Alison Lurie - Truth and Consequences

“Ah?” Alan had seen these posters, which featured a photo of Delia in low-cut white lace, all swirling hair and huge eyes, definitely provocative—though less so than at this moment.

“All of a sudden people know I’m in town, and if they’ve ever read one of my stories they feel they have the right to call me and bomb me with e-mails and come to the Center any time of the day with books to be signed. And I know it’s going to be worse after my reading.” She shuddered visibly, causing her black chiffon scarf to flutter and subside.

“Maybe not,” Alan said. “Once they’ve heard and seen you, maybe they’ll quiet down.”

“I doubt it,” Delia said with a movement of her head and wavering glance away that might have been either vanity or fear. “And I’m awfully afraid of the reading too.”

“Really? You must have done so many.”

“But I’m always terrified beforehand, though I know it’s out of my hands. I stand there, and either the spirit descends, or it doesn’t. When it doesn’t I’m lost, ruined. I hear my voice going on, blah, blah, blah, like some imbecile radio announcer, and I want to die.”

“I know what you mean,” Alan said, thinking of some unsuccessful lectures of his own.

“But if the spirit descends, I’m like a wild goose. Flying, soaring. I want to keep on forever, to fly out of the window and vanish into the sky.” She sighed, first on a rising, then a falling note. “But then it’s over. I have to descend to earth. And then comes the awful question period. There’s always hunters there, wanting to shoot you down, you know?”

“Yeah,” he agreed, remembering some of his own lectures.

“And I’m a sitting goose.”

“Duck,” Alan corrected automatically. “A sitting duck.”

“No. Absolutely not a duck,” Delia said coldly. “Don’t be such a professor.”

“All right. A sitting swan,” he suggested. Delia did not reply, but with her head turned away on her long white neck, she did resemble an angry swan.

“And then I have to sign books and go to the reception and meet the audience. They all crowd around like hunting dogs, shoving and barking, wanting to eat me alive. I feel so besieged, so invaded.” She laughed nervously. “I can’t bear that.”

“I know what you mean,” Alan said, trying not to stare at the shiny full curves of Delia’s thigh, rose-pink under sheer black, where her slit skirt fell apart—or at least not to be caught staring.

“It’s already beginning to be like that back in Corinth. I’m more and more afraid to go to the Center.” She gazed up at Alan, widening her silver-gray eyes. “You know, if you wanted, you could do something wonderful for me.”

“Yeah? What?” Still hungry, Alan was not yet mollified enough to promise anything. Besides, his back hurt.

“You could trade offices with me. That would baffle them.” She giggled.

“But if I were in your office, I’d be besieged and invaded.”

“No, because we’d keep your name on the door. A lot of them would get confused and go away. And besides, your office is so lovely and shadowy, with that big tree in front of the window. It would be so much better when I have a headache: the light wouldn’t cut me like knives the way it does now. Please.” Delia raised herself to a sitting position and leaned toward him, dropping her scarf on the floor. Her black silk blouse was also semi-transparent, revealing the flushed pale skin and black lace bra beneath.

“Well . . .” Alan imagined the pain and inconvenience of moving, the loss of his northern light.

“Just for a little while. Till they get discouraged and stop coming.” She smiled warmly, pathetically.

“Well—all right.”

“Oh, you darling.” Impulsively—or with calculation?—Delia sprang to her feet, then reached up and kissed him lightly. “I’m so, so grateful.” She sighed and subsided onto the sofa again. “And I’m so, so tired. Did you use up all the gin?”

“No, there’s some left. Shall I make you a drink?” he added, when Delia did not move.

“Oh, thank you. Light on the tonic, please.”

In the minimal chrome kitchen, Alan made a stiff drink for Delia and another for himself, thinking that it was a long time since he had done this for anyone.

“That okay?”

“Lovely.” Delia took a long swallow and lay back. “Much better. If only my feet didn’t hurt so. I wonder. Could you possibly rub them a little?”

“Well—all right, sure.” Equally excited and uncomfortable, he lowered himself to the edge of the sofa and took one warm high-arched foot in his hands.

“Ahh. That’s so nice.” Delia sighed and stretched. “Go on. More.”

Trying to recall the (ultimately unsuccessful) efforts of a new-age reflexology therapist he had consulted last summer on the advice of his back-pain pal Gilly, Alan smoothed and pressed Delia’s broad but graceful feet and stubby round pink-nailed toes, strangely sexy beneath the sheer black hose.

“Yes, lovely,” she repeated, stretching luxuriously. “My legs are sore too.”

“Okay.” Alan began stroking the ankles and full, rounded calves with a slow upward motion.

“Oh yes.” Delia sighed. “Could you—a little higher.”

“Right you are.” He moved to her round rosy knees, then, since she did not protest, beyond.

“Higher,” she murmured a few moments later.

“Higher than this?” He looked at Delia, who lay with her eyes closed and her legs spread, breathing slowly and deeply.

“Yes, please.”

Alan hesitated. He felt the approach of what seemed like delight but was in fact danger. If this event continued, he would soon be expected to assume a position that would cause agonizing pain in his back, and he would falter and fail.

“But remember what I said,” Delia whispered. “I can’t bear to be invaded. Never in any way. You understand.”

“Yeah,” Alan said, and his heart and cock both gave a great leap of relief as he realized what this meant: that if he did as Delia asked she would never find him out. “I understand.” He lay down beside her; then, turning toward her with a wrench of pain, kissed her softly. Delia opened her mouth at once, though not her eyes, and gave him a warm, full-lipped kiss.

“But anything else—everything else,” she murmured. “Yes. Oh yes.”

“That was wonderful,” she murmured a little later, opening her long-lashed eyes and stretching.

“Yes,” Alan agreed, still a little dizzy with surprise and pleasure—pleasure received as well as given. He ran one hand over the amazing baroque curve of Delia’s hip.

“Hey. I scored some codeine from my New York doctor. You want any?”

“No thanks, not now.” But then he raised himself on one elbow so he could look down on Delia’s flushed face and tangled mermaid hair, and felt a vicious twinge in his lower back. “Well, maybe, if you have a couple extra.”

“Sure. In my bag.” She gestured at a big soft tapestry carryall on the floor by the door. Alan rose slowly and painfully and brought it to her. It was against the law, he knew, to use someone else’s prescription drugs; Jane would have been appalled. Nevertheless, among his back-pain pals this was not uncommon. Gilly had given him many packets of dried herbs (some mildly effective), and he had reciprocated with orthocodone.

“Do you have any grass?” Delia asked, passing over a handful of pills.

“Not here. I didn’t want to take it on the plane, after what happened to Davi Gakar. They have dogs now that can smell the stuff, a friend of mine says.” Gilly’s husband Pedro occasionally gave Alan a joint, the last of which he had—very riskily—shared with Delia in his office, causing them both to have a fit of giggles over one of his latest drawings, a slightly suggestive fountain.