"One of the first test samples was my own blood," she said. "You saw it.
It was one of the twelve positive."
"But the symptoms--you don't show a sign of--"
"Thanks," she said. "I started to break down yesterday, but you didn't
notice. You see, you are my fixation and when you told me that you had
it, too, I--"
"_Your_ fixation!" The beaker slipped from his fingers and smashed to
the tile. "_You're in love with me?_"
Her arms hung loosely at her sides and tears rimmed her eyes.
"Pathologically or otherwise, I've been a case since before I started
the blood tests."
They moved together and clung to each other. "Phyl, Phyl--why didn't you
tell me?"
* * * * *
Fiercely, she closed his lips with her own, and her fingers dug deeply
into his shoulders. His arms pulled her closer yet, trying to fill the
void in him that was greater than the Universe. For a long minute, the
knowledge of her love and physical contact with her straining body
dispelled the bleak loneliness.
When their lips parted, they gasped for breath.
It was no good. It was like tearing at an itching insect bite with your
fingernails. The relief was only momentary, and it left the wound
bleeding and more irritated than ever. Even if they were married--look
at Peter at the club--Peter and his wife, mutually in love and
completely miserable. It wasn't normal love. It was the damned virus!
As well argue with gravity. He tried to tell her, but he couldn't make
her understand. Her restraint had been magnificent, but when the dam
broke, it was beyond stopping the flood of her emotion. And now he
couldn't believe it himself. Nothing this wonderful could be destroyed
by mere misunderstanding. He cursed the years of his celibacy. All that
time wasted--lost!
It was six o'clock before they reached her apartment. The License Bureau
had been a mob scene. Hours more, upstairs in the City Hall waiting for
the judge, while they held hands like a pair of college sophomores,
staring into each others' eyes, drinking, drinking the elixir of
adoration with a thirst that wouldn't be sated.
Phyllis weakened first. In the cab, after the ceremony, she released his
hand and wiped her damp forehead.
Then, in the elevator, Murt felt himself relaxing. The alchemy of
sustained passion had exhausted them both, he decided.
As Phyllis slipped the key in the door, she looked up at him in
surprise. "Do you know, I'm hungry. I'm starved--for the first time in
months."
Murt discovered his own stomach was stirring with a prosaic pangful
demand of its own. "We should have stopped to eat," he said, realizing
they had forgotten lunch.
"_Steaks!_ I have some beauties in my freezer!" Phyllis exclaimed. They
peeled off their coats and she led him into the small kitchen. She
pointed at the cupboard and silverware drawer. "Set the table. We'll eat
in five minutes."
* * * * *
Slipping into an apron, she explored the freezer for meat and French
fries, dropped them into the HF cooker and set the timer for 90 seconds.
When it clicked off, she was emptying a transparent sack of prepared
salad into a bowl.
"Coffee will be ready in 50 seconds, so let's eat," she announced.
For minutes, they ate silently, ravenously, face to face in the little
breakfast nook. Murt had forgotten the pure animal pleasure of
satisfying a neglected appetite, and so, apparently, had his wife.
_Wife!_ The thought jolted him.
Their eyes met, and he knew that the same thing was in her mind.
The sulfa-tetradine!
With the edge barely off his hunger, he stopped eating. She did, too.
They sipped the steaming coffee and looked at each other.
"I--feel better," Phyllis said at last.
"So do I."
"I mean--I feel differently."
He studied her face. It was new. The tenseness was gone and it was a
beautiful face, with soft lips and intelligent eyes. But now the eyes
were merely friendly.
And it aroused no more than a casual pleasure in him, the pleasure of
viewing a lovely painting or a perfect sunset. A peaceful intellectual
rapport settled over them, inducing a physical lethargy. They spoke
freely of their sensations, of the hypo-adrenal effects, and wondered
that there was no unpleasant reaction. They decided that, initially at
least, sulfa-tetradine was a miraculous success. Murt thought he should
go back to the hospital and work out a report right away.
Phyllis agreed and offered to accompany him, but he said she had better
get a night's sleep. The next day would be hectic.
After four hours at his desk, he called a taxi and, without hesitation,
gave the address of his club. Not until he fell wearily into bed did he
remember it was his wedding night.
By mutual agreement, the marriage was annulled the next day.
Feldman and Peterson were gratified at the efficacy of their drug, but
both were horrified that Murt had chosen to experiment on himself. As
usual, Phyl had insisted on being left out of the report.
* * * * *
After a week of close observation, one of the monkeys was chloroformed
and tissue-by-tissue examination was made by an army of histologists.
Blood samples showed completely clear of the virus, as did a recheck on
Murt's own blood. No deleterious effects could be detected, so the
results were published through the Government Health Service.
It was the day before Christmas before Dr. Sylvester Murt first noticed
the approaching symptoms of a relapse, or reinfection--he couldn't guess
which. The past weeks had been pleasantly busy and, as acclaimed
authority on Murt's virus, he had had little time to think subjectively
about his experience.
Sulfa-tetradine was now considered the specific for the affliction and
was being produced and shipped by the carload all over the world. The
press had over-generously insisted on giving him all the credit for the
remedy as well as the isolation of the disease virus. He was an
international hero.
The warning of another attack came to him at 3:30 in the afternoon, when
Phyllis Sutton was leaving. She stuck her head back in the door and gave
him an uncommonly warm smile and cried, "Merry Christmas, Doctor!"
He waved at her and, as the door closed, caught his breath. There was
the burn in his stomach again. It passed away and he refused to give it
further thought.
His own cab wound its way through the heavy Christmas Eve traffic an
hour before store-closing time. Finally, the vehicle stalled in a jam.
It was only six blocks to his club, so Murt paid off the driver and
walked.
Part of his strategy of bachelorhood had been to ignore Christmas and
the other sentimental seasons, when loneliness costs many a man his
independence. But now it was impossible to ignore the snowflakes, the
bustling, package-laden crowds and the street-corner Santa Clauses with
their tinkling bells.
* * * * *
He found himself staring into department store windows at the gay
decorations.
A pair of shimmering, nearly invisible nylons caught his eye. They were
the most impalpable of substances, only their bare outline visible
against the white background.
He thought of Phyllis and, on impulse, went into the store and bought a
pair. The clerk had to pick a size at random for him. Outside, on the
sidewalk, he stared at the prettily gift-wrapped package and finally
acknowledged the tremor, the tension and the old ache in the region of
his diaphragm.
_Relapse!_
He plodded three slushy blocks up a side-street before he found a cab.
He gave Phyllis Sutton's address to the driver and sank back in the taxi
as a wave of weakness overcame him. What if she weren't home? It was
Christmas Eve. She would probably be visiting friends or relatives.
But she wasn't. She opened the door under his impatient knock, and her
eyes widened cordially.
"Sylvester!" she exclaimed. "Merry Christmas! Is that for me?" She
pointed to the package, clutched forgotten in his hands.
"Merry, hell!" he said dispiritedly. "I came to warn you to look out for
a relapse. Mine's been coming on all day."
She drew him inside, made him take off his coat and sit down before she
acknowledged his remark. The apartment was cozy, with a tiny Christmas
tree decorated in the window. She returned from the hall closet and sat
beside him.
"Look what I did--on impulse," he said and tossed the package on her
lap. "That's what really turned it on."
She opened the nylons and looked up at him sideways.
He continued unhappily, "I saw them in a window. Made me think of you,
and about that time the seizure began. I tried to kid myself that I was
just getting you a little token of--of my esteem, but the symptoms are
almost as bad as before already."
* * * * *
Apparently she refused to accept the seriousness of the situation. Her
smile was fatuous, he thought, kissably fatuous.
"Don't you realize what this means?" he demanded. "Peterson and Feldman
turned up a very distressing fact. Sulfa-tetradine deposits out in the
endocrines, so a single dose is all a person can take. This relapse of
mine means we have it all to do over again."
"Think, Dr. Murt! Just think a minute," she urged.
"About what?"
"If the sulfa deposits out in the very glands it's there to protect, how
could you be suffering another attack?"
His arms ached to reach out and emphasize his argument. "I don't know.
All I know is how I feel. In a way, this is even worse, because--"
"I know," Phyllis said and perversely moved close to him. "My relapse
came last Tuesday when I bought you a tie for Christmas. I sent a blood
sample over to Ebert Labs right away. And do you know what?"
"What?" Murt asked in a bewildered fog.
"It was negative. I don't have Murt's Virus." She slipped an arm around
his waist and put her head on his shoulder. "All I've got is Murt
himself."