"I'm handling this, Charles. I ,repeat: Why, Valera?"
"I don't buy whores at your prices."
"You think Galatea's a whore?"
"Think? I know."
"You contracted for the perfect mistress who would be faithful and loving and devoted to you."
Galatea let out a moan.
"I'm sorry, my love, you never knew. I'd planned to tell you, but only after I was sure you were genuinely attracted to him. I never had any intention of forcing him on you."
"You wicked men!" she cried. "You're all hateful!"
"And now, Valera, you think of a mistress as a whore? Why this sudden eruption of archaic morality?"
"It isn't a question of morality, damn you. It's a question of secondhand goods. I want no part. of a shopworn woman."
"Must I stay here with him? Does he own me? Am I bought and paid for?"
"No, love. Come to us."
She dashed away from Valera's side and then hesitated. Claudia held out her arms, but Galatea surprised everybody by going to Manwright, who took her gently.
"All right, Valera," he said. "Go now and take your army with you. Your check will be returned first thing in the morning."
"Not until I know who it was."
"Not until who what was?"
"The goddamn lover-boy who knocked her up."
"What?"
"She's pregnant, you goddamn pimp. The bitch has been sleeping around, and I want to know the stud who knocked her up. He's got plenty coming."
After a long pause, Manwright asked, "Are you under a psychiatrist's care?"
"Don't be ridiculous."
"No more ridiculous than your slander. Galatea preg-nant? My lovely, tasteful young lady sleeping around with studs? You're obviously quite mad. Go."
"Mad, am I? Ridiculous? You can't see that she's preg-nant? lhrn her around and look at her face in this ultralight. Look at her!"
"I'll go through the motions only to get rid of you."
Manwright smiled at Galatea as he turned the girl around. "Just a gesture, love. You'll have your dignity back in a mo-ment, and I swear you'll never lose it ag-"
His words were cut off, as if by a guillotine. In the ultra-light from the glowing pool there was no mistaking the dark pregnancy band across Galatea's face, similar to the banded mask of a racoon. He took a slow deep breath and answered the confusion in her eyes by placing a hand over her mouth.
"Go, Valera. This is now a family affair."
"I demand an answer. I won't leave until I know who it was. Your half-wit hunchback, Igor, probably. I can picture them in bed; the slobbering idiot and the-"
Manwright's interruption was an explosion. He hurled Galatea into Claudia's arms, drove a knee into Larson's groin, tore the laser away from the convulsed man, whipped Valera across the neck with the barrel, and held the stagger-ing chairman over the edge of the pool.
"The piranhas are starving," he murmured, "Do you go in or get out?"
After the syndicate had left, not without dire promises, Manwright turned up the house lights and extinguished the pool ultralight and, with that, the pregnancy stigma banding Galatea's face. In a strange way they were all relieved.
"Not to play the district attorney," he said, "but I must know how it happened."
"How what happened?" Galatea demanded.
"Sweetheart, you are pregnant."
"No, no, no!"
"I know it can't be anyone in this house. Claudia, has she been promiscuous outside?"
NO
"How can you ask such questions!"
"Has Galatea been alone with a man in a possibly intimate situation?"
"You're hateful!"
NO
"Reg, we all know that. We've chaperoned Gally every moment outside, you, me, Claudia."
"Not every moment. Charles. It could have happened with this innocent in five minutes."
"But nothing ever happened with a man! Nothing! Ever!"
"Dear love, you are pregnant."
"I can't be."
"You are, undeniably. Charles?"
"Gally. I adore you, no matter what, but Reg is right. The pregnancy band is undeniable."
"But I'm a virgin."
"Claudia?"
HR MNS HV STOPT "Her what have stopped"
Corque sighed. "Her menses, Reg."
"Ah so."
"I'm a virgin, you wicked, detestable men. A virgin!"
Manwright took her frantic face in his hands. "Sweet-heart, no recriminations, no punishments, no Coventry, but
I must know where I slipped up, how it happened. Who were you with, where and when?"
"I've never been with any man, anywhere or anywhen."
"Never?"
"Never... except in my dreams."
"Dreams?" Manwright smiled. "All girls have them. That's not what I mean, dear."
R MAB U SHD MN
"Maybe I should mean what, Claudia?"
LT HR TL U HR DRMS
"Let her tell me her dreams? Why?"
JST LSN
"All right, I'll listen. Tlrll me about your dreams, love."
"No. They're private property."
"Claudia wants me to hear them."
"She's the only one I've ever told. I'm ashamed of them."
Claudia fingerwagged. "Tell him, Gally. You don't know how important they are."
"No!"
"Galatea Galante, are you going to disobey your nanny? I am ordering you to tell your dreams."
"Please, nanny. No. They're erotic."
"I know, dear. That's why they're important. You must tell."
At length, Galatea whispered, "Put out the lights, please." The fascinated Corque obliged.
In the darkness, she began, "They're erotic. They're dis-gusting. I'm so ashamed. They're always the same... and I'm always ashamed... but I can't stop....
"There's a man, a pale man, a moonlight man, and I... I want him. I want him to... to handle me and ravish me into ecstasy, b-but he doesn't want me, so he runs, and I chase him. And I catch him. Th-there are some sort of friends who help me catch him and tie him up. And then they go away and leave me alone with the moonlight man, and I... and I do to him what I wanted to him to do to me...."
They could hear her trembling and rustling in her chair.
Very carefully, Manwright asked, "Who is this moonlight man, Galatea?"
"I don't know."
"But you're drawn to him?"
"Oh yes. Yes! I always want him."
"Just him alone, or are there other moonlight men?"
"Only him. He's all I ever want."
"But you don't know who he is. In the dreams do you know who you are?"
"Me. Just me."
"As you are in real life?"
"Yes, except that I'm dressed different."
"Different? How?"
"Beads and... and buckskin with fringe."
They all heard Manwright gasp.
"Perhaps like... like a Red Indian, Galatea?"
"I never thought of that. Yes. I'm an Indian, an Indian squaw up in the mountains, and I make love to the paleface every night."
"Oh. My. God." The words were squeezed out of Manwright. "They're no dreams." Suddenly he roared, "Light! Give me light, Charles! Igor! Light!"
The brilliant lights revealed him standing and shaking, moonlight pale in shock. "Oh my God, my God, my God!" He was almost incoherent. "Dear God, what have I cre-ated?"
"Mahth-ter!"
"Reg! "
"Don't you understand? I know Claudia suspected; that's why she made Galatea tell me her dreams."
"B-but they're only dirty dreams," Galatea wailed. "What could possibly be the harm?"
"Damn you and damn me! They were not dreams. They were reality in disguise. That's the harm. That's how your dreams lock in with my nightmares, which were reality, too. Christi I've generated a monster!"
"Now calm yourself, Reg, and do try to make sense."
"I can't. There's no sense in it. There's nothing but th
at lu-natic drop of acid I promised Valera."
"The mystery surprise in her?"
"You kept wondering what it was, Charles. Well, now you know, if you can interpret the evidence."
"What evidence?"
Manwright forced himself into a sort of thunderous con-trol. "I dreamed I was pursued and caught by Red Indians, tied up, and ravished by a sexy squaw. I told you. Yes?"
"Yes. Interminably."
"Galatea dreams she's a Red Indian squaw, pursuing, cap-turing, and ravishing a paleface she desires. You heard her?"
"I heard her."
"Did she know about my dreams?"
" "
No.
"Did I know about hers?"
" "
No.
"Coincidence?"
"Possibly."
"Would you care to bet on that possibility?"
"No."
"And there you have it. Those `dreams' were sleep ver-sions or distortions of what was really happening; some-thing which neither of us could face awake. Galatea's been coming into my bed every night, and we've been making love."
"Impossible!"
"Is she pregnant?"
"Yes."
"And I'm Valera's lover-boy, the stud responsible. My p
God! My God!" `
"Reg, this is outlandish. Claudia, has Gally ever left her bed nights?"
NO
"There!"
"Damn it, I'm not talking about a conventional, human woman. I didn't generate one. I'm talking about an other-world creature whose psyche is as physically real as her body, can materialize out of it, accomplish its desires, and amalgamate again. An emotional double as real as the flesh. You've pestered me about the deliberate unexpected in my programming. Well, here's the R = L x ,/ N. Galatea's a succubus."
"A what?"
"A succubus. A sexy female demon. Perfectly human by day. Completely conformist. But with the spectral power to come, like a carnal cloud, to men in their sleep, nights, and seduce them."
"No!" Galatea cried in despair. "I'm not that. I can't be."
"And she doesn't even know it. She's an unconscious de-mon. The laugh's on me, Charles," Manwright said ruefully. "By God, when I do glitch it's a beauty. I knock myself out programming the Perfect Popsy with an engram for Valera, and she ruins everything by switching her passion to me."
"No surprise. You're very much alike."
"I'm in no mood for jokes. And then Galatea turns out to be a succubus who doesn't know it and has her will of me in ' our sleep every night."
"No, no! They were dreams. Dreams!"
"Were they? Were they?" Manwright was having difficulty controlling his impatience with her damned obtuseness.
"How else did you get yourself pregnant, eh; enceinte, grav-ida, knocked up? Don't you dare argue with me, you impu-dent red saucebox! You know," he reflected, "there should have been a smidgen of Margaret Sanger in the program-ming. Never occurred to me."
He was back to his familiar impossible self, and every-body relaxed.
"What now, Reg?"
"Oh, I'll marry the snip, of course. Can't let a dangerous creature like Galatea out of the house."
"Out of your life, you mean?"
"Never!" Galatea shouted. "Never! Marry you, you dreadful, impossible, conceited, bullying, know-it-all, wicked man? Never! If I'm a demon, what are you? Come, Claudia."
The two women went very quickly upstairs.
"Are you serious about marrying Gally, Reg?"
"Certainly, Charles. I'm no Valera. I don't want a relation-ship with a popsy, no matter how perfect."
"But do you love her?"
"I love all my creations."
"Answer the question. Do you love Gally, as a man loves a woman?"
"That sexy succubus? That naive demon? Love her? Ab-surd! No, all I want is the legal right to tie her to a stake every night, when I'm awake. Ha!"
Corque laughed. "I see you do, and I'm very happy for you both. But, you know, you'll have to court her."
"What! Court? That impertinent brat?"
"My dear Reg, can't you grasp that she isn't a child any-more? She's a grown young woman with character and pride."
"Yes, she's had you in thrall since the moment she was poured," Manwright growled. Then he sighed and accepted defeat. "But I suppose you're right. My dear Igor!"
"Here, mahth-ter."
"Please set up that table again. Fresh service, candles, flowers, and see if you can salvage the monsters you created for the dinner. White gloves."
"No brainth, mahth-ter?"
"Not this evening. I see the Mouton Rothschild's been smashed. Another bottle, please. And then my compliments to Ms. Galatea Galante, and will she have the forgiveness to dine, a deux, with a most contrite suitor. Present her with a corsage from me... something orchidy. This will be a fun necromance. Charles," he mused. "Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme, alevai. Man and Demon. Our boys will be devils, sorcery says, and the girls witches. But aren't they all?"
The End
Galatea Galante Page 5