+J.M.J.+

One of Those in Our Midst!

By "Matrix Refugee"

Author's Note:

Things really heat up here: lots of romantic interludes, ringing telephones, moral wrangling of all kinds…and a high-speed comedy known as a door-slammer. But then again, one of the most pivotal doors (all puns intended!) doesn't slam…read on and find out.

Disclaimer:

See Chapter I. I am still NOT responsible for who gets a crush on who…or what.

Chapter VIII

Ringing Phones and Slamming Doors

Everyone got up late next morning, which meant going to the 10.30 Mass instead of the nine. Stephen wasn't up even then, so Peter went over to the garage to investigate.

He met Frank coming down the stairs with an empty glass with some yellow scum on the bottom.

"What's that?" Peter demanded.

"The cure for what ails Stephen," Frank replied. "One raw egg, a dash of vitamin C, and crushed aspirins."

"Well, what ails him?"

"A hangover: the wine got to him. Don't start jumping to conclusions; sometimes the only way we find out our limitations is through our mistakes." Frank went into the house.

The crowd hadn't dispersed after the earlier Mass by the time they arrived. Cecie noticed some of the gossips eyeing her as they lingered in the dooryard.

"There she is now," Mildred hissed.

"There's who now?" asked Clara.

"Cecie Martin and her young…man."

"Did I tell you? I saw it with my own eyes. Allison Diocletian was dancing with…him last night," Winifred said.

"That's nothing, I saw her with…him later that evening. He was making brazen overtures to her," Samantha contributed.

"And here that girl comes now with that…that thing," Mildred said. "If Father Slope were pastor, he'd take care of them both."

"I bet she spent the night lying in his arms…its arms," Winifred said.

"Who, Allison?" Samantha asked.

"No, Cecie."

"And Peter lets this kind of…lechery go on under his very roof!" Clara cried.

Cecie scanned across the crowd and noticed the Diocletians leaving very quickly, Shay herding his wife along by the arm, the two boys trailing them, complaining. Allison glanced back.

Joe, at Cecie's side, looked back, his gaze meeting Allison's across the yard, even as he kept up with Cecie.

At Communion, Father Slope, the celebrant, gave the Host to the woman on Cecie's right, but he passed over Cecie and gave It to the man or her left. She looked up, trying to look him in the eye as he passed by again, but he took no notice of her. He looked coldly over her shoulder as he passed her. She knew why.

The reason for the priest's cold glance followed her back to their place in the back pew.

Cecie didn't want to confront Father Slope after Mass, so she went to the rectory; she found Meyer Blizitsky fixing the mail slot on the front door.

"Shalom, Meyer."

"Miss Cecilia, shalom!" he said, setting aside his tools and standing up. "And that young fellow on the gravel must be your young man?"

Cecie glanced over her shoulder at Joe. "Yes, though actually he's more like a golem."

"So? Doesn't it say in the Talmud that in case of necessity a golem may be counted into a minyan?" With an Ashkenazaic shrug, he added, "So what if he's one of them? Didn't Y'shua ha-Meshiach let a woman of that profession wash His feet with her tears?"

"That's just the problem. Father Slope wouldn't let me receive Communion because of Joe."

"He wouldn't?"

"No, so I was wondering if Father Kunstler was around?"

Meyer sighed. "Oy vey iz dir. He was called out of town after the early Mass; he won't be back until this afternoon. You'll have to come back then, please God."

"Thanks, Meyer."

She turned away and joined her companion on the path.

"Why then did your Father Slope refuse you…the Sacrament?"

"He has a narrow view of people like me who associate—even innocently—with things like you. He thinks I'm not worthy of the Blessed Sacrament because I count you as a friend."

"You say that your God enters you in this Sacrament?"

"Yes."

"And your God is a forgiving god?"

"He is."

"Why then cannot your Father Slope, who is the especial servant of your God emulate his Master's disposition and allow you the Sacrament?"

She turned to Joe and took his head in both her hands. She stroked the sides of his scalp, under which lay his logic processors. "Joe, you may be a very simple robot, but your logic is much more pure than ours."

He smiled puckishly. "Your objecting friends might agree that I possess powers of good logic, but they would argue that it is far from pure." He started to draw close and slipped his hands about her waist. Cecie let him go.

"None of that here, or there'll be even more tongue-wagging," she said, stepping back from under his touch.

Cecie helped Sarah repack her bridesmaid's dress in the tissue paper that lined the box from the dress shop. The younger girl seemed to have recovered from her fright of the previous night.

"Can you give a message to…him for me?" Sarah asked.

"I can if you'll tell me what it is."

"Tell him I'm sorry I scared him last night."

"I don't think that'll really be necessary; you didn't really scare him, though you startled him and some of his overrides got a bit disrupted."

Sarah's eyes widened. "Did I break him?"

"No, he's okay. His programming is designed to auto-restore in case of something like that; they built Mechas to be resilient."

"Then, can you tell him something else?"

"Shoot."

"Tell him…when I'm older, maybe I'll find him and I won't have to be pushy with him."

"Careful, he may be anticipating getting pushy with you."

"Not that pushy."

"He knows what to do when someone says 'when'. He may not be good in a strict moral sense, but he's a good boy."

"To hear Uncle Peter say it, you'd think Joe was the devil himself."

"I won't deny Joe is no angel, but when you've learned how to handle him, he makes a very good friend. But I don't blame you for wanting to avoid him; if you've noticed, he's been avoiding you. Don't look sad. You'll find your dark knight: he won't come soon, but he'll come."

"Maybe I'll get lucky like Bernie: he'll come to me with a tender hand and a gentle voice, a mysterious young wight with dark hair and green eyes."

"I can't see it happening twice in the same family."

"Maybe Frank has a long-lost younger half brother who looks like him."

"I don't see that happening, either."

"Did I see happen what I thought I saw happen?" Peter asked at brunch.

"What?" Frank asked over his coffee-cup.

"I thought I saw Father Slope refuse Communion to Cecie." Peter looked at Cecie. "Was I seeing things?"

"No, he refused to give me Communion," Cecie said.

"Well, all I'm going to say us that I can't help agreeing with him."

"Now wait a minute," Ferde said. "You opened the door, we're not about to let you close it so quick. You gotta give us a good reason."

"All right, I'll give you one: how do we know what Cecie's been up to with that…that thing."

"If you have to talk about me, you could at least talk to me," Cecie said.

"In that case: what have done with that…that machine?"

"It's really none of your business. I haven't done anything more than that tango I danced with him."

"I've had narrow-minded priests refuse to give me Communion," Frank said. "I once reported on this voodoo ceremony in Nova New Orleans, and I'll admit that, out of rather stupid curiosity, I got a little caught up in it. Scared me half to death; I swore I shoulda had gray hairs showing afterwards. I ran to confession as soon as I could. But somehow the word that I'd gotten involved got back to St. Louis before I did. This one priest, the chaplain's assistant at the convent where my grandfather works, wouldn't let me receive the Sacrament, and even when I plead that I'd repented, he lit into me. But then the chaplain, my godfather, lit into him after he heard about the incident. Father Desmond Bainbridge…he's quite a character; he used to be a Marine until he got wounded in the Mexican Uprising of 2135. He was too badly cut up for them to let him continue serving, so he entered the priesthood. He's a great priest and a great guy, a real man's man, y' know, kinda like the priest Karl Malden plays in On the Waterfront. Sister Superior, my godmother, calls him the 'grunt padre' behind his back."

"And I suppose she used to be a prostitute before she entered the convent," Peter said.

Frank grinned wickedly. "Howdja guess?"

"You're not the only one, Frank," Kip said. "When I was visiting my cousins in Florida, a priest refused to let me have Communion just because he'd heard I came from Rouge City."

"But aren't you putting yourself in a near occasion of sin though associating with this…Mecha?" Peter asked, turning back to Cecie.

"Like I've been saying these past two weeks: there's a lot more to Joe than just that. You've got him mixed up with female sex-Mechas: the males have to be a lot more sophisticated than most females, since most women who utilize them are looking for a lot more than just that."

"But that's just what you're saying."

"Bulverism," Kip grumbled.

"What?" Georgette said. "What kind of bad language is that?"

"I said 'Bulverism'. It's a name for a kind of logical fallacy."

"Well, what does it mean?" Peter demanded.

"It means refusing to believe someone's argument just because they happen to be a certain person or kind of person. Like refusing to accept Cecie's arguments defending Joe just because she knows him well. C.S. Lewis made up the term."

"I'm just concerned her arguments may be tainted by lack of objectivity," Peter countered.

"You can get too objective," Frank put in. "I knew a guy who was so objective about emotions that he claimed they were just bio-chemical reactions."

"Yick, what a way to live," Cecie groaned.

"Guess we had some really wild chemical reactions flying around last night," Ferde said, only half-serious.

Peter looked at Bernie and Frank. "That's something I'll have to talk to you two about." Bernie sat allergically away from Frank. If Joe had been in the room, Cecie wondered, what would she be doing instead?

About the same time, Joe sat on the foot of Irene's bed while she had her brunch.

"So what was all that racket upstairs last night?" she asked him.

"Bernadette refused to yield to her husband Franks caresses," he replied. "She resorted to such drastic measures as casting him out of her chamber."

"If her pinhead father hadn't taught her to be terrified of everything with a deep voice and the proper equipment, this wouldn't have happened," the venerable lady's eyes sparkled elfishly. "Do you know anything about Phila and Kip?"

Joe lowered his eyelids. "I heard her crying out with delight, a sound I doubt has had rein to resound beneath this roof."

"You're probably right there, boy."

When Irene had finished, Joe got up to remove her tray, but she stopped him.

"Wait, garcon, there's something I've been wanting to find out," she said.

"And that would be?"

"Do fellas like you kiss as well as everyone claims?"

He leaned one hand against the wall behind and above the headboard. "You know there is but one way in which you can truly discover the answer to that query."

She turned her face away coyly, a kittenish smile brightening her face. "Oh, should I?"

"Unless you would rather remain ignorant."

She reached for her napkin and blotted her lips more thoroughly. "Sure thing, but remember, I'm much too old for anything more than that."

"Fear not: I shall be gentle." He sat beside her on the edge of the bed, and gently took her delicately lined face in his hands. Leaning down, he touched her lips gently with his, as lightly as a butterfly landing. He drew back; she felt his breath fan her face. Then tenderly, but with increased ardor, he pressed his mouth to hers, parting her lips just far enough. He released her and stood up.

"My," she gasped, grinning.

"How long has it been since a man has kissed you thus?"

"Lat man I kissed like that was Harry, Kip's father, my late husband, just before he died. It was the last thing he did. And that man could kiss!"

"As well as I?"

"It's a very close tie. How old are you anyway?"

"'Old' does not apply to one forever young."

"I meant how long have you been around?"

"Four years, six months, three days, thirteen hours and four seconds."

"And you don't look a day less than twenty-five. I always had it for younger men. Kip's father was younger than me when we was hitched: I was almost forty, he was just twenty-five."

"Such a difference! But doubtlessly he brought you the delight you needed."

She blushed. "That he did. Don't take this too serious, boy, but you remind me of him sometimes. It's like he sent you to check on me for him and deliver a few messages."

"I doubt that a human soul that has passed on could make such use of something like me. But I must and will respect your wishes and images."

She reached up and touched his cheek, caressing the blemish there. "He had a scar there. That's strange. Oh, it's only wishful thinking. I suppose you were built to be versatile: all things to all people."

"I have my limits of programming, but I can oblige most customers."

"It may not be quite the right way, but you're doing one better than that Peter Connelly."

He took this with a bemused but proud smile.

Stephen limped into the house about three in the afternoon, his head still aching, his eyes slitted against the burning sunlight.

He found Cecie in the living room, jotting in the journal on her datascriber.

"How are you feeling?" she asked in a low voice, but the sound still buzzed in his clanging ears.

"Terrible." He collapsed in an armchair. "Does Peter know?"

"Yes, but we held back most of the truth."

"Where is he?"

"Over at Diocletians' house, with Georgette and the happy couples. Ferde and his girls went to the Berkshires, so it's just me and Irene and Joe."

"Thanks for helping me up the stairs like that last night."

"Hey, no problem. We all screw up."

"I didn't mean to get that drunk. I guess the excitement and then Terry turning me down just got to me."

"It's not too late to get to confession and four-thirty Mass. I'm going to the rectory anyway: Father Slope refused to give me Communion."

"Now why'd he do that?"

"Why do you think? Because one of my best friends happens to be a lover-Mecha."

"Where is he anyway?"

"He's with Irene: last I knew, she was settling down for a nap."

Stephen looked at the floor. He shuffled one foot and re-crossed his legs. He cleared his throat. "I don't know how to say this. Maybe it was just the alcohol in my head last night. But I looked up at him as he was laying me down on the bed, and I couldn't help thinking…he's a more sympathetic creature than Peter."

"Some people would argue that it's just his programming. But there's something to be said for a machine that shows a more sympathetic response toward a wounded soul than do many human beings of flesh and bone and blood. There was a computer AI back in the dark ages of the 1980s that acted sort of like a therapist. People in the AI lab used to pour out their hearts to it, typing in their deepest secrets and feelings and pain. Of course its responses were rather awkward, not like Joe's witty remarks and tender endearments; but it affected people the way Joe affects us—well, those of us that can accept him."

"He's human. He's more human than some humans…that wasn't quite right."

"No, in some ways you're right. He has a more complicated nature than most people think."

"He's a sweet guy."

"He is…when he wants or needs to be."

"I mean, if I were a girl, I'd really be…y' know, drawn to him."

She grinned. "There might be something cock-eyed in your system if you didn't."

"But that's just it…I'm drawn to him. I mean…I… I can't say it."

She leaned over the arm of the couch to him. "You can say it to me. I'll accept it for what it is."

Stephen looked up to the corners of the room, as if he feared there might be cameras or tape recorders there, or as if the wrath of God might strike from there. He looked at her. "Okay, all right…when he and Frank were laying me down on the bed, I looked up into Joe's face, and I saw no judgment there whatsoever. Frank looked the other way, like he was worried Peter might find out. But I looked up into Joe's eyes and I noticed them looking at me with the most gentle look, like 'You're in pain, you're sick, but I'm here for you.' And I just wanted to hang onto him for dear life at that point."

"A lot of women look at him the same way. I don't hold it against you."

"It's not that, it's not, you know…I just wished at that point I was a woman, so I could have cried myself to sleep in his arms and felt him holding me tenderly. This is horrible of me."

"No, it's honesty. And at the risk of sounding like a therapist, it's good for you to be honest about your emotions."

"Thanks."

"Anytime."

"You're a lot like Joe yourself."

"After three years, I'd imagine some of his better qualities and quirks should have rubbed off on me."

"That's not bad, though Peter would argue otherwise." He got up. "I'd better go clean up and get ready for Mass."

"In the meantime, I'll go check on our December and May couple."

"Who?"

"Irene and Joe." She got up and went out, humming "September Song" under her breath:

'For it's a long, long while

From May to December,

And the days grow short

When you reach September…'

She found Irene sound asleep, her head pillowed innocently on Joe's chest as he lay beside her, his arm about her. He looked up at Cecie.

"She has just fallen asleep," he said in a low voice.

"I'm just going out for a while, with Stephen. Could you stay put and keep her company till I get back? Peter would kill me if he knew I'd left her here alone."

Joe looked down at Irene. "She would prefer it as well, should she awaken to find me beside her."

Cecie lucked out: Father Kunstler, having heard her plight willingly gave her the Sacrament.

"Slope's really gone ballistic," he told her afterward. "You've never done anything more with your young friend than that tango, true?"

"True."

"You're one of the most principled young people I ever met. All this talk about the interdict, that's just the neo-Jansenists blathering. Rome hasn't formally declared anything, but I've friends who have seen the draft of His Holiness's next encyclical: he's apparently written that making use of certain aspects of these creature's capabilities is nothing more than a form of masturbation."

"But you know Slope used to get all over people who stumbled in that regard. I remember when I was fifteen, going to confession to him, and having him do 'You did WHAT?!?!' which made me feel so bad, I'd go home and end up doing the same thing again out of misery.

"But then luckily you came to the parish."

"I've figured it this way: it's one, worse thing for an older person to use something like your young friend, but for a young person who's curious about the flesh and is experimenting, for a lack of a more appropriate term, it's less of an offense."

"I came to the same conclusion: it's the difference between the business people and the tourists that come in and out of Rouge City, and the teenagers and the college kids who sneak in out of curiosity."

"I suppose most people's concern is that this kind of behavior carries no moral consequences."

"Oh, it does. You've been to Rouge City; I've seen people come out of the clubs and the parlor houses and the hotels absolutely in shock, with these looks of horrified delight in their eyes. One guy got shocked, literally, when the Sierra class model he'd just been with malfunctioned."

"I guess it carries its own set of consequences."

Cecie walked home by herself and let herself in. She found Joe waiting for her in the living room, sprawled gracefully in Peter's chair.

"Has all been made right with your soul?" he asked.

"It has, thank God. Father Kunstler was there."

"He has a sympathetic heart, unlike his colleague or many persons in your community."

"He has a better understanding of human nature."

"By human do you mean the nature of Orga or Mecha?"

"I'd have to say Orga, but he has more insights into your kind than most people do in this town."

"Certainly more than people like Peter Connelly."

"I'm afraid so. But I think we succeeded yesterday."

His brow folded slightly. "Did we?"

She knelt before him; he turned to her, leaning forward. "I think people in this town are gonna talk about yesterday for years to come: 'Remember when the Connelly girls got married and Cecie Martin brought that sex-Mecha along to the wedding?' That'll put the whole Rockwellian crowd on edge."

Joe turned this statement over in his processors for a moment. "By Rockwellian, do you refer to the rustic scenes and folk depicted by the painter Norman Rockwell?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"The image is apt." He laughed gently.

"A far cry from Rouge City, eh?"

"The contrast is inciting."

"Remind me if I don't mention this: not tonight but probably tomorrow night, there's a spot in the woods behind the house that I want to show you."

"Why not visit it now?"

"We can't leave Irene. And it's that kind of spot you have to see by moonlight."

"Ahh." A touch of insinuation in his tone, and he'd lowered his eyelids. He'd understood.

The family came back later that evening. After supper, Cecie and Sarah washed the dishes together.

"Enjoying your last nights here?" Cecie asked, scrubbing the bottom of a pot.

"Yeah, I just feel like I blew it last night…like I forced myself on Joe. I still think I should apologize to him."

"If it puts your mind at ease, try it; just don't be surprised if he avoids you; or worse still, if he walks away from you very quickly. He's been avoiding looking at you if you didn't notice."

Sarah looked at the pile of dishes on the draining board. "I guess it can wait. I gotta think of the right words."

"The right words alone might soothe his jangling conductors."

Sarah went to the dining room; she found Joe sponging the table top with slow, circular strokes, his eyes intent on his work.

"Excuse me, can I…may I speak to you?" she asked, keeping a respectful distance from him.

He straightened up and turned to her, regarding her with something like caution. "You may, so long as you do not attempt to approach me as you did last evening."

"I wanted to apologize to you about that. I'm sorry if I scared you or damaged you. I wasn't thinking."

A slight smile curved one corner of his mouth. "In which case, I accept you apology; would that circumstances could have stood differently so that you would not have had to trouble yourself about such gestures."

"Me too, I mean, I wish I were older, then I wouldn't have scared you…but then, maybe that wouldn't have been such a good idea. I'd just like to say, you've been the closest person to a dark knight that I've ever met."

He smiled with both corners of his mouth, his eyes sparkling. Whoever made his eyes deserved to be knighted for their ingenuity. "And to gauge from your favorite literature, this title confers the most honor. Perhaps someday you shall be able to accept me as your humble servant, your ladyship."

"Sure, I, uh, suppose. Thanks." She slunk back to the kitchen, her face going red.

Later that night, Frank went upstairs to find Bernie. She wasn't in her old room and she was nowhere else to be seen.

He tried the doorknob of the would-be bridal chamber; someone had locked it from inside. Pressing his ear to the door, he swore he could hear Bernie breathing behind it. He sighed and went away.

Peter had given him a big lecture after lunch about handling Bernie gently and sensibly, and remembering she was a Catholic girl and not a prostitute. Frank didn't let on to Peter of course, but he had frequented a couple Orga prostitutes before his colleague Hal "The Photographer" McKeever got him onto Mechas. The two girls he regularly saw had always welcomed him; they never let on, but he knew they enjoyed having him in their arms since he always returned the favor tenderly and gently. His motto in all things was "Want better service? Try being a better customer!" What he said was, "I only mean the best for Bernie."

"I wasn't exactly going in there hooting and beating on my chest like a gorilla," he'd said, grinning. Ferde, who stood by refereeing, had guffawed at this, but Peter looked disgusted.

Bernie had been quiet and aloof with him all day; he tried to dismiss it as simply the aftereffects of the long day before, but he knew this for what it was: an excuse.

He passed Phila and Kip's room on the way downstairs. A delighted sigh came from under the door, followed by the soft, sucking smack of a slow, languorous kiss.

He imagined Peter telling Georgette how good this was for their wayward son in law, that this would teach him not to value the pleasures of the flesh too highly. He'd sooner side with Joe, who would doubtlessly turn up his sculpted, patrician nose at this, with a disgusted flare of his delicate nostrils.

Frank sighed and went downstairs to the kitchen.

He poured himself a glass of milk and sat down at the table to drink it. He set it down on the tabletop, and leaned his elbows on the edge of the table, thinking.

He heard movement in the half-light. A low white noise, just audible, vibrated on the air. Someone drew up a chair and turned it around before sitting down on it.

"You seem pensive, Frank," said an urbane voice.

"I don't know what I did wrong," Frank said.

"Why, has something else happened as yet, or as they say not happened?"

He looked up into Joe's calm, swarthy face, so like his own. They'd made this thing well, given it British accent which lent it an air of distinction and elegance which ingratiated itself.

"You're right on that one, nothing still happened," he said.

"Unless it troubles you to speak of it, you may confide in me. I cannot judge you, nor may I laugh at your troubles."

"Sure, maybe you can spot me where I went wrong. You're an expert, after all."

Joe smiled. "No one has ever called me such before, but perhaps I am expert. Yet, it is your time to speak."

Frank described at some detail what had happened the night before.

"She refused you utterly? She would not even let you so much as touch her or loosen her garments?"

"No, much less get her between the sheets. You ever have that happen? Some client gets you into a hotel room and she suddenly gets all frigid on you?"

"Yes, it has happened. I have never fully understood why they do this. But I have found that some carry the scars of harmful lovers and cruel fathers, either on their flesh or on their spirit. Others remain a mystery they sought not to disclose."

"Why not?"

"Some fled my presence without explanation. Others surrendered themselves with but half their hearts."

"Well, she withheld everything, not just half."

"It is utterly unfortunate that she subjected you to this kind of treatment."

"Tell me about it. You ever have a customer slam a door in your face or lock you out?"

The Mecha turned over this for a moment. "I have never endured the latter, but I have had the former happen to me."

"Then you know where I'm coming from."

"In a manner of speaking, you may say that I do."

"Does it ever bother you?"

"It does not trouble my being in the way that it does yours, but it causes me to review my approach, trying to determine what was at fault."

"Okay, here's something I've been meaning to ask you it sounded too dumb."

Joe spread his hands, welcoming it. "You may ask."

"All right, have you ever had a female Mecha?"

"No, I have not," came the quick reply. He was smiling mischievously.

"Can I ask why?"

"You may know this: I have yet to find one who would reciprocate my attentions."

"You mean to say they ignore you? You own kind?"

"Alas yes." The smile vanished.

"Aw, that's bad…I guess. Nothing like getting blown off by your own species." The Mecha said nothing to this: he might not have had an appropriate response.

"Okay, now, Kip told me something interesting about Bernie; I was wondering if you could confirm it."

Joe cocked his head, listening. "That would be…?"

"Kip told me Bernie had a crush on you."

Joe lowered his eyelids and with an odd curl to his lips, he replied, "Indeed she did and, I might add, she still harbors much attraction for me, though she pretends that she does not." He flicked up his eyelids, looking at him, as if for a reaction.

Wonder if ol' Peter knows about this; wonder what he'd say…nah, maybe not, Frank thought. He leaned across the tabletop toward the Mecha. "Well, that explains a lot of things."

"Things such as…?"

"For one thing, it would explain why she fell flat on her face in love with me at first sight. I mean, if someone didn't know better looking at us, they'd think we were blood brothers, twins even.

"And all the past couple weeks, she kept getting as close to me as she could every time you and her and I were in the same airspace. It was like she wanted me to protect her from you."

"And she should know that I can do her no harm."

"She should know, but she doesn't compute it in her logic processor because of the way Peter programmed her."

"You speak of her as if she were one of my kind."

"I'm only trying to speak your language. In her mind, you're as dangerous as a dagger—no, not a dagger: a stiletto, long and slim and beautiful. People like Cecie don't get cut when they handle you because they know how to respect you, but people like Bernie get themselves all cut up because they get scared."

"You use well this metaphor, but I am not so dangerous."

"True.

"But why do I have this funny feeling you're up to something regarding Bernie?"

Joe's quiet smile changed to a shy little smirk; his mouth pursed, the vermilion of his lips turning inward. "You know as well as I that a member of the oldest profession—Orga or Mecha—may speak of their relationship to a client."

"Okay, I'll put it another way: what do you want with my wife?"

"I seek only to complete that which she initiated."

"So she's been flirting with you?"

"In the past, yes, she has, but she has ceased this behavior."

"I have an idea, but we certainly won't be able to do anything with it tonight, probably not till tomorrow night—"

The phone in the kitchen rang. They looked at each other. Frank got up and answered it.

"Hello, Connelly residence."

The line clicked and hung up. Frank shrugged and hung it up.

"If this were my grandfather's cottage and that just happened, he'd be saying, 'Oh, musta been Joe the ghost calling again'."

Joe the Mecha took this with a proud little smirk. "You clearly mean another creature of an entirely different nature."

Next day, while the men from the rental company came to collect the tent and the tables, Phil and Kip set after breakfast with a picnic basket, intending to hike up to Indian Mountain.

"That isn't its real name," Cecie informed Joe as she made herself a hazelnut butter sandwich.

He sat cross-legged on the end of the draining board, watching her; Frank had loaned him a battered tweed hacking jacket and corduroys which lent him the air of young gentleman farmer, or the son of a wealthy country squire. He looked up at her face.

"What then is its real name?"

"It's this mouth-filling Algonquin Indian name, but the Native American tribe that lived in this valley told a really beautiful legend about it." She pressed the two slices of bread together lightly.

"Are you withholding from me the retelling of this legend?" he asked after a pause.

She eyed him askance, with a gently mocking curl of her lips. "Not till we get to the top," she said. His face fell, taking on that sad little boy look, his eyes widened slightly. "Nope, don't try any cute stuff and try weaseling it out of me."

Bernie finished making up the bed in the would-be bridal chamber about the same time. Stephen had gone into town to apply as a teacher's aide, while Ferde and his girls had gone for the day to Stockbridge and the Norman Rockwell museum there. She expected she'd be able to get some sewing done, but then she heard a knock on the doorframe. She looked up.

"It's only me, and I'm not trying to do anything to you," Frank said, standing in the doorway, his hands loose at his sides.

"What do you want?"

"Cecie an' Joe are going up to Indian Mountain, so Georgette wants us to go along and, y' know, chaperone them a little."

"I've got work to do."

"Doin' what?"

"I'm sewing a new winter skirt, and I was going to start knitting something."

"That can wait; we don't get many nice days like this at this time of year, so let's take the chance while we got it."

"I don't know."

"Aw, come on, Bernie."

"If Georgette wants us to keep an eye on Cecie and…him, I suppose we'd better go."

Bernie insisted chaperoning Cecie and Joe meant walking with them, but Frank interpreted it as walking about three hundred feet behind them, keeping them within eyeshot, but giving them a cushion of privacy.

"Can you still see them behind us?" Joe asked, as he scaled the narrow path, Cecie at his side. Their track angled up at about a fifty degree angle, which meant having to hold onto the scrub trees and bushes and rocks along the way while they climbed.

Cecie glanced back. She saw movement behind the bushes, but not so close that she knew for sure that Bernie and Frank were there.

"No, not as close as before." They pressed onward. The air thinned slowly as they got higher up the mountain. Cecie started breathing harder, but Joe—who required no respiration—showed no signs of fatigue or concern except some mild gingerliness over the rougher, rockier spots.

"How much farther is it to the top?" he asked.

"Just a few dozen yards, just beyond the trees," Cecie said, breathing hard.

They stepped clear of the scrub growth and saplings onto the flat tableland top of the mountain. The view extended for miles, three hundred sixty degrees around them. Joe turned his gaze as far as it would go before he had to turn his head, then his whole self to take in the whole panorama of hills and valleys and woodlands and fields and villages. He turned back to her.

"Must be the most land you've seen all at once," she said.

"It is beautiful," he said, his voice hushed. "But you have not yet told me of this legend you say is linked to this promontory."

"The Wachusett tribe called this mountain by a name that means 'mountain of the paired hawks'. It was said that if a couple climbed the mountain and they both reached the top, that they would be united forever in love."

He put his head on one side as he looked at her, his lips pressed in a humorless smile. "You know that this cannot come to pass. You may as well try to take the sun for a desk lamp."

She fingered the lapel of his jacket. "I know, but even if anything should happen to either of us, I want to remember you always. And if it's possible, I want our spirits always to be one."

His hand crept to her waist, hesitated, then settled on her. He started to tilt her face to his with his other hand, but he looked over her shoulder.

The bushes rustled. Frank and Bernie crept out, Frank spitting out a mouthful of leaves.

"I wonder if that legend would apply to us," he said, eyeing Bernie.

She backed away from him. "Is that why you agreed when Georgette sent us up here?"

"No, I didn't know anything about this legend-thingy," Frank said, innocent.

"Liar," Bernie muttered, storming off into the bushes on the other side of the plateau.

She backed out suddenly, as if she had stepped on a snake. Fearing she had, Cecie ran up to her side. She looked down. She saw nothing, but she heard a gentle murmur over the wind singing in the grass.

The picnic basket stood open on a rock, half-blocking from sight two forms couched in the bushes. Cecie made out the angle of Kip's pale shoulder and his copper colored hair; Phila's hand slid down over his back.

"It appears someone has decided to have dessert first," Joe said, with an oddly reverent tone.

"Do they ever quit?" Frank added, half-teasing.

Bernie turned away, looking up at the three who confronted her: her spouse, her friend and the Mecha. Cecie had her hand on Joe's shoulder.

"I'm surrounded," she muttered. "This is indecent."

"Personally, I think it's the most decent thing that could happen," Cecie said.

"You would," Bernie growled.

About the same time, the phone rang in the house. Georgette set aside the book she had been reading to answer it.

Just as she picked it up and said "Hello?" the line hung up.

Some minutes later, Cecie sat eating her sandwich on a rock at the opposite end of the clearing from the rock where the basket stood. Joe reclined on his side behind her, his chest just inches from the small of her back.

Bernie and Frank sat on the slope below them. Frank edged closer to Bernie; Cecie couldn't decipher the exact words he said, but she guessed from the softening of his spine and the way he got so close to his bride that he was trying to coax her to unwind a little.

"What Frank lacks in success, he compensates in persistence," Joe remarked.

Cecie wadded up the edible wrapper of her sandwich and popped the wad into her mouth. She chewed it thoughtfully for a minute before swallowing it.

"I just wish his persistence would pay off."

"Perhaps it would, were I permitted to undo the chains that bind her."

Cecie turned around on the rock, facing him. "I can't say 'typical male behavior' because you aren't a typical male."

"Indeed, I am better than the typical male."

"Better-looking, that's obvious," she said. "And you've got a kiss hotter than a cruiser left standing in the sun."

He sat up and edged closer to her so that their knees touched. "But you allow yourself nothing further."

"You just said something similar about Bernie."

He took this in silence. "The fact that you make note of this indicates something about yourself. I am sure of it."

"Sure of what?"

"You are jealous."

"I have every reason to be: you keep eying Bernie. Get it through your processors, Joe. I'm the one who brought you here, I'm the one who paid your fee; I'm the one who really wants you."

He looked into her eyes, his chin tilted down. "In that case, why not cut yourself loose?"

An idea came to her. She'd brought him up to the mountain, why not to the nook in the woods tonight…?

"Not here. Tonight, after supper and the dishes are washed. Remember the spot I told you I'd show you? I think tonight's the night."

He leaned closer to her. "Night shall not come soon enough."

"Ow!" Frank yelled.

They both looked up. The bushes rustled. Even Phila stuck her head up from the bower.

Bernie darted down the rise. Frank lay sprawled on the sparse grass, but he jumped up and scuttled after his spouse through the bracken.

"What's going on?" Cecie demanded.

"Bernie, honey, where are you goin'?" Frank called out.

"Frank was just trying for the umpteenth time," Kip said, folding up the blanket, his shirttail sticking out.

"Man, not even the fresh air helps loosen her up," Cecie sighed. She looked daggers at Joe. "And no smart remarks."

"I had not said anything," he said, innocently.

That night, Frank and Bernie had the job of washing dishes. As he carried a stack of plates from the kitchen to the dining room, the top plate fell off and bounced around on the floor.

"Hey, I don't know who put what in my tea, but I thought I saw that plate bounce," he said.

"No, it bounced," Bernie said, looking over her shoulder. "It's polymer."

"Golly, the caterer should stock these, but then people's parties wouldn't be so successful," he said. He dropped another and watched it bounce around the floor.

Cecie, minus her glasses, walked in; the plate nearly ricocheted off her boot tops; she jumped over the errant dish and let it roll behind her.

"Do either of you know if we have any cooking sherry left?" she asked

"There's some in the cabinet," Bernie said. "Why?"

"I've got my reasons," Cecie said. She took it down, then got herself a glass. She poured out enough to cover the bottom of the glass.

"Wait, I thought you said you don't drink," Frank said. "What's with mooching the cooking sherry?"

"I'll tell you in private," Cecie said.  She eyed the glass. "Over the teeth and over the gums/Look out, stomach, here it comes." She tossed it back with a raffish jerk of her head and arm.

She went out to the dining room, Frank following at her heels. "What's going on?" he asked.

"It's a round of Keep Away."

"Keep Away?"

"Yeah, Keep Joe Away from Bernie."

"Oh, I see. I was gonna ask you if I could borrow him."

"What for?"

"I thought maybe if I made it look like I was saving her from him, that she might, uh, give in to me."

"Let me get his pursuit centers off her first."

"Where is he now?"

"Out in the garden. Here I go. Wish me luck and keep at it with Bernie."

"Will do. If there's one thing he and I have in common, besides our sultry good looks, it's persistence."

She went out into the garden. She crossed herself. God forgive me for what I may have to do to keep Joe away from Bernie. She felt weirdly like a Christian virgin being dragged by Roman soldiers to a house of prostitution. She'd always wondered what exactly this particular tactic had entailed: had the maiden been placed there as a new addition to the procurer's stable of fillies? Or had some male hetaera been provided to sway her vow of chastity? Or maybe she was like the cow that is chained to the tree in India to entice a man-eating tiger into the hunters' gun sights. Not that Joe was a tiger; she'd heard tell of his capabilities, available upon request. Part of her mind couldn't help wondering if these would suddenly manifest when he discovered what she intended. No, he wouldn't, not with her.

She drew in a long breath smelling of pine and yew and the garden flowers and the night air. She walked as naturally as she could down the fairy-let yew tunnel.

She found Joe where she'd sent him to wait for her, in the walled garden, engaged in the crowing gem of his talents: dancing, circling the fountain, slinking and turning, pausing and poising in an unaccompanied tango, hands in his trouser pockets, the skirts of his hacking jacket pushed back. For some reason, Gade's "Jalousie" played in her head; perhaps the music played through his processors and by some weird subliminal he had channeled it to her.

But most likely, this melody came to mind because of his gentle accusations.

He'd grown aware of her; he pulled himself up in a turn, and spun out slowly, his eye spotted on her the whole time.

"Hey, Joe, whaddya know; you kept busy while I was away."

He walked up to her. "A great thinker once said, 'To dance is to live'."

"If that's so, then you're more alive than some folks." She looked to the northwest. "The moon is rising. Let's be off."

He proffered her his hand. "Lead then the way, O mistress of the roads and paths of Westhillston."

She took his hand and led him into the trees beyond the garden, along one of the trails she and Stephen had worn down and cleared over the years.

"I used to walk this trail all the time," she said. "Every day that I could, I'd come out here, just to think and to write and to be alone, get away from Peter nagging me."

"Nature manifests more patience than mankind, particularly omen of Peter Connelly's ilk."

They ducked under low-hanging branches. The underbrush along the trail brushed against them, but they kept clear of the worst snags.

Silvery light from the rising moon coated the branches and spangled the leaves of the trees about them, turning the pines to metallic lace. The trail sloped up a slight rise that gave onto a vast clearing. The remains of a rusted iron fence surrounded an area in the center of the bald spot. Gray stone slabs poked upright above the lank, long grass, turned to sheening gray wires in the moonlight.

"What is this place?" he asked.

"You've clearly never been to New England before. "It's an old burying ground. A lot of really old houses have them, I mean old houses, from back in the seventeen, eighteen hundreds. People used to bury their deceased family members on their own land. Sometimes whole families would be buried on their ancestral lands. Stephen and I found this, we cleared it up together. I used to go nuts at Halloween and bring some of the kids from school up here. We'd tell ghost stories and scare the yell out of each other. But most of the time, it was just a place I could come and think and write."

"Among the resting places of the Orga of long past?" he asked.

She looked at his face, gone pale and gleaming in the blue-white light, his expression calmly quizzical. "Don't tell me you're scared," she insinuated. "It's probably the safest place to be; no one will disturb us."

"I am not."

"You are, I can feel you shivering in your shoes."

"I am not," he insisted, his tone rising ever so slightly.

"Oh yeah?"

"Yes."

She let go his hand. "What's that moving over there?" She pointed away from her. As he turned to follow her gesture, she stepped away and ducked into the shadow behind a large gravestone.

"Cecie?" he called. She didn't answer. She heard him move about, rustling the dying grass. "Where have you gone?" She detected amused concern in his voice, but not fear. "Where have you couched yourself?" His tall shadow passed near where she lay. She reached up behind him and grabbed him about the waist, trying to pull him down. He let out a yelp and leaped free. She fell over on the grass, cackling with laughter. He stood staring down at her, slightly wide-eyed, mouth slack. As he realized his folly, he resumed his usual sultry cockiness.

"You were teasing me," he said, holding his head slightly higher. "If I must be dallied with, let it be the manner of dalliance only I know best how to respond to."

"Aw, yer not fun if I can't scare you a little," she groused. She looked up toward the house. She could see the lights in the windows even through the trees. A light shone in the window she knew was Frank and Bernie's bridal chamber. She couldn't tell if anyone was in there yet.

Determined to fulfill his marriage debt, Frank got into the bridal chamber first. He washed and shaved for a second time that day. He'd gotten Bernie in a good mood joking around while they did the dishes, so perhaps she would give in tonight. Thinking she might approach him more readily if he appeared less eager, he hadn't changed into his dressing gown but had left on the same hanging about stuff he had worn during the day. She wasn't going to lock him out tonight. He sat with his legs slung over the arm of the armchair that stood in one corner, reading a few verses of "The Romaunt of the Rose", in a small volume he had borrowed from Cecie.

"Woman should gather roses ere

Time's ceaseless foot o'ertake her,

For if too long she make delay

Her chance of love may pass away."

The thought had beckoned him enticingly: if she won't, what about someone else?

What about Cecie? Granted, she was more interested in the green-eyed artificial beauty who looked like him, but she seemed friendly enough.

The thought of requesting an annulment insinuated itself into his head, but he put it aside. Wait till Bernie came around. If she didn't give in tonight he'd use his secret weapon tomorrow night…

Joe knelt beside Cecie in the grass as she sat with her back against the largest headstone, the lichen-covered monument of "Master Joseph Wright, blacksmith, late of West Hillston." Neither of them had spoken for some minutes; she guessed her comment had slid off him like a drop of water off his silicon dermis.

"I can see now why you chose to come out here often. No one would disturb you here among the stones. You could come out here to exchange confidences with a trusted companion and not be heard." A dramatic pause. "Or you could come out here to hold tryst with an admirer."

His eyes sought out hers in the dark and the moonlight, but she gracefully eluded his gaze, thwarting him.

"You avoid my eyes; why do you do this? Because I have gazed on Bernadette more than you would rather that I did?"

"You're close."

"Then you admit it: you are jealous. You are consumed with jealousy. But it is not such a grievance on your part: among your kind, if you are not inflamed with jealousy you cannot, by contrast, truly love. But I am here beside you now. Let not that green-eyed monster overtake you." As he spoke, he crept through the grass till he sat alongside her, facing her, his knees against hers. His face hovered just a hands length from her face. "Your green-eyed beauty shall drive it from you."

"It's been foolish of me. I ought to know better instead of acting like a possessive teenager."

He took a fold of her sleeve in his fingertips and rubbed it slowly. "But would it not be the wiser course of action to let yourself know the full course of love?"

Her hand crept to his, covering his wrist in the dark. "I guess I haven't been fully immune to Peter's nonsense."

"Lucky for you that you followed the road to Rouge City, where you found the cure for what ails you…where you found…me."

His free hand, resting beside him in the grass, crept up around her waist as he drew closer to her. The hand on her wrist slid up to her shoulder. She yielded, pulling him closer as he drew her into his embrace.

That musky, almost animal scent that exuded from his skin caressed her nostrils, insinuated itself into the recesses of her breathing passages, finding the receptors there. That aroma, her decision, and the sherry in her veins undercut any overrides in her own system.

She darted a peek out of the corner of her eye over his shoulder to the light in the window. It still shone, but she lost it. His face, his brilliant eyes gleaming in the moonlight, blocked her line of vision.

And then he moved in on her; he kissed her gently, almost chastely at first, just parting her lips. She dropped her jaw, letting him penetrate, working in deeper. Under her lashes, she darted a glance around his head. The light still shone.

Frank had set aside the book. He folded his arms behind his head and nestled it against the wing of the chair back. He relaxed his eyelids, not enough to fall asleep, but enough that he settled down, utterly at ease.

The door creaked open. Bernie came in and went to the chest of drawers that stood in the far corner. She opened a drawer and took out a flannel nightgown. She sat on the bed to take off her shoes, then slipped her nightie over her head and undressed underneath it. He'd have to cure her of that: he'd be the one undoing her buttons.

She slid her head through the neck of the nightgown and buttoned it up. She turned. Their eyes met. She stiffened and backed away like a deer recoiling from a serpent.

"You were watching me."

"I only saw you changing under your nightgown."

"You were still watching me undress. What did you see?"

"What could I possibly see when you're hiding under so and so number of yards of flock flannel. I couldn't see anything I really have a right to see."

"You're not going to see it if you can help it."

Joe's shoulder leaned into Cecie's; she relaxed under him, which he clearly took as a sign he could move on. He settled his weight against her, pushing her gently onto the trampled grass. She slipped her hands up the back of his neck, into his dense hair, running her fingertips through the soft fibers she felt there.

He retracted his mouth from hers, but he did not retract the rest of himself from her. "Suddenly your boundaries have expanded."

"Anything to reassure me that your mine," she said, slightly smothered. He smiled, clearly pleased, his eyelids lowered slightly.

"Already the cure takes effect," he said. He inclined his face to hers, running his lips over her cheek, leaving a hot trail of tiny kisses, almost nibbling her skin, working around the side of her face to her ear. He caught the lobe between his teeth, nipping it ever so gently. She gasped, catching her breath more than making a sound.

The increasing throb in her breast she realized came from within him as well as within her, matching her heartbeat, the race of her pulse.

"Not from me the cold, calm kiss

Of a virgin's bloodless love," he murmured, caressing the side of her neck and kissing it.

"Not from me the saint's white bliss

Nor the heart of a spotless dove." He reached the pit of her throat, at the open collar of her blouse, and ran the tip of his tongue over it.

"But I give the love that so freely gives

And laughs at the whole world's blame." He nosed aside her collar and ran his lips along her collar bones he slid his hands from under her and started to unfasten her second button.

She took his wrists in hers and stopped him. "Uh-unh-uh, don't do that. I'm not undoing your buttons, so don't go for mine."

"So you still set a boundary? No matter. You have let me give you more than Bernadette has."

"That's the whole point."

He looked up at her without raising his head from her bosom. "What do you mean by this?"

She took his face in her hands, turning it up to hers. "I mean what I mean. You aren't supposed to have her"—she kissed his cheek—"Bernie is Frank's one and only now"—another kiss on the other cheek, over the blemish that made his face so human—"He is hers"—she kissed the bridge of his nose; so straight, hers had a notch in it from twenty-two years of wearing glasses—"And please God, by now"—she kissed his forehead—"He's up there in bed with her"—she kissed him between the eyes—"Right now"—she kissed his left eyelid; no moisture on his long lashes—"Going where you aren't supposed to go"—she kissed his right eyelid—"You were the channel for God's plan"—she kissed the dimple in his chin—"Now you have no further place in that part of the drama"—she kissed him between the base of his nose and his upper lip—"Now…now it's you and I." It was her turn to kiss him on the mouth, levering his jaws open with her tongue, going in deep, hard.

He slipped his thumb under her lip to break the seal. "Such vehemence, I have never seen this before in you."

"I mean it, dammit." She kissed him again, lightly.

"And yet you have accepted only my touch."

"You said it yourself, it's not always about sex." His body covered her completely, her thighs open slightly under his groin so that she couldn't help feeling him against her. Just this clothed contact alone sent hot tendrils of pleasure up her spine to her brain, inflaming it. Yield! Her body cried. No, not to him, her reason replied, calmly.

"Your body tells you otherwise," he said, flaring his nostrils.

"I know it is. I have my principles; you have to respect them."

"I know that I must," he replied. Was that resignation in his voice?

"Then why did you marry me?" Frank asked.

She looked him up and down. What was that in his eye? Confusion? Dismay? Frustration?

"I thought I knew why," she started out of the room.

He got up. "Where are you going?"

"I'm going to my old room."

He tried to stop her, but she got to the door first. It shut in his face. No sense in chasing her.

He thrust his hands through his hair and tousled it out of order. He contemplated just kicking off his shoes and plonking down on the bed. No, this bed was gonna have a man between its sheets, even if the woman refused to join him there.

He peeled his shirt over his head, kicked off his shoes, and shucked his pants. Heck, might as well go all the way. He took off his shorts, uncovering the burn mark. He reached for the light and put it out.

Cecie relaxed beneath Joe, all vehemence spent. She had been lying here at least half an hour, but she felt exhausted. She nestled her head into the angle of his neck. She watched the window.

The light went out.

She couldn't get up too quickly; let him think she'd gone to sleep.

He turned over on his side, still holding her. She felt him gazing upon her, but she wouldn't open her eyes until the right amount of time had passed.

The evening dew felt damp on the back of her blouse. A cold breeze arose. If she stayed any longer, Peter would get suspicious when she came in. At least she wore black, which would hide any grass stains.

She counted to a hundred and fifty, two hundred, waiting to give Frank and Bernie enough time. Bernie must be climaxing by now, crying out in Frank's arms with joy and ecstasy.

She shifted slowly, arching her back and tensing her limbs. She sat up slowly; Joe rose with her.

"Will this suffice?" he asked.

"Yes, like I say about you: you're too good at what you do."

"I take that as the highest of compliments," he said, getting to his feet and helping her up.

At that moment, the phone rang in the house. Peter, locking the windows and the doors, went to answer it.

"Connelly residence."

A woman's sigh, then the line broke and hung up.

He hung up the phone. He heard the back door open. Cecie's and Joe's voices, talking low in the night's stillness. He heard a soft sound that might have been a kiss. He went to the living room doorway and looked in, careful not to be seen. They had clearly just separated from a stolen kiss.

"May I see you to your room?" the Mecha asked.

"No, not tonight," she replied, turning away from it.

The robot put its hand under her chin and fondled her jaw. "Will you not leave me something with which to think of you?"

"All right, one last kiss good night, pesky," she said, turning back to it.

She put her hands behind its neck and kissed it on the mouth, just a brief, gentle peck, but it was too long for Peter. She let the thing go and turned away heading for the stairs.

The thing followed her to the foot of the stairs. At least it didn't follow her up; he would have considered it necessary to intervene at that point.

It turned around and faced him; it looked at him oddly.

"It is not in good form to spy upon a lady and her companion," it said, with an almost condescending tone.

"You shouldn't be getting so ardent with her anyway."

It smiled oddly. "Ardor is one of my chief talents." With that, it turned away and swaggered into the living room.

Peter went to the master bedroom at the back of the house; there was no reasoning with that thing.

Cecie entered her room to find Bernie lying on her bed.

"Uh, what are you doing there?" she asked.

"Frank's in the other room and he won't leave," Bernie said, sitting up.

"But if you don't yield to frank, an incubus might come and steal Frank away," Sarah said. "Or you, Bernie."

"I don't know about an incubus, but you may be putting Frank at risk for wanting an annulment, or for looking elsewhere," Cecie said.

Sarah's eyes widened: Bernie kept her look of annoyed disgust.

"You can't let that happen," Sarah pleaded. "His…his soul will be lost."

"Why did you marry Frank if you aren't going to let him love you?" Cecie asked.

"I don't know any more," Bernie said.

"Well, you'd better figure it out soon, or else don't be surprised if Frank decides to come along with Phila and Kip and Joe and I when Friday comes and we're going back to You Know Where…"

Sarah fell back on her cot.

Cecie shucked her blouse and her skirt, then turning to face the wall, she took off her bra and pulled on her jersey and her leggings. She switched out the light and crawled in beside Bernie.

All that for nothing, she thought. Her lips still burned from Joe's last scorching kiss.

"Point me toward the coffeepot," Cecie said, groping through the kitchen next morning.

"What happened?" Georgette asked.

"Bernie and I ended up sharing my bed, and then for the rest of the night, it was like that ancient Bill Cosby routine about the two kids, brothers, in the small bed. 'Don't touch my body', 'I wasn't touching your body', 'Get over on your side of the bed', 'I'm not on your side of the bed', 'Give me back the covers', 'I'm only taking back my share of the covers'."

Georgette looked at Bernie, who kept her attention fixed on her cornflakes.

Frank came in looking much more rested than Bernie or Cecie. Seeing them, he said, "I guess I'd better be a gentleman and let the ladies have the coffee."

"Yeah, tonight, if Bernie wants to borrow my room, I'm sleeping on the couch," Cecie said, sipping her coffee—black.

Georgette eyed Joe, who only had eyes for Cecie. "Would that be wise?"

Cecie looked at Joe with out looking at his face. "Yeah, he knows the meaning of the word 'no'."

While Cecie did her laundry, Frank caught up with Joe on the back deck. The weather had turned brisk, with a crisp autumnal breeze coming down from the mountains.

"What's your hourly rate, Joe?" Frank said.

"I thought you had designs only for Bernadette," the Mecha replied. "For that matter, you would first need to give me the password."

"Well, I don't know it even if I thought I needed it. No, I meant how much would a woman have to shell out to you?"

"One hundred and fifty Newbucks for an hour, three hundred for special services. But I can negotiate."

Frank took three fifty Newbucks out of his wallet and put them into the pocket of Joe's frock coat. "I want you to meet me on the back stairs about 22.00 tonight. I have an idea for getting Bernie to give in to me, but I'll need your help. Not a word of this to anyone, got it?"

"I understand."

"Good."

As Frank went back in, he heard the phone ringing. He picked it up in the front hallway.

"Hello, Connelly residence."

"Joe…is that you?" a woman's voice asked.

"No, this is his Orga twin Frank, but I can put him on for you."

"No, that won't be necessary." The line cut out.

"Okay, whatever," Frank said, hanging up.

About the same time, Cecie helped Sarah pack her bags.

"I'm gonna miss sharing a room with you. It's been fun, like sharing a room with the big sister I always wished I'd had," Sarah said, folding a blouse and putting it into her suitcase.

"Only after a while, I'd probably be the big sister you wished you didn't have, like after I've gotten into one of my weird moods when I'm blaring Enigma or Ministry."

"I wouldn't mind, at least I hope I wouldn't. I mean, besides that, you've got a lot more sense than Phila or Bernie."

"Even I have my faults."

"But you don't beat yourself up for having them."

"I try not to."

"I mean, everyone beats up on you for living there, but you're decent. You're more decent than a lot of people who live in Westhillston."

"I'm one of the normal ones; but there's a lot of crazies there as well. I'm sure your mother gave you The Talk about Rouge City."

"Yeah, just after my birthday. I don't think I'd go there—except to visit you, when I'm older."

"We'll keep that between the two of us."

"Maybe…by then I'll be old enough for a date with…him."

"If he's still around. Average street time for most models is five years, or so I'm told."

"Or better still, maybe I'll luck out and find a real guy just as gracious and handsome."

"I hope you do. In the meantime, I started writing your medieval-knight-in-the-modern-age story. I'm dedicating it to you."

The phone rang again during supper; Phila answered it.

"Was it the ghost again?" Kip asked.

"I'd like to know who this person is," she said.

"I'm going to call the phone company and see if they can trace these calls," Peter said.

"It's probably a wrong number," Ferde said. "Someone copied down a phone number wrong an' they keep getting us instead."

At five minutes to 22.00, Frank slicked back his hair with water in the downstairs washroom and studied his face in the mirror for a few seconds. In an effort to keep Bernie from objecting, he hadn't changed into his usual night gear, but had kept on the gray button down shirt and black pants he had worn all day.

He flipped out the light and headed out into the hallway. He met Joe at the foot of the back stairs.

"Just the man—er, Mecha I wanted to see," Frank said in a low voice.

"Did your nerves detain you for a minute?" Joe asked.

"Yeah, 'fraid so." Frank drew in a long breath. "Okay. What I want you to do is go into the room I'm supposed to be sharing with Bernie and wait for her to come in. Don't do anything to her that's really my territory, nothing below the shoulder, y'know? Just get a little more than friendly with her. Then I'll come in and send you on your way."

"In that case, you would act as if I were an interfering rival made with desire for her, and you then, like a true gentleman, would come to her rescue."

"Exactly. If anything goes wrong, if she attacks you—and I mean if she starts beating you with something, you come looking for me. I'll be on the back stairs."

The Mecha smiled obligingly "I can assist in your designs."

"Just remember, don't do anything to her that requires undoing buttons—hers or yours. Or I will find your off button."

"I shall remember this."

"Go to it," Frank said, clapping Joe on the shoulder as he went up the stairs.

Bernie passed by the top of the stairs a minute later. Frank stood perfectly still in the shadows, watching her.

Bernie listened at the door to room for a minute, listening, straining her ears to hear anything that sounded like Frank. Hearing nothing, she opened the door and stepped through.

The phone rang downstairs. Frank went down to answer it.

"Hey, if you're the same person who's been calling—"

Click!

"Whatever," he shrugged and scurried back to the stairs.

"Bernadette?" something tall and slender got up from the bed: dark hair, green eyes…

Too shiny.

She started to back toward the door, but Joe stepped past he and shut the door. He backed her against the door, boxing her in by bracing his arms on either side of her.

"You cannot make up your mind, is that why you have hesitated with Frank? Which of us do you desire more: he or I?"

"Get out," she growled. "Go away!"

He crooked his elbows so that he leaned his body against hers, pinning her gently to the door.

"You have only just come in to me. Perhaps I can ease your decision."

"I don't need help! I'm Frank's wife."

He smiled condescendingly on her. "You are but his bride. You have not yet let him make you his. But if you but decide, you may yet have the lover you have but dallied with."

"I don't need a lover, and I certainly don't need you!"

He brought his face closer still to hers, till his forehead touched hers. "You wanted me on the bridge, I felt it in you."

"I was overexcited and tired; you only made it worse."

"I disagree." He lowered his face and grazed his cheek against hers as he went for her ear. "I could make all right with your world." His lips grazed her ear.

She slid her hand to the latch behind her. He started to nibble her earlobe. She lifted the handle and pulled the door so sharply that she shouldered Joe out of the way. He fell over backward on the floor, but she didn't stop to look back.

She knew this thing couldn't follow her into the bathroom, so she fled there.

She found the door slightly ajar. She flung it open and ran inside, full tilt into Ferde, who was brushing his teeth.

"Oh no!" she cried and ran out.

"Ugghh!" Ferde gasped, choking on his toothpaste.

Bernie ran blind, looking for the door to her old room. Finding a latch, she lifted it and ran inside.

"Hey!" Kip cried, within.

She backed out just as quickly. Kip and Phila definitely needed their privacy just now. Bernie slammed the door shut. "Wrong door!"

At this point, Sarah came out of Cecie's room, heading for the bathroom. Bernie nearly ran up one side of her and down the other, heading for Cecie's door.

"What's the matter?" Sarah cried.

"He's after me! He's after me!" Bernie screamed.

"Who is?" Sarah asked. She turned around in time to nearly walk into Joe the robot, who was heading for the back stairs, looking a little like the cat that ate the canary. He stepped around her, but as she tried to step past him, they somehow stepped into each other's path again.

"You know I may not dance with you," he said, with an odd, amused lilt. She let him pass her.

Bernie banged on Cecie's door with the flat of her hand, rattling the latch with the other. "Cecie!" Bambambam! "Let me in! Let me in! He's after me!"

Cecie opened the door a crack. "Who's after you?"

"Joe is!"

"Listen, I am not going to go through another night of sharing the bed."

By this time, Sarah reached the bathroom, where she found her father with his head out the window, trying to Heimlich himself.

"Uh oh. MOOOOOM!!" she shouted.

Hearing the commotion above, Frank ran up the back stairs. He didn't see Joe coming down until it was too late. Bang-thunk! He bowled him over.

Bernie ran down the back stairs just as Frank started to get up and help Joe up of the steps. She didn't see them in her haste and—whump!—fell right into Joe's lap ("Hello…what brings you—"). The force pulled Frank on top of Bernie.

"Ow!" she cried.

"Oof!" Frank grunted

"OUCH!"

Peter, locking the doors and windows downstairs, heard the pounding feet in the hallway overhead and the clatter and shouts on the back stairs.

"What's all that?" He ran to the back hallway.

Joe the Mecha passed by him in the hallway, dusting the sleeves of its jacket and shaking out the skirts, like a black rooster fluffing out his tail feathers. It tried to step past him heading for the living room.

"All right, what have you and Cecie been up to now?" Peter demanded, gripping it by the arm.

It pulled itself free. "I have not been engaged in anything with her," it replied. These things couldn't but it could be withholding information. Peter ran for the back stairs.

Bernie, in tears, ran past him too quickly for him to delay her. She headed for his and Georgette's room.

"Bern, where are you going?" Frank called, coming down the stairs.

"WHAT IS GOING ON?!?!" Peter roared.

Ferde coughed and retched noisily in the bathroom: "Gugh!"

"Can you breathe now?" Alice asked. "Say something."

"Sumwun—tell me—wuzza matta' wif Bern."

"Cecie, what do you know about this?" Peter asked Cecie.

"All I know is Bernie came running to my room, saying Joe was after her. Next thing I know, Frank falls on Joe on the stairs, then Bernie falls on Joe and Frank falls on Bernie," she said.

Phila and Kip, both in their bathrobes, came out onto the head of the stairs.

"Bernie had come into our room, but she ducked right out," Kip said.

"She seemed really upset about something," Phila said.

Peter turned to Frank. "What are you doing to her now?"

"All right, I guess I'd better come clean: I asked Joe to give me a hand trying to get Bernie to give in to me. I asked him top pest her a little, then I was going to step in and make it look like I was saving her from him, so to speak. It blew up in my face," Frank admitted.

As he spoke, the phone started ringing again.

"Will someone do something with that damned phone?!" Peter cried. Realizing his misstep, he murmured a quick prayer.

Something thumped in the floor below.

"Now what's that?" Ferde asked.

"Probably my mother, I'll go check," Kip said, heading downstairs. The phone had stopped ringing.

"Well, now that we've straightened this out, I suggest we end this performance of Much Ado About Nothing and go back to our respective beds," Cecie said.

"Frank, can I speak to you…in private?" Peter asked.

Frank drew himself to his full height, slightly taller than Peter, and faced his father in law. "No, if you have anything to say to me, you can say it here, in front of everyone."

Ferde leaned over the banister, his color vastly improved. "Peter, if you're gonna clapper-claw Frank one more time, I swear I'm gonna bust yer gob, so help me!"

Peter threw up his hands. "I've lost my grip on authority in my own house."

"Is that authority or authoritarianism?" Cecie asked in an undertone as he retreated.

"The things I do just to try getting laid with my own wife," Frank grumbled, coming up the stairs.

"The best laid plans of men and Mechas go all awry," Cecie added.

"By the way: where is Joe?" Phila asked.

"Last I knew, he went downstairs," Frank said.

"I'll go check," Cecie offered.

As Cecie ran down the back stairs into the front hallway, she heard the front door open. She looked toward it.

A lean, graceful form moved against the moonlight framed in the doorway for an instant, before the door closed. She pelted after it, but she tripped on the hall rug and measured her length.

She jumped up and ran like hell was on her heels.

She flung open the door and ran out into the frosty night, out onto the front stoop.

"Joe!" she shouted. He'd already reached the foot of the driveway and turned onto the street. Cecie ran down the steps, but his long strides were already carrying him further away. She tripped on one of the lights bordering the walkway. By the time she got up, he'd vanished around a bend in the road.

"Joe!" she yelled, even louder. She ran down the lawn, onto the street and ran after him. He'd gotten too far ahead of her for her to catch up, and she'd had her wind knocked out too many times. He paced from one pool of light under the street lamp to the next. The mist rising from the river to the east swirled about him as he lifted on his toes and spun, the night wind catching under his coattails and flaring the gleaming folds.

"Joe! Hey, Joe! Where are you going?"

The sound of Allison Diocletian's nervous-delighted giggle bubbled to the surface of her memory.

"Joe! Get back here! Get back here now! JOE!!"

He heeded her not, if he heard her at all. He leapt into the air, kicking up his heels in joyful abandon.

"Fine, be that way, you silicon prick!" she roared and stormed back to the house.

Once inside, she couldn't stop the tears starting in her eyes. She wiped them away with the heels of her hands and pushed back her short hair.

She decided to wait up for him in the living room.

As he made his way to the rendezvous, Joe replayed the phone conversation in his memory.

"Hello…Connelly residence."

"Joe, is…that you?"

"At your service, Allison."

"Oh, thank God…Your voice is like ice on a burn. Are you…busy?"

"I am not presently engaged, but I could be busy…with you…if you so desire."

"I do, I mean…Shay and I had a dust-up, and now he's decided to sleep in the basement."

"And so, where then have you sought refuge?"

"I'm on the screen porch behind our house. We're at…"

"Say not a word more, my lady. I shall be at your side before you can sigh again for love."

"Are you sure?"

"I am. Cecie pointed out your residence as we passed it by on one of our walks."

"Okay. Thanks…thank you."

"It is my pleasure."

Mustn't keep a lady waiting…

Afterword:

A nice comic-dramatic build up to a cliffhanger…I may soon be starting a job at Wal-Mart (Keep me in your prayers if you're the praying type!), so I'll be pushing myself trying to get the rest of this out, plus plotting the long-neglected "Zenon Eyes: Eyes of Truth" and writing that, plus a few other projects, so keep watching!

Literary Easter Eggs:

The golem in the Talmud—I'm not sure about this passage as I've never actually read it, but a golem is, in Jewish legend, a kind of natural android made of river clay which is animated either by placing a copy of the Sh'ma, the basic Jewish prayer, into the mouth of the golem or by carving the Hebrew word for truth, emeth, into its forehead.

Oy vey iz dir—Yiddish: "Oh woe is you!"

Bulverism—this is a real word that C.S. Lewis invented, though I've forgotten where he first used it

Norman Rockwell Museum—A real and very beautiful museum in Stockbridge, MA, which I've been very fortunate to visit on a couple occasions. Steven Spielberg helped finance its construction, since Rockwell is one of his chief sources of inspiration.

Edible food wraps—I've heard talk that someone invented this and was testing it out.

"Over the teeth and over the gums…"—Swiped this wholesale from one of classic radio comedian Red Skelton's hysterical drunk routines.

The graveyard scene—I got the idea for this whole scene from the photograph on page 82 of the Hallmark Greetings gift book Kisses, which features a photo circa 1950 of a young farming couple cuddling on the grass in a English graveyard at night. But there's something a little too well groomed about the young swain, and he bears an eerie resemblance to Jude Law (I'm not making this up!)…and there's something a little plasticky about his whole look, just from the way the flash lights him up.

"Not from me the cold calm kiss…"—This is a modified version of the second stanza of Ella Wheeler Wilcox's poem "I Love You."

The door-slammer—My chief source of inspiration for this rowdy scene is James Thurber's classic story "The Night the Bed Fell" in his autobiography My Life and Hard Times.