"It's not exactly spacious but I get by. And the view is good."
I indicated the glittering panorama visible through the window in the end wall. She moved closer to it and looked out into the night. I suddenly wondered if someone else was outside waiting for her signal. The other alien. I made a conscious effort of concentration, listening with my mind. I seemed to have a strange sensation of hearing the world's slow murmur like the distant sounds of traffic on a road far, far below you. But nothing else.
Something made me glance out the side window. I was just in time to see the face of the girl next door, set and unsmiling, before her blinds snapped shut. I closed my own draperies, feeling the tension easing in me. So my neighbor wasn't above doing a little window watching of her own, I thought, half-smiling.
"I meant to be here on time," Laurie said, still staring out the window. "But Bob dropped in and—and sometimes he's difficult."
"Jenkins?"
"Yes. We were supposed to have a date tonight."
I looked at the line of the zipper that traced the curving column of her spine, realizing how easily the clinging suit could be shed and acutely aware that she wore nothing underneath it.
"I don't blame him," I said. "I'd be jealous, too."
She pivoted slowly, pleasure glowing in her striking green eyes. And I realized how young she really was. Twenty at most, I thought. Her skin was flawlessly smooth, clear and unlined. Her every movement had the supple grace and vitality of youth. Yet she was a woman, already wise in the way of women.
I caught myself. What did I really know of her? How could I know the mind which controlled this youthful animal beauty? And I thought of a cunning super-intelligence watching me from behind the cool green of her eyes, amused, toying with me. Or did they have a sense of humor? I had caught nothing humorous in the words I had overheard. I had sensed something infinitely cold, completely emotionless.