Robert Heinlein - I Will Fear No Evil

"I mean to be. To you. I love you, lake."

He hesitated only a heartbeat. "I love you—Eunice. And Joan Eunice."

"I'm glad you made it both of us. Jake dearest, you're going to have to marry me. You know that, don't you?"

"What? Oh, heavens, dear, don't be silly. I love you—but there's too much age difference."

"What? Oh, fiddlesticks! I know I'm almost a quarter ofa century older than you are. But it no longer shows. And you understand me and no other man possibly could."

"Huh! I mean I am too much older than you."

(Joan, don't let him talk that way! Tell him men and liquor improve with age. Or some such. Anyhow, he was feeling quite young a few minutes ago—I noticed. Did you?) (Yes. Now quiet, please.)

"Jake, you are not old. Goodness, I know what ‘old' is! You're a classic, Jake—and classics improve with age. And...just minutes ago, you were feeling quite young. I noticed."

"Uh... possibly. But none of your sass—youngster."

She chuckled. "Jake, it's nice to be a girl to you. I won't argue, I'll wait. In time you will realize that you need me and I need you, and that no one else will do for either of us. Then you can make an honest woman of me."

"Harrumph! That might be more than I could manage, even with a marriage license."

"Rude darling. I can wait. You can't escape me, Jake. Eunice won't let you."

"Well...I'm durned if I'll argue; it would just make you stubborn. In either of your personae. My old friend Johann was as stubborn a man as I've ever met—and Eunice was just as stubborn in her own sweet way. And, dear, I never know which one you are. Sometimes I think you've acquired that split personality your doctors were afraid of."

(Get him off this subject!) (I will, dear—but not by being jumpy about it. Aren't we ever going to tell him?) (Yes, of course. But not soon, Joan. Not, till we're in the clear. Remember those straps.) "Jake darling, I'm not surprised that you feel that way about me—because I do myself. Oh, nothing psychopathic, just the odd situation I am in. You've known me how long? A quarter of a century."

"Twenty-six -years, pushing twenty-seven."

"Yes. And while I was never given to copping feels from female employees—would you say that ‘horny old bastard' was an honest description of me?"

"I've never known your behavior toward women to be other than gentlemanly."

"Oh, come now, Jake! You're talking to Johann at the moment. Level with me."

Salomon grinned. "Johann, I think you were a horny old bastard right up to the day we took you in for surgery."

"That's better. Years after I was benched in the matter first for social reasons, the fact that an old man looks a fool if he behaves like a young stud, and later through illness and physical incapacity—years after I was benched my interest in a pretty face or a pretty leg was unflagging. Then I acquired Eunice's healthy young body. Female. Look at me Jake. Female."

"I've noticed!"

"Not the way 1 have! Even though you've kissed me—a real kiss and I loved it, dear—you can't have noticed the way 1 have been forced to. I'm cyclic now, Jake, ruled by the Moon; I've menstruated twice. Do you know what that means?"

"Eh? Natural phenomenon. Healthy."

"It means that the body controls the brain as much as the brain controls the body. I'm tempery and inclined to tears just before my period. My feelings, my emotions, even my thoughts are female—yet I have almost a century of male emotions and attitudes. Take my pretty little nurse-companion, Winnie—and would you like to take her?"

"Uh... damn you, Johann! She's a nice girl. Fifth Amendment."

"She is indeed a nice girl. But because I'm Eunice as well as Johann I know how she feels. She's as female as a cat in heat—and you're an old bull, Jake, and dominant, and if you wanted to take Winnie, she wouldn't put up more than token resistance."

"Joan Eunice, don't talk nonsense. I'm three times her age." (Boss, what are you getting at?) (I'm not sure but I'm getting there.) (Well, don't get Winnie knocked up on the way. I thought we were saving Jake for us.) (Don't be a pig, little piglet. Winnie's a nurse; she sees to her contras as carefully as she cleans her teeth.) "Jake dear, I'm not much older than Winnie in my body... and you've known and loved this body, even though I have no memory of it. We know that Eunice was always a lady—so how did you ever manage to get started with her? Did you rape her?" (Hell, no, I raped him—but he was a pushover.)

"That's a most unfair question!"

"It's a very female question. Knowing you from many years of association—and knowing Eunice both from some years of association but most importantly from now having her body and glands and hormones and deepest emotions—I suspect that you were far too proud to make a pass at her so she found some way to make clear that you were welcome. Once you were certain that Eunice was not trying to make a fool of you—that settled it. Well? Am I right?" (If he says No, he's lying. It took five minutes, sister—and would have been all over in ten but we were interrupted. Had to wait till next day. Remember the mermaid getup? Had to scrub it off before I went home; Jake and I ruined it—and I had to tell Joe a sincere fib.) (Did he believe you?) (I think so. He was painting which means he hardly notices anything else.)

"Jake, are you going to answer? Or let me draw my own conclusions—possibly mistaken?"

"I could answer that it's none of your business!"

"And you would be right and Johann apologizes. But not Eunice. Jake, that's what Eunice's body tells me must have happened. But I can't he certain and I do want to be like her and if that is not what she would have done because it is not what she did—then tell me. I'm not asking for intimate details." (Aw, get the juicy parts, dearie—! want to know how it seemed to him, every sweaty detail. I already know how it seemed to me—and I'll tell you.) (Don't be so right-now, darling—I'm trying to gentle him.)

"Joan Eunice—no, ‘Eunice!' You always have had the damnedest way of getting your own way."

"Is that an answer, Jake? I don't have Eunice's memory." (Says who? Boss, I've figured out some­thing—and it's not flatworms. Everyone has erasable memory and non-erasable memory, just like Betsy—and that non-erasable part is the me that's still here now that I'm dead. ‘Soul' maybe. Names don't matter; it's that part that's not just glands and plumbing.) (Save the philosophy until we're alone in bed tonight, Eunice; I'm trying to cope with a man—and it's heavy going.) (Do you think we're going to. be alone in bed tonight? Want to bet?) (I don't know—and I'm scared.) (Don't be scared. When it happens, you recite the Money Hum and I'll drive. Once around the course and you'll be ready to solo. Except that I'll always be with you. Know sumpin, Boss- honey? It's even nicer to be you than it was to be your secretary. Or will be, once we're back on ground rations.) (Huh?) (Soul talk, dear—means sex. I had it for fourteen years—and I'm hungry.) (I had it over five times that long—I'm at least five times as hungry.) (Could be—you're a horny bitch, Boss.)

Jake finally answered, "Joan, I don't think it's fair to Eunice's memory for me to tell tales about her—but I'll concede your point, assuming that you want to learn, for your own guidance, as much as possible about how she behaved. Eunice was honest and straightforward"—(I'm devious as a snake-but that's what 1 wanted Jake to believe.)—"and she apparently decided that she liked me that much... and made it easy for me. It was neither rape nor seduction." (It was both, but I did not want him to think so. He's a darling Joan. When he's gentled enough—slip the bit into his mouth. But let him think he asked for it.) (I'll try. Meantime I'm still doing this emotional strip-down—and you listen instead of interrupting; you might learn something about me.) (I'll be good, Boss. Mostly.)