“In a way. I passed out a few times.”
“Shit, I’m already doing that. It hasn’t killed me yet. Did anybody help you?”
“Not that way. All I had was someone to keep me from banging myself up too badly physically.”
“Then, why the hell …? No offense, but why am I supposed to need you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Oh, well. I guess it doesn’t matter. It’s his decision and we’re stuck with it. All we can do is try to find the least uncomfortable way of living with it.”
“We’ll work something out.” He stood up. “Let me show you around the house.”
He showed me his fantastic library first, and that helped me warm to him a little. A guy with a room like that in his house couldn’t be all bad. Like the living room, it was huge, with that beautiful wood paneling. The fireplace and the windows were the only spots of wall not covered with books. Most of the floor was covered by the biggest oriental rug I had ever seen. There was a long, solid, heavy wooden reading table, a big desk, a lot of upholstered chairs. The high ceiling was wood carved in a regular octagonal pattern and hung with four small, simple chandeliers. While I was growing up, Forsyth Public Library was my second home. It was someplace I could go and be by myself. I could get away from Rina and her whining and her johns and away from Emma period. I actually liked the little old ladies who worked there, and they sort of adopted me. That was where I got into the habit of reading everything I could get my hands on. And now … well, old-fashioned libraries of wood and stone and books were still like home to me. The city tore down Forsyth Public a few years ago and built a new one of steel and glass and concrete and air-conditioning that was always turned too high. A cold box. I went to it two or three times, then gave up. But Karl’s library was perfect. I had walked away from him to look at some of the book titles.
“You like books?”
I jumped. I hadn’t heard him come up beside me. “I love them. I hope you don’t care if I spend a lot of time in here.”
Karl made a straight line of his mouth and glanced over at his desk. His desk, right. His work area.
“Okay, so I won’t spend a lot of time in here. Show me my room, will you?”
“You can use the library whenever I’m not working in here,” he said.
“Thanks.” I could see there was going to be a certain coldness about this library, too.
He showed me the rest of the first floor before he took me up to what was going to be my bedroom. Large, businesslike kitchen. Large, businesslike cook. She was friendly, though, and she was a black woman. That helped. Formal dining room. Small, handsome study—why the hell couldn’t Karl work there? Game room with billiard table. Large service porch. As big as the house was, though, it was smaller than it looked from the outside. I thought it might turn out to be a more comfortable home than I had expected.
Karl and I stood on the porch and looked out at his park of a backyard. Tennis court. Swimming pool and bath house. We could see Doro and Vivian splashing around in the pool. Grass. Trees. There was a multicar garage off to one side, and I got a glimpse of a cottage almost hidden by trees.
“The gardener and his wife live out there,” Karl told me. “His wife is the maid. The cook helps with the housework, too, when she isn’t busy in the kitchen. She lives upstairs, in the servants’ quarters.”
“Did you inherit all this or something?” I asked. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d said, “None of your business.”
“I had one of my people sign it over to me,” he said. “He was going to put it up for sale anyway and he didn’t need the money.”
I looked at him. The expression on his thin, angular face hadn’t changed at all. I hooted with laughter. I couldn’t help it. “You stole it! Oh, God. Beautiful; you’re human, after all. And here I have to make do with shoplifting.”
He gave me a forced smile. “I’ll show you where your room is now.”
“Okay. Can I ask you another question?”
He shrugged.
“How do you feel about black people?”
He looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve seen my cook.”
“Right. So how do you feel about black people?”
“I’ve known exactly two of them well before now. They were all right.” Emphasis on the “they.”
I frowned, looked at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That you shouldn’t get the idea that I dislike you because you’re black.”
“Oh.”
“I wouldn’t want you here no matter what color you were.”
I sighed. “You’re going to make this even harder than it has to be, aren’t you?”
“You asked.”
“Well … I’m no happier to be here than you are to have me, but we’re either going to have to get used to each other or we’re going to have to keep out of each other’s way a lot. Which won’t be easy even in a house as big as this.”
“Why did you and Doro fight?”
“What?” My first thought was that he was reading my mind. Then I realized that even if he hadn’t seen Doro’s hand, I had a big bruise on my jaw.
“You know damn well why we fought.”
“Tell me. I answered your questions.”
“Why does a telepath bother to ask questions?”
“Out of courtesy. Shall I stop?”
“No! We fought … because Doro didn’t tell me about Vivian until about two hours ago.”
There was a long pause. Then, “I see. How did you feel about marrying me before you found out about Vivian?”
“My grandmother married Doro,” I said. “And, of course, my mother married him. I’ve expected to marry him myself ever since I was old enough to know what was going on. I wanted to. I loved him.”
“Past tense?”
I almost didn’t answer. I realized that I was ashamed. “No.”
“Not even after he decides to marry you off to a stranger?”
“I’ve loved him for years. I guess it takes me a while to turn my emotions around.”
“You probably never will. I’ve met several of his people since my transition. He uses me to keep them in line without killing them. And he’s done terrible things to some of them. But I’ve never met one who hates him. Those who don’t kill themselves by attacking him as soon as he acts against them always seem to forgive him.”
Somehow that didn’t surprise me. “Do you hate him?”
“No.”
“In spite of … everything?” I remembered Vivian going out hand in hand with Doro.
“In spite of everything,” he said quietly.
“Can you read his mind?”
“No.”
“But why not? He says he’s not a telepath. How could he stop you?”
“You’ll find out after your transition. This will be your room.” We were on the second floor. He opened the door he had stopped in front of.
The bedroom was white, and I guess you could call it elegant. There was a small crystal chandelier. There was a huge bed and a large dresser with a beautiful mirror. I’d have to be careful how I threw things. There was a closet that was going to look empty even after I hung up the new clothes Doro had bought me. There were chairs, little tables. …
It was just a really nice room. I peered into the mirror at my bruise. Then I sat down in a chair by the window and looked out at the front lawn as I spoke to Karl. “What do I do after my transition?”
“Do?”
“Well, I’ll be able to read minds. I’ll be able to steal better without getting caught—if I still want to. I’ll be able to snoop through other people’s secrets, even make robots of people. But. …”
“But?”
“What am I supposed to do—except maybe have babies?” I turned to face him and saw by his expression that he wished I hadn’t said that last. I didn’t care.
“I’m sure Doro will find some work for you,” he said. “He probably already has something in mind.”
/> Just at that moment, someone was hit by a car. I sensed enough to know that it was nearby, within a few blocks of Karl’s house. I felt the impact. I might have said something. Then I felt the pain. A slow-motion avalanche of pain. I know I screamed then. That hit me harder than anything I’d ever received. Finally the pain got to be too much for the accident victim. He passed out. I almost passed out with him. I found myself curled into a tight knot on the chair, my feet up and my head down and throbbing.
I looked up to see whether Karl was still there, and found him watching me. He looked interested but not concerned, not inclined to give me any of the help he was supposed to give. I had a feeling that, if I survived transition, I would do it on my own.
“There’s aspirin in the bathroom,” he said, nodding toward a closed door. Then he turned and left.
Five days later, we were married at city hall. For those five days, I might as well have been alone in that big house. Doro left the day he brought me, and didn’t come back. I saw Karl and Vivian at meals or ran into them accidentally around the house. They were always polite. I wasn’t.
I tried talking to the servants, but they were silent, contented slaves. They worked, or they sat in their quarters watching television and waiting for the master’s voice.
I joined Karl and Vivian out by the pool one day and what looked like a really interesting conversation came to a dead halt.
The only times I ever felt comfortable was when I was in my room with the door shut, or in the library when Karl wasn’t home. He spent a lot of time in Los Angeles keeping an eye on the businesses he controlled for Doro and the ones he had taken over for his own, personal profit. Evidently he did more for them than just steal part of their profits. For me, he did nothing at all.
Doro showed up to see us married. Not that there was any kind of ceremony beyond the bare essentials. He went home with us—or with Vivian and me. Karl dropped the three of us off, then headed for L.A. Doro challenged Vivian to a game of tennis. I walked three blocks to a bus stop, caught a bus, and rode.
I knew where I was going. I had to transfer to get there, so there was no way for me to pretend to myself that I wound up there by accident. I got off at Maple and Dell and walked straight to Rina’s house.
Rina was home, but she had company. I could hear her and her company yelling at each other way out on the sidewalk. I walked around the corner and knocked on Emma’s door. She opened it, looked at me, stood back from the door. I went in and sat down in the big overstuffed chair near the door. I closed my eyes for a while and the ugly old house seemed to go around me like a blanket, shutting out the cold. I took a deep breath, felt relief, release.
Emma laid a hand on my forehead and I looked up at her. She was young. That meant she had had Doro with her recently. I didn’t look anything like her when she was young. Doro was crazy. I wished I did look that good.
“You were supposed to get married,” she said.
“I did. Today.”
She frowned. “Where’s your husband?”
“I don’t know. Or care.”
She sort of half smiled in her know-it-all way that I had always resented before. Now I didn’t care. She could throw all the sarcasm she wanted to at me if she just let me sit there for a while.
“Stay here for a while,” she said.
I looked at her, surprised.
“Stay until someone comes to get you.”
“They might not even know I’ve gone anywhere. I didn’t say anything. I just left.”
“Honey, you’re talking about Doro and an active telepath. They know, believe me.”
“I guess so. I came here on the bus, though. I don’t mind going back that way.” I never liked depending on other people and their cars, anyway. When I rode the bus, I went when I wanted, where I wanted.
“Stay put. Doro might not have heard you yet.”
“What?”
“You’ve said something by coming here. Now the way to make sure that Doro’s heard you is to inconvenience him a little. Just stay where you are. Are you hungry?”
“Yeah.”
She brought me cold chicken, potato salad, and a Coke. Brought it to me like I was a guest. She’d never brought me anything she could send me after before in her life.
“Emma.”
She had gone back to whatever she was doing at her desk in the dining room. The desk was half covered with official-looking papers. She looked around.
“Thanks,” I said quietly.
She just nodded.
Karl came after me that night. I answered the door, saw him, and turned to say good-bye to Emma, but she was right there looking at Karl.
“You’re too high, Karl,” she said quietly. “You’ve forgotten where you came from.”
He looked at her, then looked away. His expression didn’t change, but his voice, when he spoke, was softer than normal. “That isn’t it.”
“It doesn’t really matter. If you’ve got a problem, you know who to complain to about it—or who to take it out on.”
He drew a deep breath, met her eyes again, smiled his thin smile. “I hear, Em.”
I didn’t say anything to him until we were in the car together. Then, “Is she one of the two?”
He gave me a kind of puzzled glance, then seemed to remember. He nodded.
“Where do you know her from?”
“She took care of me once when I was between foster homes. That was before Doro found a permanent home for me. She took care of me again when I was approaching transition. My adoptive parents couldn’t handle me.” He smiled again.
“What happened to your real parents—real mother, I mean?”
“She … died.”
I turned to look at him. His expression had gone grim. “By herself,” I asked, “or with help?”
“It’s an ugly story.”
I shrugged. “Okay.” I looked out the window.
“But, then, you’re no stranger to ugly stories.” He paused. “She was an alcoholic, my mother. And she wasn’t exactly normal—sane—during those rare times when she was sober. Doro says she was too sensitive. Anyway, when I was about three, I did something that made her mad. I don’t remember what. But I remember very clearly what happened afterward. For punishment, she held my hand over the flame of our gas range. She held it there until it was completely charred. But I was lucky. Doro came to see her later that same day. I wasn’t even aware of when he killed her. I remember, I wasn’t aware of anything but alternating pain and exhaustion between the time she burned me and the time Doro’s healer arrived. You might know the healer. She’s one of Emma’s granddaughters. Over a period of weeks, she regenerated the stump that I had left into a new hand. Even now, ten years after my transition, I don’t understand how she did it. She does for other people the things Emma can only do for herself. When she had finished, Doro placed me with saner people.”
I whistled. “So that’s what Emma meant.”
“Yes.”
I moved uncomfortably in the seat. “As for the rest of what she said, Karl. …”
“She was right.”
“I don’t want anything from you.”
He shrugged.
He didn’t say much more to me that night. Doro was still at the house, paying a lot of attention to Vivian. I had dinner with them all, then went to bed. I could put up with them until my transition, surely. Then maybe for a change I’d be one of the owners instead of one of the owned.
I was almost asleep when Karl came up to my room. Neither of us put a light on but there was light enough from one of the windows for me to see him. He took off his robe, threw it into a chair and climbed into bed with me.
I didn’t say anything. I had plenty to say and all of it was pretty caustic. I didn’t doubt that I could have gotten rid of him if I had wanted to. But I didn’t bother. I didn’t want him but I was stuck with him. Why play games?
He was all right, though. Gentle and, thank God, silent. I didn’t know whether he had come to
me out of charity, or curiosity, and I didn’t want to know. I knew he still resented me—at least resented me. Maybe that was why, when we were finished, he got up and went to get his robe. He was going back to his own room.
“Karl.”
I could see him turn to look in my direction.
“Stay the night.”
“You want me to?” I didn’t blame him for sounding surprised. I was surprised.
“Yes. Come on back.” I didn’t want to be alone. I couldn’t have put into words how much I suddenly didn’t want to be alone, couldn’t stand to be alone, how much it scared me. I found myself remembering how Rina would pace the floor at night sometimes. I would see her crying and pacing and holding her head. After a while, she would go out and come back with some bum who usually looked a little like her—like us. She’d keep him with her the rest of the night even if he didn’t have a dime in his pocket, even if he was too drunk to do anything. And sometimes even if he knocked her around and called her names that trash like him didn’t have the right to call anybody. I used to wonder how Rina could live with herself. Now, apparently, I was going to find out.
Karl came back to my bed without another word. I didn’t know what he was thinking, but he could have really hurt me with just a few words. He didn’t. I tried to thank him for that.
Chapter Three
Karl
The warehouse was enormous. Whitten Coleman Service Building, serving thirty-three department stores over three states. Doro had begun the chain seventy years before, when he bought a store for a small, stable family of his people. The job of the family was simply to grow and prosper and eventually become one of Doro’s sources of money. Descendants of the original family still held a controlling interest in the company. They were obedient and self-sufficient, and, for the most part, Doro let them alone. Through the years, their calls to him for help had become fewer. As they grew in size and experience, they became more able to handle their own problems. Doro still visited them from time to time, though. Sometimes he asked favors of them. Sometimes they asked favors of him. This was one of the latter times. Karl, Doro, the warehouse manager, and the chief of security walked through the warehouse toward the loading docks. Karl had never been inside the warehouse before, but now he led the way through the maze of dusty stock areas and busy marking rooms. In turn, he was led by the thoughts of several workers who were efficiently preparing to steal several thousand dollars’ worth of Whitten Coleman merchandise. They had gotten away with several earlier thefts in spite of the security people who watched them, and the cameras trained on them.
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