Robert Silverberg - The Second Trip

“I’ll visit you in jail, yes.”

“You’ll visit me in my studio. We’ll sit and talk about how good it was before I crapped everything up. Remember, ’02, ’03, when we were just starting out? Lying on the beach in Antigua, and we couldn’t leave each other alone, we did it right out there. Sand in your snatch, eh, Noreen? You didn’t like that so much, but even so, you loved it. And then. The other times. I’ve got them all up here in my head. They banged me around at Rehab, but they didn’t destroy me. They tried hard enough, but they didn’t destroy me.” He took a step toward her. Throat dry, fingertips cold. Getting harder and harder down below. “Don’t be afraid of me. I love you. I love you. I wouldn’t hurt you for anything. Stop backing away. Listen, it’ll be our secret, you and me, the world will think I’m Macy, you can go on being Mrs. Sy Krafft, this cute little house, kids—do you have kids?—whatever you want, only on the side it’ll be you and me again, Nat and Noreen, at my studio.

I’ll do another nude of you. Life-size. It’ll be better than The Antigone. Remember how sore you were, because I used Lissa for The Antigone instead of you? But we were drifting apart then. I didn’t know what was good for me. I had to go through hell to find out. But now. You’ll pose. Shit, I can see it now. You standing over there. Those sweet little tits of yours. Ten electrodes on you. And I’m at the machine, swearing like a bastard. Getting you down, immortalizing your body and your soul. An hour for work, an hour for screwing, an hour for work, an hour for screwing. Oh, Jesus, Noreen, stop staring at me like that!”

“I’ll call the police. When they catch you, Nat, they’ll finish you for good. They won’t even put you through Rehab. They’ll chop you up and flush you away.”

“No. A silver bullet in my head. A stake through the heart.”

“I’ll call them, Nat.”

“Wait. Please, no. Look, I don’t mean to frighten you. I came here to tell you how much I love you. I’ve been in hell, Noreen, literally in hell, and now I’m coming out, I’m going to live again. And I had to come to you. Why be afraid? Tell me you love me.”

“I don’t love you, Nat. You disgust me.”

Hamlin began to shake.

“Brava!” he cried. “Brava! Bravissima!” He started to applaud. “What an actress! What fire in your reading! What steel in your voice!” Imitating her: “‘I don’t love you, Nat. You disgust me.’” Wildly applauding. “Curtain. End of Act Two. Now tell me the real stuff, Noreen. How much you want me. You’re scared, yes, you remember me when I was crazy, when I was doing all that hideous crap, but you’ve got to remember the other me, too, the one you loved, the one you married, everything we did together, the places we saw, the people, the stuff in bed, remember, even the weird stuff, you and me and Donna in the same bed, and then you and me and Alex, eh, Noreen? Love. Trust Passion.” He reached toward her. “Come on. Now. Where’s the bedroom? Or right here on the floor. Let me prove it to you, that you still turn on for me. Okay? Why the hell not? You opened your gate for me five hundred times. Eight hundred. So one more won’t cost you anything.”

He was shouting now. Her cool poise was deserting her. She looked terrified, moving away from him, stumbling over things. He lunged at her. Seizing her wrist, pulling her close. The sweet fragrance of her body mixed with fear-sweat. Her eyes glazed with fright “Noreen,” he muttered. “Noreen. Noreen. Noreen.” The syllables losing meaning and becoming hollow sounds. His skull aflame. His jaws aching. His hands clutching at her clothing. Ripping. The little round breasts popping into view. Oh, Christ, how tender they are! His hands on them. Squeezing. She flailed at him with her fists, clubbing him on the mouth, the nose, the ears. He had one arm locked around her waist; the other, having laid bare her bosom, went to her crotch. To see if she was wet there. To prove to her how wrong she was to refuse him. He was snorting. Like the old days, the bad old days. Hamlin the animal. Hamlin the horny Minotaur. Fragile woman struggling in his arms. A red haze before his eyes. Sweat running down his sides. Noreen kicking, screaming, clawing.

Now, Macy thought, and shoved with all his might Hamlin toppled from his perch. Fell moaning into the abyss. A moment of total disorientation, infinite in duration. Who am I? What am I? Where am I? He let go of the woman he held. She slumped to the floor; he lurched backward and slammed against the wall, and stood there, gasping, exhausted. Blood draining from his skull.

But it was all right. He was in charge again. He was Paul Macy, and he was back in charge.

To get away from there, fast, that was the important thing now. But first some peacemaking. Gestures of reassurance. Noreen Hamlin Krafft lay looking up dazedly at him, a dribble of bright red on her swelling lower lip, hair in disarray, angry blotches on her exposed white breasts where Hamlin had clutched her. They would be dark braises tomorrow. She didn’t move. Waiting numbly for the next onslaught. Resigned to her fate. He said, his voice coming out oddly furry and unfocused, “It’s okay now. I’ve taken control away from him. I’m Macy. I won’t hurt you.”

“Macy?”

“Paul Macy. The Rehab reconstruct. They did a bad deconstruct job on Hamlin and he’s still loose in my head. He grabbed the body’s motor and speech centers last night.” Last night? Last week, last month? How long had Hamlin been running things, anyway? “But he’s down underneath again, where he can’t make trouble. While he was fighting with you I was able to take over.” Gently helping her to her feet. He wondered if she had gone into shock. Making no attempt to cover herself. Tip of her tongue licking at the cut on her lip. He said, “I’m sorry you had to go through all this. Are you badly injured?”

“No. No.” Staring at him. Trying to come to terms with his abrupt transformation. Dr. Jekyll. Mr. Hyde. “Just shaken up.” With trembling fingers she concealed her bosom, tidied her hair. Staring at him. Was his face different now? The lunatic glare of Hamlin gone from his eyes? He knew it wasn’t easy for her to understand any of what had taken place. These shifts of identity: he had come to accept them as part of the human condition, but to her they must be alien, incredible, bizarre. Maybe she thought he had been Macy all along, playing insane pranks on her. Or that he was still Hamlin.

He said, “It would be best if you didn’t tell anyone about this. The police, your husband, anyone. I’m trying to have Hamlin permanently eradicated before he can do some real harm, but there are problems, and getting the police into things would only make it worse for me. You see, I’m in constant danger from him, and if I went to the authorities he might force the destruction of this body, so—” He stopped. She didn’t seem to be comprehending. “Just don’t say anything, yes? If it’s at all in my power I’ll see to it you never go through a scene like this again. Do you follow me?”

She nodded distantly. Pacing about, now, working off her fright. Time for him to go. At the front door he turned and said, “One last thing, though. Can you tell me today’s date?”

“Today’s date.” She repeated it in a flat empty tone. As if he had asked her the name of the planet they were currently on.

“Yes, please. The date. It’s important.”

She shrugged. “The fourth of June, I think.”

“Friday?”

“Friday, yes.”

He thanked her gravely and went out. His body was stiff and he moved gracelessly toward the car, arms flailing spastically, shoulders ramming the air. He and Hamlin evidently had different notions of physical coordination, and his muscles, having taken orders from another mind for eighteen hours or so, were reluctant to go back to the mode he preferred. Not surprising: Hamlin’s way was this body’s normal way, and his own was something imposed from without. He concentrated on reimposing it. Damned good thing Hamlin had only been running the show since last night, since that takeover during the mugging in the hallway of Lissa’s house. Macy had been afraid he might have been unconscious for a week or more before surfacing this morning. In which case he’d have an endless trail of Hamlin’s deeds and misdeeds to trace and follow.