Aftermath

35

Auden Travis did not lead them to beer or anything else. He could not, since he was not in his office. When they got there a note was pinned on the locked door: back at seven-thirty, berlitz/ferrand: second floor, rooms 225-226.

“Which settles that,” Dana said. “It’s going to be a dry evening.”

While they were on the way upstairs, thunder and lightning had started outside. The building had switched to an emergency lighting system, steady but dim.

“I suppose they have other things on their mind,” she went on. “All right, let’s see where they’ve put us. I’ve always wanted to sleep in the Lincoln Bedroom.”

Room 225 turned out to be nondescript but adequate, with an adjoining door leading through to Room 226. It faced north across the city, currently the scene of a staggering lightning display. Art left Dana testing the springs of the double bed and went on through to the other room.

The difference was striking. Room 226 was four times the size, with ample room for its king-sized bed, sofa, end tables, armchairs, desk, and standing wardrobes. A kitchenette led off it, with refrigerator, oven, and breakfast table. On the table Art saw a basket, with a note from Yasmin Silvers: He said the sight of your bare belly made his day. It made him think of the old pictures of Lyndon Johnson showing off the scar of his gallbladder operation. Inside were crackers, bread, cheeses, an iron-hard salami, and butter. Some of them had come from an old government stockpile — the date on the cheese was 2020. But the bread was fresh, and next to it stood the main prize: two bottles of wine and a box of assorted fizzes. Yasmin had even included a corkscrew and glasses that looked like antique crystal.

Art wandered back to the other room, where Dana was emerging from the bathroom. “Loads of hot water,” she said. “I’m going to shower forever. I was too tired last night and I didn’t have time this morning. What’s the other place like?”

“I suppose it will have to do. I’ve only got one complaint.”

“What?”

“The red wine is all right, but the white wine is at room temperature. It ought to be chilled.”

She was heading through the connecting door before he finished speaking. When he came to her she was cuddling the bottle of red wine to her chest.

“Next time I see President Steinmetz, I’m going to kiss him. How do you work this crazy corkscrew?”

“Pressure. The needle on the end is hollow. Stick it through the cork and pump. No, not like that. Let me.”

While he opened the bottle, Dana examined the fizzes. “Elevs, holds, dorphs, and morphs. Good stuff. Didn’t the President make a speech last year, deploring the use of fizzes?”

“I’m sure he did.” Art was drawing the cork with care. “No problem for him — he’s not a user.”

“How do you know?”

“Too old.” He handed Dana a half-filled glass. “Same as me. It’s a generation thing. We did pot and booze the way new-century youth does snap and fizzes. Bring the basket and a knife.”

Art picked up the bottle and his own glass and carried them through from the kitchenette. He settled onto the sofa, pulling an end table in front of them. Dana followed, but she made a quick detour to examine the bathroom.

“There’s a bathtub,” she said as she sat down next to him. “A huge one. You can wallow in it, probably even swim in it.” She held out her glass for more wine. “Pour, and sit still. I want to look at something.”

“You’re supposed to savor it, not guzzle it.” But Art sat obediently still as she came around the back of the couch and bent to examine the top of his head. “I don’t know what you’re looking for, but I won’t be surprised if you find it. We’ve been living pretty dirty.”

“Not head lice, if that’s what you mean. But I found what I was looking for.” She came around to the front again. “One more thing. Let me have another look at that scar, the one that pleased President Steinmetz so much.”

Art had his mouth full of bread and salami. It was easier to obey than to argue. He opened his shirt and lifted his undershirt. Dana bent low and examined his chest and belly.

She nodded in satisfaction and sat down. “I thought so. I’ve noticed that you’ve been looking at my hair a lot. What do you think of it?”

“I love it. It’s lighter. As though the sun is bleaching it.”

“What sun? We’ve only had a few bright days in two months. Do you know what I thought, when you arrived through the snow at the Treasure Inn? I thought, he’s been using protos on his hair. It’s fuller and darker than it was before.”

“I have not.” Art was indignant.

Dana laughed at his expression. “It’s a generation thing. You think that using conditioning protozoans in your follicles is one step away from head lice. But then I asked myself, where could he have got them? The supply of follicle protozoans dried up when Supernova Alpha hit. I know, because I did use them after I started to gray. They only live forty-five days, then they have to be replaced. Without them, my hair should be growing out gray. I looked in the mirror this morning at Indian Head. Not a sign. My hair is growing in the color it was when I was twenty. And there’s this.”

She leaned forward and ran her finger along the line of Art’s scar. He jerked forward. “That tickles!”

“I bet it wouldn’t have two months ago. It was scar tissue, with no feeling in it. Did it used to be a sort of purple-red?”

“Of course it did. It still is.” Art craned forward. It was impossible to get a head-on look at his own belly without a mirror.

“No, it isn’t. It doesn’t look like a normal scar anymore. I thought so in the President’s office, but it wasn’t the time to mention it. Take a peek at this.” Dana put down her empty glass, stood up, and removed her jacket. She pulled her blouse clear of her pants and opened it at the front.

“Here.” She squatted in front of Art and pointed to a vertical scar running from between her breasts to two inches above her navel. “Describe how that looks. Touch it, and tell me how it feels.”

Her face was averted. Art ran his finger gingerly along the line of the scar. “It’s soft. And it’s about the same color pink as your lips.”

“It didn’t used to be. They carved a malignant tumor the size of a banana out of there, and because they wanted to be sure to get it all they didn’t use microsurgery. The edges used to be rough. The color was an ugly purple. I hated to look at it. Now I don’t mind at all. Feel your own scar. You can’t see it properly, but put your hand on it. Isn’t it the same as mine?”

Art closed his eyes and ran a finger along the familiar line. “It’s softer than it used to be. But not as soft as yours.”

“That’s because I’m a woman, with a woman’s skin. Take a look at this one. It used to be even worse.”

Dana stood up. She slid the waistband of her pants down until it was at the level of her hips. The revealed scar ran horizontally, below her navel and across the full width of her belly.

“The Grand Canyon, I used to call it, rough and jagged and hard. Not anymore. Feel.” She took Art’s hand and ran it along the length of the scar. “New skin. The Institute doctors said to me, We’ll give you a telomerase inhibitor. That will kill off your cancer cells because they can’t reproduce when their telomeres become too short. Fine, I said. What happens after that? Well, we’ll have to give you telomerase boosters, otherwise none of your cells will be able to divide and you’ll develop progeria symptoms. All right, I said, and after that? What else will the stimulators do? Will they rejuvenate me just at the cell level? Or will there be effects on my whole system? Might I regress sexually to childhood? Might I get cancer again, all over me? Those were questions that nobody could answer. I remember Dr. Taunton telling me, ’We’re not allowed to experiment anymore with animals; so I’m afraid that our experimental animals have to be humans.’ That’s you and me, and Seth, and Morgan Davis, and Lynn Seagrave, and all the rest of our therapy group. We are the test hamsters.

“Hey! Are you listening to me?”

Art was staring at the curve of Dana’s belly. His fingers had run the length of the fading scar three times, stroking more than feeling. He blinked, and leaned back to look up at her.

“I don’t believe this.” Dana pulled her clothes into position. “Look at you down there. You’re horny as hell.”

She was right. Art couldn’t deny the evidence. “I didn’t mean—” he started.

“You are one sick guy, do you know that.” Dana dropped onto the sofa next to him. “I sashay into your room at the Treasure Inn, and all I have on is my shortest slip. I’ve always been told that I have sexy legs. So hint, hint. Result: nothing. Well, maybe you were exhausted from your journey. I come into your room the next night. We snuggle up together under the blankets. I curl up against you. Hint, hint — I mean, I’m in bed with you, what more could you ask? Result: you fall asleep. I wonder what’s wrong, with me or with you. But today you get one finger on my scars, for Christ’s sake, and it’s whoosh, rocketship time.”

Telling the truth had worked this morning. Maybe it would work again. “Dana, I’ve always thought you were terrific — looks and courage and personality. I knew you must have young studs after you all the time. You said, since you were twelve. And here’s me, a lot older, hobbling around with a bum knee. I thought I didn’t have a chance.”

“I hate young studs. And you don’t know how old you are. Neither do I. We might be on the brink of immortality, or we could have less than a year.”

Art stood up. He took Dana by the hands and lifted her to her feet. “Come on. I may be an idiot, but I’m not that big an idiot. Tell me something four or five times, and I usually get it. You look gorgeous.” He pulled her close and buried his face in her neck. “And you smell wonderful.”

“I thought you were famous in your family for having no sense of smell? It’s a good thing, too. I haven’t had a shower in a week. Where are we going?”

“We’re regressing to sexual childhood, and I’m halfway there. We’re going to the bathroom. Then I’m going to fill that giant tub, and I’m going to put you in it. And I’m going to soap you all over.”

“Ooh. That’s more like it. What then?”

“I’m going to rinse you and dry you and powder you.”

“And what happens after that?”

“Wait and see.”

“Not even a hint? I’m a verbal person.”

“No. Deeds, not words. It’s a generation thing. Bring the wine.”

Dana’s naked body was not as Art had imagined. She was thinner and more muscular. Her skin was finer and smoother. As she said, the pattern of scars from neck to groin was more extensive than his own. The records of her past suffering were indented, exciting, soft to the touch.

While she sat at the dressing table and drank wine, she made him do everything: run hot water for many minutes into the eight-foot circular tub; find a monstrous plastic jug, ideal for rinsing; hunt for bath crystals and soap and shampoo and towels in the closet; and, at last, remove her clothes. She made no move to help.

When he lifted her to lower her into the water, she laughed at him. “You’re crazy. Take your clothes off, too, or they’ll get soaked.”

He stripped, aware of her eyes. As he removed his pants he said, “Do you know what Lady Mary Wortley Montagu did when the poet Alexander Pope made a pass at her?”

“I don’t, and I don’t want to. But I know you. You’re going to tell me anyway. What did she do, grab his canticles?”

“Much worse. She laughed at him. It’s a man’s worst fear.”

“Nonsense. You mean it’s Art Ferrand’s worst fear. But it never happened to you, did it?”

“Not yet. Anytime now.” He picked her up, stepped into the tub, and sat down into hot water that had been quite tolerable when he tested it with his hand. She laughed at once at the expression on his face.

“You big sissy. If I can stand it, you can.”

“Easy for you to say.” Art ran cold water and examined the block of soap. He didn’t want the apocrine variety, with phages that began work on contact with human skin and removed all natural scents. He hated that loss of pheromones — one of the few things he could actually smell. “You’re lucky,” he went on. “Women don’t feel heat so much. Your delicate bits are all internal.”

“Sure, we’re lucky — with ten times the chance of developing bladder infections. Men have better plumbing.

No!” Art, after soaping her belly and pubic hair, was ready to move on to other matters. “That wasn’t the deal. You promised me a rinsing and a drying.”

“You don’t need it.”

“What I need and what I want are two different things. I didn’t need anything after that first neck nuzzle. Didn’t you ever hear of foreplay?”

“After my time. It’s another generation thing.”

“Then I guess I’ll have to show you.” Dana had been lying on her back, almost floating. She sat up and took the soap from Art. “Relax.”

“If you do that, I won’t.” Art wriggled away across the tub. Dana followed him, lathering him from chest to belly to genitals. “Go easy, or I won’t last ten seconds.”

“Oh, you big baby. You were the one who said he didn’t need dorphs and holds. You’ll be fine.” She poured a jug of warm bathwater over his belly and erect penis. “There, that didn’t hurt, did it? Lie back.”

“I thought you wanted me to dry you.”

“I changed my mind.” She climbed carefully on top, and kissed his wet nipples. “You can dry me later. We have all night. It would be a shame to waste this.”

Art gasped as she sank slowly onto him. Maybe it was the telomod therapy, maybe it was long abstinence, maybe it was Dana herself; but he couldn’t remember such an intense physical response. Not ever. Not even — a quick stab to the heart, mingled pleasure and guilt and pain — with Mary.

The memory came and went in a moment, drowned out by warmth and urgency and lapping water. Art opened his eyes. Dana was straining upward above him, her hands on his shoulders and her face hidden. He could see the pulse beating in her neck. The past vanished. She caught him, swallowed him up, and held him in the present.

Art awoke in total darkness, unsure at first of place, and then of time. Afternoon gloom had moved smoothly into night. He and Dana had been too busy to notice. They had made love urgently, then slowly and lazily.

Now — say it was the rebuilt telomeres, you could blame them for anything — now he was interested in sex again. Hey ho, telomeres. A youthful desire, a mature appreciation. If only youth knew, if only age could.

And he was hungry. Cafeteria sandwiches and the unopened bottle of white wine beckoned from the kitchenette table.

How long had he been asleep? Dana was still sleeping. Naked and on top of the covers, she smelled of sex. Reeked of sex, wasn’t that what people always said? So much for his family’s theory of olfactory inadequacy. Or should he credit telomod therapy for that, too?

He eased his way to the side of the bed and crept through into the kitchen. Nine-thirty, according to the clock. Time for a little something. It was harder to take the cork out in the dark, but he managed it. The sandwiches were all the same, so it didn’t matter which one he got. He took two, and carried them with a filled glass over to the window.

Hurricane Gertrude might be over the hill, but she refused to admit her age. Sheets of rain drenched the window. Between gusts, flickers of lightning on the horizon backlit the trees writhing in the storm.

Hey ho, the wind and the rain.

Art watched the storm, ate and drank. The level in the wine bottle sank steadily. He went back for another sandwich. He did not recognize his own deep melancholy until warm arms reached around him and he felt Dana’s breasts against his back.

“It’s all right.” She moved to cradle his head against her chest.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t. But if you want to talk about Mary, it’s all right. I know you’ve been thinking about her.”

“How could you know that?”

“You said her name.”

“Oh, no. I did? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to — I didn’t know—”

“Not when we were making love. That would have been harder to take. But when you were nodding off afterward, you muttered, ’Oh, Mary.’ “

“I didn’t realize. I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t. Art, it’s all right. Do you hear me? It’s all right. I just wish you found it possible to talk about her. What she was like, how you met, how you lived. It would be good for you.”

“Maybe. It’s . . . hard.”

“It sure is. I understand how hard. Perhaps sometime I’ll find a way to tell you why I understand.”

“You don’t have to tell me, Dana. I know already.” He felt her jerk away from him. “I’ve known for a while. It’s your son.”

“Who told you that?”

“You did. A mother has a grown-up son, but she never mentions his name. She never says what he’s doing. She never wonders what happened to him after Supernova Alpha — not even to ask if he’s alive.”

“He’s alive.”

“That’s good. If you would like to tell me—”

“No. Maybe sometime. Not tonight.” She put her hand on his shoulder. “I’m no sweet young thing, Art, no matter what you may think. You’ve got damaged goods here. Will you come back to bed — please? And hold me.”

“I’ll do whatever you want me to do. I suppose there’s no chance of more sex, is there? Don’t get upset, that was supposed to be a joke.”

“With men, sex is never a joke.” He knew from her voice that she was smiling-sad. “Come and hold me, Art, tell me that I matter. And I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”