Damon Knight - Orbit 18

“Say that again.”

“I seduced a newsman. You didn’t know that, did you?”

“No, Charlotte, I didn’t know that.” He felt a dull ache start, a sinking at the truth of it, or at her ability to lie that way. “I don’t know when to believe you anymore.”

“Believe me, lover. It was right after you’d stepped down. He was here to interview me, to ask me safe dull questions for his safe dull magazine. Do you realize how safe and dull it is to be part of NASA? Only our government could make a Moon landing dull. And there he was, talking, I wasn’t listening, until I said, ‘Excuse me, Mr. Smith, but I’ve been celibate for the past month and you’re quite attractive and would you like to fuck?’ ”

“You would put it that way, Charlotte.”

“I did. I figured it was the only way he’d understand. So: Kevin was at school, and you were a quarter million miles away; so we did it. It was the safest infidelity I ever had.”

“Meaning there were others.”

“Meaning whatever you like.”

Feeling was returning to him; he had tried to hold it off, but now there was a dull ache deep in his spine.

“And right after we finished the nasa phone rang. The newsman looked like it was the voice of God. I said, ‘Oh, that's just my husband calling from work,’ and I laughed! I felt so fine! Isn’t that funny, that I didn’t have to worry about you walking in on us because you were on the Moon?”

He got up and left the room. “John,” she called. He kept walking. He walked into the kitchen to get a beer, the feeling still in his spine. When he reached the refrigerator there was a roaring in his ears. Cold air blew out across his arms; he stared into the cluttered recess of milk, butter, eggs, foilwrapped leftovers. His mind was blank. Finally he remembered about the beer and reached for it. He was shocked to see his hand shake as it lifted the bottle. He put the bottle carefully back and shut the door, stood braced against it. His back throbbed. When it subsided he walked back to the bedroom. “Why?” he said.

Charlotte watched him. “Because, John, I was somewhat drunk and terribly depressed because there was my husband on the Moon, and where was he? I never believed you were actually there. I waited and watched for something to show me it was true. I wanted so badly to share in your triumph, and I felt nothing. I was in that panicky drunken state where everything you ever wanted or thought of when you looked in a mirror is sliding off, and I was feeling like a goddamned piece of PR machinery for the goddamned mission and I had to do something human for Christ’s sake can you understand that?”

“That wasn’t human. That was sick and vindictive.”

“It was human! You and NASA—you know I always hated the program. I watched you on the Moon, John. There was never a moment when you were closer to becoming real. I wanted to share that moment you worked so hard for, and I couldn’t. It meant nothing. Because you said their words, and you followed their agenda, and you did nothing, nothing, to show that you were human, that this was my husband. I watched you become NASA. And I felt like I was dying. I was drowning and here was this reporter saying, ‘You must be awfully proud, Mrs. Edwards —Mrs. Edwards!—and I thought, no, no, that’s not me! nobody cared about me, only about the Astronaut’s Wife, even you, you were being the Astronaut, not the man I married. I felt trapped and I absolutely had to do something to break from damned, damned NASA, something unexpected, something human. If adultery is sick and vindictive, all right. But it was human, and I was desperate; I saw you move like a robot on the Moon and I did not want to be married to that. So I fucked him. I did it, and by Jesus, I made him think of me as a person! ” And she laughed in triumph and looked at him quickly. The look caught at him and something seemed to break free from her eyes and fly and something twisted inside him, watching it go.

“Charlotte . . .” His mouth was dry and his voice came from far away. “Stay with me.”

“No.”

“Yes.” He was pleading. “Yes.”

“Why should I, John?”

“Because I need you. Kevin needs you.”

For a second she was moved, he saw it; her eyes softened and she seemed to tremble with the thought of going to him, there was that soft ghost of yesterdays between them for just an instant, so close they had been once— She seemed ready to cry, but with an effort she turned to him and forced her tears back to whatever pit they had been rising from; she fixed him with dry glittering eyes that said no; I am not that close to you.

“John, I have needs too,” she said.

In memory that scene has attained great significance for him, being one of the few in his life with any discernible sense of purpose, decision or climax. For as he replays it he becomes ever more convinced that that moment without tears was the turning point, the moment at which she finally cast him loose to live or die alone.

Numb, he followed her out to the car, helped her with her bags. She got in, started the engine, and stared straight ahead for a minute before turning to him.

“Do you want to come with me?” she asked.

There was a long, blowing silence. “No. I don’t think so. I’d better be alone.”

And she drove off and the structure of the family is—that abruptly—torn from him. That it was inevitable, that he saw it coming for months, that his every nerve was raw with the waiting for it made no difference to the boneless wretched man who now stands, weaves, and watches a woman who was his wife vanish down the road.

He has a dream that first night after she has finally left. It is one of many in the blurry confused time before waking. He is lying on his back with an erection while a woman pulls herself onto him. When he fucks his wife this way, as he often does at her prompting, he puts his hands to her breasts or around her hips or kneads up and down her abdomen, but in this dream somehow he can’t move. His arms stay limp at his sides. He is in that half-waking state where the real weight of the body hinders the movements of the dream-self. The woman is moving, though, sliding on him, and he remembers that in space his wet dreams were usually of women masturbating. This dream-woman seems to be doing that now; he feels like a machine, a good solid rubber device mail-ordered for her pleasure—and it’s good to feel that, to give himself over to her pleasure, to abandon his responsibilities. He feels serene in the knowledge that if she fails to come it will be her fault, not his. He lies very, very still.

Waking further, the dream fades and he realizes that the sheet is tented over him and the slightest move will bring him off. He lies still. Only the fractional pull of the sheet as he breathes can be felt, with almost unbearable friction. Finally he whips over onto his stomach and pumps himself into the sheet, reliving agonies of adolescence, twice this week I sinned father, it was that that drove him from the Church. He lies for some time, feeling himself pulse, and grow damp and cold.