"Regular Batman, ain't I?"
She snorted. And snorted again as the film reached the point where she
threw her arms around his neck and received his kiss.
"You don't like that?" he asked.
She tossed her head, but didn't reply. Her eyes were intent on the
screen. Suddenly she snickered. "Look at you!" she exclaimed. "You'd
think you were preparing to protect me from the Devil, or something,
the way you push me behind that rock and get ready with your gun.
What's coming next--Indians?"
"Better than that," he said drily. "If that's an Indian, I'm a pop
bottle cork...."
She screamed involuntarily, then caught herself. "What a foul looking
beast," she said. "So that's what you have in your mind!"
"Looks like I don't intend to keep him there," he remarked. He watched
with interest as his shots took effect on the monster and it crashed to
the valley floor. "Too bad we don't have sound effects."
Now she began to shout with laughter. "Kissing again!" she said, "The
hero has slain the dragon, and even while he stands beside its kicking
corpse, he embraces the fair maiden. Ye Gods, Don, is that the _brain_
I'm working for? You _really_ need a psychiatrist!"
"What do you mean?" he asked angrily.
"Why, it's all so obvious. Here you are, carrying a torch for me,
and taking out your frustration in comic-book daydreams. And the
protagonist in your dream is poor Brannan, of whom you are obviously
jealous. Why, Brannan doesn't mean a thing to me! So, here you are,
rescuing me--or stealing me--from the evil Brannan, and slaying the
dragon he sends out to kill us both, and proceeding on your merry way
toward a happily-ever-after ending. See, there's the Garden of Eden at
the end of the dark valley...."
"And there's Brannan again, to foul up the works," said Jensen. "Looks
like my daydreams aren't exactly logical...."
But he, too, stopped in sudden horror as the film ground on and showed
Mary leaping to her death to save him from the priest's arrow. Neither
of them said a word as the wild battle that followed was enacted
before them, to the final scene. They watched his body topple down and
the screen go blank, then he got up and snapped off the projector and
turned up the lights.
"If you ask me," he said, "those last weren't _my_ thoughts. And if
I remember rightly, when I came to, your hand was still clutching
the wires to the machine. Also, I'm hanged if I'd ever even _dream_
of you being killed. I'd have mopped up on that gang and borne you
triumphantly to a leafy bower and...."
"... and what?" she said faintly.
"We've got a wonderful thing here," he said. "A tremendous method of
psychiatric diagnoses. We can project every desire, every frustration,
every concealed emotion, directly on a screen, and see with our own
eyes exactly what is bothering the subconscious of the patient. We can
see exactly what they _really_ want. What they _really_ feel. Like...."
"... like what?" she asked again.
He bent and kissed her. "How would you like to raise a flock of our
kids, while I make a lot of money plowing up the subconscious corn in
other people?"
"I'd have agreed long ago, if you'd asked me," she said.
"I'd have asked long ago, if you hadn't kept on going out with
Brannan," he retorted.
"What do you think I went out with him for!"
He stood nonplussed for a moment, then he grinned. "Maybe we better
strap on the electrodes again," he said. "There's a lot of corn left in
both of us!"