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"Neo! Neee-oh! Have you seen my boobs?"
The One made an educated guess that his wife meant to ask about the status of her booze. And judging from the confused mispronunciation, it sounded as if she'd already had too much. He sighed and checked his watch. It wasn't even nine in the morning.
Morpheus barely looked up from his breakfast. "I'd get in there if I were you," was the weighty advice of the retired captain of the Nebuchadnezzar. "Because I'm not about to show them to her."
Niobe sat at the other end of the table, grinning from ear to ear. "I don't think I've ever seen her like this," she said. "That daughter of yours should give seminars to agents and sentinels. She's like kryptonite for you guys."
Neo found her amusement trying. And he didn't want to talk about Rorie, or agents, or sentinels. "I'm sorry about this," he said. "Trin and I are both really grateful for letting us crash on you this morning –"
"Neee-oh!" The impatient cry echoed from the bathroom. "My boobs! My boob… oh, shit. What the hell am I saying? Boob… boob… booh… oh, goddamnit bring me the alcohol!"
Morpheus' huge shoulders trembled as he laughed. Neo was pleased to see that Niobe had inhaled some coffee and was now choking on it.
He loved his daughter, he told himself. And he loved his wife. He'd been married for nearly eighteen years, and if the price for perennial joy was the occasional ingestion of killer spiders and servitude to an intoxicated spouse, then he could live with that. That is to say, he could live with it, until one day, God willing, it killed him.
"Happy Halloween, pumpkin!" he announced at the bathroom door. Given the circumstances, the pun sounded perverse, even to him. Trinity lay in the bathtub, dangerously close to passing out and drowning herself.
"Neo," she moaned, "I was… I think I was saying boobs to you."
He smiled. "It's okay. I understood you."
"Niobe… she was laughing at me."
"No she wasn't."
"But I heard her. Neo, I think she knows I'm drunk."
"Nonsense." He knelt next to the tub. "You hide it so well."
In a gesture of embarrassment, Trinity bit her lower lip and covered her face with her hand. Still smiling, Neo just watched her. It was not long however, before his attention fell onto her silver skin, then more specifically, onto a small pool of water that had cumulated in the chiseled dip between her collarbones. Wet. She was wet. He liked everything to do with his wife being wet. It was utterly pathetic of him, he knew. But the steam had curled the hair around her temples, and her breasts were wide apart, only half submerged. He hadn't played with those breasts in days. And now, after so much deprivation, he was presented with ivory curves and a triangular, inky smudge dancing in broken light. As a man, what was he to do?
"Hmmm." Trinity smiled. "You're a pervert, Mr. One."
Quite so. Still worse was that he was lusting after his wife, of all people. Neo often wondered if it was abnormal, eighteen years later, to still want to devour her so. She was still beautiful. Still fit, capable, sexy. But every cliché regarding matrimony told him that that he should be bored by now. He should want someone younger, someone different, something to chase and conquer. Perhaps it was genetic, he mused, though he knew absolutely nothing about genetics – but it seemed possible that he lacked the gene that prewired males to stray. This theory seemed to ring true– at least, it was a much better explanation than the common opinion in Zion, which was that he was 'whipped.'
People just didn't understand. Biologically, he could love only one woman. When he thought of sex, he thought of Trinity. And when he thought of Trinity, it wasn't long before he thought of sex. Even when she was drunk and angry, she was still the most delicious thing he'd ever seen.
"Do you like that?" Neo asked on a barely-audible breath, slowly tracing a circle around an elevated kneecap. "That I'm a pervert?"
She whispered, "Don't."
"I'm not."
"You are."
"Just a little, Trin." By now his hand was fully under water. He wanted to know exactly how wet she was. But Trinity caught his wrist. He could imagine her head spinning with the alcohol and steam. He could imagine himself pressing his tongue to her throat. But she had decided. What she said next obliterated any prospect for intimacy.
"Neo, this is Morpheus' bathtub."
The hilarity of it destroyed him. Trinity wrinkled up her face and stuck out her tongue to illustrate how the idea of sex in Morpheus' bathtub was comically revolting. She giggled, trying her best to hold it in. Then she hiccupped, which set them both off laughing. Neo made a move to cover her mouth but she slapped his hand away and splashed him, screeching when he retaliated in kind. Bubbles and water went everywhere. Positive they were being overheard, he shushed her harshly, pinning her wrists onto the side of the tub.
"Be good!" he ordered.
She had a dangerous look in her eyes.
"Trin, if you're not going to behave in Morpheus' bathtub then we're just going to have to go somewhere else. Is that what you want?"
She smiled. Then he smiled.
"I could get us a room," he said. "We could play."
Trinity seemed to give it some thought. "No," was the final verdict. "Let's just… elope."
"Elope?"
"In the Neb."
"In the Neb?"
"To the sewers. Far away from everything." A lithe, white arm lifted from the water and gestured towards some distant, imaginary paradise. "Take me away, Neo. Take me away and have your way with me. Kidnap me if that's what you want. Fake our deaths and keep me as a wench in your subterranean lair. Just let's get out of this city."
She painted a pretty picture, and his imagination took the plot further still. He was a crazed rapist, she, a naïve nun from the Zionist convent. He'd tie her up, throw her into the Neb's cargo hold and take her to a place where nobody would hear her screams. But that's where the plot would turn uglier still, when it was revealed that Trinity was not a nun at all, but the evil Mother Superior, a master disciplinarian and martial artist extraordinaire. Before the night was through, she'd teach him a lesson he would not soon forget!
It was such a stirring fantasy, Neo made himself the solemn promise that it would happen. Whatever it took, it would be so! But Trinity's heavy lids and dizzy movements gave him cause to worry that she wasn't serious. He'd have to seal the deal now. All the bases must be covered. Most likely, she was still furious with their daughter, so it was best to get that out of the way first. Knight was another matter entirely.
"Are you sure?" he asked innocently. "What about Rorie?"
"Rorie!" Trinity frowned. "She tried to kill me this morning!"
"She didn't mean it. You know, she might miss us on Halloween."
Ever since Rorie was little, they'd maintained the family tradition of a candy and gifts on Halloween night. The celebration was a Frankenstein-esq hodgepodge of activities taken from other holidays like Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, which were not celebrated in Zion – it was their way of giving Rorie some idea of their own childhoods. They had a Halloween Tree, and candy hidden throughout the apartment for Rorie to collect in a basket. A bag of Zionist spices served as mistletoe, which Knight liked to take advantage of when he joined them for dinner. He'd show up and then find some way of maneuvering Trinity into the trap (which naturally, Neo had intended for his use only) – and Trinity played along by pecking the boy on the cheek. Knight was delighted; Neo didn't like it at all. Perhaps for this reason more than any other, he was not too forlorn about bagging the celebration in favor of a much-deserved second honeymoon.
"But maybe Rorie's too old for all that," he mused reasonably. "It might be time to let her go out on her own. Isn't she going to Knight's show?"
"Oh, no." Trinity sighed, suddenly remembering. "I promised him I'd go and see his play tonight."
"They'll always be next year. Besides, Rorie probably doesn't want to share him with you."
"So I'll ground her and she can stay home with her spiders. Problem solved. She'd probably thank me."
"I've already called an exterminator."
"Good." Trinity shook her head. "What are we going to do with her?"
"Let her go tonight. She doesn't go out enough. That's part of the problem. Then I'll have a talk with her when we get back and tell her Pyro will have to find a new place to live."
Trinity hummed enthusiastically. "I'm holding you to that."
"I promise." Neo could feel he was very close. "Should I pack you an overnight bag, then?"
Her eyes narrowed, and the furrow of her brow him he'd said the wrong thing. "Manipulating your drunk wife?" she asked, making a show of being scandalized. "Oh, that's very bad, Mr. One. Can't you see I'm vulnerable?"
"Positively helpless." He brought his mouth to her temple, kissed her tenderly and then moved lower to her ear. "You have no idea they ways I plan to take advantage of you. By tomorrow morning, I'll be guilty of unspeakable crimes, unless you can keep me in line."
He took her chin in his hand, and her head turned at last so their lips could met. She was hot and permissive. He was greedy and triumphant. He used his tongue to unlock her mouth – the tiny sigh she gave marked his victory. He'd won. He knew he'd won, and perhaps this was all the chase and conquest he needed. Such pride came with seducing her, over and over again. "We'll need a good excuse," she breathed into his mouth. "Something to tell Rorie."
"Exiles." His kisses turned more aggressive, bites now, on her lip and chin. "The exiles are acting up. The One to the rescue!"
"Which exiles is it this time?"
He moved to her neck. "Aliens."
"Aliens! Oh, I love the aliens!"
"So do I." Where was that place between her collarbones he'd fetished over earlier? He would claim it at last! "They're short and green and deadly as shit."
Trinity closed her eyes and leaned her head back. Her fingers laced through his hair. "Weapons?"
"Ray guns and mind control."
"Ships?"
"Flying saucers."
"Probes?"
"If you like."
Trinity grinned, not noticing when a stray spider from her husband's hair crawled over her fingers. "I think I might."
