Part 10 (2/2)
”Tomorrow, I'll send you back to her. To Clovis.” What was I saying? Why couldn't I stop? ”I don't need you. I made a mistake.”
”I'm sorry,” he said quietly.
”You regret failing me. Not making me happy.”
”Yes.”
”You want to make everyone happy?” I screamed. The thunder blazed. The house shook, or was it my pulse? ”Who do you think you are? Jesus Christ?”
Lightning. Fire. Drums. I lost the room, and when it came back, he was in front of me. He put his hands lightly on my shoulders.
”You're going through some personal trauma,” he said. ”I can try to help you, if you tell me what it is.”
”It's you,” I said. ”It's you.”
”There is a school of thought which predicts human beings will react as you're doing.”
”Egyptia was your first woman,” I announced.
”Egyptia's a young girl, as you are. And not the first, by any means.”
”Tests? Performance tests? Piano, guitar, voice, bed?”
”Naturally.”
”What's natural about it?” I pulled away from him.
”Natural from a business point of view,” he said reasonably.
”But there's something wrong,” I said. ”You don't check out.”
He stood and looked down at me. He was about five feet eleven. The sky was bleeding into darkness behind him, and his hair bleeding into darkness, too. His eyes were two flames, colorless.
”My bedroom is up the stair,” I said. ”Follow me.”
I went up, and he came after. We walked into the suite. I pushed the door shut. I walked over to the green auto-chill flagon of white wine, and poured two gla.s.ses, then remembered, then took up the second gla.s.s anyway and pushed it into his hand.
”You're wasting it on me,” he said.
”I want to make believe you're human,” I said.
”I know you do. I'm not.”
”Do it toplease me. To make me happ-y.”
He drank, slowly. I drank quickly. I started to float at once. The lightning burst through the blinds, and I didn't mind it.
”Now,” I said, ”come into my bedroom, exclusively designed by my mother to match my personal coloressence chart. And make love to me.”
”No,” he said.
I stood and stared at him.
”No? You can't say no.”
”My vocabulary is less limited than you seem to think.”
”No-”
”No, because you don't want me, or your body doesn't, which is more important.”
”You have to make me happy,” I got out.
”I won't make you happy by raping you. Even at your own request.”
He put down the gla.s.s. He bowed to me from the waist, like a n.o.bleman in an old visual, and went out.
I stood with my mouth open, as the lightning splashed on the blinds, and the thunder faded. He began to play the piano again. It was the silliest thing, the silliest and the most disheartening thing, that could have happened to me. And I knew I deserved it.
I got rather drunk alone in my suite, listening to the piano. Sometimes, when alone, I'd secretively play it-but so badly. He played, fantastically, for an hour. Things I knew, things I didn't. Cla.s.sical, futurist, contemporary, extempore. It was like a light on in the Vista, burning even if I couldn't see it. The day after tomorrow my mother would come home. And there would be trouble to sort out. Trouble large as hills on my horizon. Only today then, and tomorrow, and I'd ruined everything.
I showered and washed my hair, and let the machine warm-comb it dry. I put on dress after dress, but none of them was right. Then I put on black jeans which were too tight for me (and found they weren't, but then, I'd hardly eaten today, and my Venus Media capsules were due again tomorrow), and a silk s.h.i.+rt Chloe gave me that I never wore because Demeta didn't like it.
The piano had long since stopped. It was about five forty-five P.M., and the storm was over in the Vista.
A blue sunset covered the sky and the furnis.h.i.+ngs, and I couldn't see him. He wasn't there.
I'd told him I'd send him back, and Egyptia owned him. Could he have left? Was it possible for a robot to make that sort of decision? I went out of the Vista, and the lift was down on the mezzanine, but not the foyer. A surge of blood went through me, as if my circulation had been waiting for information. I got the lift back and went down. He was in the library, in the long chair across the balcony-balloon. The lamp was on. He was reading. He seemed to need light, but it took him about fifteen seconds to take in each page.
I went into the library. I was humbled. I walked over to him and sat on the floor by the chair, and leaned my head against his knee. It seemed natural. And his hand coming to stroke my hair, that was natural too.
”Hallo,” he said.
No resentment, of course. I could almost be resentful at his lack of resentment.
”Listen to me,” I said, quietly, ”I'm going to explain, too. I'm not going to look at you, but I'll lean here, and I'll say it. I'm still slightly high on the wine, and very relaxed. Is that all right?”
”Yes, Jane,” he said.
I closed my eyes.
”I'm very stupid,” I said, ”and very selfish. That's because I'm rich and I don't know much about real life.
And I've been sheltered. And I have a lot of faults.”
He laughed softly.
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