"No last name? How chic. He's like a rock singer or an athlete."
"We don't know you well enough to share Dax's last name," Grant says. "It's up to him whether he feels like telling you."
What's that guy hiding? I gave my full name. But the hulk won't reciprocate.
Movement catches my attention, and I move only my eyes to glance at the sexy voyeur. I can see one of her eyes, but their blue color is so pale that it almost seems like silver. I've never seen eyes like that.
"Here's the deal," I say to Dax and Grant. "I'll tell Lady Godiva everything you want to know."
"Lady Godiva?" Grant says. "Oh, you mean Sarah. Why her?"
"We met on the beach. Anything else you want to know about me, you'll have to get from her after I tell the nudist."
Dax and Grant retreat into the far corner of the tent to have a hushed discussion. Then they return to me.
"We have to ask Sarah first," Grant says. "If she agrees—"
"I agree," a feminine voice announces. The pretty voyeur ducks through the rear tent flap. "You guys can go."
"We'll be right outside," Dax tells her.
"Uh-uh-uh," I say. "You'll be out of earshot. That's the deal. Take it or leave it."
Dax pulls a switchblade out of his pocket and tosses it to Sarah.
She catches it. "Thanks."
He nods. Then both men walk out.
The pretty voyeur sits on the cot on the other side of the tent, about ten feet away from me. "Here I am. Now tell me everything Dax and Grant want to know."
"First, I want to know something." I lean forward in my chair, resting my elbows on my knees. "Why do you sunbathe in the nude? Echo creatures might find you and decide you look like a good snack. Or worse, a fun sex toy."
"None of your business. I'm supposed to gather all the intel about you."
"Intel? That's cute. I bet you were a librarian before the Echo."
She bows her head.
"Hey, it's nothing to be ashamed of. Librarians are hot."
"I'm not embarrassed." She lifts her head. "You still haven't given me any information about you."
Well, I did say I'd tell her everything. "The day the apocalypse hit, I got sucked into the Echo."
Sarah stares at me. "Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously. It's not the kind of thing anybody would joke about." I can't get comfortable all of a sudden, and sitting back in my chair doesn't help. So I get up and start pacing. "I experienced the apocalypse from the Earth side of things for about two hours, and I spent most of that time running away so I wouldn't get ripped apart by the creatures. Then I got thrown into the Echo. Pretty much everything I know about the apocalypse came from my time in that world."
"Did the Echo get destroyed like Earth did on the day the apocalypse started? We've wondered about that."
"Yeah. That happened in both worlds."
She wants to ask more questions, I can tell, and I promised I would spill all the beans—but only to her. Now I'm wondering if that's the wisest choice. I can't claim I made that deal for any good reasons. No, I just wanted to be alone with Sarah. I've seen her naked. She's beautiful and sexy, and I haven't been with a woman in so long that I can't even remember when the last time was. That's the only reason I feel such a strong urge to spend more time with her.
If I stop talking, she'll go get the British Hulk, and he will probably pummel me.
Worse things than him have tried to crush me. They always lose the battle.