by Robert Tine
Without halting his powerful thrusts into her, Spencer covered her eyes with his hand. Somehow Jillian felt that the blackness was impenetrable, the darkness shooting through her and overwhelming all of her senses.
In the darkness the sounds of their lovemaking seemed to fade away, but the sound of Spencer’s garbled, unintelligible chatter continued to susurration in her ear.
“Spencer?” Jillian moaned.
And now, Spencer’s garbled speech changed. It sounded like the screaming, chattering of a hoard of insects, very far off but certainly audible. The instant she heard it, Jillian felt a bolt of fear shoot through her like a hot bullet.
“Spencer?” she said, her voice full of dread. The distorted insect-like screaming seemed to be getting closer. Spencer did not answer, but kept his hand over her eyes and thrust into her with even greater vigor, pounding away at her without cease.
The horrible shrieking seemed to fill her head and she tried to shake her head to throw the sound out of her mind. “Please, Spencer?” she said. “Please…”
The noise continued but suddenly Spencer had stopped. She felt him shoot into her, a hot streaming orgasm that seemed to fill something in the center of her being.
Jillian found her voice and she screamed. “Spencer!…” Jillian awoke—or, at least she thought she was awake. She was in the bed, naked, alone. But gradually she came to realize that the bed was not in the bedroom. All around her, above her, to the side of her, behind her were stars, millions and millions of stars, as if she were trapped inside a dark dome of stars.
Her eyes were open and she tried to raise her head, but she could not. And then, coming from far away, came that sound. The screaming, chattering shriek, but coming closer and closer…
* * *
Jillian awoke. She was in the bed, naked and alone. She was sprawled on top of the sheets. Startled by her own nakedness she grabbed at the blankets and pulled them around her as if for protection. Slowly she explored her body. There were bruises on her ribs and shoulders where Spencer had held her tight. She put her hand between her legs and winced in pain when she felt her genitals. They were hot and the pain was raw, as if she had been whipped there.
She sat up on her elbows and looked around the shadowy room. Spencer was not there. The apartment was quiet and seemed to be as still as the night. But she listened in the darkness, intently, her ears picking up a faint sound. It was a very small sound and it was emanating from one of the rooms of the house. The sound was small, soft but very clear. Jillian trembled when she heard it—it was no ordinary sound, it was the sound. That horrible shriek like a cloud of insects.
Jillian swallowed and gathered up all her courage. Pulling the covers around her, Jillian climbed out of the bed and left the bedroom, walking down the long hall toward the sound. It was still soft, but plainly present. She crossed the dining room, approaching the double doors that led into the living room. The sound was a little louder now. Jillian could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Her breathing seemed very loud, as if it could be heard yards away…
She stood in the door of the living room and saw Spencer on the far side of the room. He was sitting in a chair by the tall windows. On the end table next to him was a small AM/FM radio and Spencer was leaning toward it, as if anxious to catch every sound, every note coming from the tiny speaker.
Somehow he sensed her standing there and quickly, but not frantically, he turned off the radio. That soft, distant insect sound stopped abruptly. He turned and looked at his wife. She was leaning against the door frame, the covers clutched at her throat. She stared at her husband, as if trying to focus on him.
“Spencer,” she said, her voice groggy and fatigued. “What are you doing?”
He stood up and walked toward her. “I couldn’t sleep,” he said calmly. “So I came out here. I was just listening to some music on the radio.”
He slipped his arms around her and held her close, feeling her body through the blankets.
“Jill, I… I might have had too much to drink tonight and…” He swept a hand through his hair. “… Well, it had been so long since we made love. If I got out of hand there, I’m sorry. It won’t happen again. I promise.”
He kissed her softly. “Forgive me?”
Jillian nodded. “Oh… I feel so awful,” she said. “I think I had too much to drink tonight, too.”
Spencer put his arm around her shoulder and started to lead her back toward the bedroom. “Come on,” he said gently. “let’s get you a couple, of aspirin.”
As they left the living room, Jillian glanced over her shoulder and looked at the radio. It was sitting silently on the table, bathed in the moonlight coming in through the window. Spencer carefully remade the bed and then put Jillian in it, like a parent settling a child for the night. Then he went to the bathroom and got his wife two aspirins and a glass of cool water. He handed them to her and stood over her, making sure that she took her medicine. Jillian put the pills on her tongue, then took a couple of gulps of water.
“There you go,” Spencer said. “Those will help with the hangover in the morning.”
“Thank you,” she said, as if thanking a stranger. He took the glass from her, set it on the bedside table, then climbed into bed with her. He snapped off the bedside light and then cuddled up next to her.
“Good night, Jillian.” He kissed her softly, then closed his eyes, dozing off, his arms around her.
There was no sleep for Jillian. She lay in the dark, her eyes wide open, feeling a vague fear.
10
Spencer had left for work by the time Jillian awoke. She was pleased to realize that she had no hangover, no effects from the evening before except for a slight soreness between her legs. That, she knew, would go away.
Bright sunlight flooded into the apartment and it raised Jillian’s sprits just enough to get her out of bed, into the shower, dressed, and ready for work.
As she was about to leave for her job, she noticed the radio, still sitting on the table as it had been the night before. Jillian walked over to it, stopped, and looked at it for a moment, then took a deep breath and reached out and turned it on. From the speaker came some tinny-sounding pop music. Just pop music…
“So much for that,” she said aloud in the empty apartment. She turned the radio off and left. The second graders sat at their desks hanging on Jillian’s every word. It was the best time of the day—it was story time. Jillian read beautifully, putting real emotion behind the story. And today’s story was a favorite, a real crowd pleaser because it called for a considerable amount of audience participation.
“…Then she began to guess the little man’s name.” she read, making her voice sound sad and far away. “ ‘Is it Conrad Pepper Mill?’ she said. And the little man said…” Jillian glanced expectantly at her students.
“No!” they shouted in unison.
“ ‘I know, I know!’ ” Jillian read aloud. “ ‘Is it Sir William Doorknob?’ And the little man said…”
“No!” the class yelled again.
“ ‘I have it,’ ” Jillian said, clapping her hands. “ ‘Your name must be Little Ribs of Beef.’ And the little man said…”
“No!” they all shouted.
“ ‘It couldn’t be Rumpelstilskin could it?’ ” Jillian said. “ ‘What did you say?’ cried the little man. ‘I said, it couldn’t be—’ ”
And the whole class shouted. “Rumpelstilskin!”
“And the little man screamed,” Jillian said.
The entire class screamed with glee.
“And he stamped his little foot,” Jillian concluded.
Pandemonium erupted in the classroom as two dozen second graders screamed and stamped their feet. Jillian did not do either. She sat on her little chair, the book closed in her lap, her mind far away, thinking of other things.
School was over by two o’clock and Jillian was faced with returning to her empty apartment. In order to delay the inevitable, she lingered in the teachers’ lo
unge, working through the few papers that been placed in her cubbyhole.
As she absentmindedly scanned a school calendar, something changed in her mind. The words vanished and all she could see was a street, a street unknown to her. It looked like New York City, but she couldn’t be sure. And she had no idea why the image had sprung, unbidden into her mind.
Jillian had no idea how long she had stood like that, transfixed by this image. She heard someone speaking to her.
“Jillian? Jillian?”
It did not break the spell.
“Jillian? Jillian? Earth to Jillian.” Then she slid out of it. Another teacher was peering at her curiously.
Jillian shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, feeling foolish. “My mind was a million miles away. ”
“At least,” said the other teacher. The bright sunlight was gone and the dark sky did nothing to make Jillian feel any happier. It was getting later and later and still Spencer had not come home from work. She did not think about eating or anything else. Then, impulsively, she picked up the phone and called her sister Nan, back home in Florida.
Nan caught the nature of Jillian’s mood immediately. “Oh God, Jill,” she said, “you sound so sad.”
Jillian sighed and without thinking about it, reached out with her free hand and touched the radio.
“It’s just this city, Nan,” she said. “It… it just gets inside you. Under your skin.”
“Well, don’t let it get inside you,” said Nan firmly. “That’s how you got into trouble after Mom and Dad died. To be honest, you sound now the way you did then.”
Jillian did no answer. She realized that she was holding the radio and she stared at it.
“You know, maybe it wasn’t such a good idea,” Nan continued. “The two of you moving up there to New York City. Maybe it’s too much. Culture shock; you know?”
Jillian looked away from the radio. “Spencer needed it,” she replied. “And I wanted to do it.”
“How is Spencer?” Nan asked archly. “Is he taking good care of you?”
Nan had always been slightly jealous of her sister and her apparently perfect relationship with her apparently perfect astronaut hero husband. She did her best to conceal her jealously, but both sisters knew it was there. By unspoken agreement they never talked about it, though Nan was not above making some sly jokes about it from time to time.
Jillian was silent for a moment. “Well…, you know, it’s not easy for him, either. A new job, so many new people. But you know him, Nan, he never complains.”
Nan laughed. “You want me to come up there and kick his ass?” Then she was silent a moment. “Oh, Jil1y,” she said sorrowfully, “you seem so sad.”
“No,” Jillian answered quickly, trying to force some the brightness she did not feel into her voice. “No, not at all. I’m okay, Nan. It’s just so different up here. It takes some getting to used to. I guess we underestimated how much.”
Nan appeared to believe this or decided to pretend that she did. “Have you found made any friends up there? Have you found someone to talk to yet, at least?”
“Oh yeah,” said Jillian. “The doorman is a real chatterbox. Can’t get him to shut up.”
“That’s not what I mean,” Nan replied, “and you know it. Have you found a doctor to talk to?”
“No… Not yet,” said Jillian slowly.
Nan sounded deadly serious now. “Promise me, Jill. If things get bad. If they get the way they were before, you have to promise me that you’ll find someone to talk to.”
Jillian turned as she heard Spencer’s keys sliding into the lock in the front door.
Nan was insistent. “July? I want you to promise me that? Okay? Promise?” Because if you don’t—”
Jillian cut off her sister. “I have to go. Can I call you tomorrow, Nan? I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
But Nan would not be put off so easily. She tried desperately to keep her sister on the phone. “No, Jillian,” she said quickly, “don’t go, okay? We have to talk.”
Jillian looked down at the radio on the table, then toward the front door of the apartment.
“Jillian?” said Nan.
“I really have to go now, Nan,” said Jillian.
She heard the front door open and the tap of Spencer’s footsteps in the hallway.
“Jillian,” he called. “Where are you?”
Jillian put down the phone as Spencer walked into the room. “Spencer,” she said. “You’re so late… I was beginning to get worried about you.”
Spencer looked surprised. “Didn’t you get my message?” he asked. “I had a dinner meeting tonight.”
“I’m sorry,” Jillian replied. “I didn’t check the answering machine. I didn’t think of it.”
“My fault,” said Spencer. “I still haven’t got this corporate thing down yet.” He kissed her warmly on the lips. “I’m going to take a quick shower. Will you wait up for me?”
She nodded and he kissed her again. “I won’t be a minute,” he said, making for the bathroom. Jillian lay in bed. The light in the bedroom was off, but the door to the bathroom was open. The light was on in there and clouds of steam rolled out from Spencer’s shower. Suddenly the water stopped pounding in the shower and Jillian could see her husband toweling off. He was a spectral form in the steam. As she looked into the bathroom, his shadow fell across the bed, across Jillian’s body.
From inside the cloud of steam, Spencer called out to her. “You feeling okay?”
Without thinking about it, Jillian placed a protective hand on her belly. “Yes,” she said. “I’m fine.”
11
Like a high school girl afraid of getting busted for smoking, the next morning, Jillian carefully checked every stall in the girls’ bathroom at school. To her great relief all of the stalls were empty and she chose the one farthest from the door, locking securely. She did what she had to do, then stood up and pulled up and rearranged her clothing. But Jillian did not leave the stall— rather, she stood there for a full five minutes, staring at the small plastic square she held in her hand. Gradually the few drops of urine she had managed to get into the specimen container were searched for something called HCG. If it could not be detected in a woman’s urine she was not pregnant and a big black minus sign would appear on the little plastic gizmo. A few minutes after taking the test’s the HCG was detected and the mark turned positive.
It was as Jillian had suspected: she was pregnant.
* * *
“Do you ever think of what if I had an F-15 in World War II? Or even a B-17 In World War I?” Jackson McClaren asked his dinner guests. “What if you had had a simple handgun in the Middle Ages? Think of the power you would have had. Did you ever think of something as simple as a technology out of time?”
Shelley McLaren replied first. “No’s Jackson,” she said. “The subject doesn’t come up all that often in the circles 1 move in. We tend to talk about other people.”
Jillian and Spencer laughed, but Jackson ignored his wife’s snide remark. He always did.
The McClarens were entertaining the Armacosts in the dining room of their Fifth Avenue apartment, an apartment so huge and palatially appointed and furnished that it made Spencer and Jillian’s apartment look like a mean and impoverished hovel by comparison.
Jillian could not tell how many servants the McLarens employed—she wasn’t sure if she had seen the same one twёice—but they moved around the table serving each person, silently and faultlessly. It was almost as if they weren’t there at all. It was more that plates arrived and where whisked away by magic. The most astonishing thing to Jillian was how at ease the McLarens were with all this luxury. They took having servants in stride, as if that was the way things were meant to be, one human being serving another.
McLaren was still on his subject, warming to it as he expanded on it. “Think of having an F-15 in September of 1940. One airplane would win the Battle of Britain. And would do it in a matter of minutes. Think of it.”
<
br /> “I did once think of what it might have been like if I had been a nun and lived an impoverished life in the service of others,” said Shelley McLaren. “The thought lasted about a minute and a half as I recall. Maybe less.”
Jackson ignored his wife once again. “What kind of ass could you kick with that type of advanced technology. It would be amazing, truly amazing.” The tycoon seemed particularly taken with Jillian and appeared to be talking directly to her.
“Tell me, Jackson,” said Shelley, “just how many kinds of ass are there?”
This time Jackson McLaren did not ignore his wife. He chose from the cluster of glasses in front of his plate, a rich red claret and took a deep swallow.
“There are many kinds of ass, love,” he said, “but on the modern battlefield they are all electronic.” He raised his glass to Spencer. “And the fighter this man helped us design can detect, sort, identify, and, believe it or not’s nullify anything electronic.”
McLaren leaned toward Jillian as if he was going to let her in on a great secret. “Jillian, dove, the modem battlefield is a blizzard, an invisible electronic blizzard. Tanks, missiles, computers, planes— all humming away’s their electronic brains adding to the blizzard.”
McLaren smiled slyly. “And into this storm flies our fighter. It doesn’t drop bombs, it doesn’t shoot missiles. It just sends a signal. A signal like the voice of God. A signal like the Devil’s trumpet. A signal that over-fucking-whelms every fucking thing. A signal that turns everything off!” He slammed his hand on the table to emphasize his point and there was the tinkling sound of glass and cutlery being rattled on the table cloth.
“By the year 2013,” McLaren continued, “all four branches of the military will be flying our fighter. Three hundred units at 350 million dollars a pop. That’s 105 billion dollars.” McLaren got a faraway look in his eyes. “One hundred and five billion dollars.