by a clerical error. She watched two people die and had a nervous breakdown, her soldierboy paralyzed.
She knew nothing of science or mathematics, physical education major, and although she felt my end-of-the-world anxiety, she just linked it with the suicide attempt. For several minutes, we stopped the sex and just held on to each other, sharing sorrows at a level that’s hard to describe, independent of actual memory, I suppose body chemistry talking to body chemistry.
There was a two-minute warning chime and we re-coupled, hardly moving, slight internal contractions bringing us to a slow-flowing orgasm.
And then we were standing in the lemon heat of the afternoon sun, trying to figure out what to say.
She squeezed my hand. “You aren’t going to do it again—kill yourself?”
“I don’t think so.”
“I know what you think. But you’re still way too upset about him and her.”
“You helped with that. Having you, being you.”
“Oh.” She handed me her card and I signed on the back.
“Even when you don’t charge?” I said.
“Except for husbands,” she said. “Your own, that is.” Her brow furrowed. “I got a little ghost of something.”
I felt a sudden new sweat break out. “Of what?”
“You jacked with her. Only once? Once and a . . . another time that, that wasn’t really the real thing?”
“Yeah. She had a jack put in, but it didn’t take.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” She came close and plucked at my shirt. She looked up at me and whispered, “The stuff I was thinking about you being black, you know I’m not a racist or anything.”
“I know.” She was, in a way, but not malicious and not in a way she could control.
“The other two . . .”
“Don’t worry about it.” She’d had only two other black customers, jacked, full of anger and passion. “We come in all flavors.”
“You’re so cool, so thoughtful. Not cold. She ought to hang on to you.”
“Can I give her your phone number? For a reference?”
She giggled. “Let her bring it up. Let her talk first.”
“I’m not sure she knows I saw them.”
“If she doesn’t know, she will know. You got to give her time to work out what she’s gonna say.”
“Okay. I’ll wait.”
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
She stood up on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek. “You need me, you know how to get me.”
“Yeah.” I repeated her number. “Hope you have a good day.”
“Ah, men. Never get any real action before sundown.” She waved with two fingers and walked away, the silk artfully revealing and concealing with every step, a flesh metronome. I had a sudden backflash and for a moment I was in her body again, warm with afterglow and hunting for more. A woman who enjoyed her work.
It was three o’clock; I’d been gone for six hours. Peter would throw a fit. I took the Metro back and got an armload of groceries at the station store.
Peter didn’t say anything, and neither did Amelia. Either they knew that I’d seen them, and were embarrassed, or they’d been too busy to worry about my absence. Whichever, this week’s bundle of data had come in from Jupiter, and that meant a few hours of painstaking sorting and redundancy checks.
I put away the groceries and told them chicken stew tonight. We alternated cooking—rather, Amelia and I alternated cooking; Pete always called out for pizza or Thai. He had some private source of money, and got around the rationing because he’d wangled a reserve commission in the Coast Guard. He even had a captain’s uniform hanging in plastic in the front hall closet, but he didn’t know whether it fit.
The new data gave me plenty to do, too; pseudo-operator analysis requires some careful planning before you actually start to grind numbers through it. I tried to put the disturbing events of the day behind me, and concentrate on physics. I was only partly successful. Whenever I glanced over at Amelia I had a flash of her face lost in ecstasy, and a pang of reactive defiance and guilt over Zoë.
At seven I put the chicken into a pot of water and dumped the frozen vegetables on top; sliced up an onion and added it with some garlic. Zapped it to a quick boil and then left it to simmer for forty-five minutes, while I put on headphones and listened to some of this new Ethiopian stuff. The enemy, but their music is more interesting than ours.
Our custom was to eat at eight and watch at least the first part of the Harold Burley Hour, a Washington