Part 21 (1/2)

That caught her by surprise. ”You like my stories?”

”Yes ”

I'll be glad to, Geode!”

”Thanks.” Then he went out the side door, got on the bike, and set off. He would get a real workout this time! He had to be back by four, in case Mid called. The phone had an answering machine, but it was much better to be there, because Mid didn't like to wait.

* 25 - NONE WATCHED HIM ride away. She had told him the truth: she had enjoyed their session in the pool as much as anything she could remember in the past year, except for her night with him. She had felt guilty about being in this nice house, and about taking up his time, though she knew he liked it; now she was doing something useful, teaching him one or two skills that would serve him well in life. In short, she was beginning to pay her way.

She hadn't really meant to tell him the story of the mermaid; it had just come out, familiar as it was. She hadn't given the more elaborate version, in which the Little Mermaid was granted the ability to have legs and walk on land in exchange for what turned out to be her death sentence. But either version was certainly true to her life, as she saw it. She was here on the sufferance of Geode and his employer, and when they decided they had had enough of her, she would depart-and perish. Like the little mermaid, she had in effect to marry someone, for she had no survival on her own, once committed.

But after allowing for everything, she had had a wonderful time in the pool, and she hoped they could do it again, many times. His impotence didn't matter there; they had had a job to do, and a lesson to learn, and there was no stress. Yet the suggestion of romance had not been proscribed. She had gotten him to kiss her, and that was nice progress, for him. She knew he liked her to kiss him, but his problem was not with feeling, but with initiation. When he became confident enough to kiss her without asking or apologizing, he would be a giant step toward the achievement of the other thing, which she could not do for him.

There were dishes from lunch. She washed them, gladly. Anything she could do to make his life easier, and to justify her presence, was good. Her life at home had consisted of such ch.o.r.es, and they had been dull; now they were bright. She had been a poor housekeeper not from ignorance but from futility. It was different here.

But there was this matter of May Flowers. May had arranged to bring none here, and thereby lifted her from the skids of h.e.l.l to a sojourn in paradise. Now May was set out as bait for the monster. That wasn't right!

The phone rang, in Geode's room. none hurried to answer it-then realized that she wasn't supposed to, because she wasn't here, officially. But this was Mid's phone, the one that only he called on, and he knew she was here. Geode was the only one supposed to answer it.

Yet, somehow, she never paused. She plunged into the room and scooped up the receiver. ”Please, let her come here!” she exclaimed. ”Don't let her be food for the firefly!”

A vaguely oriental voice replied. ”Who are you?”

”none. You let me be here.”

”Where is Geode?”

”He's on his rounds. He is hurrying to be back in time for your call.”

”What do you do?”

”Me?” The question surprised her. Actually, this whole conversation surprised her; she should never have picked up the phone! ”I-I tell stories.”

”What have you done here?”

”Here? Today? I helped clean the pool. I took a dragonfly out. It wasn't right to let it be trapped where it couldn't survive.”

”Are you a dragonfly?”

She laughed uneasily. ”Me? No! May is! I'm just a firefly. No, not even that; the firefly's not innocent anymore, it's a monster. I'm a glowworm, the female of the species. I glow only in the dark; by day I am nothing at all.”

”What is Geode?”

”He's a rock, of course, with all his wonderful qualities locked inside. I am trying to fall in love with him.” This was absolutely crazy! But she couldn't stop. ”I mean he's someone stable, and I'm trying to perch on him so I can be stable too.”

”Did he tell you his history.”

”He hears animals speak. I wish I could. Oh, Mr. Mid, please let May come here! She's worked for you so loyally-”

”Tell me a story.”

She didn't dare question this odd request. What would interest a fabulously rich tyc.o.o.n? She pictured herself as such a person, tuning in, and let her fancy fly.

”Once there was a businessman who paid his tax and had a big refund coming, but the Internal Revenue Service misread it as an unpaid tax. It acted without verifying, sending him a demand for immediate payment plus penalties for tax evasion. He wrote back that it was the other way around, that he didn't owe them money, they owed him money. But this was rebuffed by a badly programmed computer. The IRS refused to see their error, let alone admit it to a taxpayer. He wrote again, presenting the figures-and they seized his bank account in lieu of the payment they said he owed. Now, he was a peaceful man, but this annoyed him. For one thing, his routine business checks were bouncing because the bank wasn't allowed to honor them, and his clients were getting upset and his business was suffering. So he mortgaged his estate and got the money to fight them, and he took them to court and got a restraining order against the IRS, not to hara.s.s this man anymore, and to pay court costs and a punitive penalty, because the judge saw that the businessman's figures were right and had been right all along. But the agency responded by auditing the judge's tax return! Now it was the judge who became annoyed, because he was an honest judge with twenty years on the bench and he knew what he was doing, and he had never even thought about cheating on his tax. So he hit the Revenue Service with a citation for contempt. But the Service claimed it was immune from that, and demanded possession of all his records for three years back.

”About this time a fearless journalist with dark brown hair and eyes got interested. She researched the matter, and then published a story which made local and then state and then national headlines. There was a terrific public outcry, and a spreading tax rebellion. Then the IRS decided that there had been a slight clerical error, and it dropped the case and forgot the matter. But by this time Congress was responding to voluminous mail from all over the country, because it seemed that a lot of people had suffered similarly, and they wanted corrective legislation or a cla.s.s-action suit. Congress pa.s.sed a bill which severely curtailed the Service's right to threaten or impound, and imposed a schedule of automatic penalties for any future errors the IRS made. 'It's time the tax man stopped hara.s.sing honest citizens and started doing its job right,' Senator Smogfound declaimed to national applause. The President saw the lay of the land and signed the law. And so the businessman was vindicated, and he received fifteen proposals of marriage from starlets and lived happily ever after. They never audited him again.”

There was a pause. ”Granted,” Mid said, and hung up.

”What?” But she was too late.

Then his meaning registered. She had begged him to let May, whom she had put into the story as the journalist, come here to the main house. He had agreed!

She returned to the dishes, elated. Mid must have liked her story, foolish as it was. That might save May's life.

She thought about Geode. So he had been inst.i.tutionalized. But he was not crazy, only misunderstood. She had spoken truly when she rea.s.sured him; she was a creature of imagination who had learned to stifle it, externally. Geode had not-until getting in bad trouble for it. He was very much her type of man, so serendipitously discovered. She could be happy with him, even if it weren't for this lovely wealthy estate with which he was a.s.sociated.

But the curse of her nature was on her. She was none, the doomed nymph. She might have a momentary flare of hope and joy, but inevitably she would perish. Paris was already dead. She might flirt with another man, but any permanence was illusory. The best she could do was thrill to it while she could, and try not to hurt the ones with whom she a.s.sociated. In this case, Geode, and May, and maybe Frank Tishner.

She found herself crying. She knew why. May and Frank she might avoid hurting, but Geode had to love her in order to be healed. He had to know she loved him so he could love her. When she died, Geode would be hurt. There was no way around that.

If only she could have made him happy without love! To have teased him into s.e.xual performance, made him a man, without tying into his deepest heart. Then she could have faded away without real harm. But he was more complicated than that, and could not respond s.e.xually without first responding emotionally. He was like a woman in that respect, while she was like a man. So it had to be love. She only hoped that the curse of it was not greater than the blessing of it. For herself it hardly mattered, because she expected no suffering beyond death, but for him it did.

The tears continued. She wept for him, but perhaps also for herself. She had in effect died when Paris did, and so was mostly beyond emotion, but she wished that her fate had not been sealed. This was such a wonderful moment, it was difficult not to dream of it continuing forever.

She knew what she had to do. She had to break if off before getting in any deeper. She would have to explain to Geode that she was doomed, and he would be too if this went further. She had to do it right away, as soon as she saw him, because otherwise she wouldn't be able to. It would hurt him, but not nearly as much as her death would later, if this went on.

Her tears abated. She had decided, and that was that. She was a creature of desperation rather than courage, but there was a certain consolation in the decision.

She went to her room, took up the volume of Shaw, and sat on the bed to read it. The book fell open at a page she had already read beyond, but she glanced at it anyway. ”The Achilles heel of vivisection, however, is not to be found in the pain it causes, but in the line of argument by which it is justified.” Shaw went on to make the point that the good that might come of the deed did not justify it, for a similar argument could justify any crime. A thief could justify his theft by pointing out that it enabled him to spend money and stimulate the economy.

”Oh, I am guilty!” she exclaimed. ”I thought the good of teaching Geode love, and my own pleasure, justified the heartbreak I would bring him! I am a vivisectionist!”

At least she had made the decision before the book reminded her! For that she was thankful. She was not entirely derelict.

She found her place and read a bit further, but could not concentrate. She gave it up and went downstairs to wait for Geode's return. He had not set the alarm this time, knowing she might trigger it by accident.

Still restless, she opened the door cautiously and peeked out. The heat struck her; how easy it was to forget it, in the temperate house! She slipped out onto the portico, nervous about being seen. But how could anybody see her? The gate was closed; no cars could come unless they were buzzed in.

She heard something, and jumped. It was a kind of tingling and banging, not loud. She c.o.c.ked her head, listening, and concluded it came from the chain link fence that paralleled the drive and looped around the house behind. What was happening to it?

She walked cautiously around the house, peering nervously ahead. A sudden crack of thunder jolted her. She looked up and saw the clouds mounding up, their fluffy white shading into gray, and their gray to dark gray. A storm was building, sure enough. Was it gusts of wind from it that made the fence ring?

But the air was calm at the moment, yet the sound continued, irregularly. She followed the fence-and spied a gopher tortoise banging at it. The tortoise was trying to get through it, and every time it tried, its sh.e.l.l banged the wire, making the sound. The whole fence reverberated with each shove, in the fas.h.i.+on of a plucked guitar string, but with less melody. ”A storm is coming, and you want to get home!” she exclaimed. ”If Geode had been here, you would have told him, and he would have helped you.”

But of course Geode wasn't back yet. ”Is it all right if I help you instead?” she asked. ”Otherwise you'll get caught out in the storm.” Not that rain or wind could hurt a creature with a portable house-sh.e.l.l.

The tortoise ignored her. But she went to it, set her hands at the sides of its carapace, and lifted it up. It was solid; it weighed about fifteen pounds. It hissed and pulled in its head as it came up.

She carried it around to the gate, lifted the latch with her knee, and went through. Then she set the tortoise down on the other side. It remained secluded.