Part 35 (1/2)
She did not finish, but he understood. She had loved a man as a child. Now she was recapturing that feeling. He could only be glad that it was him she had fixed on, for she had brought to him the whole of the life he had never had.
Embraced, they slept.
”Tell me a story,” he said, waking.
She stirred. ”After what I have given you, you want a story?” She stroked his chest, her fingers sliding downward teasingly.
”You have given me everything, but it is your stories I love the best.”
She seemed to smile in the darkness. ”How can I refuse? I will tell you the story of 'Once Upon a Time.' ”
There existed two university professors who were discussing when it would be the most appropriate time to interchange their respective spouses. As the child of one of them came into the princ.i.p.al's office: ”What am I holding?” he asked them.
”A gory skull,” replied Andy, the anthropologist.
”Wrong. This is a ladybug. What you perceive to be cavities are instead spots.”
”What is its use?” Brandy, the lawyer, inquired, meddling in.
”It is a probability machine. Whoever follows it would be following it out into alternate developments of reality.”
As that was said, all of them got into their compact shuttle, and took off after the blood-red ladybug. She, on the run, avoided them by shoving, elbowing, and jumping over possibilities, so creating her own ”reality track.” Meanwhile the s.h.i.+p, point-blank, did not cease from its pursuit behind her.
”I'm reaching my utmost!” groaned the engine.
”We have to hasten, pet,” grumbled back the driver, Candi, the historian. ”We are in a hurry.” a.s.suming that she made that claim because their own time and place were visible, away off but reachable. But only if they approached such a location at breakneck speed. And indeed, in the nick of time, now, here they were.
”Whether I am not behind the times,” Candi then outcried, ”we are, in a sketchy way, toward the end of the first century before the s.h.i.+ft.”
”The 'in' things nowadays,” Andy said as he thought it over, ”are lies, pollution, and child abuse.”
”You are wearing a uniform! So you are becoming a private!”
”No way, boy. I would have to fight either in the Vietnam War or in the universal invasion. Each of you have to do the same, to his own taste. Methinks it is better to vanish away into the 'doubt area.' ”
Then he did.
The kid turned toward Brandy. ”Now you lack an eye, a hand, and a leg.”
”Odd,” Candi commented. ”Privateers should be over, ever since two centuries ago, at least.”
”Not at all. There are some left who work for the planetary G.o.ds. For instance, in Atlantis, northward, some of them just seized a pigpen.”
”Well,” Brandy decided, ”I realize this is a Dutch treat. Andy has told 'Uncle' and myself. I, instead, am going to say 'Cain'-I love it, to go a buccaneer, and therefore at all hazards, I am proceeding to go into the Atlantis mess.” Next he was gone.
As for Sandy, the geologist, she had turned into a dryad.
”I advise you,” Candi said, ”to prove to be planted in a park, rather than amid the woods, where carelessness and avidity would quickly slay you. In a park the worst to happen to you would be a gay couple engraving a heart on your skin in a tattoolike fas.h.i.+on.”
Sandy obeyed. The lagoon behind her appeared, and so Candi found out from her reflection that she was now a bogeyman. She burst into tears. The lad went to comfort her/him.
”Chin up! Because an adage goes like this: 'Don't count your chickens before you join 'em'... no, it is not like that. I think that I've got it now: 'If you can't lick 'em, they are hatched'... no, it is not so either... well, the idea is something of the sort. What I wanted was to let you know that this is the Flower State, and here, just midway between the s.p.a.ceport and the cartoon-comic city, an ogre dwells. He is a teacher. You could learn from him how to become a good bogeyman, one to whom the tots would expect to go with eagerness and in safety. Let's go: I shall show you the way.”
Then they started.
Geode woke. Beside him, none slept. He realized two things: that despite her changes of ident.i.ty, she would always be none to him, his fantasy woman; and that though he had dreamed of her telling him a story, it was no match for her real stories.
He stroked her bare back. ”How do I love thee,” he murmured. ”Let me count the ways.”
She stirred, this time in life, not the dream. ”Yes, Geode?”
”Sorry; I didn't mean to wake you.”
”I am happy with you, waking or sleeping. What do you wish of me?”
So he told her. ”You are none; I don't think you have to give that up to live.”
”Maybe not, since this is my dream realm.”
”I dreamed you were telling me a story, but it didn't match the type you usually tell, and I woke. I can't dream you; I have to have the real you.”
”I'm glad.” She crawled across him, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s sliding from his left side to his right ribs as her face zeroed in on his, and kissed him.
”Will you tell me a story?”
”Always, Geode.”
He held her, thrilling to the sound of her voice as she told it, and he knew she felt his reaction and understood how he loved her and loved listening. She had first truly warmed to him when she learned that he liked listening to her, and it was deeper now.
There came the time when she had to broach a difficult matter to her husband. She had been patient, and understanding, but it simply could be put off no longer. ”Donald, we have been married for fifteen years and I have borne you three fine offspring, yet you have not taken a mistress.”
”Well, I'm going to, Yvonne,” he said defensively.
”But you know it is standard after three children or ten years, whichever comes first. You have far exceeded the guidelines! Do you want folk to think you are impotent?”
He gave up pretense. ”I desire only you, Yvonne. No other woman appeals to me.”
”So you admit it!” she said severely. ”You aren't even looking!”
Abashed, he could not deny it.
”Then you leave me no choice,” she said with tearful determination. ”I shall have to do what any woman threatened with dishonor would, and find you one myself.”
”Couldn't we just pretend it's one of the maids?” he asked desperately. ”That upstairs maid is pretty s.e.xy.”
”No, we can't pretend! We have never lied before, and we won't start now. Unless you are prepared to take her to your bed tonight.”