Back at the hotel, I showered, got dressed and leaned down on my side of the bed. Zoe had already picked her side, the right one. She was leaning on both pillows and checking out her phone.
"Oh, here," she said and gave me my pillow back. She got comfortable face-down, giving me an ample view of her illuminated breasts.
This was gonna be a tough arrangement.
I fished out my book and started reading to relax.
"Whatcha reading?" she asked, not taking her eyes of the phone to actually glance at the cover.
"History," I said casually, knowing that it never got me any girls and never would.
"Oh.. Interesting. What part of history?"
"Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War. It's about the Plague of Athens."
"Light reading then. Why. The hell. Are you reading that?"
"I'm a historian!"
"Figures," she snorted and put the phone down. She turned the right way around and leaned over to peek at the book.
"It seemed the best of both worlds, what with me training to become a CDI. Thucydides gives an objective description of the epidemic."
Zoe lit up a smoke. "Huh. No wonder you were unemployed. Don't you know historians have the worst time finding a job?"
"I didn't care. I love history."
"You do care now!"
I laughed. "Nai. Now its hard. Still no regrets, to be honest."
"So, what did CDI Thucydides have to say about the plague?"
"Well, he was sceptical about the superstitions of the cause of the plague from a prophecy, that said Gods favoured Sparta. He believed in the prevailing medical theory of his day, which was the Hippocratic theory, and gathered evidence through direct observation."
"Smart man!"
"He noted, that birds and animals that ate plague-infested carcasses died as a result, so he concluded that the disease had a natural rather than supernatural cause."
"Do you sweet-talk like this all the girls who climb on your bed?"
"Just the clever ones," I said.
Zoe squinted a bit and pointed with her cigarette. "Good answer."
I calculated that by statistical equilibrium the next thing coming out of my mouth would be a bad choice, so I just smiled and said nothing.
"Lets sleep. We have lots to do tomorrow, we'll start early."
YOU ARE READING
Maniai Case File 1: The Girl And The Blood Slide
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