The 1st Deadly Sin

Tiffany’s or Jensen’s-someplace like that-and buy me a coffee cup and saucer. Something good in bone China, thin and white. You can buy singles from open stock. If it’s patterned, pick out something attractive, something you like. Don’t be afraid to spend money.”

“A coffee cup and saucer, sir?”

“Yes, and see if you can find a spoon, one of those small silver French spoons. Sometimes they’re enameled in blue patterns, flowered patterns. That would be fine.”

“One coffee cup, one saucer, and one spoon. Will that be all, sir?”

“Yes-no. Get the same thing for yourself. Get two sets.”

“Oh, Mr. Blank, I couldn’t-”

“Two sets,” he said firmly. “And Mrs. Cleek, from now on when the commissary delivers my coffee, will you pour it into my new cup and leave it on my desk that way?”

“Yes, Mr. Blank.”

“Keep track of what you spend, including cab fares there and back. I’ll pay you personally. This is not petty cash.”

“Yes, Mr. Blank.”

He clicked off and picked up the president’s envelope, having no great curiosity to open it. He searched the outside.

Finally, sighing, he tore open the flap and scanned the two-sheet memo swiftly. It was about what he had expected, considering the lack of zeal in his prospectus. His suggestion of having AMROK II compute the ratio between editorial and advertising in all Javis-Bircham magazines was approved to this extent: it would be tried on an experimental basis on the ten magazines listed on the attached page, and would be limited to a period of six months, after which time a production management consultant would be called in to make an independent evaluation of the results.

Blank tossed the memo aside, stretched, yawned. He couldn’t, he realized, care less. It was a crock of shit. Then he picked up the memo again and wandered out of the office.

“I’ll be in the Computer Room,” he said as he passed Mrs. Cleek’s desk. She gave him a bright, hopeful smile.

He went through the nonsense of donning the sterile white skull cap and duster, then assembled Task Force X-1 about the stainless steel table. He passed around the second sheet of the president’s memo, deeming it wise, at this time, not to tell them of the experimental nature and limited duration of the project.

“We’ve got the go-ahead,” he said, with what he hoped they would think was enthusiasm. “These are the magazines we start with. I want to draw up a schedule of priorities for programming. Any ideas?”

The discussion started at his left and went around the table. He listened to all of them, watching their pale, sexless faces, not hearing a word that was said.

“Excellent,” he said occasionally. Or, “Very good.” Or, “I’ll take a raincheck on that.” Or, “Well…I don’t want to say no, but…” It didn’t make any difference: what they said or what he said. It had no significance.

Significance began, I suppose, when my wife and I separated. Or when she wouldn’t wear the sunglasses to bed. Oh, it probably began much sooner, but I wasn’t aware of it. I was aware of the glasses, the masks. And then, later, the wigs, the exercises, the clothes, the apartment…the mirrors. And standing naked in chains. I was aware of all that. I mean, I was conscious of it.

What was happening to me-is happening to me-is that I am feeling my way-feeling: that’s a good word-feeling in the sense of emotion rather than the tactile sense-feeling my way to a new perception of reality. Before that, before the sunglasses, I perceived and reasoned in a masculine, in-line way, vertical, just like AMROK II. And now…and now I am discovering and exploring a feminine, horizontal perception of reality.

And what that requires is to deny cold order-logical, intellectual order, that is-and perceive a deeper order, glimpsing it dimly now, somewhere, an order much deeper and broader because…The order I have known up to now has been narrow and restricted, tight and disciplined. But it cannot account for…for all.

This feminine, horizontal perception applies to breadth, explaining the apparent illogic and seeming madness of the universe-well, this perception does not deny science and logic but offers something more-an emotional consciousness of people and of life.

But is it only emotional? Or is it spiritual? At least it demands a need to accept chaos-a chaos outside the tight, disciplined logic of men and AMROK II, and seeks a deeper, more fundamental order and logic and significance within that chaos. It means a new way of life: the truth of lies and the reality of myths. It demands a whole new way to perceive a-

No, that’s not right. Perception implies a standing aside and observing. But this new world I am now in requires participation and sharing. I must strip myself naked and plunge-if I hope to know the final logic. If I have the courage…

Courage…When I told Celia of the power I felt when selecting my victim, and the love I had for him when he was selected-all that was true. But I didn’t mention the fear-fear so intense it was all I could do to control my bladder. But isn’t that part of it? I mean emotion-feeling. And from emotion to a spiritual exaltation, just as Celia is always speaking of ceremony and ritual and the beauty of evil. That is her final logic. But is it mine? We shall see. We shall see.

I must open myself, to everything. I grew in a tiled house of Lalique glass and rock collections. Now I must become warm and tender and accept everything in the universe, good and evil, the spread and the cramped. But not just accepting. Because then I’d be a victim. I must plunge to the heart of life and let its heat sear me. I must be moved.

To experience reality, not merely to perceive it: that is the way. And the final answer may be dreadful to divine. But if I can conquer fear, and kill, and feel, and learn, I will bring a meaning out of the chaos of my new world, give it a logic few have ever glimpsed before, and then I’ll know.

Is there God?

3

He pulled that brass plunger, standing at her teak door, grasping the bundle of long-stemmed roses, blood- colored, and feeling as idiotic and ineffectual as any wooer come to call upon his lady-love with posies, vague hope, a vapid smile. “Good-afternoon, Valenter.”

“Good-afternoon, thir. Do come in.”

He was inside, the door closed behind him, when the tall, pale houseman spoke in tones Daniel was certain were a burlesque, a spoof of sadness. That long face fell, the muddy eyes seemed about to leak, the voice was suited for a funeral chapel.

“Mither Blank, I am thorry to report Mith Montfort hath gone.”

“Gone? Gone where?”

“Called away unexthpectedly. She athked me to prethent her regreth.”

“Oh shit.”

“Yeth thir.”

“When will she be back? Today?”

“I do not know, thir. But I thuthpect it may be a few dayth.”

“Shit,” Blank repeated. He thrust the flowers at Valenter. “Put these in some water, will you? Maybe they’ll last long enough for her to see them.”

“Of courth, thir. Mather Tony ith in the thtudy and would like you to join him, thir.”

“What? Oh. All right.”

It was a Saturday noon. He had imagined a leisurely lunch, perhaps some shopping, a visit to the Mortons’ Erotica, which was always crowded and entertaining on a Saturday afternoon.

And then, perhaps, a movie, a dinner, and then…Well, anything. Things went best, he decided, when they weren’t too rigidly programmed.

The boy languished on the tufted couch-a beauty!