#006: Conjunction

I do not mind saying that I was more than a little disturbed by Kalinsky's attitude toward my life and liberty. The guy sat there with a grin on his face and as much as told me that he was taking me over, like it or not—as though I were an open-stock corporation and he was buying up all the shares.

The money was great, sure, but only a pervert lives for money alone.

I would sell the Maserati before I would sign a deal like that, yet he made it quite clear that I was his, signed or not.

So I was perturbed, yes. I did not feel that he was bluffing. He meant it, every word and wink of it, and I knew that the threat was very real.

But I could see no profit in a showdown at that moment and, besides, I wanted some time with Karen before the walls came tumbling down. She was the client, Kalinsky was not, and I was not satisfied in my own mind that she was, indeed, in good hands.

So I cooled it and kept the banter going with Kalinsky until another guy came along to show me to a guest room upstairs. Seemed that a formal dinner party was brewing for the evening, some twenty to thirty additional guests, and I would be expected to "keep the kid under control" during that.

These people apparently never heard of thinking small or of finding a situation beyond their ability to manage. Believe it, a maid was waiting for me inside my room, with a mouth full of pins and a tailor's tape over the shoulder, to fit me into a tux for the occasion.

Also waiting there was an "ice-box snack," promised by Kalinsky to hold me until dinner, consisting of cold chicken, fruit, cookies, and an insulated decanter of coffee. The room boasted a fully stocked bar, complete with several different brands of imported beer and wine—had its own hi-fi, television, whirlpool bath, and outside balcony overlooking the pool. A guy could live there, sure, in total luxury, and I found myself wondering what kind of fool it took to turn down a life like this.

Maybe it would be worth the trade in personal freedom. After all, freedom to roam the wilderness all hungry and dying of thirst would not be too much of a trade for a cage with plenty of food and water. I could believe Kalinsky's assurances that my every need would be met if I would just pledge my soul to the cause. If all these people here were indeed working under "the same requirements," and I had no reason to doubt it, I had to admit that they seemed a rather contented bunch.

Of course, cows in deep pasture usually seem a rather contented bunch too; I would not trade my life for theirs.

So I ate the chicken while the maid fussed with the fit. When she departed I headed straight for the bath, taking the coffee with me and opting for a stinging shower in preference to the lulling comfort of the whirlpool. It was past six; dinner was at eight; I wanted a moment with Karen in private before the festivities.

I tracked her down via the "Intercom Directory" and got her on the house phone. She still sounded a bit upset but in control as she invited me to her "apartment" and told me how to get there. It was on the same floor, but seemingly a half-mile distant around several bends of hallway—not too bad, except that I was wearing only a shower robe (compliments of management) for the safari.

Karen was not alone. A nice-eyed man of about forty and prematurely bald, whom she introduced only as Carl, was standing in the open doorway and chatting with her when I arrived. Neither of them blinked at my get-up, maybe because the three of us were identically attired, but Karen had a bit of trouble meeting my eyes at first.

Turns out that Carl was Carl U. Powell, M.D.—house doctor and resident shrink—which explained the CUP monogrammed on the breast pocket of his robe, which in turn suggested that he was a company man "under the same requirements."

He looked me over with a not unfriendly stare, shook my hand, and took his leave before I could really get his make and model.

Karen retreated into the depths somewhere, leaving me alone in the hallway. I went on in and closed the door, found her standing at a window in the sitting room, hands jammed tightly into the pockets of the robe, gazing fixedly onto the front lawn. It was a nice view but, again, I had the feeling that she was seeing nothing beyond her own eyeballs.

She spoke to me very quietly and without altering her position at the window. "Can you forgive me? I feel really ... crummy."

I matched her tone and mood as I replied to that. "I suspect that you have nothing to apologize for."

She looked at me, then—just a turn of the head and a sweep with the eyes—and I could see the misery there, and I started getting mad as hell, a slow burn beginning way down low in the belly. I knew what she was feeling because I had sampled a small taste of it during the meeting with Kalinsky, a sort of formless rage lightly brushed with panic, the recognition that someone with raw power was making designs on your life-force.

I turned her about and took her in my arms, and we just stood there embracing through a long, warmly electric silence, flowing into each other, meeting somewhere in psyche and joining thoroughly in a surging transfer.

I felt her stiffen momentarily and feebly struggle against it before releasing in total surrender, mind and body, molding to me, attaching, merging. We were one body and one mind between the infinities, a single point of reference in the space-time continuum, but not moving with it, outside somewhere, out of plane, out of body.

It shook her, shook us both, brought tears to both.

I do not know how this may sound to you—maybe somewhat like a pride-and-passion novel, or maybe you will just think I am kooky or melodramatic—if you have never experienced the same thing. It was not the first time for me, but still it was rare enough that I found it remarkable and damned near incredible that two people—strangers, really—could spontaneously ignite into something like this, could be transported from the workaday world into cosmic zonk in a fingersnap.

Suddenly I knew this lady, knew all about her in shades more intimate than anything shared by lifelong companions, knew her in her essences, her longings and deepest fears and feelings, knew her in all the sweet quiet whisperings from another star somewhere, another system, another reality.

Call it what you will; I can only report the facts.

That kind of knowing is the deepest sort of love.

And I knew, even before I pulled away and looked into her eyes, that she knew me as I knew her.