his thumb into his asshole and wait for Fede --
*who was still in fucking London!* -- to sort out the mess so that he could
present himself at the Perceptronics Acton offices and get their guys prepped
for the ever-receding meeting with MassPike.

"Jesus, Federico, what the fuck am I *doing* here?"

"I know, Art, I know." Art had taken to calling Fede at the extreme ends of
circadian compatibility, three AM and eleven PM and then noon on Fede's clock,
as a subtle means of making the experience just as unpleasant for Fede as it was
for Art. "I screwed up," Fede yawned. "I screwed up and now we're both paying
the price. You handled your end beautifully and I dropped mine. And I intend to
make it up to you."

"I don't *want* more massages, Fede. I want to get this shit done and I want to
come home and see my girlfriend."

Fede tittered over the phone.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing much," Fede said. "Just sit tight there for a couple minutes, OK? Call
me back once it happens and tell me what you wanna do, all right?"

"Once what happens?"

"You'll know."

It was Linda, of course. Knocking on Art's hotel room door minutes later,
throwing her arms -- and then her legs -- around him, and banging him stupid,
half on and half off the hotel room bed. Riding him and then being ridden in
turns, slurping and wet and energetic until they both lay sprawled on the hotel
room's very nice Persian rugs, dehydrated and panting and Art commed Fede, and
Fede told him it could take a couple weeks to sort things out, and why didn't he
and Linda rent a car and do some sight-seeing on the East Coast?

That's exactly what they did. Starting in Boston, where they cruised Cambridge,
watching the cute nerdyboys and geekygirls wander the streets, having heated
technical debates, lugging half-finished works of technology and art through the
sopping summertime, a riot of townie accents and highbrow engineerspeak.

Then a week in New York, where they walked until they thought their feet would
give out entirely, necks cricked at a permanent, upward-staring angle to gawp at
the topless towers of Manhattan. The sound the sound the sound of Manhattan rang
in their ears, a gray and deep rumble of cars and footfalls and subways and
steampipes and sirens and music and conversation and ring tones and hucksters
and schizophrenic ranters, a veritable Las Vegas of cacophony, and it made Linda
uncomfortable, she who was raised in the white noise susurrati