She considered for a minute, then spoke sadly. “I think it is too late.”
“Perhaps it is. Perhaps I was already too far gone before I realized it. But at least now you understand why you must return to your brother. I would not compromise you any farther, or embarrass you by–”
“Thorley, I meant too late for me. I thought I was staying with you because of loyalty to my brother, and being informal with you for convenience. Now I realize that I was already on that slippery slope. I admire your intellect and your integrity of philosophy. I was vamping you, unconsciously.”
“No, you were merely being natural. I am the one who–”
“Come off it, Thorley! Against all superficial logic, we’re attracted to each other.”
He frowned gracefully. “Spirit, you are not making this easy. We must separate.”
“Not until you can make it on your own.”
“I shall have to make it on my own. You know why.”
“I think I must remain with you until your wife returns. Then I shall depart without fuss or recrimination, and we will not see each other again. The job will have been done, and our private feelings need never be known elsewhere.”
“You offer an infernally tempting compromise. But is it right?”
“It is not right. It is necessary. And maybe it is not wrong, if we don’t act on our foolish feelings.”
“This will be difficult.”
“We can do it.”
“We must do it.”
But it turned out to be harder than they expected. Spirit’s emotion, once realized, did not retreat, it expanded. She had a hunger to love and be loved romantically. She had catered to that hunger without realizing it, and now was trying to brake a ship that was falling into the sun.
Thorley’s wound was healing, but it remained awkward for him to change the bandages; he was not competent in incidental medicine either. So she did it. The wound was high in the inner thigh, and she had to work around his genitalia. This did not bother her, but she knew it bothered him. Now she noticed something. “My touch does not arouse you.”
“At least I am spared that additional humiliation.”
“I think you are avoiding the issue. Can you be aroused?”
“I fear not,” he said heavily. “The burn seems to have rendered me impotent.”
“Then my job has not yet been done, regardless.”
“You are not responsible for my sexuality!”
“My responsibility is to leave you in the condition I found you, before the debate. I know something about sexuality. I should be able to help.”
“But we agreed not to act on our feelings.”
“Let’s reason this out,” she said. “If we did what we would like to do, we would exchange expressions of love and desire, then embrace and kiss and have sexual intercourse.”
“Unfortunately true.”
“But we are not doing that. We are addressing a particular problem. I have a responsibility to you that must be completed. I have had experience in stimulating men to sexual performance. I will draw on that experience to stimulate yours. I will not do any of the forbidden things.”
“Your logic seems impeccable, but I do not understand.”
“I think the heat of the laser did some partial damage to certain key nerves. It may be that the main ones have been destroyed, but that peripheral ones can take their place and in time restore your capacity. We need to encourage that reprogramming.”
“I still do not understand what it is you propose to do.”
“Bear with me, then.” She completed the bandaging, then took hold of his penis and massaged it. It responded by expanding and hardening. “The mechanism is there, just not the line to the brain. Try to locate that line.”
“Obviously you have expertise, as you indicated. But I confess I have no idea how.”
She backed off and stood before him. “Think what you would like to do, if you could. Try to react.” She removed her shirt, and then her bra.
“This falls into the arena of forbidden expression.”
“This is not romance. It is therapy. What would you do with my body, if you had no constraints?”
“I would kiss those marvelous breasts.”
“Think lower.” She drew off her skirt and panties, then turned in place, doing a small hula dance.
“Spirit, you torture me!”
“Precisely. React.”
But he could not. She got down and addressed his member again. “Maybe if we take you through the process, it will encourage the nerves.”
“Process?”
She took his member in her mouth and worked on it until it swelled to full proportion. But it would not respond beyond that. “Let’s give it a rest,” she said after a while. “I’ll try again this afternoon.”
“You are amazing, but this is useless. The connection is not there.”
“We shall remake it.” She got up and dressed.
“Every time I think I have the measure of you, you take the measure of me,” he said. “I have never encountered a woman your equal, all aspects considered.”
“You haven’t met some of the women I have known. But you do know Megan.”
“She is unparalleled in her area of expertise, which is broad. But she could not do what you just did.”
That was true. “She was never a pirate wench.” But Spirit was flattered. She had made it a point, among the pirates, to learn exactly how to please men, and that knowledge had served her well among the pirates, and in the Navy, and with Gerald. Now, with luck, it would enable her to restore to Thorley what the laser attack had taken. But she wasn’t sure; she had never before tackled physically derived impotence. Could she get the key nerves to reconnect? Suppose she failed?
She went about her business, keeping house for Thorley, feeding him lunch, then reading and critiquing a draft of his latest column. He did several drafts of each, struggling for up to an hour on a single not-quite-perfect turn of phrase. Eloquence came naturally to him, but he lifted it to the status of art by working hard at it. She admired that too.
The cat approached her. She picked him up and stroked him. “Thomas likes you,” Thorley said. “This, too, is important.”
“Thomas brought us together.” For it was Thorley’s concern for his cat that had made her first call necessary.
Then it was mid afternoon. “I will address you now,” she said as he sat in his chair.
“Must you? I find this procedure discomfiting.”
“I must. I am trying to stimulate regrowth or repositioning of nerve functions. There may be no seeming progress at first, but in time you may get a twinge of response, and then we shall know it is feasible.” She opened his trousers and reached inside.
“Your words make sense, but it distresses me to allow you to degrade yourself in such manner.”
“One day we shall debate what is degrading about acquiescent sexual performance,” she said, and put her mouth to his member. She sucked on it as it swelled, but could not rouse it to further accomplishment. Still, she must be stimulating the essential nerve paths.
Three days later he reacted. “I felt a twinge!”
“Wonderful!” She kissed the tip of his member. “Can it stand alone?”
It seemed not. But the next day the twinge was stronger. In several more days she was able to make it swell without touching it. They were definitely making progress.
Then it leveled off. The arousal would go to a point, but not progress beyond. She seemed to come close to swallowing his member, but it would not perform.
“Enough of this child’s play!” she said. “I’m bringing in the first team.” She stood, tore off her skirt and panties, turned around, and carefully sat on the member, guiding it in. “Go go go!” she cried, clenching her vaginal muscles as her bare bottom made full contact with his lap.
And it erupted. She felt the pulses, and rejoiced; she had at last brought him to climax.
When the throes of it eased, she
lifted herself, then fetched a cloth and cleaned up the two of them. “You did it,” Thorley said, amazed. “You completed the process.”
“There is farther to go,” she said, pleased. “You must be able to do it all yourself.”
“But you overstepped the boundary.”
Then she remembered. “There was not to be intercourse. Oh, Thorley, I’m sorry. I didn’t think—I just got so frustrated with incipience–”
“Perhaps there was no other way. To me, oral activity is not—not completely natural. I had an emotional reservation that stifled the culmination. When you—Spirit, I’m glad you forgot. At least you were innocent of evil intent.”
She had to laugh. “And you were not?”
“I was not innocent. I should have warned you before you did it. But temptation overwhelmed me.”
“Then we are both at fault. I think we had better reconsider our program. Shall we eliminate the restrictions and have a full affair?”
“Again, you tempt me wickedly. But where is the justification?”
“To restore your full sexual capacity. Then there will be no remaining debt.”
“But my wife–”
“Would she be satisfied if you lost your potency during her absence?”
“She would prefer there to be no change.”
“When she returns, I will go, and it will be over. You will have your full potency for her benefit. She will have lost nothing.”
“That is perhaps how it must be.”
“We are agreed.” She glanced sidelong at him. “May I do the honors?”
“What can you do, that you have not already completed?”
“I can speak the unspoken, and do the undone.”
“Do the honors,” he agreed wryly.
She leaned down and kissed him on the mouth. “I love you, Thorley.”
“And I love you, Spirit, idiot that I am.”
“We are both idiots. Idiots in love.”
“May I make a confession?”
“It seems to be confession time.”
“You have brought delight back into my realm. I am not speaking sexually. Had I at this moment the ability to go back in time and eliminate the injury that brought you into my life, I would not do it.”
“Nor would I, though I would spare you the pain of it if I could.”
“Yet we know that this must soon end, and never be acknowledged elsewhere.”
“I know who I love, but the dear knows who I’ll marry,” she murmured.
“You are my dear.”
Thereafter their affair was full-blown. They made love in the chair, on the bed, in the shower, and on the floor, to Thomas’s disapproval. They did it in the daytime, evening, and in the middle of the night when they happened to wake. Thorley’s responses were slow at first, but steadily quickened, until he seemed to be fully normal. Between times they spoke of love, and kissed, and embraced, and teased and tickled each other like children.
But always they knew and accepted that it was temporary, and would end when Thorley’s wife returned home. That was in fact one reason for its abandon: they had to do in a limited period what should have taken a lifetime.
Thorley’s repute as a conservative columnist increased greatly, because of his recent notoriety. More media outlets signed up for his byline, and there was more income from the existing ones. His act had been good for his career, and Spirit was glad for him, though she agreed with few of his positions. Sometimes she teased him about that: “You would be a better lover if you endorsed weapons control.”
“How so?” he asked as he penetrated her body.
“You would have more control for your gun.”
“All I need is a bit more target practice.”
“That must be true, because you haven’t worn out this target yet.” She clenched on him, bringing the culmination.
“It is a quality target.”
Meanwhile Hope Hubris won the election, profiting from his share of the notoriety. He became a state senator, and thus a further target for Thorley’s poisonous pen. But the private relationship between the two men had changed.
Thorley’s wife’s sister finally died, and his wife returned to Jupiter. Spirit collected her things and made ready to move out. “It is over,” she said as she transformed to Sancho, as she always did before leaving the apartment.
“It is over,” Thorley agreed.
“I love you.”
“I love you.”
Then they couldn’t help themselves; they made love standing by the door. “You had better not let anyone catch you having sex with a boy,” she said mischievously as he climaxed.
“Only with a glorious woman,” he agreed.
They cleaned up, kissed, and she left. Only when she was well clear did she find a private spot and let the tears flow.
She returned to join Hope, who had hired a Gofer named Ebony, a black woman without pretensions. It was clear that Ebony was already in Hope’s orbit, utterly loyal.
Megan welcomed her back. “We missed you.”
“It took his wife longer to return than expected.”
Shelia, savvy for her age, took one look at Spirit and caught on. “But he had a Navy wife in the interim.”
“It’s over.”
But it wasn’t over. Hope made it a point to inform Thorley of any political news that might interest him, regardless of its sensitivity. Sancho became a courier for it. She left a message with his service: Sancho. They had arranged a rendezvous site, where she handed over a briefcase.
But when they were alone, everything changed. Wordlessly they kissed and embraced, and found a position for clothed sex. They didn’t dare speak, for it was not possible to know who might overhear, or what recorders might be in the vicinity. They could not afford to dally long, for similar reason. So in a few minutes they were done and parted, their efficient act substituting for the words they could not speak.
This continued for months. They simply could not terminate their love. But they were able to keep their secret.
As Spirit was to determine later, on the day Hope hired a female bodyguard named Coral, Spirit conceived a baby. She had never thought to take any contraceptive precaution, for all the men of space were sterile, and Thorley was childless. She had just assumed that he was sterile too. Now she knew better.
She told him. They found a sound-secure spot and discussed it. “I can abort it,” she said.
“I cannot countenance that!” he protested. She had known it; he was conservative on this score too, of course.
“But neither can I keep it.”
He was in agony. “This is true. Your brother’s career and mine would both be ruined by the scandal. Yet it is not possible to give up such a blessing.”
“Blessing!”
“A child of yours. How can it be other than blessed?”
“And of yours. Oh, Thorley, I want it! There has to be a way.”
He considered, then nodded. “There may be. Confide in Megan.”
“But I wouldn’t inflict her with such a burden!”
“One day we must debate whether a child of love can ever be a burden.”
So Spirit, having no choice, broached Megan. “I will adopt it, of course,” Megan said without hesitation.
“But a bastard baby–”
“There are no bastard babies, only bastard adults—and I think this is not the present case. This is as close as I can ever get to having a child by Hope.”
Suddenly Spirit saw it. “Hope’s bloodline!”
“Hope will want it too. We must arrange anonymous confinement for you until the time.”
Thus it was that Thorley and Megan found rare agreement, and when the time came, Hope and Megan adopted Spirit’s baby. They named her Hopie Megan Hubris.
CHAPTER 11
HOPIE
“It wasn’t just that the bloodline is mine,” Hope remarked to Spirit privately. “It is also Thorley’s. He took the shot meant for Megan. She remembers.” In the complic
ations of the situation, Spirit had lost track of that aspect. Of course Megan would value that child. It was her way of repaying Thorley for his formidable service to her.
But it was quickly apparent that Hopie was also wanted for herself. Megan had evidently missed having a family, and plunged into the sudden new business of motherhood with rapture. Hopie had the very best of attention and care from the outset. Spirit was now peripheral, but she could see it happening. There simply could not have been a better placement for this baby. Spirit herself was welcomed as “Aunt Spirit,” and given free access, but she kept it minimal for fear of betraying the secret.
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