger; she did the same for him. She held her hand out at arm’s length and admired the ring.
    “And now, the obligatory smooch.” They embraced. “Well, come on, Mrs. Chang-Sturdevant Berentus, over to the bar! This deed is not done until we wet these rings down with some of that fine old Scotch you keep on hand.”
    “Lagavulin it is! And while we sip we’ll smoke Davidoffs to further speed our slide into this madcap fling called marriage. If my parents were alive, they’d be shocked their daughter married an ex-flyboy and a political appointee. They wanted me to marry a doctor.”
    “They’d be proud to know you are their president, Suelee.”
    “A politician? That would’ve shocked them even more! They were decent people, you know.”
    Berentus poured two healthy dollops of Scotch and selected two Anniversario Number Three Turbos from Chang-Sturdevant’s humidor. “Ah, fifteen centimeters of delight!” he enthused, clipping the cigars. He held his up, examining it. “‘Rich, characterful tobacco blends.’” He sighed. “Like us, Suelee, rich and characterful.” He lit them both. They smoked and sipped in silence, enjoying the moment.
    The best moments the two had ever had together were like that, standing close but relaxed, neither saying anything, just comfortable in each other’s presence, thinking their own thoughts. Each knew instinctively when those thoughts involved the other and expressed that awareness with a smile, a touch of the hand. It was an intoxicating sensation, their wordless communication, two people absorbed in each other, silently melding into one.
    When a young man, Marcus had thought women were only good for keeping house and sex. He said then that the ideal woman stood one meter high and had a flat head, so you had somewhere to set your beer as she was giving you a blow job. When another man said a woman was his friend, he couldn’t understand that. Men had male friends, but who could be friends with a woman? But as he matured, Marcus began to see women as individuals with brains and aspirations and hopes just like men, people with more to them than what might lie between their legs. He became comfortable in the presence of women and started listening to them and taking them seriously. In time he found he could admire women for a lot more than their physical charms, and gradually those charms became secondary to his evaluation, and that was when he himself became most attractive to women.
    But no woman had ever had the effect on Marcus that Cynthia Chang-Sturdevant did. Gradually it dawned on him that what he felt for her must be love: not the simpering infatuation that bad poets write about, but the deep and lasting realization that without her he could never be whole.
    “Suelee, what about honeymoon plans?” Berentus asked suddenly.
    Chang-Sturdevant shook her head. “No time for that, luv. I’ve got a reelection campaign to run. We can honeymoon when I lose.”
    “Well, don’t be so negative, my dear.” Berentus put down his drink and cigar. “You will now make time for a brief respite on that