Not Now: Death, Dreams & Reasons for Living

by Sam Smith

  Coming into the shallows, wading towards the beach, the realization came to me — at sight of her breasts cresting the water — that again we were both naked; and she was glancing over my emerging body as I was trying not to glance over hers.

  She stopped in the shallows.

  I took a few more steps, knew she was looking full at me (Where was Sririsl?), and I too stopped, turned to her.

  "I don't know what you're thinking," she was frowning at me, into herself. "You don't know what I'm thinking." The frown deepened. Her legs started walking again of their own volition. I continued towards the beach.

  "Wait!" she said.

  I looked around. She had again stopped, was again concentrating hard,

  "I keep telling myself that I have to tell you everything. That for you to know I have to tell you. Yes?"

  "What?" I smiled defensively. Was Sririsl unwell? Alive still?

  "I want to have sex with you."

  "Oh," I took a step back, nervously turned aside, back again, manically thought, 'Nothing like subtlety'. My voice said, "Won't Sririsl mind? You being her daughter I mean."

  "No. She's pleased for us."

  "Where is she?" I asked. Rufena gave a quick glance inwards,

  "Gone to gather green plums."

  I stood shin-deep in water not knowing what to do next. Whether, faced with the very real prospect, it was proper for me to have sex with a hybrid. Nor was there any possibility of a discreet affair: every hybrid everywhere would know.

  Rufena was again frowning at me. Hair wet to her round head, drips running down her body: she was very pretty, very desirable.

  "I need you to tell me what you're thinking," she said, the normal confusion of human communication being new to her

  "I'm thinking," I saw it at that moment as my brief to be honest, to be true — what had Leon said? 'Falsity is of no use to us.' — "I'm thinking, I'm fearing, that if I have sex with you it might offend all your other people here."

  "They know it's what I want."

  "And they don't mind?"

  "They're old," she laughed: "They're telling me to be careful."

  I laughed with her; and she stepped into that laughter, touched my arm. (Same gesture as Sririsl.)

  "So?" Her look of perplexity passed over my face, caught my eyes, "Are we going to have sex?"

  "Here?" I smiling signified the beach.

  Would be uncomfortable on that gritty beach, and in the leaf-littered woods. Wouldn't matter if we were seen: through Rufena the whole of the Knowledge would see anyway.

  Rufena again had that intent expression, appeared to be trying to look up under my eyes.

  "Is that," she asked, "what you want?"

  "No. I'd feel happier indoors. If you don't mind?"

  So, finally, we two walked out of the water and up across the beach. This is crazy, I thought, crazy.

  To let out the tension I shouted a laugh, twirled her around and laughed again. Startled, Rufena laughed at me, with me. So it was, under the trees, we held one another and shaking laughed. Then, hand in hand, home we ran.

  * * * * *

  Although lodged in the Knowledge is every moment of our lovemaking I feel uncomfortable writing about it here. Possibly because the Knowledge has millions upon millions of factual comparisons it can call upon, and because all thoughts go into the Knowledge there can be no pornography in the Knowledge, no masturbatory voyeurism. While here, on this page, on this screen, I don't know who you are, what you are thinking. So let me just tell you this — mine and Rufena's lovemaking was not that mechanically remarkable. Therefore, what I will tell you here, are only my thoughts as I made love.

  As I said I was very aware of the Knowledge watching me through Rufena. So, within my bedroom, mine was both a very private and a very public performance. (The exhibitionist in me made it into a show, enjoyed having that hidden audience. I actually christened some of longer slower lovemaking 'Performances for Voyeurs'.)

  I was also acutely aware in that bedroom of how my human ancestors had sexually treated Talkers, and I was gentle in the extreme with Rufena. Even so she said, gasping and turning under my every touch,

  "It's exciting not knowing."

  We were young, stayed in the house the rest of that morning, learning each other.

  Rufena told me that she had been watching me through her mother, through Sririsl's amusement. Rufena told me of the first swimming, my worries about going naked, of my falling out of the tree, of my talking to hens.

  "You see me through many eyes," I half complained. "I can only see you through mine. I can't even see me through yours."

  "Nor, Okinwe Orbison, can I see myself through yours. It has its compensations." She ran a tickling finger across my belly.

  Quieter she said,

  "You were kind to Meffo. Too late though."

  Leaning up I made a study of her smooth angular face, the roundness of her head. Inside there, through those pale grey eyes, beyond that mesh of skin and bone, was the whole Knowledge. And I would know of that Knowledge, I would know of Rufena, only what she told me; while, with her, I would be able to have no secrets from any other hybrid.

  After a late lunch she said that she had to go, work to do, and she left.

  I stayed in the bed, stretched out on my back, putting the momentous morning into some sort of order, worrying at the consequences, ramifications of it; and wondering where she had gone, disappointed that she had.

  For some reason I had assumed that she would have waited until Sririsl returned, and we could have met her together.

  In the end I grew tired of lying alone in bed, went nervously looking for Sririsl.

  44

  Sririsl had adopted my habit of sitting in her doorway. Back sliding down the wall I squatted beside her.

  She had glanced up a smile of greeting, nothing more.

  "Don't you really mind?" I said.

  "Rufena's very happy. Uncertain of you. But happy."

  "That makes you happy?"

  "Not happy. Pleased for her."

  "You don't mind about me then?"

  "Why should I mind about you?"

  It was in my thoughts to say that she, being my suicidal client, had prior claim to my time (and sexual favours? Our age difference, though, probably precluded my eligibility as consort.)

  "My ancestors abused your ancestors," I said instead.

  "We invited you here."

  True. My turn to pause.

  "Aren't you concerned that my relationship with Rufena will complicate my being here?"

  Sririsl turned to look at me. In her scrutiny I saw her daughter looking into my face.

  "I don't understand what it will complicate."

  "Me probably," I sighed. "All a bit unexpected this."

  Sririsl chuckled.

  "Rufena is a very headstrong girl. You will learn this. Not many girls her age continue to visit their mothers. Especially not one so miserable as I."

  "I must be certain," I said, realizing again with heart-thumping clarity that Rufena was a witness to this conversation, "that you don't mind."

  "Why should I mind?" Sririsl laid her long thin hand on my arm, patted me, "It will keep her close."

  The hand became, of a moment, a painful grip,

  "You're not thinking of going?"

  I had, for that moment, gone off into a daydream — guessing at what form this relationship would Rufena would take, wondering what was expected of me...

  I'd had girlfriends before, girls who'd wanted to be seen with clever me, the both of us cynically using the other. Aside from it adding to the wisdom of our young years, neither of us participants had attached much importance to those affairs.

  This time, though, for Sririsl's sake if not Rufena's, I wanted to make Rufena happy. But I didn't know, here on Arbora, how I could bring that about.

  Yet this planet wasn't so very different from Space. The hard part, anywhere, is knowing what the other person wants from our friendship. Agree
ing to give, or not, is the easy part. And to Rufena I wanted to give. Once I knew what she wanted...

  I started at the pain in my arm, smiled defensively at Sririsl,

  "I'm not going anywhere. Not so long as Rufena wants me to stay."

  Sririsl let go my arm. Rubbing it I laughed,

  "I can't stop thinking about her. Think this could be love?"

  45

  The big man glares blue-eyed across the desk at me. I am sitting on the small hard chair. He squeezes one fist inside the other.

  "Love kills."

  "No!” I start to my feet.

  "Wipes out identity."

  He has risen to match my rising, crimson knuckles on his desk. He is much bigger than me.

  "With every addition we are diminished." His eyes are actorishly narrowed, "One plus one equals nought."

  "Oh you're so very clever!" I shout, mock laugh, "Love empowers."

  "The power of a crowd," he comes out from behind the desk, "is a weakness."

  I shake my head. He walks suavely behind me,

  "Sit down."

  I sit back down, trying to think.

  “Love kills," he says. "You will kill."

  "No!"

  "You will kill Sririsl. This will confuse them."

  "No!"

  I am quivering top-to-toe with the certainty of my refusal.

  "Fine then." From behind him his fat hands bring a red hen, place it in my lap, "She's old and scrawny like Sririsl. Kill her instead."

  The hen looks at me with her yellow eye. Knuckles opposing I reluctantly place my hands, fingers apart, astride its neck. Wondering how I know how to do this, I begin to separate.

  * * * * *

  I awoke disappointed.

  I had thought, now that I had made contact with the Knowledge through love, I had done with its dreams.

  46

  I began my swim out to the middle of the lake with a tremor of anticipation, expecting any moment to hear the plash of Rufena's stroke. Not wanting to spoil her surprise I deliberately didn't look up, kept plodding on to the middle.

  Disappointment was like a weight inside me when, finally, I did pause. The water between the beach and I showed only light wrinkles.

  Expecting to see her coming down through the trees to the beach I began the swim back with my head erect. (Maybe she'd been kept by her work. What was her work? There was so much I didn't know about her.) I saw myself waving to her as soon as she appeared on the beach. I imagined her running into the water, diving, the two of us swimming towards one another, breathlessly embracing, sinking, spluttering, laughing...

  The beach stayed empty.

  To make her come I stopped looking, swam head down. My hands touched gravelly bottom; and the beach was empty.

  Nor was she in my house.

  My happiness, my sexual self-congratulation of the previous day dropped from me. Had Rufena just wanted to try sex with a human? Like city women go from poet to painter seeking sexual novelty, sex with a celebrity? Was that it? I had to know, was hurting too much, set off to find Sririsl in the forest.

  But if Rufena had been merely using me, I thought as I walked along, then Sririsl would have told me last evening.

  Had something happened to Rufena? Sririsl would have found me, have told me.

  Rufena jumped out from behind a tree.

  I started. All my worries burst from me in a shout and I ran at her. She shrieked. I grabbed her up and swung her round, laughing with relief, laughing like my father had when swinging me...

  And that became the pattern of those happy days.

  Every morning Rufena tried to surprise me. Sometimes it was in the water, more often in the forest. While I tried to counter-surprise her.

  Glimpsing her crouched behind a tree waiting to leap on me, I'd creep around behind her, pounce on her with a snarl. Squealing she'd go running off and I'd have to track her through the forest as my father had tracked himself through the city. Catching her again I'd grab her up and swing her around, give my father's laugh of victory, sang her name over and over again like a magic chant,

  "Rufena Rufena Rufena..."

  At some point, every day, in our chases through the forest, we'd make love. It was a time of happy innocence.

  "Being with you," Rufena said gasping, "is like being with a wild animal. You're unpredictable, dangerous."

  "Me? Dangerous?" I hopped around her clucking, "I'm a happy hen."

  "You talk to hens."

  "But we don't communicate," I kissed her.

  Rainy days we stayed within the house lolling around, curled in the other's warmth. Until she had to go.

  "Rufena Rufena Rufena..."

  Rufena's was an arbitrary clock, her errands mysterious. I found out more about her from Sririsl than Rufena herself told me.

  Part, most of my attraction, Sririsl said, was in Rufena's being able to have secrets from me. I frequently suspected another lover, kept for nights, as I was kept for days.

  "Put your mind at rest," Sririsl ruffled my hair. "She loves only you."

  "But where does she go?"

  "To her work."

  "Which is?"

  "Collection of fungus and root vegetables."

  "That's it?"

  "Yes."

  "So why won't she tell me?"

  "She can't have secrets from anyone but you."

  I growled my frustration. I wanted to tell Rufena everything about myself, to know everything about her. Rufena, though, preferred the novelty of not knowing.

  Our lovemaking became mute and intense, long stares at one another, each trying to divine the other's mind. In those languorous investigations of the other's body I wondered at my own breath-holding sensuality.

  Still I didn't know all of her; and when I tried to explain my frustration she listened, then said,

  "This is what I feel..." in a voice I came to recognise as her talking for the benefit of listening others, almost like she was talking to a notepad, self-examination to a third party. And I felt bereft, abandoned, with her arms around me:

  "Rufena Rufena Rufena..."

  47

  I am walking, am approaching the soggy marsh at the far end of the lake.

  Feeling the ground start to give under my bare feet, cold clear water coming up through the grass and between my toes, I step onto a domed hummock of stiff yellow grass. From that hummock I step onto another, stride onto another.

  The strides become leaps. Giant leaps become jumps. I rejoice in the power of my legs.

  I jump too far, go slipping, splashing off the last yellow hummock into a bright green quagmire.

  Momentum takes me stumbling on in up to my thighs.

  Cursing, keeping my balance, I take my bearings.

  I'd been concentrating all the time on only the next hummock. Which had brought me to the very edge of the lake. Now I am stuck, two body lengths from the last hummock, and I can feel the lake-bottom ooze gripping my feet.

  Every wriggle makes me sink.

  Think, I tell myself.

  No thoughts come.

  I hear a ripple, a chirping noise.

  From out behind a hummock come two of the little creatures who'd tied me down. They are on a raft of bunched reeds. More rafts are coming out from behind other hummocks.

  My buttocks and penis are just above the lapping water level. (Not a sex dream, I think, not while I'm having all this sex with Rufena. Such a dream would be an act of mental betrayal.) They have thin ropes again.

  Their black curly hair is wet. Bits of marsh weed stick to their bodies. All are very excited, chirping instructions to one another.

  Swiveling on my hips I slap my hands into the water, make waves. They cling to their rafts, shake their heads at me not to do it.

  The activity has made my feet sink some more.

  Two of the rafts, towing lines, have gone out beyond me. Realizing that they intend drawing those lines tight around my body, I lift my arms above my head.

  As if the
y'd been awaiting that very signal a net is shot from behind to cover the whole of me. On all the encircling rafts the creatures grab the net's edges and pull at its drawstring.

  Momentum has the rafts come bumping into my stomach and the small of my back.

  I am caught, give up the struggle, await whatever indignity they seek to impose

  When nothing has seemed to happen I look down.

  This time they're not bothering with my genitals, which are anyway now underwater. Climbing up my body they've hung cradles off the net. Around their feet, in the bottom of the cradles, are small silver machines and phials of coloured liquids.

  Without overbalancing I can't get a close look at what they mean to do. The machines look like robot attachments.

  A sharp pain in my side makes me jerk and splash.

  The other creatures on my body chirp angrily at the one on my side.

  When the pain has passed I look down again. The silver machine ends in a needle point. At a shout from behind they all push their needles into me.

  The agony makes me go rigid. All I can do is pant.

  Getting used to it, sweat running down my face, I risk looking down again.

  Each of the creatures is intent on tattooing shapes on me. Oval shapes. Eyelids. (Is this what they meant to do last time? But got sidetracked?)

  Where the first creature started on my side I feel a movement, and an eyelid stickily opens.

  I am looking out through my side, past the creature's arm and across the lake.

  Just as my mind is coming to terms with looking out through three eyes, I feel more flutterings on my back, on my captive arms.

  I am all at once looking back at the hummock, at the creatures climbing down from me, across into the forest, out to the wide lake, down at the eye on my chest looking up into my face.

  * * * * *

  I woke screaming, brushing at my body.

  * * * * *

  Light on I was glad that I was alone, took a long deep breath and lay myself gently back.

  I was learning to live with those other-world other-life dreams, I told myself; but I continued to keep just my two eyes open.