“Now kiss me.”
She didn’t wait, but kissed me. Our bodies slid together so that they aligned in several crucial places, all of which had names that I would probably remember, or not. It didn’t matter. My body knew how to answer all the questions hers was posing, was busy answering them, in fact, despite my reservations. I was turned on, happy even, sandwiched there with Cynthia between carpet and Muzak.
Something happened to my penis. Cynthia Jalter had hold of it, the end of it, and was kneading rhythmically, sending me signals. It was a message of some sort, on my private-access channel, my hot line, my Batphone. Maybe it was the secret of the universe. If the medium is the message, it was for sure. So I was about to learn the secret of the universe. I should be pleased.
I sat up.
“What’s the matter?”
“Therapy is supposed to help you understand.”
“Yes. Come back down here and I’ll help you understand.”
“I don’t want to understand.”
“You don’t want to understand what, Philip?”
“My coupling with Alice. I just want it back. I can’t stop wanting that.”
Cynthia sighed. She tugged her twisted clothes back into place. “You don’t want to make love to me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. Should we go out and find you some eggnog? This could be the start of a friendship that only gradually unfolds to reveal mutual desire.”
“Maybe you should drive me home. I don’t feel good.”
It was true. I felt like a mummy, shrouded in carpet and Muzak. I needed fresh air.
Cynthia Jalter buttoned her shirt. Had I unbuttoned it? Had she? Was it an advanced form of shirt that unbuttoned itself?
She led me outside, and I gulped at the night air, as I had the marijuana fumes. I wanted to reverse the damage, clear my brain. Cynthia Jalter went to her car and warmed the engine. I got in beside her. My head throbbed. We drove in silence back to campus.
“Don’t worry,” said Cynthia Jalter as we pulled up outside the apartment. “I understand. You don’t have to say a word. Forget this ever happened, if you like. Or change your mind, come find me. I want you to feel okay about this.”
“Okay.”
“You’re making the worst mistake of your life. I resent you for being so blind. You’d better win Alice back, and it had better be wonderful, because after this anything less is inexcusable.”
“That doesn’t go with the other thing you just said,” I said.
“I know. You can choose which of them you prefer. I’m comfortable either way.”
“Do I have to say now?”
“No, take your time, let me know later.”
“Okay. Good night, Cynthia.”
“Good night, Philip.”
I went inside. The house was quiet, the blind men asleep. I crept in to look at Alice, in our old bed, where she was sleeping. She looked very peaceful. I got under the covers beside her, fully dressed. She stirred, but didn’t wake. I curled around her and quickly fell asleep. When I awoke the next morning she was gone.
30
It was a week until Christmas. Two days until the end of the term. National Entropy Awareness Week, according to the papers. A cloud of stress hung over the campus. Students appeared in my office ranting or shaking like heretics. Tempera Santas appeared on store windows, and immediately began flaking into colorful drifts in the window displays underneath. Braxia announced that the Italian team would fly back to Pisa at the end of the term. They were abandoning Lack. My sports-injury student called me, badly shaken. His results had been published in an in-house journal of the Navy Seals, been taken as relevant to combat situations. On Tuesday hail fell, lodging in the shrubbery like crystals of salt in broccoli.
As for Alice, after our night together she crept back to the margins, the zone of silence. Sometimes it seemed to me that Lack had, after all, accepted her offer, and Alice had passed through to the other side. The part of her that mattered, anyway.
When I came home Thursday she spoke again, but this time my hopes didn’t rise. The trail to my heart was growing cold.
“Something might have happened,” she said.
“Probably something did,” I said. I set my papers on the table.
“Something bad, I think.”
“Tell me about it.”
“Evan and Garth didn’t come home last night.”
“I noticed. Did you check with Cynthia Jalter? Or the blind school?”
“I called them both,” she said.
“That’s a lot of talking,” I said. “Are you sure you really spoke to them? Or did you just dial and breathe heavily?”
“I asked,” she said, ignoring me. “Nobody’s seen them.”
“They’re capricious,” I said. “They’ll come wandering back any minute now, humming the latest pop tunes. They probably went out and got girlfriends and jobs.”
Alice shook her head. “I can’t find my key.”
“What key?”
“The key to Lack’s chamber.” She stared at me, her eyes welling, her chin warping.
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t know,” she said, beginning to sob.
“Well, that’s ridiculous. Braxia explained it to me. Lack won’t take people.”
Alice’s tears stopped abruptly. “Braxia said that?”
“Yes.” Actually, I wasn’t sure he’d said that. But I let it stand.
“How does he know?”
“He knows. He’s a physicist. It’s probably some simple thing, some experiment he did. You could have done it, if you’d stuck with physics.” I went on buttressing my lie. Why, I’m not sure. “So stop worrying about Evan and Garth. It’s just a projection. You’re obsessed with the idea that Lack would take someone else, after rejecting you.”
Alice stared at me hollowly.
“I’ll go find them and bring them back. You stay here.”
I rebuttoned my coat and went out. I drove straight to the physics facility, of course.
There were students idling in the observation room, chatting about Lack, batting out theories. The Lack crowd, the groupies, making the scene. I hated them. I went to the door of the chamber.
“You can’t go in there,” said one of the students.
“Believe me, we’ve tried,” said another.
“He’ll eat you alive,” said a third.
“Who?” I said.
“Professor De Tooth.”
So De Tooth was still at it. My windup toy had turned out to be a perpetual-motion device. “I work with De Tooth,” I said. “I put him onto Lack in the first place. These are my hours he’s working with.”
The first student shrugged. “Don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
I turned the handle, went through the clean room, and into Lack’s inner sanctum.
