He stroked her belly, feeling the soft skin sloping outward then back inward under his thin fingers. To think her flesh and blood was housing another tiny being deep within was arousing, somehow, and to touch her, to feel that impossibly strong life within her ...
The Phantom brushed Christine's hair back from her shoulders and pulled her shoulders to his chest. His nose buried itself in her curled brown locks. The scent of her was intoxicating, made him dream and shiver deep within him, in that heart's core that throbbed strongly every time she came near him, and nearly burst when she touched him.
Even after a year together he was as madly in love with her as he had ever been, as eager to have her, as willing to teach her and nurture and tutor her as the first day he had heard her sing.
Yet no longer were they alone. That strange, four-person (or did the speaking animal make it five?) group that had invaded his privacy never left his thoughts; between he and Christine, making love was no longer a luxury they could think of. The leader (dinh, as his friends had called him) could be anywhere, watching them with his faded-denim blue eyes. They were sharp, those eyes, sharp as anything, sharper than Erik's.
How he loathed those cold eyes.
This was a man even more ruthless than he, a killer born and bred. The lack of two fingers on his right hand did not slow him. He (the other three and, occasionally, the animal, assured) shot a gun just as well with the left hand. Better, now that those fingers had been ripped off by - what had that 'Eddie Dean of New York' called them? Ah, yes, lobstrosities. Now that those fingers had been ripped off, yes, and eaten (assured the 'Eddie Dean of New York') by those strange monsters (that talked like the animal the boy had brought), the Man - the Gunslinger - the 'Roland Deschain of Gilead' - shot better with his left hand than with his right, drew faster than the blink of an eye, shot you dead before you knew what had happened.
Now the bark of the animal (billy-bumbler, as the boy 'Jake Chambers of New York' had called it, named Oy) resounded through the smooth catacombs of the Phantom's lair.
"Ake! Ake!" it called, and Erik knew the boy was not far off. The 'bumbler' never called that way when Jake Chambers of New York was elsewhere; it sat calmly, occasionally growled at Erik when he tried to shoo the badger-raccoon-daschund-like creature away, repeated orders in its gruff, vowel-accented words ("Oy 'Tay! Ait for Ake!") but never called out.
It almost bellowed, now, head tossing back as it threaded it's way through furniture towards the Phantom and his wife.
He loathed having their group (their ka-tet) here, but what could he do? Even the legless woman shot as quick as ye'd like, no stallin', me laddo, and Erik wouldn't be able to hurt any of them before being hurt himself and leaving his wife a widow.
And also, they were quite magical. He'd seen, with his own eyes, all four - the two men, the legless black woman in a wheelchair, the child holding the animal - walking into his catacombs from nowhere, look around, blink, try to get back, fail. He'd watched as 'Roland Deschain of Gilead' lectured them and they all calmed down.
"Ka is our master now," he had said, "and there will be water if God wills it. We must leave this to car and we must continue in the path of the Bean."
Or at least Erik thought that was what he said. Perhaps he'd said 'ka' and 'beam' but why? What was the point?
What did it mean?
Ah well, nevermind that. Now the boy skidded to a halt in front of him, bowed outrageously and nodded. "Long days and pleasant nights, sai Erik," he said softly, unsure of himself in a charming way. Christine ruffled his hair.
"On your way, 'Bama," she whispered, using the name his housekeeper had all that time ago. Or was it all those years in the future? For they had come back across the years into Erik's time, and brought with them modern instruments of destruction.
He watched the boy until his slight frame disappeared, then turned his attention back to Christine, who was looking at him fondly.
"What?" asked Erik, smiling a little.
"What if our child is as wonderful as 'Bama?" She stroked her belly, laying her head on his shoulder. Erik only smiled, and said nothing. If their child was as wonderful ... he'd have to be the best father he could.
Jake skidded to a stop before Roland, his face flushed from running. Roland had to hold back a smile. If the boy knew just how much he loved him ...
He swallowed, smiled faintly, nodded. "Morning, Jake."
"Oh, Roland," Jake laughed, "you'll never believe where Eddie and Susannah are ... are ..." He bit his lip, unable to continue. Making love? Doing it? i Fucking /i ? Roland would say the first or third ... but he wasn't Roland, he was Jake, and he was eleven. Jake Chambers of New York did not curse, although Roland - the closest he'd ever come to having a real, un-Coke-sniffing father - did.
"Are?" prompted the tall man, kneeling to be on Jake's level. His smile became wider.
"Fucking!" crowed Jake, forcing the word through his lips. Roland laughed with him; and although his laugh was dry, and somehow stale, Jake loved that laugh. Maybe it was because Roland laughed so little ... showed much more than a smile so little. Even that smile seemed slightly stale.
Roland fought the urges to grab Jake, fought the rising ache within him. Why were these urges surfacing i now /i , now that his whole i tet /i depended on him to be the strongest? Why the urge to take the boy, and why continuously?
They drove him almost insane, these deep desires.
And Jake was a boy, and a young one at that.
Forgetting what Jake had asked him to guess, he turned and started to jog away, holding his aching, arthritic right hip with one hand and balancing his sandalwood-gripped gun with the other. Maybe if he could escape, his feelings would stop.
And Jake stared after him, wondering why the man he loved like a father was acting as though he hated Jake as much as his real father did.