Slant

by Greg Bear

  Not wet. Jesus!

  He works at her awkwardly with his finger, which is dry and a little harsh. What you see is what you get: male, middle years, sex a drive not an art, ah well it’s a business.

  “Did you ever imagine, when you were a young girl, that you’d be doing this?” the male asks.

  “Having sex?” Alice asks in return.

  “Being paid for it, by someone you don’t know.”

  “I might know you,” Alice jokes, hoping to fend off the personal questions. She does not need or want to establish a relationship beyond the most fundamental, and that for as briefly as possible. “If you let me see your face—”

  “No,” the male says again, not angrily, but more forcefully. “Well, did you?”

  His finger seems to be off on its own errands. She knows she will react eventually to this sort of fumbling, but real arousal and autonomic moisten are two different things at this stage of her life. “Depends what age you mean.”

  She has even had orgasms without feeling terribly aroused or connected to her partners, contra the hordes of (all too often male) evolutionary theorists who buzz around the topic of feminine sex-drive like puzzled flies.

  “Ah.” He withdraws his finger and moves the same hand up to her breast, where he continues to pursue his mechanical stimulations. “You started young?”

  She clasps his hand, forces the fingers flat, and works his palm around her nipple. Then she shifts his hand to the left breast. “This one’s better,” she says, and mocks breathlessness. He is not yet fully erect; he is thinking too much and she must take charge.

  Alice leans toward the shadowy face, wondering how close she can get before the illusion of darkness fails. Curiously, it is like falling into a hole; he returns her kiss but she still sees nothing. The effect is disorienting, then a little scary.

  Being scared has never stimulated her.

  Alice drops his hand, turns full circle, and removes her garment completely. She backs up, rubbing her buttocks lightly against him; this accomplishes the desired effect.

  She glides onto the bed. She will tell him a story; maybe he’ll finish faster.

  “I started young,” she says. “I found men very attractive. I was pretty at an early age. Men responded. I took advantage of them.”

  “Did you ever think you would have sex for money?”

  She crinkles her eyes, shakes her head. “Why?”

  The male has not joined her on the bed, but stands naked and once again de-tumescing, with that shaded void where his upper shoulders and head should be. “If we disappoint our youthful selves, what can we do in this life that is worth doing?”

  Alice for the first time in this encounter feels real irritation, even anger. She blunts it, pushes it under. Smiles and stretches, rolling her hips slightly. She would like this to be over.

  “Do you ask your wife such questions?” she asks coquettishly.

  “Never,” he says. “She wouldn’t stand for it. But I’m curious. I wonder at the contradictions between the way I see women, how they see themselves, how everybody pretends to see them.”

  The male is no fool. She specks him now as a lobe-slave driven by theory, his curiosity a cold kind of lust. He does not want sex; he wants personal dataflow, but that is precisely what he has not paid for.

  “What do you mean?” she asks, crossing her legs, no longer displaying what does not seem to be at issue.

  The male sits on the side of the bed and puts his right hand on her raised knee. He wears no rings in this hand and there are no ring marks on his fingers. There is a moving blur on his left hand, however—the careful engines of deception obscure something there. The blur could easily hide several ring marks, and that could make him high comb. “I have contradictions, Lord knows. But don’t you think men and women should know themselves better? So there can be less pain in the world.”

  Alice rolls away from the male and puts her legs over the edge of the bed. With one swift movement, she stands, bends to sweep up her garment in one hand, and holds it limp in front of her. “I don’t blame myself for the world’s pain,” she says.

  The male holds up his hands, pats the bed. “Please don’t be angry.”

  “And I don’t feel the need for therapy, thank you.”

  He says nothing for long, uncomfortable seconds. Alice stands motionless. The male’s hands drop and his fingers grasp the bed covers convulsively, then relax. “I enjoy your vids,” he says. “You are so sexy, with so many men… I wonder how you do it. Are you just a good actress?”

  Alice catches that word, so little used now. The reaction to the word “therapy,” the on-and-off arousal, the archaic language…

  “When I was lonely, I watched you. I imagined you as my wife, in a long-term relationship, never as a whore or someone who had sex for money… I wanted you to feel something for the men you were with…”

  So he is awkward and shy after all, just not getting around to what he wants, trying to avoid the end of a fantasy. Alice relaxes and drops her garment a little. She has heard this so often from vid and Yox consumers. Clash of expectations. Slave to sex-killing culture.

  “There I was, seeing you, thinking perhaps here was a woman, if I met her in person, if the situation was right, I could fall in love. And these men were having you, thoroughly and enthusiastically. I knew you deserved better.”

  “You, for instance,” Alice says.

  “You made wrong decisions, obviously. When you were young and didn’t know any better. I mean, you could have gone far, with your looks, your voice… All these men, if they just fumbled all over you…”

  His voice sounds distant, strained. He needs to forget this and relax. Some men get addicted, obsessive, wallowing in unreal flesh.

  “It’s an art and it’s a kind of work I enjoy,” she says. “I enjoy making people feel good and I’ve never been mistreated.” That is not true, strictly. “It’s a professional relationship, always, but I feel more for some of my partners. That’s just the way it is.”

  “Were any of them your lovers? In life, I mean?”

  “I separate my work, my art, from my life.”

  “Which is it, work or art?”

  She sits on the bed again, reaches for his hand. “You have me in the flesh, in front of you,” she says. “Live me, don’t dream me.”

  He pulls his hand back. “I’m being stupid, but the fantasy of it all disturbs me,” he says.

  “Maybe I should come back later, after you’ve relaxed.”

  “Even if there were time, I’d never see you again. No.”

  The word hangs. And then,

  “No. That’s not right either.”

  Finally he moves forward and takes her by the shoulders, bends her back on the bed, pushes her knees apart. He is tumescent enough, though not strong and insistent. Slowly he moves and builds. The blur and shadow oscillates above her and she suspects he is not even looking at her, he is wasting this moment on a straightforward coupling with little grace or consideration. That’s all he can do.

  “Watch me,” he says. She looks up at the shadow. “No,” he says. “Down here.” She looks down between them. The familiarity of the join, the bodies enmeshed, of no great significance for her. “Watch when it happens,” he insists.

  So concerned where it goes what we do with it. We eject it and brew it in tea afterwards. We spread it on cupcakes. We save it in little bottles and laugh over it with our friends: “So much effort, so little product!” We wipe it up with napkins and dispose of them. I do not care about this part of you, or about your pleasure. You’ve done nothing to earn my caring. You give me nothing to hang on to.

  The thoughts burn. The male finishes with a few insignificant sounds, pulls out and away, rolls over on his back. He does not even breathe hard. Minimal effort, satisfaction hardly worth—

  “You’re just a woman,” he says. “You don’t feel any different. Why should I care?”

  “I never asked you to care,” she, says. The
burning in her mind reminds her of years long past, of disproportionate feelings occupying very little space in a tightly bound head, when life was cataspace and anaspace in unpredictable alternation. The worst times of her life

  “I do care,” the male says. “Beauty like yours deserves that much. You shouldn’t cheapen yourself by giving yourself to men who don’t deserve you.”

  “It’s a little late for that,” Alice says. “And I never give. I share.”

  The male laughs with a sound like knuckles on rough wood and throws up his arms, revealing smooth armpits, a few ribs visible beneath the soft white skin. “Someone with your beauty could work her way high in any society. Every woman makes conscious decisions… where to spend her life, who to associate with.”

  “Some woman threw you over and gave herself to a shink bastard? That’s what this is all about?”

  “I’ve led a very calm life, actually. I like women but I worry they don’t know how to live their lives. A woman judges and weighs her every lover, whether he can satisfy, what his social standing is, how aggressive, how strong. That’s what we’re taught.”

  Sorry to disappoint.

  “But some women choose the wrong men all their lives, not just when they’re young. When the time comes for a man to make his choice, the best men pass these women by… They’re tainted. They don’t feed a man’s self-respect. I mean, they go to bed with fools and bastards. Where’s the prize in them, knowing that?”

  The spike is white-hot now. Alice wants out. “You need to be my protector,” she says with forced humor.

  “Maybe,” the man says, and chuckles again.

  “You want me to choose men you approve of. You want to share me with your buddies. That’s really generous.” Hand me over to your cronies, colleagues, and business partners, members of your tribe, for the next round. Maybe your bosses or superiors, for a little clan elevation. You son of a bitch.

  Suddenly, his pattern clicks. She’s studied male psychology enough to see the simple, bold conflicts in this shaded, hidden man. Raised pious New Federalist, son of the Moral Surge, whose God is power and wealth and stylish living, whose insides chum with repressed fascination with the basic functions, the kind of man who likes women who laugh nervously when someone says pee-pee. Puppy of the twisted social order.

  Alice stands. “I need to clean up.”

  The man rises on one elbow. “Do you wipe it off… Or do you just flush it?”

  “I don’t worship it, if that’s what you mean.”

  “So much effort, so little result,” he murmurs.

  Alice flinches. Her thought in his mouth.

  “Restart, reboot, improve our lot. I thought we’d never get anywhere without that.” He is babbling. She cannot see his expression but his voice is taut and the next words are spoken with a painful edge. “It’s done. No one can help me, I certainly can’t help myself. Mea culpa, Alice. Mea maxima culpa. You are the lamb. Everybody like you has to suffer. I apologize for all that’s going to happen. I suppose it has to, but I wish I understood.”

  Alice blinks rapidly, genuinely frightened. She steps back three paces, mumbles some excuse, and lets a few blinking lights along the floor guide her to the bathroom.

  In the bathroom, she locks the door and cleans herself, sits on the toilet, relieves the painful nervous pressure, wishes she could piss out the entire evening. The bidet warmly rinses her and applies a subtle florid perfume that she does not like. Using a large plush charcoal gray towel, she stands and wipes herself again and again until her thighs and labia are pink.

  The toilet says, “Excuse me, but you show signs of an infection of unknown character, perhaps centered in your nasal passages or bronchial tubes. You should refer to your physician for more detailed tests.”

  Alice stares at the toilet’s hard snail curl, the marble pallor, its lips an oval of observant surprise. “What?” she asks, stunned.

  The toilet repeats this appraisal of her discharged fluids.

  “Maybe it’s him,” she says.

  “Analysis is of your urine.”

  She has never heard such words from a toilet. All diseases are known, nearly all easily treatable, mutations predicted, ranked and evaluated worldwide within days, tailored monitors and phage hunters sent after microbial intruders…

  She has never in her life been infected by a venereal disease, or any other.

  “That’s stupid,” she tells the toilet. She wraps herself in her garment and opens the door.

  “Thank you;” the male says from the bed. He has put on a robe and tied it shut.

  She looks longingly down the hallway and beyond the prints of men forcing treaties on their defeated and dejected inferiors.

  “Please listen to me,” he says. “You’ll have to leave soon. I have another appointment in a few minutes.” He pulls up the sleeve of his robe. “They have a long plan. I’m a part of it. Watching our belly buttons until all the rabble pass away and we take our rightful place. It’s very secret. You’re so beautiful, and so unlike my wife. It was a pleasure to meet you. I don’t think it was pleasant for you. You deserve better.”

  She takes one last look at the blur, applies the last few seams of her garment, and crooks her lips into a spasmodic smile.

  None of this means anything. Let it end on a purely professional note. “You’re welcome,” she says.

  “I’ll credit the agency account as soon as you leave,” the male says.

  “You’ve already been billed,” she says. It’s a weak rejoinder.

  In the hall beside the lift, she taps her foot impatiently. The lift door opens and she is surprised to encounter a powerful, stocky man and a tall, elegant looking woman with mahogany skin, both Seattle PD. She nods to their greeting, stands aside to let them pass, and then enters the lift. The woman looks over her shoulder at Alice, dark green eyes steady and appraising. Alice shudders. The woman’s face is like a beautiful mask through which imperfections are beginning to emerge, making her even more striking. She’s a transform—her skin is too perfect and polished.

  The door slides silently shut. Alice holds the steel rail with one hand, stares at her manicured fingers, the wrinkled knuckles, the finely textured skin stretched over the tendons on the back of her hand. She does not believe in God, she is not pious, she believes in self-honesty, in seeing what is before your eyes, but she has no idea what it is she has just seen, what she has just experienced.

  And why the PD?

  A buzzing between her ears quiet inner conversation below comprehension…

  The limo waits for her and the door opens. She flops into the warm interior and shuts her eyes. Cows lowing in terror, knives being sharpened. She opens her eyes with a little moan to escape the scouring sensation.

  “God damn it,” she cries after the door has closed. God damn you, Lisa!” She fumbles for her pad, pulls it from its pouch, keys in her account codes. The transaction has already been made. She is seventy-four thousand one hundred and fifteen dollars and thirty-seven cents richer. A little short. The number in the income column flashes red, and then green; transfer confirmed and locked.

  Alice smoothes her ragged breath and slowly pieces her calm back together.

  13

  “Hooker, or girlfriend?” Nussbaum asks in an undertone. Terence Crest’s unit is the largest in the building, which has four other tenants—

  “They’re not called hookers now, sir,” Mary says. She has seen the woman’s face before, but can’t place where.

  “La da,” Nussbaum says, and squares off to face the darkened entry, the shields and woodcarvings and spears arranged in deadly bouquets. “So he invites us up, pushes her out the door just before we arrive…”

  A sound from down the hall, a heavy thump.

  “Mr. Crest?” Nussbaum calls out. There is no answer. He looks with a moue of professional disgust at Mary. “Terence Crest? Seattle PD. We talked earlier, Do you mind if we come in, sir?” To Mary he whispers, “Hard to tell whether we’re
legally inside or not.” He advances a couple of yards, sniffs the air, and his eyes widen.

  “Choy, call medicals” Then he is on the run, down the hall. Choy dials PD med center, which will connect to the private code of the building medical arbeiters. There may even be personal medical in this apartment.

  “Choy! Get in here!”

  She pockets her pad and runs to join Nussbaum. He is in a bedroom on the east side of the building, a windowless and shadowy room. Nussbaum stoops beside a man sprawled on the floor. The man is rigidly locked in a U, back and legs rising off the floor, shivering and twitching. Now Mary smells what alarmed Nussbaum: the bitter meaty odor of a neurological exciter. The man reeks.

  She leans over the man, opposite. Nussbaum, who has slapped an all-purpose patch on the man’s wrist. The patch can work many miracles before a medical team or arbeiter arrives, but not, she thinks, save someone from a massive overdose. The man slumps and is no longer even twitching.

  She looks at his face. It seems to be shaded, and even the darkness appears blurred.

  “Shit!” Nussbaum sweeps his hands over the area where the man’s features must be. He scrubs vigorously. Slowly, in surreal wipes, as if painted with a magic brush, the face reappears.

  Use of optical makeup is illegal in public, but Mary is not sure about its use in private. She has only seen it used once before, years ago, in LA.

  “Is this Crest?” she asks.

  Nussbaum says, “I think so,” and then a medical arbeiter rushes into the room from the hall and pushes her aside. Nussbaum stands and backs away. “It smells like hyper-caff or ATPlus,” he says. The arbeiter ignores him, throws out its web of tubes and leads. The air fills with the smells of alcohol, yeasty medical nano, a caramel odor.

  “Why agree to meet with us if he’s going to do this? Does he want witnesses?” Nussbaum asks.

  They stand aside and wait for backup PD and more medicals. The arbeiter belongs to the apt or to the building. Mary scans the bedroom quickly, sees a glimmering above the bed. It is a simple still vid. Words float in brilliant blue.