"Well, _say_ something then."
"It's more fun listening to you."
"You say that just like you mean it ... or do you mean _funny_?"
"No. I mean that it's hard for me to talk much. I don't know how to
say a lot of the things I want to say. And most people don't say
anything when they talk, and I don't like listening to their voices,
but I do like yours, and ... I can't help liking what you say ... it's
always so _nice_. About me, I mean. Complimentary. Flattering."
"You were right the first time. And you seem to be able to say what
you mean very clearly."
Which was just the trouble. Not only able to, but unable not to. It
didn't take any special planning or remembering to say or act the
necessary lies to other humans. But Larry was the least alien person
I'd ever known. Dishonesty to him was like lying to myself. Playing a
role for him was pure schizophrenia.
Right then, I knew it was a mistake. I should never have made that
date, or at least not nearly so soon. But even as I thought that, I
had no more intention of cutting it short or backing out than I did of
going back to the ship the next day. I just tried not to talk too
much, and trusted to the certain knowledge that I was as important to
him as he was to me--so perhaps whatever mistakes I made, whatever I
said that sounded _wrong_, he would either accept or ignore or
forgive.
But of course you can't just sit all night and say nothing. And the
simplest things could trip me up. Like when he asked if I'd like to
dance, and all I had to say was "No, thanks," and instead, because I
_wanted_ to try it, I said, "I don't know how."
Or when he said something about going to a movie, and I agreed
enthusiastically, and he gave me a choice of three different ones that
he wanted to see ... "Oh, anyone," I told him. "You're easy to
please," he said, but he insisted on my making a choice. There was
something he called "an old-Astaire-Rogers," and something else that
was made in England, and one current American one with stars I'd seen
on television. I wanted to see either of the others. I could have said
so, or I could have named one, any one. Instead I heard myself
blurting out that I'd never been to a movie.
At that point, of course, he began to ask questions in earnest. And at
that point, schizoid or not, I had to lie. It was easier, though,
because I'd been thoroughly briefed in my story, for just such
emergencies as this--and because I could talk more or less
uninterruptedly, with only pertinent questions thrown in, and without
having to react so much to the emotional tensions between us.
I told him how my parents had died in an automobile accident when I
was a baby; how my two uncles had claimed me at the hospital; about
the old house up on the mountainside, and the convent school, and the
two old men who hated the evils of the world; about the death of the
first uncle, and at long last the death of the second, and the lawyers
and the will and everything--the whole story, as we'd worked it out
back on the ship.
It answered everything, explained everything--even the unexpected item
of not being able to eat meat. My uncles were vegetarians, which was
certainly a harmless eccentricity compared to most of the others I
credited them with.
As a story, it was pretty far-fetched, but it hung together--and in
certain ways, it wasn't even _too_ far removed from the truth. It was,
anyhow, the closest thing to the truth that I could tell--and I
therefore delivered it with a fair degree of conviction. Of course it
wasn't designed to stand up to the close and personal inspection Larry
gave it; but then he _wanted_ to believe me.
He seemed to swallow it. What he did, of course, was something any man
who relies, as he did, on his reflexes and responses to stay alive,
learns to do very early--he filed all questions and apparent
discrepancies for reference, or for thinking over when there was time,
and proceeded to make the most of the current situation.
We both made the most of it. It was a wonderful evening, from that
point on. We went to the Astaire-Rogers picture, and although I missed
a lot of the humor, since it was contemporary stuff from a time before
I had any chance to learn about Earth, the music and dancing were fun.
Later on, I found that dancing was not nearly as difficult or
intricate as it looked--at least not with Larry. All I had to do was
give in to a natural impulse to let my body follow his. It felt
wonderful, from the feet on up.
Finally, we went back to the hotel, where we'd left my car, and I
started to get out of his, but he reached out an arm, and stopped me.
"There's something else I guess you never did," he said. His voice
sounded different from before. He put both his hands on my shoulders,
and pulled me toward him, and leaned over and kissed me.
I'd seen it, of course, on television.
I'd seen it, but I had no idea....
That first time, it was something I felt on my lips, and felt so
sweetly and so strongly that the rest of me seemed to melt away
entirely. I had no other sensations, except in that one place where
his mouth touched mine. That was the first time.
When it stopped, the world stopped, and I began again, but I had to
sort out the parts and pieces and put them all together to find out
who I was. While I did this, his hands were still on my shoulders,
where they'd been all along, only he was holding me at arm's distance
away from him, and looking at me curiously.
"It really was, wasn't it?" he said.
"What?" I tried to say, but the sound didn't come out. I took a breath
and "Was what?" I croaked.
"The first time." He smiled suddenly, and it was like the sun coming
up in the morning, and then his arms went all the way around me. I
don't know whether he moved over on the seat, or I did, or both of us.
"Oh, baby, baby," he whispered in my ear, and then there was the
second time.
The second time was like the first, and also like dancing, and some
ways like the bathtub. This time none of me melted away; it was all
there, and all close to him, and all warm, and all tingling with
sensations. I was more completely alive right then than I had ever
been before in my life.
After we stopped kissing each other, we stayed very still, holding on
to each other, for a while, and then he moved away just a little,
enough, to breathe better.
I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to get out of the car. I
didn't even want to be separated from him by the two or three inches
between us on the seat. But he was sitting next to me now, staring
straight ahead, not saying anything, and I just didn't know what came
next. On television, the kiss was always the end of the scene.
He started the car again.