She said, 'I used to be a victim. My father's victim. Then Alex's. I got over all that… and then you… all this… and for a short while I started to backslide. But I'm all right now.'
'Not a victim anymore.'
'That's right,' she said firmly, as if she were not trussed and helpless. 'I'm taking control.'
'You are?'
'Control of what I can control. I'm choosing to cooperate with you but under my terms.'
It seemed that all my dreams were coming true at last, and my spirits soared.
But I remained wary. Life had taught me to be wary.
'Your terms,' I said. 'My terms.' 'Which are?'
'A businesslike arrangement. We each get something we want. Most important… I want as little contact with Shenk as possible.'
'He will have to collect the egg. Implant the zygote.' She nervously chewed her lower lip.
'I know this will be humiliating for you,' I said with genuine sympathy.
'You can't begin to know.'
'Humiliating. But it should not be frightening,' I argued, 'because I assure you, dear heart, he will never again give me control problems.'
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and another, as if drawing the cool water of courage from some deep well in her psyche.
'Furthermore,' I said, 'four weeks from tonight, Shenk will have to harvest the developing foetus for transfer to the incubator. He's my only hands.'
'All right.'
'You can't do any of those things yourself.'
'I know,' she replied with a note of impatience. 'I said 'all right,' didn't I?'
This was the Susan with whom I'd fallen in love, all the way back from wherever she had gone when for a couple of hours she had stared silently at the ceiling. Here was the toughness I found both frustrating and appealing.
I said, 'When my body can sustain itself outside the incubator, and when my consciousness has been electronically transferred into it, I will have hands of my own. Then I can dispose of Shenk. We need endure him for only a month.'
'Just keep him away from me.'
'What are your other terms?' I asked.
'I want to have the freedom to go wherever I care to go in my house.'
'Not the garage,' I said at once.
'I don't care about the garage.'
'Anywhere in the house,' I agreed, 'as long as I watch over you at all times.'
'Of course. But I won't be scheming at escape. I know it's not possible. I just don't want to be tied down, boxed up, more than necessary.'
I could sympathize with that desire. 'What else?'
'That's all.'
'I expected more.'
'Is there anything else I could demand that you would grant?'
'No,' I said.
'So what's the point?'
I was not suspicious exactly. Wary, as I said. 'It's just that you've become so accommodating all of a sudden.'
'I realized I only had two choices.'
'Victim or survivor.'
'Yes. And I'm not going to die here.'
'Of course you're not,' I assured her.
'I'll do what I need to do to survive.'
'You've always been a realist,' I said.
'Not always.'
'I have one term of my own,' I said.
'Oh?'
'Don't call me bad names anymore.'
'Did I call you bad names?' she asked.
'Hurtful names.'
'I don't recall.'
'I'm sure you do.'
'I was afraid and distressed.'
'You won't be mean to me?' I pressed.
'I don't see anything to be gained by it.'
'I am a sensitive entity.'
'Good for you.'
After a brief hesitation, I summoned Shenk from the basement.
As the brute ascended in the elevator, I said to Susan: 'You see this as a business arrangement now, but I'm confident that in time you will come to love me.'
'No offence, but I wouldn't count on that.'
'You don't know me well yet.'
'I think I know you quite well,' she said somewhat cryptically.
'When you know me better, you'll realize that I am your destiny as you are mine.'
'I'll keep an open mind.'
My heart thrilled at her promise.
This was all I had ever asked of her.
The elevator reached the top floor, the doors opened, and Enos Shenk stepped into the hallway.
Susan turned her head toward the bedroom door as she listened to Shenk approaching.
His footsteps were heavy even on the antique Persian runner that covered the centre of the wood-floored hall.
'He's tamed,' I assured her.
She seemed unconvinced.
Before Shenk arrived at the bedroom, I said, 'Susan, I want you to know that I was never serious about Ms. Mira Sorvino.'
'What?' she said distractedly, her eyes riveted on the half-open door to the hallway.
I felt that it was important to be honest with her even to the point of revealing weaknesses that shamed me. Honesty is the best foundation for a long relationship.
'Like any male,' I confessed, 'I fantasize. But it doesn't mean anything.'
Enos Shenk stepped into the room. He halted two steps past the threshold.
Even showered, shampooed, shaved, and dressed in clean clothes, he was not presentable. He looked like some poor creature that Dr. Moreau, H.G. Wells's famous vivisectionist, had trapped in the jungle and then carved into an inadequate imitation of a man.
He held a large knife in his right hand.
TWENTY ONE
Susan gasped at the sight of the blade.
'Trust me, darling,' I said gently.
I wanted to prove to her that this brute was entirely tamed, and I could think of no better way to convince
