Rocket Boy and the Geek Girls

by Phyllis Irene Radford

When she left the white suite Susannah and Potter had come to an agreement.

  All the way back to Manhattan, riding with Beatrice in the copter, Susannah was aware of a new sensation, a smugness Beatrice herself would have recognized. She had taken something from Beatrice, and Beatie would never know it. It would be her own.

  Susannah spent her lunch hour at the bank the next day, transferring money to the account Potter had named. As she wrote the figures out Susannah had a brassy taste in her mouth, a moment of cautionary fear: What am I doing? Then sanity was overwhelmed by the rising image, the image she had lived with for months now, of the lover at her fingertip, nursing gently. Susannah signed the bank chit recklessly and went back to work.

  Potter was early. When the security guard at her building door called up for clearance Susannah was still eating dinner. She looked quickly around her apartment, a painfully neat room on which she had lavished all her energy, choosing fabrics and art that would create a sense of space and graciousness. Except for the dark wood folding table on which her dinner sat half-eaten, the apartment was in order. She went to the door to wait.

  “Good evening, Miss.“ Potter might have been opening the door at Tamerlane for her, rather than she for him.

  “Good evening,“ Susannah replied seriously.

  It took only a few minutes to move the shrouded cart across the room, slide the tank as gently as possible onto the floor, unstick the cans of nutrient fluid which Potter had brought along. “Part of the accoutrements,“ he told her. Then he looked around the apartment once, shook his head as if his worst fears had been confirmed.

  “Well, Miss,“ he said at the door. “I hope it gives you great... pleasure.“

  Susannah blushed. “I’m just trying —“ she began. Gave that up. “Good night, Potter.“

  “I certainly hope so, Miss.“

  When he was gone, Susannah turned back to the apartment, seeing the drying track of fluid dribbled from the tank and the shifting sprawl of Abelard against the plexiglass walls. The tank and cans of fluid took up a space about a meter square, displacing an armchair she had stored away in the basement. Her heart beat so strongly she felt the pulse under her jaw. Susannah walked toward the tank. The pink fluid on the floor smeared greasily under her foot. But when she reached out a hand and touched the lover its surface was not greasy, scarcely even damp. At her touch, Abelard slowly stirred, enveloping her fingertip in warm, firm flesh, just as she remembered.

  Susannah drew away. Some ritual was demanded. The lover sank down into its tank again while she cleared the dishes and started a bath. She soaked for a long time in water as hot as it ever got in her building, then toweled herself dry. When she could think of no further reason to delay, she set about her seduction.

  First there was the clumsy process of getting Abelard out of the tank. The lover did not reach for her as it did for Beatrice, nor follow the sound of her murmurs, her heat and scent. But when touched it did respond, reaching upward to her. After a moment Susannah figured out how to use its weight to move it, letting the lover overbalance and roll forward over the beveled edge of the tank wall. Even so, Susannah had to pull with both hands, palms flat against the malleable flesh, until the creature was wholly out of the tank. Susannah stared at her palms, which tingled with the contact.

  Abelard waited, unmoving. Tentatively Susannah reached out again and touched it, stroking the warm surface. The flesh of the lover kissed her hand, rising to follow the line of her arm, nibbling tenderly at the soft skin of the inner elbow. Susannah sighed, shifted from kneeling to sitting, pushed gently at Abelard’s surface with her free hand until it was enveloped in soft, suckling tissue. The lover was warm like the touch of breath against her skin. Seen closely its surface was a dusty rose, lined, porous and unappealing; after a moment Susannah closed her eyes. Then there was only the touch, the slow sliding pressure on her arms, a kissing of flesh on flesh.

  In the still of the room there was the faint singing of her breath and nothing else. She floated from touch to touch at the lover’s whim; there was nothing to do but be there, be touched. No responsibility for the lover’s pleasure, no necessity for talk or reassurance. Just her own sensations, intoxicating. Abelard swarmed over her, nuzzling and kissing, rocking her gently in the first orgasm, clinging warmly.

  Gradually the stroking at her throat, her breasts, her inner thighs and labia became more insistent, probing. The lover seemed to absorb the energy of her arousal, feeding on it. Susannah was once distantly aware of how strange it was to have no one to hold on to, no shoulders or buttocks to knead. When she stroked the lover its skin kissed back, another sensation, distracting, and after a moment or two she let her hands fall to her sides.

  The lover went on stroking, probing, kissing, shape-changing. Susannah grew tired, overexcited and raw. Her languor turned into heavy-limbed paralysis: it was impossible even to shudder away from the ceaseless warm caress that went on and on. At last, dizzy to fainting, Susannah rolled away from the lover, shivering in the sudden uncovered cool of the room. She lay for a long time, boneless, flushed and exhausted against the pillows. When she turned over she saw Abelard, vaguely forlorn, returned to its squat ovoid shape. She knew she should put it back in its tank again — how long since she had coaxed it out? — but it was still difficult to move.

  Finally she did rise from the floor, pulling on a robe, to attend to the lover, urging it back toward the tank and, at the last, pushing it over the shallow rim again into the nutrient bath. At the first touch of her hands the creature began its slow kissing again. Susannah felt as if every cell in her body was electrified by sensory memory; after the quick shove it took to up-end Abelard into the tank, she pulled away, panting again, waiting for the electric charge to dissipate. Foggy with surfeit she sank back to the floor. After a while she drifted to sleep where she lay.

  oOo

  At work the next day Susannah was tired and stiff. She found herself drifting into daydreams, her eyelids suddenly heavy and her mouth pursed in a soft “o“ as if by surprise. Pressing her legs together she could summon up a flush of physical memory that was momentarily incapacitating. She felt a little drunk; she smiled often. At the stroke of five she cleared her desk and left.

  Somehow she expected her apartment to be changed, tinted pink or filled with musky scent, something exotic. It was the same two small rooms, her careful decorating scheme knocked awry by the tank in the corner. Susannah allowed herself a brief glance at the lover, then committed herself to ritual: dinner, small chores, a bath, all prolonging the expectation. Finally, when she could not distract herself further, she took Abelard from the tank.

  It was as it had been the night before: soft caressing flesh, ripplings of sensation, her body bathed in warm kisses. Even when the pleasure began to mix with pain she could not stop, convinced by her body that the final sensation, the perfect sensation, was only a moment away. When languor gave over the exhaustion, sensation which broke itself, pleasure which hurt too much to bear, Susannah rolled away shaking, listening to her heart pound in the silence of the room.

  In the next few days Susannah developed dark patches under her eyes and a staccato way of talking. It was impossible for her to be in the apartment and not eventually succumb to the lover’s allure. Beatrice called and Susannah said guiltily that she had no time for lunch. Renata called and Susannah pleaded a head cold. At home it piqued her that Abelard still had to be coaxed to her. She remembered the way the creature had yearned toward Beatrice’s hand, her voice. What had Beatrice said? That it was programmed to respond to her physical chemistry. In time, Susannah thought, the lover would learn her chemistry, respond to her, not Beatrice.

  Abelard had been in her apartment for a week when Susannah noticed a callus, a small rough patch on its surface. When she touched the patch the lover responded instantly, sucking gently at her finger.

  “No, sweetie,“ she murmured absently. Concerned, she checked the nutrient fluid, but it was the same clear, uncontamin
ated pink it was supposed to be. For a moment Susannah entertained thoughts of sexually transmitted diseases, explanations to doctors. “This is ridiculous,“ she chided the creature. “There is nothing wrong with you.“ Still, when she took him from the tank that evening she made sure the leathery patch was turned away from her.

  The next night the patch seemed larger.

  Beatrice called again, insisting upon lunch. They met, embraced, and Beatrice launched into her narrative before they had taken their seats. This time, Sue thought, there was a difference. After a few minutes Beatrice broke off and stared curiously at Susannah.

  “All right, what is it?“ she asked.

  Susannah trembled. “What is what?“

  “Susah, you’re off in neverland somewhere, you haven’t heard a thing I’ve said. It must be something. You’ve met a man! Tell me.“

  “I haven’t met a man.“ Susannah was enjoying herself.

  “All right, a woman, then. Tell.“

  “I haven’t met anyone, Beatrice. I spend my nights quietly at home.“ Susannah smiled seraphically. Beatrice’s frown was petulant.

  “Well, don’t tell me.“ Her bad humor lasted another few minutes and then was forgotten as she launched into gossip about her gardener-lover at Tamerlane, about Felix and their parties. By the end of lunch she had talked herself into charity with Susannah again. “You must come out to Tamerlane soon. I’ll even find a gardener for you!“

  Susannah smiled politely. They embraced again and she turned away. Behind her she felt Beatrice watching curiously, for once in all their lives the puzzled one.

  That night as the lover churned over her body Susannah was suddenly aware of the complete silence, the lack of another breath contrapuntal to hers, no words, no noise at all. Later, when she rolled Abelard back into the tank, she found two new leathery patches, and the first was definitely larger, and cracking faintly. Before she left for work the next morning Susannah examined the lover. It seemed shrunken to her, slightly withered. This time she opened two cans of nutrient and recklessly dumped them into the tank. As her hand grazed the lover it nestled sluggishly. Poor thing, she thought. Up close in the light of day it was really kind of awful looking.

  She was late leaving work, haggling with a customer in Zurich over duty compensation; when she got home she had only enough energy to wash her face and fall into bed with a curious sense of relief. She did not remember to check Abelard for further sores then or in the morning. All day she was conscious of an edginess; that night, for the first time, she did not bother with her rituals but pulled off her clothes and tumbled the lover out of its tank as soon as she arrived home. She really did not look at it until later, afterward. The firm, pliant skin was scaly and withered, as if the creature had shrunk inside its own flesh. The first of the calluses was cracked and oozing faintly. Susannah hurriedly pushed the lover into the tank and went to shower the touch of it from her. She did feel some brief compunction, and dropped more fluid into the already-brimming tank before she went to sleep.

  The lover was dull brown by morning, and the fluid in the tank was contaminated with small particles. Susannah was horrified, thinking of the touch of that thing on her body only hours before.

  When she got home the lover was dead.

  Susannah knew it the moment she opened the door; there was no smell, but a sense of presence in the apartment was abruptly not there. Abelard floating in the tank, shriveled and dark, strands of peeling skin suspended in the murky fluid that surrounded it. Susannah wanted to close and lock the door to her apartment and disappear.

  It took her a while to think what to do. Finally, Susannah dragged the lover out of the tank and wrapped it in an old towel. Its withered form was surprisingly light and much smaller than it had been alive. Clutching the bundle tightly to her chest, she carried it down seven flights to the garbage room in the basement. Then she pushed it away from her violently, heaving the creature and the towel into a trash can. The sight of the gray-brown husk half hidden by terry cloth in the bottom of the can was the final straw. Susannah fled, weeping, back to her apartment. It was some time before she thought to empty the tank of its tainted nutrient and bring it, and the remaining cans of fluid, down to the basement.

  oOo

  Then Susannah went into some kind of mourning, reducing her already small world to a simple loop of work and sleep. She lost weight, the former tidiness of her apartment declined into dusty clutter. She saw no one outside of work. The thought of people dismayed her. Friends called, Beatrice and Renata, an old boyfriend back in town, a man from work. Susannah left the phone off the hook and fell asleep each night to the rhythmic whine of the signal. Daily she watched what she was doing to herself and was appalled, but inertia outweighed everything and nothing changed.

  At last Renata got through to her. A party at her place in Connecticut. Susannah would have to come, someone would certainly give her a lift out. Of all the people she had known from the Samaritan school, emphatic, generous Renata was the one Susannah liked best, feared least, and was most likely to ignore. But today Renata used her most persuasive voice and best blandishments. Perhaps, Susannah thought, it was time to go out.

  Renata was delighted. “Wonderful, wonderful. Listen, Beatie’s coming. I’ll tell her to give you a ride out. Wonderful! Wear something nice, sweetie. There will be some lovely men.“

  Men. Susannah was not ready to consider the idea. And of all the people in the world, Beatrice was the last one with whom she wanted to ride out to Connecticut. She thought of calling back and canceling, but the habit of inaction was just too strong. It was easier, finally, to just go.

  Beatrice began chattering before Susannah had closed the door of the copter: how had she been, where had she been, why all the mystery? “You look marvelous, Susah, so thin! But you just dropped out of sight. I was right, wasn’t I? You had a new lover? My God, love, it’s been months since I’ve seen you.“

  Susannah agreed that it had been months, and stared stolidly down at the forest of spires below them, the slowly reemerging Manhattan skyscape.

  “I should have tried harder to get hold of you, I know,“ Beatrice went on, expertly guiding the copter east over the Sound. “We’ve been all at sixes and sevens out at the house, even poor Felix had to get tangled up in it. Can you imagine? We had to fire Potter.“

  Susannah felt a hollowness in her stomach, as if the copter had suddenly made a two hundred foot drop. “Fire Potter? Why?“

  “God, Susah, he’d been taking advantage — they all do, it’s expected, up to a point. But Potter overstepped the bounds.“ Beatrice’s long eyebrows arched in amusement. “Do you know, he actually took it upon himself to throw out my little toy? You know, that thing I had made —“

  “Abelard,“ Susannah whispered.

  “God, Abelard. What a memory you have. Felix was convinced that Potter had sold the poor little thing on the black market, but I can’t imagine anyone buying it.“

  Susannah stared straight ahead. What did Beatrice know? Was this one of her dreadful teasing games?

  “I mean, there wouldn’t have been any point,“ Beatrice continued.

  She’s waiting, Susannah thought, for me to pick up my cues. “Why not?“ she asked.

  “It couldn’t have been used by anyone but me, love. Not for long, anyway. It was made for me. Touching anyone else that way would have poisoned it, like an allergy. Potter knew that, the Bioform people told him, for heaven’s sake. He knew there was no point in anyone buying it. Unless he sold it as food, and that’s too revolting a thought even —“

  Susannah leaned against the door of the copter, wishing it would open and drop her into the water five hundred feet below. Beatrice went on and on and on. Susannah didn’t listen. She concentrated on not throwing up as the copter dipped and canted in the early evening breeze. In her mind she played over the picture of the lover, of Abelard, draped in her bathroom towel and discarded in the trash.

  Renata was waiting for them, chivvi
ed them into her small house, already packed with people. “Susannah, sweetie, you look like death. You were airsick, weren’t you? Beatie, you fly that damned thing like a maniac. Go take off that dreadful fur and find yourself a drink.“ She pulled Susannah into a bathroom.

  “Really, Susah, are you all right? Do you want to talk?“ Her arm around Susannah’s shoulders, Renata sat them both down on the side of the tub. Distantly Susannah felt the warmth and weight of Renata’s arm around her. “Susah?“

  Susannah shook her head, afraid to speak. Finally she managed, “Fighting off a bug or something. I’ll be okay. Thank you.“

  Renata squeezed her again, then stood up. “All right, Susah. You don’t have to tell me what it is, but fix yourself up and come out as soon as you can, will you? This is a party, love. You’re here to... to part.“ She smiled with pleasure at her own silliness, kissed Susannah’s cheek, and left her.

  Susannah stared around the blue and white bathroom, at the embroidered hand towels and sculpted soap. Here to part. With what? With Beatrice? Maybe, after all these years. Maybe. With Abelard? Another wave of deep nausea: she had killed Beatrice’s lover, she had been deadly, the damned thing had died giving her pleasure.