Philip Dick - In Milton Lumky Territory

“That would be fine,” he said, with gratitude.

After going off somewhere in the house and rummaging about, she returned with a yellow-plastic drinking cup, and, on the palm of her outstretched hand, a tiny tubular pill.

“Thanks,” he said, rolling the pill from her palm and into his own. She passed him the tumbler and he managed to get the pill down, even with her watching. It had always bothered him to have someone watching him when he swallowed a pill.

Suddenly she put up her hand and pressed it against his forehead, startling him as much as if he had been kicked. “You’re sunburned,” she said. “From driving. I think you have a little sunstroke; you’re probably running a fever.”

“No,” he mumbled.

She glided around the room to the window, lifted the curtains and shade aside to see if the window was closed. “I could hear you tossing around,” she said. “Is it because it’s a strange house? You know, I was thinking that maybe I’ll just put it squarely to Zoe that I want you to start coming in. Tomorrow you come down to the office with me, when I go in at nine. Okay? So go to bed and go to sleep, so you’ll be fresh in the morning. I want to show you all the invoices for the past six months, the things I’ve ordered.”

The times that he had spent the night with Peg had been marred by Peg’s need of keeping her hair up in metal curlers. And her hair, beneath the curlers, was plastered to her scalp in a hard knobby pad. But here stood Susan, with her hair free and soft, and it surprised him. How limited his experience with women during the night hours was. His mother had gone about the house at night with her hair up in a bag that tied like the tails of a Negro mammy’s cap. That ended his experience.

Below her robe, he saw, her feet were bare.

“I’m always fresh,” he said.

“Oh how nice,” she said. “Good night, Bruce.” She swept out of the room and shut the door after her.

The phenobarbital had started to affect him; his senses dulled, he put away his bathrobe and slippers and crept into bed. Presently he began to drift off.

The next he knew, the door was open again and Susan was coming back into the room. She came closer and closer to him, to the bed, and then she bent down so that she was directly over him. her hair brushed across his face, making him want to sneeze. Then the quilt collar of her robe pressed against his shoulder. “Can I get in?” she said. And, sliding and twisting, she was in, beside him in his bed, wrapped up in her quilt robe.

Sighing, she made herself comfortable. She pulled the blankets up over her and then she squirmed over on her side, facing him. And then she sat up, flinging the covers away, and began unfastening her robe. When it was off up over her arms and shoulders she wadded it up and pushed it from the bed, onto the floor. In the darkness he could hear the exertion of her breathing. The bed swayed as she dropped back down beside him, now in a nightgown of some sort; he could not see it but a portion of it rested on his neck.

Now, lying back, she waited. But she did not wait long. All at once she scrambled around, poking her sharp, hard elbows into his chest, to lean over him and peer at him remorselessly. As if, he thought, she could, by staring intently enough, make the room light enough to see. Make him, too, light enough to see. He felt as if she were lighting him up, making him shine everywhere, from head to foot. And still her inspecting gaze traveled over him, making him shine brighter and brighter. The glow of himself made him hurt and he gasped and reached up to move away one of her elbows.

“Hello,” she said.

He said, “I can see you’re not worrying.”

“That’s because of you. You keep me from it.”

“What do you want me to do?” he said.

She said, “Do what you want.” Her voice had a reconciled, obedient quality that was new to him; it was a very small sound, almost a kind of chant. Suddenly her eyelids flew open and she stared at him wildly; her hand rose and she pressed her knuckles into her mouth, as if she were trying not to break out laughing. “This is incredible,” she said. Trembling, she rolled away from him and out of the bed, onto her feet; standing with her back to him she became silent, her head down, one hand on her throat, the other stroking rapidly at her hair.

He rose up out of the bed, in his pajamas, and standing directly in front of her, put his hands on her shoulders. Her bones felt hollow, as he pressed his fingers into her; she seemed to give, to become smaller. She let her arms fall to her sides and she remained silent, passive, even somewhat remote. And presently, as he held onto her, the troubled lines left her face. He pressed his hands harder into her, and for her the situation ceased to be a concern. Everything about her smoothed out and became relaxed and at peace.

Letting go of her shoulders he took her by the hand and led her to the bed. She went placidly, stepping in without a complaint, and arranged herself as he unbuttoned his pajamas.

“Cold?” he said.

“Not too much,” she said in a detached voice. “I have a little headache, that’s all.”

As he entered the bed with her he felt her hands reach past him to pull up the covers. She drew them over them both and then she reached up and clasped him.

“I hope Taffy doesn’t wake up,” she said, all at once becoming concerned and stiff.

“Don’t worry about it,” he told her.

“But suppose she starts looking for me and comes running in here. Oh the hell with it.” With a surge of authority she tugged him down to her.

Her hips were small, and her stomach, beneath him, seemed soft. But she smelled marvelous, from bath salts that she had put on. Her body, all over, was completely smooth, and without fat. She had kept herself in trim, like an athlete or a dancer. Just what he had longed for.

After they were done they sat on the back porch in their robes, in the dark chilly night air. Wind blew around them and forced the shrubs and trees in the garden to lean back and forth. They could hear the wind stirring big, invisible trees off somewhere, in another yard.

It all had a world-wide quality.

Neither of them said anything. Susan had put on wool socks, large ski socks that covered her up to her calves. He had on a pair of argyles, but even so he found himself shivering and quaking, on and on, at an orderly rate. An almost mechanical tingling. Probably, he decided, it had to do with muscle fatigue. He felt tired in every part of him, but he did not want to go inside. He enjoyed the sound of the wind off elsewhere, plucking at trees they would never see.

“Scary,” Susan whispered.

“I don’t agree,” he said. He could smell flowers. Once, a moth flapped past, banged against the screen door and departed. Perhaps it had gone inside the house; they had left the door open behind them, to be certain of not being cut off.

Gripping his hand Susan squeezed, and then she knocked her hard head against him.

“You’ve never been married, have you?” she said.

“No,” he said.

“But you’ve had sex before. Either that or you’ve read a particularly good book on it. You didn’t fumble around. I didn’t think you would. I want you to think a long time about this. I’m divorced from Walt. It’s a big step for a woman who’s been married twice to contemplate a third marriage. But marriages are made and broken. It’s better to take a chance and make a mistake than to—” She considered. “Fear isn’t a good thing to go by. Holding back for fear of making a mistake. Or is this all so far beyond anything you’ve been contemplating that it’s ridiculous?”

“No,” he said. “It isn’t.” But actually it was. Now he found himself wanting to go back in, go to bed and sleep. “Let’s go in,” he said to her.