Excerpt from The Night Climbers by Ivo Stourton, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

She sat on the metal bar that ran around the side of the balcony and put her feet against the large black boulder nearest the edge of the carefully raked white sand, dimpled from the raindrops. Behind her I could see a roof that the building's architects had never intended for public view. It was ten stories down. I thought of how best to guide her back from her perch without showing that it made me uncomfortable.

"You have become pompous. Is that what we are? Old 'university buddies'?"

Angry horns bleated down in the street. With her hands clutched around the bar and her shoulders hunched a little forward against the chill, she straightened her long legs slightly, leaning her slender torso fractionally backward into space. I felt the sharp edge of a fledgling concern tapping against the inside of my skull. With a steady voice, I answered. "I haven't seen you in the best part of a decade. What would you prefer to be called?" She was already drawing me away from a proper examination of her motives.

"Oh, I don't know. Something with a little feeling. Playmate, darling, co-conspirator..." This last one she delivered in a theatrical, breathy whisper.

"I think I have company this weekend," I said.

"She'll understand. Women like to be made to wait. You don't want to be overly available."

Not these women, I thought.

She shivered and tugged the thin material of her jacket tight around her thin, slight body. The falling mist strengthened for a moment into drizzle. She straightened her legs with little jerks, a childish gesture of distraction that pushed her body farther and farther out over the edge. I clenched my hands behind my back so that she could not see them. There was a light wind, so high above the street, and it carried the loose strands of her blond hair up and over her cheekbones.

"My place isn't big. I don't have a spare bed, and -- "

She pushed up suddenly onto the balls of her feet. The gesture carried her too far, and she fell first backward, then forward to the floor with a spasmodic tightening of her stomach. A surge of adrenaline manned my chest, and I ran toward her with an inarticulate cry. She was laughing with the exhilaration of her near disaster and with triumph at the terror in my face. I had started out across the perfect garden, breaking the patterned surface with my feet. The cut of my suit pushed me into an unnatural feminine jog, and I knew that I must have looked ridiculous. I acknowledged her victory with a sheepish smile and walked over to where she leaned laughing against the rail. Her laughter gave way to a coughing fit, and she bent over almost like an old man clutching her stomach. Somehow the moment seemed vulnerable rather than disgusting.

"So, can I stay or what?" she said when she had regained some measure of control.

"Fuck it. Why not."

She was lying, but there would be time to discover the truth. I could not remember when an obligation had been placed on me that was purely human. I did things because of what I had signed, what was expected, what was right, what was paid. This I would do because of who had asked me. I said yes because once I would have done anything for her and required nothing in return. Many people would have once done anything for her, but she would have actually accepted my help.

"We'll stay up all night. It'll be like old times," she said. "You might even have fun."

Copyright © 2007 by Ivo Stourton