Aliens Among Us

by Gardner Dozois

That was Wagner talking, Pat discovered when she opened her eyes. He was staring at her, shaking his head, staring staring staring as if she were the Gorgon and he couldn't take his eyes away though the sight of her was killing him. Really foul stuff kept coming out of his mouth, Major Misogyny—until Sam, after telling him to "Cool it, man," went over to him, grabbed him by the lapels, and warned that if he didn't "chill out" he'd be "yanked from the case."

  Pat had no idea what had set Wagner off. But then Dr. Johns said: "Don't you believe in wearing underwear, young lady?" Pat gaped at him, and first wondered how he knew, and then grew suspicious that they had somehow peeked under her skirt while she was sleeping. "If modesty doesn't concern you, perhaps you might be interested to know you're just asking for a bladder infection," he went on. "And if there's one thing women are always getting besides yeast infections, it's bladder infections." And he tsked-tsked at her in that you're-so-disgusting way all adults, no matter their ideological persuasion, have.

  "How do you know I'm not wearing underwear?" Pat demanded of him.

  Sam came over to her and bent to whisper in her ear. "Your erection is showing."

  Astonished, she looked down at her lap and saw her skirt flare up into a point, then as suddenly drop flat. The movement, she noticed, coincided with one of those delicious new genital sensations that had been introduced in the dream. Preoccupied with this revelation, she said (somewhat absently), "It's just that none of my underwear fits right, and larger sizes don't work because then they're too big everywhere else and just slide off."

  Pat understands what happened up to this point. Gazing out the window, observing that they were accessing the San Diego Freeway, she can't help but smile at the memory of her having created such a humorous sight, viz., her penis popping up and down, basically out of control. (How much easier, she thinks, not having to worry about the signs of one's sexual arousal showing. This new experience is a little like the kind of practical and psychological hassle you go through when you first start menstruating, or when your breasts are growing and you have to worry about bras, cup-sizes, straps, and the embarrassment of bouncing and all that.)

  No, it's what happened next that she doesn't understand. Actually, it was perfectly natural for her to put her hand over it—to hide it from view (and to keep it under control). Maybe it was the greasy white look on Wagner's face, or the pursed lips on Baldie's and the echo of Sinead's voice endlessly repeating Nothing compares, nothing compares to you . . . (not from her tape player, which had long since shut off). But when she put her hand on it, it reminded her of putting her hand on Joshua's—maybe because it was through cloth, as she'd always felt his? But also, the pressure of her hand had caused a wonderful, shimmering sensation that ran through her entire body. . . . And so, smiling (she remembers that she was, because her whole being had in that moment been illuminated with joy), not thinking, she just started rubbing it, gently, with one finger. . . .

  Except, of course, that Wagner had then gone berserk. And Sam said, "Pat, hey, cool that—if you'll just think for a second how you'd feel if we did that in front of you!"

  Which had made her giggle (she still doesn't know why)—and say to Baldie off the top of her head, "I guess Freud was wrong, hunh? When he said that little boys feel threatened with castration when they discover that a woman or a girl doesn't have a penis. Because if that were true, wouldn't men feel less threatened when they saw that a woman did have a penis?" At which Wagner, cursing, screaming at her to "shut your mouth," charged her. And then suddenly Sam and Shelly were pulling her out of the chaise lounge and hustling her off to the bathroom, Sam all the while lecturing her about "behaving" herself and threatening her with "fifty-seven different kinds of hell to pay" if she didn't.

  What stymies her is that the whole thing makes her want to laugh—and masturbate (both sets of genitals). Never has she in front of another person touched herself in a sexual way. Previously the idea would have horrified her. So why isn't she mortified at having been caught in the act by four people?

  When they pass the exit to Interstate 8, Pat speaks for the first time since getting into the car. "Hey, I thought we were going to Hillcrest?"

  "We are," Sam says, "but we're going to stop at your place first." He stretches his arm along the back of the seat. "So, tell me something, Pat."

  Pat makes a face and turns almost sideways to stare out the window, to put her back to him. She hates it when men use their arms and legs to mark territory in that fake-casual way.

  "I've been wondering, given what you said earlier about your reasons for not going to Berkeley or Santa Cruz," Sam plows on anyway, "whether you've told your parents about what's happening to you."

  Pat freezes. Most of the time she lay awake in the hospital bed last night had been spent debating whether or not to tell them. Her first thought had been that they would make a big deal about it, would get lawyers, possibly the ACLU, maybe even involve the press. Which would turn her into a freak. And her parents and their collective would probably get hassled, her father's record dragged out. (sex freak's father shot off two toes outside army induction center during vietnam war! history of family insanity! was it in the genes all along?) The winery could get blacklisted, or people might come to associate it with a mysterious virus, thereby washing twenty years of hard work down the tubes. . . .

  "Did you even tell them you were seeing Joshua?" Sam presses, "or are you so estranged from them that—"

  Pat rockets back in her seat. "My relationship with my parents is none of your fucking business!" she blazes at him. All that seemingly casual conversation on the beach, about college choices, about how weird it was that someone who'd taken UC summer courses at Santa Cruz during her last two years in high school, someone with test scores as exceptional as hers, would go to a place like UCSD when Berkeley would obviously be glad to have her: all that was simply a fishing expedition.

  Sam leans slightly forward and puts his hand on Shelley's headrest. "Could you take down a note for me, Shelley?"

  Shelley flicks on the laptop (which Pat hadn't thought could be used literally in one's lap), flips the screen upright and makes several keystrokes. "All right, Dr. Hardwick, I'm all ready to go. Shoot."

  Sam checks his Casio. "Two-twelve p.m. Subject continues to display signs of escalating aggression. Take blood sample immediately on return to institute to have testosterone levels checked. Speculation that t-production has surged since lunch. End note, Shelley." Sam settles back. "And thanks."

  "Hah, hah, hah, that's really really cute," Pat jeers, just barely holding onto her temper. But that scene in the bathroom . . . She supposes that's what he means by aggression. Well if he thinks he can bamboozle her into believing such raging-hormone shit . . .

  "I'm serious," Sam says.

  Wagner swings the car off the freeway onto Fifth Avenue. "The sooner she has her operation, the better," he rumbles—then hits the horn in irritation at another driver's braking before giving a turn signal.

  A lump rises in Pat's throat. Without thinking, she touches her hand to her lap. Though she was eager enough to get rid of it all only a few hours ago, the thought of losing these new sensations stuns her. They can't make her. have it all removed, can they?

  Whether they can or not, she vows that they won't. And it comes to her, for the first time, that it is all she has left of Joshua.

  Ulrike had left a letter in the usual place. Acutely aware of Sam's gaze, Pat pounces on it. The entire crew has swarmed into the cottage, like locusts ready for a good chomp. "What are you doing?" Pat shouts at Wagner when she sees that he's seated himself at her desk and is going through the drawers. Hadn't they seen there was nothing to find when they searched the place last week?

  "You let us in yourself, honey," Wagner says, unperturbed. "But don't worry. We won't take anything."

  Pat rounds on Sam, who's still watching her (probably with designs on the letter). "You tricked me," she accuses.

  "Go pack your bag," is all he says.r />
  Shelley follows her into the bedroom, like a shadow. Thinking of how easy it would be to "lose" the letter, Pat stuffs it down the front of her shirt.

  When they'd pulled up alongside the "court" of cottages, Sam had told her they were there so that she could pack "a few things" that would make her "stay at the institute more comfortable." Always thinking of her comfort, that man. What a guy! "For how long are you people holding me?" she nevertheless demanded. "I told you what you wanted to know. I kept my side of the bargain."

  "Bargain?" he repeated, as though incredulous. But then he sidled close and half-whispered, "It'll just be for a couple of days, Pat. So that we can run a few more tests. And make sure the virus doesn't kick anything else up at you. The institute's more comfortable than the hospital, isn't it? Anyway, I've no doubt you'll be returning to classes on Monday. So if I were you I'd just relax, and enjoy the beach and the food and whatever else we can do for you." And then he leaned past her and opened the door.

  Instead of getting out, she said, as though the idea had just occurred to her, "This is crazy, Sam. You know? It's not like this virus is deadly. You don't even treat people infected with HIV like this!"

  "We don't know that it's not deadly," he said very gently. "And more importantly," he went on, his eyes agleam with sudden excitement, "you're the only one known to have it. Imagine if we'd gotten hold of the first case of HIV before it had been trans—" But there he stopped, as though realizing he was giving away more than he'd intended.

  Pat throws a few things into a suitcase and heads for the bathroom. The door's got a bolt, and this she at once slides home. Relieved to be alone at last, she settles on the floor against the door and pulls out the letter.

  Monday evening

  Pat—

  There's so much I have to tell you. (Though I don't know if you'll even get this—that's how little idea I have of what the eff is going on.) First, regret to say I'm off to L.A. as planned. Feel bad about leaving town, even for three days when god knows what your situation really is. But I don't think there's anything here I can do straight off, and then of course my parents have paid a lot for the workshop. . . . Suspect I'll be too worried to get much out of it. If so, I'll exit prematurely.

  Hope you won't be pissed at me when I say I did a stupid thing, namely blabbed out some stuff about Joshua before I realized I shouldn't. (Me and my big mouth.) I said, for one thing, that you'd been staying over with him regularly. I also told how you met him at the Quel. (It was their GREAT interest in that that made me wake up, sorry to say.)

  I really feel rotten about this. I mean, I don't even know what it is you have. THEY seemed to think it was ultra-dangerous. Why didn't you tell me, Pat O'Pat? Don't you know I care too much to be scared off? If you had AIDS I'd be sad, sure, but not PHOBIC for christsake. ('Course, I suppose I could still turn out to have this thing—otherwise why would they have taken a blood sample. And then we'd be in the same boat together, right?)

  Never mind, as you-know-who always said . . .

  Now. The second Big Thing. God, Pat, I agonized like mad over this one. But I finally decided to do it. I called your parents, and told them about the men who questioned me and took my blood. I mean, it sounds like SOMEBODY should know where you are. Since they wouldn't tell me, or let me talk to you on the phone much less visit, how the hell do I know if you're all right? To my nose, the whole thing stinks like rotten fish. And anyway, if you're seriously ill, they need to know. I mean hell, Pat, you may not like them being so political and all, but you're close, still, in spite of the differences. Considering how my folks are—busy in their respective remarried lives, not all that interested in the detritus of divorce. . . . Anyway. The bad thing is, I knew only your gynecologist's name. Couldn't tell them anything else. But they're flying down here tomorrow. Probably they'll find you before you find this letter.

  Anyway. If I don't hear from you by the time I'm back, I'll join forces with your parents and tear this damned county apart looking for you. (And that's a PROMISE.) If only, though, I had your address. . . . (But then I might as well wish we were both telepathic, right?)

  Hang in there kid—

  U.

  Knuckles hit the door, making it rattle against Pat's back. "Pat?" Shelley calls. "Are you all right? You've been in there a long time."

  Feeling sick to lose this small scrap of not-aloneness, Pat rips the letter into shreds, drops the shreds into the bowl and flushes. Ulrike hadn't known when she wrote the letter that she tested out negative. What the hell could she be thinking and feeling? And if she knew? What would she think then? Sharing a cottage with that?

  Pat opens the medicine chest and pulls out the toiletries she wants to pack. Seeing the tube of Chap Stick makes her think of lipstick and the old trick of writing messages on mirrors. But neither she nor Ulrike wears lipstick. Or uses eyebrow pencil or mascara. Her eyes rove the shelves. . . .

  This time a fist lays into the door. "Pat?" Sam shouts. "I want some voice contact, woman. And now! Or we'll come in through the window!"

  Pat unscrews the cap on the tube of toothpaste. "You wouldn't fit!" she yells back. And then she quite carefully dabs GLEASON INST. OFF LA JOL BLVD, BEACHFRNT on the plain metal surface lining the inside of the cabinet door.

  "What the hell are you doing in there, taking a bath?"

  "No, of course not. I'm too horny for that!" Pat shouts back—but then spoils it by dissolving into giggles.

  "Shit, man, she's masturbating!" It's Wagner's voice, right beside the door. Pat imagines the three of them crowded against it, competing for a place to lay their ears.

  Very very gently Pat clicks the cabinet door shut. Then she checks the bowl to make sure the paper all flushed, gathers up the toiletries, slides the bolt back, and flings open the door. She's disappointed when only Wagner falls into the room.

  Sam hustles her out to the car. "Surely you must have some memory of how you got from your house to his?" he says when Wagner asks for instructions.

  Pat sighs; she studies her nails; she puts her hand to her throat. "Really, I don't. It was always dark. And we were on a motorcycle. From a motorcycle everything looks the same, nothing looks familiar. As I said before, it was one of those residential sections, somewhere in the vicinity of the zoo."

  Sam leans his head back against the seat. "Liar," he mutters. But instead of trying to strike another bargain with her, he simply tells Wagner to drive to the other side of the park, near the zoo. They will "pick up the trail there," he says.

  All the time he's watching, waiting, for something to show in her face. A facial twitch or a verbal slip are their only chances of finding Joshua. Which is why she's going to keep her nose glued to the window, out of sight, and her mouth shut whenever Joshua is mentioned.

  Joshua's kisses on her neck, and the soft stroking of his hand on her belly, wake her, and his special smell fills her with recognition and joy. For a few seconds, in the dark, she's confused. Her senses tell her she's in Joshua's bed, and that Joshua himself is lying beside her, his hands and lips caressing and kissing her. But as she comes fully awake she knows that cannot be. She has a very clear and distinct memory of going to sleep in the room they'd given her in the Gleason Institute, of lying in a proper bed made with starched hospital sheets. Yet the sheet now covering her body is soft, unstarched cotton, and reaching out over the edge of the bed she can knock the wood floor with her knuckles. And when she strains to hear the ocean, she hears instead a car passing, as she had not done either while sitting up in bed reading or lying flat with the lights out, trying to go to sleep.

  But she's so happy to have Joshua back she gives herself over to the delight of feeling, smelling, tasting and touching him, without trying to decide whether she's dreaming, hallucinating, or somehow really with him. She murmurs his name between kisses, and it becomes an incantation she chants again and again and again in honor of the dream, hallucination or miracle she wants the incantation to preserve.

  It's when he'
s pulling the nightgown over her head that she realizes he's completely naked. No underwear, no pajama bottoms, no sweat pants keep her now from touching him. And how strange and delicious it is, taking in through her fingers such riches, warm and mysterious and slippery to the touch, folds and bulges and odd textures to stroke and penetrate. "Do you like it? Are you glad?" Joshua whispers, bringing the first words (other than names) into the night.

  "It's beautiful," Pat whispers back. "But will you let me see?"

  Joshua switches on the reading lamp he keeps on the floor next to his mattress and focuses on the light on the wall. They stare for a long time into one another's eyes. "I'm sorry I had to leave for a while," he says finally. And then he lies back and spreads his legs wide.

  Pat examines him with amazement. (Is this what she looks like?) She's aware that she has no live experience of male genitalia with which to compare it, but she knows this is the way it's supposed to be. At last, she thinks, she knows what is wrong with human beings. Sexual dimorphism, it is obvious, has been nothing but a disaster!

  "I just couldn't stand it any longer, being around you while I was waiting," Joshua says. The smooth full lips under his mustache are curved into a smile, in amusement at the intentness of her examination, she thinks. "I guess I should have told you in advance, so that you wouldn't have exposed yourself to that doctor. But I was afraid you'd be horrified if you knew. And so I just couldn't." Joshua takes her hand. "I hope you're not mad at me for not asking you first?"

  Pat imagines herself drowning in his dark liquid eyes. "I'm so happy to see you," she says. She ignores the hard knot forming in her stomach, she keeps herself from thinking much about his admission that it is he who's caused her to change. "And I love it, the way I am now. Though at first I hated it and felt like a freak, now I wouldn't give it up for anything." She frowns. "Except, maybe my freedom."

  Joshua gestures at the room around her. "You don't need to worry about that," he says. "Haven't you noticed, I've sprung you?"