Multiples

by Robert Silverberg

  No matter. No matter. He was able to resist her beauty, that illusion, that figment. That beauty, astonishing and unreal, was what had drawn him at first, but it was the dark secret alien underneath that ruled him now. That was what he hoped to reach: the alien, the star-woman, the unfathomable being from the black interstellar deeps. He would touch what no man of Earth had ever touched before.

  He inhaled her fragrance until he felt himself swaying. She was making an odd purring sound that he hoped was one of pleasure.

  There was a knock at the door. “The tea is here,” she said.

  The waiter, a boy in native costume, sleepy, openly envious of Eitel for having a woman like Agila in his room, took forever to set up the glasses and pour the tea, an infinitely slow process of raising the pot, aiming, letting the thick tea trickle down through the air. But at last he left. Agila drank greedily, and beckoned to Eitel to have some also. He smiled and shook his head.

  She said, “But you must. I love it so—you must share it. It is a ritual of love between us, eh?”

  He did not choose to make an issue of it. A glass of mint tea more or less must not get in the way, not now.

  “To us,” she said, and touched her glass to his.

  He managed to drink a little. It was like pure liquid sugar. She had a second glass, and then, maddeningly, a third. He pretended to sip at his. Then at last she touched her hand to a clasp on her shoulder and her metal-mesh sheath fell away.

  They had done their research properly, in the body-making labs of Centaurus. She was flawless, sheer fantasy, with heavy breasts that defied gravity, slender waist, hips that would drive a Moroccan camel-driver berserk, buttocks like pale hemispheres. They had given her a navel, pubic hair, erectile nipples, dimples here and there, the hint of blue veins in her thighs. Unreal, yes, Eitel thought, but magnificent.

  “It is my fifth traveling body,” she said. “I have been Arcturan, Steropid, Denebian, Mizarian—and each time it has been hard, hard, hard! After the transfer is done, there is a long training period, and it is always very difficult. But one learns. A moment finally comes when the body feels natural and true. I will miss this one very much.”

  “So will I,” Eitel said.

  Quickly he undressed. She came to him, touched her lips lightly to his, grazed his chest with her nipples.

  “And now you must give me a gift,” she said.

  “What?”

  “It is the custom before making love. An exchange of gifts.” She took from between her breasts the pendant she was wearing, a bit of bright crystal carved in disturbing alien swirls. “This is for you. And for me—”

  Oh, God in heaven, he thought. No!

  Her hand closed over the Olmec jade figurine that was still sitting on the dresser.

  “This,” she said.

  It sickened him. That little statuette was eighty thousand on the international antiquities market, maybe a million or two to the right E-T buyer. A gift? A love-token? He saw the gleam in her eye, and knew he was trapped. Refuse, and everything else might be lost. He dare not show any trace of pettiness. Yes. So be it. Let her have the damned thing. We are being romantic tonight. We are making grand gestures. We are not going to behave like a petit-bourgeois Swiss art peddler. If she confuse you, it can cost you, David had said. Eitel took a deep breath.

  “My pleasure,” he said magnificently.

  He was an experienced and expert lover; supreme beauty always inspired the best in him; and pride alone made him want to send her back to Centaurus with incandescent memories of the erotic arts of Earth. His performance that night—and performance was the only word he could apply to it—might well have been the finest of his life.

  With the lips and tongue, first. Everywhere. With the fingers, slowly, patiently, searching for the little secret key places, the unexpected triggering-points. With the breath against the skin, and the fingernails, ever so lightly, and the eyelashes, and even the newly sprouting stubble of the cheek. These were all things that Eitel loved doing, not merely for the effects they produced in his bed-partners but because they were delightful in and of themselves; yet he had never done them with greater dedication and skill.

  And now, he thought, perhaps she will show me some of her skills.

  But she lay there like a wax doll. Occasionally she stirred, occasionally she moved her hips a little. When he went into her, he found her warm and moist—why had they built that capacity in, Eitel wondered?—but he felt no response from her, none at all.

  He moved her this way, that, running through the gamut of positions as though he and she were making a training film for newlyweds. Now and then she smiled. Her eyes were always open: she was fascinated. Eitel felt anger rising. She was ever the tourist, even here in his bed. Getting some first-hand knowledge of the quaint sexual techniques of the primitive Earthmen.

  Knowing he was being foolish, that he was compounding a foolishness, he drove his body with frantic intensity, rocking rhythmically above her, grimly pushing her on and on. Come on, he thought. Give me a little sigh, a moan, a wriggle. Anything. He wasn’t asking her to come. There was no reason why they should have built that capacity in, was there? The only thing he wanted now was to get some sort of acknowledgement of his existence from her, some quiver of assent.

  He went on working at it, knowing he would not get it. But then, to his surprise, something actually seemed to be happening. Her face grew flushed, and her eyes narrowed and took on a new gleam, and her breath began to come in harsh little bursts, and her breasts heaved, and her nipples grew hard. All the signs, yes: Eitel had seen them so many times, and never more welcome than at this moment. He knew what to do. The unslackening rhythm now, the steady building of tension, carrying her onwards, steadily higher, leading her towards that magical moment of overload when the watchful conscious mind at last surrenders to the surging deeper forces. Yes. Yes. The valiant Earthman giving his all for the sake of transgalactic passion, laboring like a galley slave to show the star-woman what the communion of the sexes is all about.

  She seemed almost there. Some panting now, even a little gasping. Eitel smiled in pleasant self-congratulation. Swiss precision, he thought: never underestimate it.

  And then somehow she managed to slip free of him, between one thrust and the next, and she rolled to the side, so that he collapsed in amazement into the pillow as she left the bed. He sat up and looked at her, stunned, gaping, numbed.

  “Excuse me,” she said, in the most casual way. “I thought I’d have a little more tea. Shall I get some for you?”

  Eitel could barely speak. “No,” he said hoarsely.

  She poured herself a glass, drank, grimaced. “It doesn’t taste as good as when it’s warm,” she said, returning to the bed. “Well, shall we go on?” she asked.

  Silently he reached for her. Somehow he was able to start again. But this time a distance of a thousand light-years seemed to separate him from her. There was no rekindling that brief flame, and after a few moments he gave up. He felt himself forever shut away from the inwardness of her, as Earth is shut away from the stars. Cold, weary, more furious with himself than with her, he let himself come. He kept his eyes open as long as he could, staring icily into hers, but the sensations were unexpectedly powerful, and in the end he sank down against her breasts, clinging to her as the impact thundered through him.

  In that bleak moment came a surprise. For as he shook and quivered in the force of that dismal ejaculation something opened between them, a barrier, a gate, and the hotel melted and disappeared and he saw himself in the midst of a bizarre landscape. The sky was a rich golden-green, the sun was deep green and hot, the trees and plants and flowers were like nothing he had ever seen on Earth. The air was heavy, aromatic, and of a piercing flavor that stung his nostrils. Flying creatures that were not birds soared unhurriedly overhead, and some iridescent beasts that looked like red velvet pillows mounted on tripods were grazing on the lower branches of furry-limbed trees. On the horizon Eitel saw t
hree jagged naked mountains of some yellow-brown stone that gleamed like polished metal in the sunlight. He trembled. Wonder and awe engulfed his spirit. This is a park, he realized, the most beautiful park in the world. But this is not this world. He found a little path that led over a gentle hill, and when he came to the far side he looked down to see Centaurans strolling two by two, hand in hand, through an elegantly contoured garden.

  Oh, my God, Eitel thought. Oh, my God in heaven!

  Then it all began to fade, growing thin, turning to something no more substantial than smoke, and in a moment more it was all gone. He lay still, breathing raggedly, by her side, watching her breasts slowly rising and falling.

  He lifted his head. She was studying him. “You liked that?”

  “Liked what?”

  “What you saw.”

  “So you know?”

  She seemed surprised. “Of course! You thought it was an accident? It was my gift for you.”

  “Ah.” The picture-postcard of the home world, bestowed on the earnest native for his diligent services. “It was extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything so beautiful.”

  “It is very beautiful, yes,” she said complacently. Then, smiling, she said, “That was interesting, what you did there at the end, when you were breathing so hard. Can you do that again?” she asked, as though he had just executed some intricate juggling maneuver.

  Bleakly he shook his head, and turned away. He could not bear to look into those magnificent eyes any longer. Somehow—he would never have any way of knowing when it had happened, except that it was somewhere between “Can you do that again?” and the dawn, he fell asleep. She was shaking him gently awake, then. The light of a brilliant morning came bursting through the fragile old silken draperies.

  “I am leaving now,” she whispered. “But I wish to thank you. It has been a night I shall never forget.”

  “Nor I,” said Eitel.

  “To experience the reality of Earthian ways at such close range—with such intimacy, such immediacy—”

  “Yes. Of course. It must have been extraordinary for you.”

  “If ever you come to Centaurus—”

  “Certainly. I’ll look you up.”

  She kissed him lightly, tip of nose, forehead, lips. Then she walked towards the door. With her hand on the knob, she turned and said, “Oh, one little thing that might amuse you. I meant to tell you last night. We don’t have that kind of thing on our world, you know—that concept of owning one’s mate’s body. And in any case, Anakhistos is not male, and I am not female, not exactly. We mate, but our sex distinctions are not so well-defined as that. It is with us more like the way it is with your oysters, I think. So it is not quite right to say that Anakhistos is my husband, or that I am his wife. I thought you would like to know.”

  She blew him a kiss. “It has been very lovely,” she said. “Goodbye.”

  When she was gone he went to the window and stared into the garden for a long while without looking at anything in particular. He felt weary and burned out, and there was a taste of straw in his mouth. After a time he turned away.

  When he emerged from the hotel later that morning, David’s car was waiting out front.

  “Get in,” he said.

  They drove in silence to a cafe that Eitel had never seen before, in the new quarter of town. David said something in Arabic to the proprietor and he brought mint tea for two.

  “I don’t like mint tea,” Eitel said.

  “Drink. It washes away bad tastes. How did it go last night?”

  “Fine. Just fine.”

  “You and the woman, ficky-ficky?”

  “None of your ficky-ficky business.”

  “Try some tea,” David urged. “It not so good last night, eh?”

  “What makes you think so?”

  “You not look so happy. You not sound so happy.”

  “For once you’re wrong,” Eitel said. “I got everything I wanted to get. Do you understand me? I got everything I wanted to get.” His tone might have been a little too loud, a little too aggressive, for it drew a quizzical, searching look from the Moroccan.

  “Yes. Sure. And what size deal? That is my business, yes?”

  “Three million cash.”

  “Only three?”

  “Three,” Eitel said. “I owe you a hundred and fifty thousand. You’re doing all right, a hundred and fifty for a couple of hours’ work. I’m making you a rich man.”

  “Yes. Very rich. But no more deals, Eitel.”

  “What?”

  “You find another boy, all right? I will work now with someone else, maybe. There are plenty of others, you know? I will be more comfortable with them. Is very bad, when one does not trust a partner.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “What you did last night, going off with the woman, was very stupid. Poor business, you know? I wonder, did you have to pay her? And did you pay her some of my money too?”

  David was smiling, as always. But sometimes his smiles were amiable and sometimes they were just smiles. Eitel had a sudden vision of himself in a back alley of the old town, bleeding. He had another vision of himself undergoing interrogation by the customs men. David had a lot of power over him, he realized.

  Eitel took a deep breath and said, “I resent the insinuation that I’ve cheated you. I’ve treated you very honorably from the start. You know that. And if you think I bought the woman, let me tell you this: she isn’t a woman at all. She’s an alien. Some of them wear human bodies when they travel. Underneath all that gorgeous flesh she’s a Centauran, David.”

  “And you touched her?”

  “Yes.”

  “You put yourself inside her?”

  “Yes,” Eitel said.

  David stood up. He looked as though he had just found a rat embryo in his tea. “I am very glad we are no longer partners, then. Deliver the money to me in the usual way. And then please stay away from me when you are in this city.”

  “Wait,” Eitel said. “Take me back to the Merinides. I’ve got three more paintings to sell.”

  “There are plenty of taxi drivers in this city,” said David.

  When he was gone, Eitel peered into his mint tea for a while and wondered if David meant to make trouble for him. Then he stopped thinking about David and thought about that glimpse of a green sun and a golden landscape that Agila had given him. His hands felt cold, his fingers were quivering a little. He became aware that he wanted more than anything else to see those things again. Could any Centauran make it happen for him, he wondered, or was that only Agila’s little trick? What about other aliens? He imagined himself prowling the nightclub, hustling for action, pressing himself up against this slithery thing or that one, desperately trying to re-enact that weird orgasmic moment that had carried him to the stars. A new perversion, he thought. One that even David found disgusting.

  He wondered what it was like to go to bed with a Vegan or an Arcturan or a Steropid. God in heaven! Could he do it? Yes, he told himself, thinking of green suns and the unforgettable fragrance of that alien air. Yes. Yes. Of course he could. Of course.

  There was a sudden strange sweetness in his mouth. He realized that he had taken a deep gulp of the mint tea without paying attention to what he was doing. Eitel smiled. It hadn’t made him sick, had it? Had it? He took another swig. Then, in a slow determined way, he finished off all the rest of it, and scattered some coins on the counter, and went outside to look for a cab.

  Multiples

  No heartrending sagas of the torments of creation with this one. It was July of 1983; I had finished Valentine Pontifex, which had turned out to be unexpectedly difficult to write (the first half of 1983 was one of those periods of my life that I’d just as soon not repeat); a few days after the novel was done I sat down and wrote “Multiples” in what was essentially one long take, did a little minor editing, and sent it off to Ellen Datlow of Omni, who accepted it right away. They should all be that easy. But in this case (as with “Ama
nda and the Alien” of the previous year) I was making use of my own home turf as the setting instead of having to invent some alien world, and the theme of multiple personalities was one I had been thinking about for some time. Characters and plot fell into place in that magical way that makes writers want to get down on their knees and offer thanks.

  The story felt like a winner to me right away. Ellen published it in her October, 1983 issue. It was chosen for the first volume (1983) of Gardner Dozois’ annual Year’s Best Science Fiction anthologies, and has had a healthy reprint existence ever since. For a dizzying moment in the late 1990s it looked as though Stephen Spielberg was going to make it into a Major Motion Picture, too, but that deal went away as most Hollywood deals go away, leaving nothing but a conspicuous residue of cash on my doorstep. The story also gets me occasional letters from actual multiple-personality people, who want to know if I’m one myself, or married to one. (The answers are No and No—so far as I know.)

  And, if you don’t mind, I’d like to append a little bragging here. Having “Multiples” chosen for one of the best-science-fiction-of-the-year anthologies completed an unusual sweep for me, one of which I’m immensely proud. There were then three such anthologies, edited by Dozois, Donald A. Wollheim, and Terry Carr. I had stories in all three of them for the year of 1983. Other writers have achieved that now and then, when some particularly strong story was picked by all three editors—but I had a different story in each book. I don’t think anyone had ever managed that trick before. (I did it again in 1989. That time, though, I managed to get five stories into the three anthologies. Go ahead, top it if you can!)

  ___________

  There were mirrors everywhere, making the place a crazyhouse of dizzying refraction: mirrors on the ceiling, mirrors on the walls, mirrors in the angles where the walls met the ceiling and the floor, even little eddies of mirror-dust periodically blown on gusts of air through the room, so that all the bizarre distortions, fracturings, and dislocations of image that were bouncing around the place would from time to time coalesce in a shimmering haze of chaos right before your eyes. Colored globes spun round and round overhead, creating patterns of ricocheting light. It was exactly the way Cleo had expected a multiples club to look.