The Silver Metal Lover(30)

I showered and washed my hair, and let the machine warm-comb it dry. I put on dress after dress, but none of them was right. Then I put on black jeans which were too tight for me (and found they weren’t, but then, I’d hardly eaten today, and my Venus Media capsules were due again tomorrow), and a silk shirt Chloe gave me that I never wore because Demeta didn’t like it.

The piano had long since stopped. It was about five forty-five P.M., and the storm was over in the Vista. A blue sunset covered the sky and the furnishings, and I couldn’t see him. He wasn’t there.

I’d told him I’d send him back, and Egyptia owned him. Could he have left? Was it possible for a robot to make that sort of decision? I went out of the Vista, and the lift was down on the mezzanine, but not the foyer. A surge of blood went through me, as if my circulation had been waiting for information. I got the lift back and went down. He was in the library, in the long chair across the balcony-balloon. The lamp was on. He was reading. He seemed to need light, but it took him about fifteen seconds to take in each page.

I went into the library. I was humbled. I walked over to him and sat on the floor by the chair, and leaned my head against his knee. It seemed natural. And his hand coming to stroke my hair, that was natural too.

“Hallo,” he said.

No resentment, of course. I could almost be resentful at his lack of resentment.

“Listen to me,” I said, quietly, “I’m going to explain, too. I’m not going to look at you, but I’ll lean here, and I’ll say it. I’m still slightly high on the wine, and very relaxed. Is that all right?”

“Yes, Jane,” he said.

I closed my eyes.

“I’m very stupid,” I said, “and very selfish. That’s because I’m rich and I don’t know much about real life. And I’ve been sheltered. And I have a lot of faults.”

He laughed softly.

“You mustn’t interrupt,” I said, very low. “I want to apologize. I know you’re indifferent to my—my tantrums. But I have to apologize for my own sake. Tell you I’m sorry. And why. I’m confused. I’ve never had a sexual relationship with a man. I’ve had dates, but nothing important. I never enjoyed—I’m a virgin.”

“You’re sixteen.”

“Most of my friends had sexual experience at thirteen or fourteen. Anyway. Anyway, I never will go with a man now. I don’t want to.” I waited, not for effect, but to contain myself. “Because,” I said, “I’m in love with you. Please don’t laugh or reason with me. Or say it will go away. It won’t. I love you.” My voice was calm, and I heard it with admiration. “I know you don’t love. Can’t love. I know we’re just all like slices of cake or something—don’t,” I said, for I felt him tremble with laughter. “But I have less than two days with you, because then my mother comes home and Egyptia will want you back. And I don’t know if I’m ready or not, but please make love to me. Not so I can boast, or to get rid of something, like cutting my nails, or because I’m bored. But because, because—” I stopped talking and rubbed my cheek against him. His long fingers curved over my skull and held me close. I knew I had struck the right note at last. He could give me pleasure of the emotions if not of the body. He could help me. Function fulfilled. But his sweetness came to me, his strength and his sweetness. I trusted him. I’d trusted him with the truth, undramatized, and with no prop—my weakness, my childishness—to take the blame for what I did. I didn’t know him. He was unknowable. But I trusted him.

I got up slowly, and reached down my hand and he took it and left the chair and stood with me, looking into my face. His eyes were full of tenderness, and a kind of wicked joy. It was wicked, and it was joy.

“I love you,” I said, meeting his eyes.

“I know,” he told me. “You said it in Clovis’s apartment, at the window.”

“You heard me? But I didn’t even whisper—”

“I saw your reflection in the glass, as you saw mine, Lip movements.”

“Well… you know, then. I didn’t want to be afraid of saying it. Accidentally.”

” ‘I love you,’ she said accidentally. Don’t be afraid to say it. To my knowledge, you’re the first human who ever did love me.”

“Oh, but—”

“Magnetized, yes. Obsessed. Not love.”

“You’re not going to patronize me.”

“No, Jane.”

“Can we make believe,” I said, “that I don’t need to give any instructions. Please.”

“You don’t,” he said.

He drew me into his arms. It was like the pull of the sea. Kind. Irresistible. Swimming. The texture of the mouth, its moisture—human, the same… only the sensations of the kiss were utterly changed. Then he picked me up as if I weighed nothing at all, and carried me into the lift.

I’m not Egyptia. I don’t want to go into endless details. I was afraid, and not afraid. I was elated, and filled by despair. His nakedness dazzled me, though Demeta long ago saw to it that male nakedness was familiar to me in her selection of my visuals. But he was beautiful and silver, with the blaze of a fire at his groin. Why is the male penis supposed to be ugly? All of him was beautiful. All. And I—I was self-conscious, but his gentleness and his care of me made nothing of that. His gentleness, his care. I didn’t even tear, or bleed. I wasn’t even hurt. Yet he filled me, gloriously. His hair swept me like a tide. No part of him is like metal, except to look at. To touch, like skin, but perfect skin, without unevenness or flaw. And when I said at last, abashed, regretful, but content—”I’m sorry, I don’t think I can, I mean, I won’t climax—I won’t climax”—even the awful jargon didn’t jar, even to speak of it was acceptable. And almost at once a pressure began to grow inside me, and suddenly there were rollers of ecstasy and I caught my breath and clung to him, until they let me go.