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"I have to take care of a few things before we leave tomorrow," he'd said. Well, of course she wasn't his wife yet and she didn't have the right to ask questions, but would she ever feel secure enough with him to do so?
At last, Eve came upstairs to lie on the big bed and flick the switches that would bring her music again. Bach—cool, measured, soothing sounds. But they couldn't stop her thoughts. She wondered if she should have taken the tranquilizer—it might have helped, after all.
Oh, God. What's going to happen to me in the end? Do I really want this? I'll have the money, of course, but he'll have me. I'm afraid of him. And everything's moving so damned fast! When he's making love to mo, he's all there and it's good, and for a little while then I'm not afraid. But the rest of the time, he's too controlled, too carefully remote. I can't read Mm; I can't understand him.
She had closed her eyes, but his voice cut sharply through her thoughts.
"Eve, don't go to sleep yet—we have to call your mother, remember?"
She remembered. And wondered all over again what she was going to say. Her mother would be shocked, of course. She was old-fashioned enough to jump to the conclusion that Eve was pregnant. But Mom wouldn't ask that question. Poor Mom!
"Brant, can I cop out and have you talk to her first? She's going to think—"
"That you're pregnant. Well, baby, maybe we ought to get you that way in a hurry."
"Brant!"
"You sounded just like a wife when you said that. Better watch it."
He sat on the bed beside her and smiled at her, and she realized suddenly that he very seldom smiled at all.
"I wonder if I'll ever understand you?" The words slipped out quite accidentally; she had only meant to think them.
He raised his eyebrows at her, his face composed again.
"That's hard for me to say. Sometimes I don't even understand myself, but that could be because I gave up wondering a long time ago. The only thing I learned from three years of analysis was to accept myself as I am."
His hand touched her unconsciously clenched fist, which lay between them.
"Relax, Eve. You're going to have to learn to stop being so scared and tense around me."
"Brant—"
"Yes, I know. You have reason to be."
"It's not just that." She sat upright, so that she faced him. "It's just that I have this feeling that being cruel is an instinctive thing with you—that you don't really care about people unless—unless they're necessary to you, for whatever purpose you have in mind."
After she'd said it, she wondered nervously if she'd gone too far, but he merely looked thoughtful, as if he were considering her impulsive speech.
"I suppose you're right," he said at last. "Ever since— well, ever since I was young, I've known that there was no one but me to watch out for me. And I figured that everyone else could learn the same thing for themselves. If you play a game, you'd better know the rules. I learned that, too. So if I'm cruel, or someone gets hurt, I never gave it a second thought. Guess I've never really thought of other people as people, if you know what I mean. Just convenient adjuncts to the way of life I'd chosen."
"You mean the kicks circuit? But why that? You could have become a—a monk and thought about it all in some monastery or ashram, or—or done anything else you wanted to that the world has to offer!"
He laughed suddenly, a short, mirthless sound.
"A monk! Yes, funnily enough, I did think about that once, but it seemed too much of a drag, living by rules— all that crap about obedience and chastity, with no real reasons why. And at the time I didn't want to be alone too much. I had my reasons. But you want to know why the life I lead now, don't you? The theory behind it— sensualism, hedonism as the pure flame, consume the body with excesses rather than fasting in order to set the mind free. Something like the old ascetic monks believed in, the desert-livers, the hermits who insisted on seeking their own path to salvation—only my way offers much more scope. I've turned on with pot and coke and acid and speed—you name it, I've tried it at least once. Sometimes drugs help intensify the feeling of feeling, you know? But then after a while nothing's new, and sometimes the walls close in on you and you're alone and so damned scared because you're not in control any longer. Having a crowd around helps, but only at first. After a while..."
His eyes had looked blank and opaque while he'd been talking, but suddenly, for one fleeting moment, they looked directly into hers, and Eve thought she could actually see in them. Something that was almost pity made her reach out to him and touch him.
"Don't—I didn't mean to pry, I just want to understand, you see."
"Understanding takes time, baby. Lots of time and learning to care, which is something I'm not used to. You'll have to help me. I'm a moody bastard sometimes, and I'm going to have to learn to give instead of taking all the time. But dammit—"
"Be careful," she said shakily, "you're letting too much of yourself show. And I might—I might end up liking you, you know—would that bore you?"
He put both his hands on her shoulders, his eyes searching her face.
"Maybe that's what I need—to have to work at persuading someone to like me. And maybe you interest me enough to dig deeper under your soft-seeming sex-kitten surface, just to see what I'll discover."
