The idea should have been horrifying.
But it was too funny!
The only really horrible thing was just how funny it was!
What’s the matter with Philip, she thought. Then she remembered: Hadn’t he once been indiscreet enough to mention he’d once married a transexual; oh, I am dense! she thought. He probably has a “thing” for them! Wouldn’t you know, all I’ve done is become his particular type! Dense ... ? That was not the word for it if it had taken her this long to realize what was going on! And when he actually came out and propositioned her? I will do, she thought, absolutely nothing] If he signals me, I will not see! If he speaks, I will not hear him! If he falls down on his knees to me, I will leave the room! I am just not here for that kind of shit! she thought on the edge of anger. And, holding both anger and the laughter back, she plunged again into the work.
Twenty minutes before closing, Philip was in the door again. “Hey, Bron—” with the ingratiating smile, the velvet voice—“Audri wanted to talk to you. I think we can all kick off early today. So I’ll just leave you two to hash it out—” He ducked his head, and was gone.
And Audri, looking very nervous, stood behind where Philip had been. “Bron,” she said, “do you mind walking back with me. I mean toward my place. At least for a couple of stops. I want to talk to you,” and she stood, looking not quite at Bron, hands moving at her hips of her dark slacks.
Surprised, Bron said, “All right,” because she liked Audri, and Audri was her boss too, and because Philip’s absence was such a relief. “Just a second.” She pushed things into the drawer, closed it, stood up.
Together, they walked out of the building, Bron becoming more aware of the silence.
Halfway across the Plaza of Light, Audri said: “Philip thinks I’m out of my mind, but he also thinks that whether I’m out of my mind or not, I should just be straightforward and come out with it. Which is going to be pretty hard. But I guess I have to ...” Audri took a breath, tightened her mouth, let the breath out slowly, then said, almost in a whisper:
“Come home with me. Make love with me. Live with me ...” Then she glanced at Bron, with a flicker of a smile—“forever. Or a year. Or six hours. Or six months ...” She took another breath. “Philip’s right: that is the hard part.”
“What?” Bron said.
“I said ... well, you did hear me, didn’t you ... ?”
“Yes, but ...” Bron laughed, herself, only it didn’t quite sound. “Well ... I just don’t—”
Audri smiled at the pink pavement as they walked. “There’s an easy part too. My credit rating goes up in two weeks—more postwar boom. Philips says there’s a good possibility I can get this co-op unit out on the Ring if I can get enough people together. There are about four other high-rate women I’ve talked to who said they were interested. Together we’ve got five kids between us. There’d be room for you if you ...” She paused. “Well, you know what Philip’s place looks like. It’s pretty nice. Even if you just wanted to try it, to see how it might work out ... does it sound too much like I’m trying to lure you into my bed with promises of material gain?”
“No, but—Well .. »
“Bron, you know I’ve always liked you ... been very fond of you—”
“And I’ve always been fond of you too—”
“But then there was—I mean, before—always the physical thing. It took me till I was twenty-three, with my first two kids, to realize that men just weren’t where I was. Some people learn that lesson very easily. With me it came late and hard. Maybe that’s why I was never particularly interested in unlearning it ... But, well—really, there was always something about you that I felt sort of warm and protective toward. Then, the day of the war, when you broke through the enforcement barricade to come to our co-op and help us get out of the danger area. That was so ...” She shook her head. “—incredibly brave! I mean I’ve always known you’ve liked me—it’s always pretty easy to tell what you’re feeling; in a nonverbal way, I suppose you’re a very open person—but when you came in to get us, I realized maybe that your liking me had a strength to it I’d just never suspected before. That you would put your life in danger for mine and my family’s—I mean, I never told you, but they found Mad Mike’s body the next day. He’d been killed by a gravity dip, when a wall fell on him. So I know how dangerous it was out there. Really, when I thought about what you had done, I was just ... stunned! Really. That’s the only way I can put it. You know I used to—” She laughed, suddenly and softly, then glanced again at Bron. “I used to say to Philip, even before the war, that if you were only a woman, I could ...” She laughed again. “I mean, it was a joke. But then, to come in the day after the war and find that you were a woman .... You are a woman ...” Audri took another breath. “I’m not the kind of boss-lady who goes chasing her employees around the desk. But—well ...” She let the breath out, slowly: the glance again, the smile—“the last six months has been a little rough.”
Bron touched Audri’s naked shoulder. And felt Audri shake, once, without breaking step; Audri was looking at the ground about five feet ahead of them. “Audri, look I—”
“I don’t really expect you to say yes,” Audri said, quickly and quietly. “And no matter what you decide, nothing’s going to change at work or anything. I promise. I made up my mind about that before I even decided to open my mouth. I told myself I wasn’t even going to mention refixation treatments; but I guess I just did ... I mean—the thing is, I guess because I’ve been open about it, I ...” She was still looking at the ground, only three feet ahead of them now—“I do feel better ...”
“Audri, I can’t say yes. It just wouldn’t be fair. Really, I’m awfully flattered and ... well, touched. I didn’t know you felt that way and I ... but well, I ... you just don’t understand.” There had been a surge of fear at first; she recalled it, now, only seconds old. Then she had felt a surge of compassion; and then, wheedling between the two, annoyance. She didn’t want to be annoyed, not with Audri. “I mean, you don’t even know anything about why I became a ...” Bron laughed, and tried to make it as warm as Audri’s smile, but she heard the unintended edge. She dropped her hand. “Audri, one of the reasons I become a woman in the first place was to ... well, get away from women.” Bron frowned. “From one woman, anyway—Oh, that wasn’t the only reason.” She looked at Audri, who, head down, hands against her thighs, was just walking, just listening. “But it was certainly a big part of it ... not that it did much good.” Bron looked ahead too. “You remember, back when you warned me about my efficiency index slipping? It was around then. That’s probably what I was so worried about that kept my mind off what I was doing in the office.” Bron thought: But Audri had warned her before she’d run into the Spike, hadn’t she ... ? Well anyway—“She had me awfully upset. It’s a wonder I even got into the office at all during that time. She was ...” Bron glanced over; “Well, sort of like you. I mean a lesbian ... gay. She just wouldn’t leave me alone.” Wait, Bron thought; wait ... What am I talking about ... ? Audri glanced over now. Bron said quickly: “She’d had a re-fixation, you see, so she could respond sexually to men. Of course she didn’t tell me about this until after I’d changed myself. She was just completely dishonest.
About everything. And of course the thing that makes it so terrible, now, is that her feelings for me are real, no matter how unpleasant or ugly or inconvenient they are. To me. Or anyone else, for that matter. She’ll involve anyone else in the whole awful business as soon as talk to them. She’s not the world’s most considerate person, at the best of times.” Bron glanced at Audri; who nodded, listening.
“I can’t hate her,” Bron said. “Anymore than I could hate you. I mean, I like her, you know, when I’m not just at the end of my tether. But she simply has no concept of what’s real and what’s fantasy—did I say? She’s in the theater. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She had her own company—had a company. She’s called the Spike?”
“Is she gay?”
Audri asked.
Bron looked at her quickly. “Do you know her?—or know somebody who does? I mean, Tethys is such an awfully small city, I’d just hate for any of this to get back to her. I’m just telling you because you are my friend, Audri ...”
“No,” Audri said. “I don’t know her. I saw one of her micro-productions about a year ago, that’s all. I was impressed.”
“This fantasy/reality confusion,” Bron went on, “it’s just marvelous in her work. I mean, there, it’s practically like what we do, the fantasy working as a sort of metalogic, with which she can solve real, aesthetic problems in the most incredible ways—I was actually in a few of her productions last year; a sort of ersatz member of the company. But finally I just had to get out. Because when that fantasy seeps into the reality, she just becomes an incredibly ugly person. She feels she can distort anything that occurs for whatever purpose she wants. Whatever she feels, that’s what is, as far as she’s concerned. But then, I suppose ...” Bron laughed at the ground, then looked up: they’d just left the Plaza—“that’s the right we just fought a war to defend. But Audri, when someone abuses that right, it can make it pretty awful for the rest of us. The last time I saw her—” Bron dropped her eyes again—“she’d disbanded the whole company—she’s got a sort of pro-temp university job now. She told me that she’d even give that up if I’d only become her lover, take her with me, away from it all.” Bron laughed, “As if I had somewhere to take her! And of course my being a woman now only makes it worse for her. Not to mention me ... I mean if she only could have been honest with me at the beginning, all this could have been ...” She looked again at Audri; who blinked at her. For a moment she was terrified Audri would say something to shatter the whole, amazing fiction that wove itself on and on. Audri blinked again. “Do you see,” Bron said, “I just couldn’t say yes to you, not when I’m still involved with her, in all this nonsense—and I am, I am, up to my ears.” She started to touch Audri’s arm again, didn’t. “Do you understand ... ?”
Audri nodded.
“I’m ...” Bron let her eyes move away. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I feel—Oh, look, I’ve already said much too much about it already. Any more, and I’ll just feel like the complete fool I am—”
“Oh, no ...” Audri said. “No—”
Which brought Bron up short. Because somehow Audri’s belief in all this was something she had not even considered a possibility. “Well, it’s ...” Bron began. “It’s like what you said about learning a lesson hard and late—what this woman has taught me. About the Universe, even about me in it. Audri, I couldn’t say yes to you, any more than I could say yes to her.” She looked unblinkingly at Audri who looked, unblinkingly back. Bron thought: I can’t believe this is happening. “Don’t hate me for that.”
“I don’t,” Audri said. “It’s just so hard to believe that this—” She blinked again. “Look, there won’t ... there won’t be any change at the office. I mean that. It’s just ... well, Philip, in his role as big brother to the universe, thought I’d feel better if I at least asked. I guess I do. But I think ... I think I better see you tomorrow. So long ... I’ll see you tomorrow!” and Audri turned quickly away, off along the street.
Bron felt the third drop of sweat pause, halfway down her back, then roll on. At the corner she thought: Where am I ... ? Where—Involved in her explanation, she hadn’t noticed the street they had turned on. She looked at the street sign, took a great breath, and walked all the way to the next corner before she stopped.
Why did I lie to that woman?
She stood there, frowning at the next set of green coordinate letters and numbers across from her, losing their meaning behind her concentration.
Why did I lie to Audri? I like Audri! Why invent that incredible concoction about the Spike giving up everything for me! Not (she started walking again) that she’d said anything about the Spike’s character she wouldn’t stick by. Still, why choose to illustrate it with such a silly fiction? Especially when the truth was so much simpler.
Tomorrow at work, Audri would probably be back to normal—or; if not tomorrow, then a week from tomorrow, a month from tomorrow. But what about me ...? Why lie, outright and unequivocally? She wanted to talk to somebody. Brian? But she’d carefully kept from her the fact that the Spike even existed! Lawrence—? No, he was too old; she didn’t want his aged, caustic homilies. Besides, Lawrence was on another moon, another world. And Prynn of course was too young.
Who else did she ever talk to about things?
Audri, sometimes. But she certainly couldn’t talk to Audri about this!
She crossed the street, found the transport station; all the way home, the annoyance wound her thoughts: sometimes she was annoyed with Audri, sometimes with herself, sometimes with the villainous Spike.
At the Eagle, in her room, she locked the door and sat on the side of her bed—did not answer when Prynn came pounding at seven-thirty, did not answer when Prynn came pounding and shouting again at nine. At ten, she went to a cafeteria over in the next unit to avoid meeting any of the women from the co-op, got something to eat, came back, went into her room, and locked the door again.
Why did I lie to that woman?
She had been in bed over an hour. She had switched oii the public channels, switched them off, switched them on and off again. She turned over on one side, then turned back. But by now all her thoughts on the subject had been rehearsed a hundred times, repeating when they would not develop. Over three hours ago she had, for the first time, remembered she had mentally concocted almost the same story during the first two weeks she had moved here, in expectation of a proposition from that odd blonde with the black streaks in her hair who lived on the second floor and who was definitely gay; she had been so insistently generous to Bron with dinner invitations, offers of clothes, tapes, pictures (it was as bad as the woman’s heterosexual co-op she’d moved out of!), sex was the only explanation. All but the first of each Bron had refused. There’d been no pass; the woman had moved. The contemplated subterfuge had been forgotten.
But the point is, Bron thought, even though I was thinking of telling her something like that, if the woman had actually said anything to me, I certainly wouldn’t have used it. I would have treated her the same way I treated Lawrence; honest, straightforward. I mean if I learned one thing hustling it’s that, in matters of sex at any rate, it pays to be straight. I wouldn’t have told such a story to a complete stranger! Why did I tell it to someone I actually like? Hadn’t it begun as an attempt to spare Audri’s feelings, in some strange way? How ridiculous, she thought. Other people’s feelings, beyond maintaining general civility, had never been one of her major concerns. Nor did she think very highly of people for whom they were. People take care of their own feelings; I take care of mine. Besides, if I’d just said, “No,” to Audri’s request, it would have been far kinder than all those complicated theatrics! That was worthy of an actress like the Spike!—oh, come on: the Spike had nothing to do with that! Nothing! But what Bron also realized, and it was almost as annoying, is that somehow she’d gotten, in telling the lie, something she’d wanted: The first thing she’d felt (when it was just over, before this stupid and unstoppable ques—
tioning had set in) was satisfied. Now that’s the question: Why? Bron turned over again and thought: I can tell, this is just going to be another of those nights—
—and was dreaming about the bar, the place Prynn had taken her; but it was different, because there were only women present. What a strange dream, she thought. For one thing, most of the women were complete strangers. Over there, leaning against the wall, was the blonde lesbian who used to live on the second floor. Now why, Bron wondered, should I be dreaming about her? But then, I was just thinking about her, wasn’t I? A girl not much older than Prynn was sitting on a table corner playing her guitar. Charo? Over there sat a sixty-year-old woman with blue nails, blue high-heeled shoes, blue lips, and blue breast bangles. Bron was sure that if she’d ever se
en her before, it was just in passing on the street. Still, all these strange women made her uncomfortable. She looked around again for someone more familiar and saw, to her astonishment, the Spike sitting at one of the tables, busily writing on the gold—and black-edged sheet of an interplanetary letter-form. And there was Audri, sitting not far behind her, with Prynn next to her; just behind them stood a woman she didn’t recognize at all: a very dark oriental ... was it that Miriamne person she’d almost been lumbered with as an assistant? No; too young. More likely it was somebody she had once seen with Alfred. Were they all looking at her? Or looking past her? Bron turned, thinking how silly it was to be in a pickup bar with nothing but women. But the door was opening. A man in maroon coveralls backed through it. Apparently he was still talking to a bunch of friends outside. He kept lingering at the door, calling to them, laughing at them.
Bron looked at the women. Some were definitely looking at her now. Charo was smiling, nodding in time to her strumming. The Spike had apparently covered several sheets. Indeed, the sheet she was writing on so busily now was much too large for a letter-form. Prynn and a black girl had stepped up behind the Spike and were leaning over her shoulder to read. Prynn reached down to point something out; the Spike immediately made a correction. She wasn’t writing a letter at all! She must be making notes on a new production. Bron turned to look at the man (he was at the bar now, but still looking away) and thought: This must be where my part comes in. Do I know my lines? At any rate, I’m sure they’ll come back to me, once I begin. Again she glanced: several of the women, with large, colored markers, were reaching over the Spike’s shoulder to add notes of their own. This is going to be quite a show, Bron thought. The woman with the blue lips and bangles looked up at her, smiled, nodded her on. Bron turned back to the man, who was leaning with one forearm on the counter, still looking away at the door—as if, Bron thought at once, he might go after his friends outside any moment and miss the whole production! Nervously, she walked toward him.
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