Elvissey (9 page)

"The dash design couldn't remain so trad," Tak explained, beginning to decipher the two dozen dials. "Multiple readout devices are guised in old format where possible.
Observe, por fav." John and I followed the route of his finger
as it mapped the terrain. "Speedometer, here. Recompensa-
tor. Lightrod inserted here, to allow better nightsight; pulls out when needed and automatically ignites. Battery gauge.
Compass."

"Compass? Where're the geographics?" asked John.

"There'll be no satellite on that side to atlas in with," said
Tak, prodding a stubby rod attached to the steering column.
"Automatic transmission, three gears and reverse. AM radio,
guaranteed against fadeout or sunspots." Switching its
knob, he tuned in, bringing up the news.

`-missile fell this morning in Mexico City exurbs sustaining minor damage. Seven hundred missing-"

"Five hundred HP," Tak said, pressing the ignition. We
tried to hear the actual engine's gentle whir beneath the
soundtrack, a loud, rhythmic pounding. "Authentic V-8 engine sound. Inbuilt Lasereo on and offswitches automatically. Handy if otherworlders give ear as it's running. This is
the flux monitor. Digitalizer, with necessary graphs available
on demand. Geiger counter. Agitators, inside and out. Compensator. Tachometer. Area meteorologics panel here-"

"What's this?" John asked, tapping a blue ovoid bolted
onto the steering wheel.

"Necker knob," said Tak. "Original accoutrement."

"Purpose?"

"For onehanding the wheel, freeing driver to fondle willing companions without dysfunctioning driving." Tak
pointed at a red button located below the radio. "Most
important. Your plan calls for returning to original entrance
point after completion of mission, correct?"

"AO," said John. "If possibled."

"If OEP is unreachable, employ this. Only if danger demands. Otherwise, consider it nonexistent."

"Why?" I asked. "What is it?"

"Concealed as overdrive," Tak said. "In truth, an Alekhine device. Upon employment, transfer immediately effects
and car crosses back to this world. Trauma to vehicle and
occupants will be great upon application, increasing proportionate to speed at the instant of transferral. Inferences suggest that this method caused, if in unknown manner, all
previous terminations. The Alekhine device kills as it cures,
authorities believe. But-"

"If needed," I said.

"Pay up and chance," said Tak. "But there it is."

"This screen," John said, fingering a blank rhomboid
bordered by chrome ribbon. "Catalytic readings? Reconnai-
sance tracker?"

"Clock."

The pills Leverett provided drained away my lingering dark
with indecent haste; ten hours after I'd dosed, my skin's gray
vanished beneath a wash of pink and crimson, as if in night
an artist, possessed by artistic inspiration perhaps believed
divine, came upon me while I slept, and bespattered without
warning the canvas there found.

"Bedaway, Iz," my husband said, calling to me through
our bathroom door, on our predeparture evening. "Tomorrow'11 be yesterday too soon."

"Hold the horses," I said, disrobing. Rinsing my flati-
roned hair a final time, rubbing added blondness into every
strand, I concluded my bleach. Standing naked before the
mirror, I saw myself through blue lenses, recreated as desired, an artist's delight: Venus atremble at seaside, another
regooded resident to best suit our eternal city; one showing
neither black nor white, but golden. I eyed my new and
forever-unfamiliar image, troubled and attracted, wondering how long it would take me to forget who I'd been. Would
my persona change to match my appearance? Had it already
changed?

Prolonging my look overmuch, I began fearing that this
metamorphosis was, rather, metastasis; soon enough supplanted that fright with a new one. Stepping into our bedroom, I allowed my husband to behold me. John lay bedded,
staring ceilingways, confronting the dark.

"Iz-?" he whispered.

"Think I'll pass?" I asked, reclining alongside him, corpus
to corpse. Rolling over toward me, he twitched as if galvanized; raised himself on one elbow and eyed me long, saying
nothing. John studied me so closely as I'd studied myself,
vizzing and revizzing my ashen hair, my watery eyes, my
bleached skin. "Preferred?"

"Yes," he said. "No. Yes-"

"Which?" I asked.

"Both. All. Iz-"

He caressed my shoulder, as if to demonstrate to himself
that I was more than cloud or nightmare, though no more
harmful than either. Leverett's pills sedated John so efficaciously as had his old prescription, yet not to such degree,
and those emotions he retained intensified anew. His lassitude ceased at once, that afternoon. By evening his soul
seemed nearly to reemerge.

"You've cat-tongued," I said. "Blurt."

"Confusion overwhelmed. You appeared ghosted."

"Foolish," I said, and smiled. "Grave matters you're
minding, as ever."

"Iz, it's-"

"What's thought, then? Is my look better or worse?"

"Unsayable," he said. "You're neither nor. You're a
third."

Rolling stomachways, pressing my face into my pillow as
if to snuff breath, I wished I had a confessor near, who by
telling me what I should think, would enable me to say what
was thought.

"What troubles, Iz?" John said. "It's told as seen. Unsayable because-"

"I'll renew as I was, once returned," I said. "Bear up and
blind eye till then."

"Unsayable because neither. Better, worse; inapplicable.
Different, nothing other. Beauty surpasses, irregarded."

My thoughts perversed: whose beauty? With careful move ment, John shifted his legs; during his clinicking the medicis
finalized him for our trip, certifying him limber, reoiling,
restringing, and rehanging all joints. Hauling himself onto
me as if onto a raft, he clasped my face as if holding ostrichfruit, kissing me; I responded, full. Momentslong, all was
nearly as once before; I rolled with him, wrapping myself
round, and he held and crushed and pounded. But as I lay
there beneath him I troubled anew, sensing sans reason that
he'd gone elsewhere again, perhaps thinking of others or
even of me as I'd been. This notion disconnected me, and
however much I should have preferred to remain within my
own body, I didn't, and allowed myself release. As in what
children call cyberdreams, real enough to heartseize, I saw
myself hovering above our bed, observing sans expression
our thrashes below, wondering how it must feel.

"Iz-"

"Yes-?" I asked, uncertain from which of my figures my
voice issued.

"You there-?"

` y? "

As he pushed himself inside me, he descended each time
with hammerblows. I'd thought that as he raged the sickness
would arise, and slow him, yet each violent shove only made
more mindless his thrall. Without warning or desire, my soul
lurched back into my flesh, cleaving body with spirit till both
were bloodied.

"Hurting," I shouted. "You're hurting me, John-"

His eyeshades fluttered, flashing the blank white windows
they hid. My husband muted while he bruised, vising me
into immobility, giving no sign of hearing my pleas. My
fright was rising high when he unexpectedly burst, shaking
as if he were bombarded land. Coughing for several minutes
afterward, he enabled air to reinvade his lungs. Reaching
around his great shivering whiteness, I clutched my husband
twoarmed; then, as mindlessly, tried squeezing his breath
out, as if to kill him while I could.

"Iz-" he said, gasping as he broke my hold.

`John, " I shouted; recovered. "Bestill. Calm, calm yourself. John-"

"Where were you?" he shouted, his air regained.

"Where? With you-" He sighed; lay becalmed across me,
his eyes pinching shut, racking and reracking, wetting my
skin with tears. "You hurt me, John-"

"You absented," he said. "I felt you go."

"Forgive," I said, "Forgive, John, forgive, but you hurt
me.

"All's nulled when only one's pleased. Why did you fly?"

"I thought I wasn't me. I didn't think I was. The feel's as
different as the look."

"You inspired so-" he said.

"A blondie in your bed inspired as I never have."

"You, you, only you-"

"I could have been anyone," I said. "So your actions
evidenced. You've never hurt me before, John, especially not
bedded."

With scarred hands he dried his eyes. "Not with you," he
said. "Not deliberate, never. Never. Forgive, Iz, forgive-"

"All we've done is forgive sans forgetting," I said. "It
wearies."

"I blanked, Iz. I never meant to hurt. Not you. Never."

"So you blanked, I blanked. Lovemaking at last, and nobody home."

We lay there listening to our sounds. Mayhap that explained his drugs' noneffect; he'd have bled himself into
coma had true violence inhered. Mayhap a blinding exuberance of emotion astrayed him, the love of another surpassing all sense: nothing more, I retold myself, believing as I
could. My husband appeared helpless as a beached whale as
he lay there, his respiration gradually slowing as his sobs
slipped away. The clock clicked midnight; our departure day
arrived, and as it did, John spoke again.

"Will we ever regood ourselves, Iz?"

"I don't know," I said. "Forgiven, forgotten," I said. "Two
renewed virgins who'd let their technik lapse. Nothing
more."

"Supposed," he said, petting my face. I wouldn't pull
away, but didn't feel able to touch him again so soon.
"Twelve hours till leavetaking, thereabouts."

"Scared?" I asked.

"No. You?" I shook my head, lying as he did; traced my
fingers along an old riverbed topographing his cheek, regretful that he'd made hate rather than love to me. "Say we
pass over, Iz, and naught changes between us. What then?"
he asked.

"Abey hopes while traveling, John," I said. "Don't dwell
overmuch now. Earplay as we go, and we'll reconsider all,
once returned. This may suffice, or may not."

"It's facted I'm positive about this trip," he said, sounding
unnervingly insistent, anxious for belief. "I've no negatives.
Not one."

"Known, love," I said. "Return first, then we'll see. Work
as commanded till then."

"Return's not guaranteed, Iz," he said.

"Known."

Laying his head on the pillow next to mine, engulfing my
hand within his, John stared at me; I knew he saw into me
as I saw into him, however much we forever fought our
mutual trespasses. "The advantage, after all," he said. "Be
near me always, Iz. Always. Will you be near me always?"

I knew the answer he wanted to hear; it couldn't be mine,
could never be mine. Death should hinge neither on another's desire, nor on the lack thereof, but should arrive
accorded as it sees fit; as naturally, and unexpectedly, as
love. "I'll try," I answered; but softly, minutes later, and I
wasn't sure he was listening; but in his mind, he'd already
heard.

At morningside we donned our traveling clothes, bespoken
for our journey; the researchers judged them era-appropriate. John wore a black double-breasted suit, white shirt, gray
hat and a tie imprinted with neon swirls; I was ensembled
with a blue pillbox hat and boat-necked sheath dress midcalf-long, clinging to my shape as burlap drapes potatoes.
The shoes given me had toes so pointed and heels so spiked
that they pained, merely to see; wearing unbeared, but I
adjusted.

We were driven to Dryco; while John and Leverett readied
our car for removal, I went to see Judy, who'd wished to meet
once more, predeparture. While waiting for her to unlink
from her conferencees, I wandered through her office's
inner reception area, hidden from executaries' stares, struggling to think of anything other than John, or our assignment; a new shipment of design elements awaited dispersal
throughout her suite. I wondered where my desk would be,
afterward.

Judy stepped from her chamber; paused at her door;
stared at me as if I were a stranger. "Iz?"

"Howdy," I said; she frowned. "What's thought?"

"That's apparel, over there? Their poor women," she said,
eyeing me updown. "Such seachanges in you, Iz. None unknowing should see through the guise. Leverett said his
candy'd perform its tricks, and for once he truthed."

"It's unnatural," I said. "A stranger in myself. I feel inhabited."

"You always have," she said.

"Inhabited," I repeated. "Not inhibited."

Crossing the room, she neared and embraced. "I've a
secondary failsafe for you. In case." Thrusting her arm
through the crook of my own, she led me into her chamber.
"Mum it with Leverett, it's no matter of his. Scared, Iz?"

"Greatly," I said.

"Wise," she said, nodding. "Last eve I gutspilled to
Seamus anew about this madness. But all're mindset, so all goes ahead. Nada to be done then but ready for disaster, and
so lessen cost." Redecoration was underwaying, within her
office. A sail-size portrait had been hung above her faux-log
fireplace. Her drapes were drawn wide, and looking windowways I saw impenetrable layers of cloud without, streaming
and bubbling and flash-lit by lightning.