by Bryce Walton
influencedtheir becoming.
He took out a small neurogun and walked. He reached what seemed to be ahuge park that seemed to surround the city. It grew warmer and a softwind whispered through the strange wide-spreading trees and bushes andexotic blossoms. The scent of blossoms drifted on the wind and the soundof running water, of murmuring voices.
The park thickened as Bowren edged into its dark, languid depth. Itseemed as though the city radiated heat. He dodged suddenly behind atree, knelt down. For an instant he was embarrassed seeing the twoshadowy figures in each others arms on a bench in the moonlight. Thisemotion gave way to shock, anger, fear.
One of them was a--man!
Bowren felt the perspiration start from his face. An intense jealousysurrendered to a start of fearful curiosity. Where had the man comefrom?
Bowren's long frustration, the memory of his wife, the humiliation, therejection, the abandonment, the impotent rage of loneliness--it all cameback to him.
He controlled his emotion somehow. At least he didn't manifest itphysically. He crept closer, listened.
"This was such a sweet idea," the woman was whispering. "Bringing mehere to the park tonight. That's why I love you so, Marvin. You'realways so romantic."
"How else could I think of you, darling," the man said. His voice wascultured, precise, soft, thick with emotion.
"You're so sweet, Marvin."
"You're so beautiful, darling. I think of you every minute that you'reaway on one of those space flights. You women are so wonderful to haveconquered space, but sometimes I hate the ships that take you away fromme."
The woman sighed. "But it's so nice to come back to you. So exciting, socomfortable."
The kiss was long and deep. Bowren backed away, almost smashing into thetree. He touched his forehead. He was sweating heavily. His bearddripped moisture. There was a hollow panicky feeling in his stomach. Nowhe was confused as well as afraid.
Another couple was sitting next to a fountain, and a bubbling brook ranpast them, singing into the darkness. Bowren crouched behind a bush andlistened. It might have been the man he had just left, still talking.The voice was slightly different, but the dialogue sounded very much thesame.
"It must be wonderful to be a woman, dear, and voyage between the stars.But as I say, I'm glad to stay here and tend the home and mind thechildren, glad to be here, my arms open to you when you come back."
"It's so wonderful to know that you care so much. I'm so glad you neverlet me forget that you love me."
"I love you, every minute of every day. Just think--two more months andone week and we will have been married ten years."
"It's so lovely," she said. "It seems like ten days. Like those firstthrilling ten days, darling, going over and over again."
"I'll always love you, darling."
"Always?"
"Always."
The man got up, lifted the woman in his arms, held her high. "Darling,let's go for a night ride across the desert."
"Oh, you darling. You always think of these little adventures."
"All life with you is an adventure."
"But what about little Jimmie and Janice?"
"I've arranged a sitter for them."
"But darling--you mean you--Oh, you're so wonderful. You think ofeverything. So practical, yet so romantic ... so--"
He kissed her and ran away, holding her high in the air, and herlaughter bubbled back to where Bowren crouched behind the bush. He kepton crouching there, staring numbly at the vacancy the fleeing couple hadleft in the shadows. "Good God," he whispered. "After ten years--"
He shook his head and slowly licked his lips. He'd been married fiveyears.
It hadn't been like this. He'd never heard of any marriage maintainingsuch a crazy high romantic level of manic neuroticism as this for verylong. Of course the women had always expected it to. But the men--
And anyway--_where did the men come from?_
* * * * *
Bowren moved down a winding lane between exotic blossoms, through airsaturated with the damp scent of night-blooming flowers. He walkedcautiously enough, but in a kind of daze, his mind spinning. Theappearance of those men remained in his mind. When he closed his eyesfor a moment, he could see them.
Perfectly groomed, impeccably dressed, smiling, vital, bronze-skinned,delicate, yet strong features; the kind of male who might be considered,Bowren thought, to be able to assert just the right degree ofaggressiveness without being indelicate.
Why, he thought, they've found perfect men, their type of men.
He dodged behind a tree. Here it was again. Same play, same scenepractically, only the players were two other people. A couple standingarm in arm beside a big pool full of weird darting fish and throwingupward a subdued bluish light. Music drifted along the warm currents ofair. The couple were silhouetted by the indirect light. The pose isperfect, he thought. The setting is perfect.
"You're so wonderful, darling," the man was saying, "and I get so lonelywithout you. I always see your face, hear your voice, no matter how longyou're away."
"Do you? Do you?"
"Always. Your hair so red, so dark it seems black in certain lights.Your eyes so slanted, so dark a green they seem black usually too. Yournose so straight, the nostrils flaring slightly, the least bit too muchsometimes. Your mouth so red and full. Your skin so smooth and dark. Andyou're ageless, darling. Being married to you five years, it's oneexciting adventure."
"I love you so," she said. "You're everything any woman could want in ahusband. Simply everything, yet you're so modest with it all. I stillremember how it used to be. Back there ... with the other men I mean?"
"You should forget about _them_, my dear."
"I'm forgetting, slowly though. It may take a long time to forgetcompletely. Oh, he was such an unpleasant person, so uninteresting aftera while. So inconsiderate, so self-centered. He wasn't romantic at all.He never said he loved me, and when he kissed me it was mere routine. Henever thought about anything but his work, and when he did come home atnight, he would yell at me about not having ordered the right dinnerfrom the cafelator. He didn't care whether he used hair remover on hisface in the mornings or not. He was surly and sullen and selfish. But Icould have forgiven everything else if he had only told me every daythat he loved me, that he could never love anyone else. The things thatyou do and say, darling."
"I love you," he said. "I love you, I love you. But please, let's nottalk about _him_ anymore. It simply horrifies me!"
Bowren felt the sudden sickening throbbing of his stomach. Thedescription. Now the slight familiarity of voice. And then he heard theman say, murmuring, "Lois ... darling Lois...."
Lois! LOIS!
Bowren shivered. His jowls darkened, his mouth pressed thin by thepowerful clamp of his jaws. His body seemed to loosen all over and hefell into a crouch. Tiredness and torn nerves and long-suppressedemotion throbbed in him, and all the rage and suppression andfrustration came back in a wave. He yelled. It was more of a sound, aharsh prolonged animal roar of pain and rage and humiliation.
"Lois ..." He ran forward.
She gasped, sank away as Bowren hit the man, hard. The man sighed andgyrated swinging his arms, teetering and flipped backward into the poolamong the lights and the weird fish. A spray of cold water struckBowren, sobering him a little, sobered his burst of mindless passionenough that he could hear the shouts of alarm ringing through the trees.He turned desperately.
Lois cringed. He scarcely remembered her now, he realized. She wasdifferent. He had forgotten everything except an image that had changedwith longing. She hadn't been too impressive anyway, maybe, or maybe shehad. It didn't matter now.
He tried to run, tried to get away. He heard Lois' voice, high andshrill. Figures closed in around him. He fought, desperately. He put afew temporarily out of the way with the neurogun, but there were alwaysmore. Men, men everywhere. Hundreds of men where there should be no menat all. Well-groomed, strong, bronzed, ever-smiling men. It
gave himintense pleasure to crack off a few of the smiles. To hurl the gun,smash with his fists.
Then the men were swarming all over him, the clean faces, the smilingfragrant men, and he went down under the weight of men.
He tried to move. A blow fell hard and his head smashed against therocks. He tried to rise up, and other blows beat him down and he wasglad about the darkness, not because it relieved the pain, but becauseit curtained off the faces of men.
* * * * *
After a time it was as though he was being carried through a dimhalf-consciousness, able to think, too tired to move or open his eyes.He remembered how the men of Earth had rationalized a long time, makinga joke out of it. Laughing