Fritz Leiber - The Sinful Ones

“Not worried about anything?”

“Of course not. What made you ask me that?”

“I don’t know. You look sort of sad.”

She smiled. “Isn’t it all right for love to make you sad?”

“I suppose so, in a way.”

“It makes you sad because when you’ve loved, you’re empty and your guard’s down. And you’re a little frightened because right there before you is the one you love, so tender and easily hurt, and his guard’s down, too.”

“But then joy ought to follow the sadness, before it’s even had a chance to get started.” And he touched her arm, tugged gently at the dressing gown, but she just stayed smiling at him, and after a while he took his hand away.

“You’re sure you’re not bothered about anything?” he queried.

“Oh, darling,” and it seemed to Carr that tears came into her eyes, making them bright, “this is the happiest night of my life. Whatever happens I want you to know that I love you utterly and completely.”

He sat up a little. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“Of course not. But I wanted you to know.”

“Oh, sure.” He hitched himself around a bit as to face her. “But now that you’ve brought up the question of what’s going to happen to us, let’s talk about—”

He faltered. It seemed to him that a black haze had suddenly raced across the room. He rubbed his eyes. When he took his hand away, the room was swimming.

“I didn’t know I was that drunk,” he muttered. “I never thought that just one more drink—”

He looked quickly at Jane. She hadn’t moved. She still seemed to be smiling, very tenderly, almost pityingly. He turned his queerly heavy head toward the little table by the bed. With an effort he brought the brown blur into focus. The surface of the table was bare.

“The powders!” he said, and he had difficulty forming the words. “You put them in my drink.”

She didn’t answer.

“Damn you,” he said, pushing himself toward her smudged image, “you’ve got to—”

He felt her hands on his shoulders, pushing him back.

“You’ll be all right. You just need a little sleep.” Her voice seemed to come from the floor above. He tried to fight her, but he couldn’t lift his hands. The darkness was gaining fast.

“No I don’t,” he protested. “Ja…Plea…

“Just a little rest.”

“I won’t forget you…” he croaked miserably, “I won’…I wo…”

She was leaning over him. For a moment his vision cleared and he saw her face streaming with tears, and her white neck, the unloosened dressing gown, and her breasts. Then the darkness narrowed in around her and closed like the iris diaphragm of a camera.

Carr Mackay rubbed his face against the pillow, rolled over, slitted his eyes open and grimaced at the bright narrow oblong of light beneath the shade.

He waited impatiently for the alarm clock to stop ringing. When the last tinkle finally game, his mind eagerly dove back inside his body and lost itself in countless vague awareness of weight and tension, little pleasurable aches.

Then, just as it seemed certain that he must drive off to sleep again, he briskly got up, stuck his feet in slippers, went to the window, pulled up the shade, looked at the street, sniffed rheumily at the air, and went to the bathroom.

A large washrag, drenched in water hot as he could get it, wrung out, and held to his chin and cheeks, elicited from him the morning’s first smile. The lather felt good, too. He stroked it on thoughtfully, trying to get a uniformly thick coat, like a meringue pie.

When this job was completed to his satisfaction, he picked up his safety razor, squinted at it to make sure it was clean, screwed the handle until the blade had the proper tension, and looked at himself in the mirror. His nostrils twitched with friendly distaste.

“You’re a dumb character, Carr Mackay,” he said to himself in a kindly way, as he pulled the razor down his jaw. “Thirty nine…and an interviewer at an employment agency. That’s the measure of your ability in the workaday world!” He finished the cheek with quick little chops, held the blade under the hot faucet, and started on the other cheek. The first stroke was always the most fun, like shoveling snow. “Oh, but your job’s just a stepping stone? You’re going places from there? In a month, you say, you’ll be Mackay of Fisher and Mackay, editorial counselors? A little big shot?” Pulling his upper lip taut over his teeth, he tucked the razor under his nose and pulled it down carefully.

“Listen, Mackay, whom do you think you’re fooling? Why not admit you’re going to wriggle out of it at the first opportunity, even if you have promised Marcia? You know very well that you hate any and every new job, and that you doubly detest one in which you’re supposed to dazzle other people. And even if you have to take it to placate Marcia, it’s a foregone conclusion that you’ll end up as Mr. Fisher’s office boy. On top of all that the thing’s a pipe dream.” Reversing the razor, he mowed his lower lip. “Oh, but something very different is going to come along, is it? Some totally unexpected event that will burst through the dull round of life and open up a world of mystery and delight? Mackay, my friend, we have been listening to that quaint notion of yours for a long time and we’re getting very sick of it.” He attacked his chin fiercely; it was the crab grass in the lawn of his beard.

“Put it this way: without exactly intending to, you’ve reached an equilibrium in life. Rather hard to work your way farther up, and you don’t want to. And not too easy—ah! there’s the fear!—to slide down.” He started on his neck. Since he’d never quite decided which way the hair grew there, he shaved without confidence.

While reheated the washrag, he studied his shaved face. Odd, though he thought of Marcia, it didn’t bring quite the same feeling of frustrated hunger as it usually did in the early morning. He felt this morning as if he were a neat little machine that could be trusted to go ticking along indefinitely without getting into any trouble—or much of anything else. Reassuring, but also depressing.

He buried his face in the steaming washrag.

Returning to the bedroom, he faced the question of whether to wear his blue or brown suit. A weighty decision—or were all those things decided for you in advance? He chose the brown. While slipping on the trousers, his glance fell on the empty surface of the table beside the bed. He felt a vague quirk of uneasiness. Should something be there? He decided not.

Standing in front of the dresser, he transferred to his pockets the objects neatly laid out on it, and brushed his hair with the military brushes. He glanced at Marcia’s picture, curious as to its effect on him. She looked very cool and well-photographed. Strange, he thought, how we’re tied to faces. He reminded himself that he and Marcia were due at the Pendleton’s tomorrow night—Friday. That would give him another day and a half to brood about the Fisher business.

After a quick patting of his pockets to check whether he had everything he should, and a final glance around the room, he went out the door, locked it behind him, and trotted down the stairs. A glance at the blank-faced Car in the mirror decided him that it was going to be a dull day.

On the street he bought a paper and swung aboard a bus that arrived on cue. He paid his fare and found a seat.

After the ride, he was faced with the morning’s second important question. Reflex or free will, he ordered orange juice, an egg, toast, and coffee. While waiting for them, he continued with the paper—sports and comic page. Again he had a sense of things having been speeded up.