"Not for the loop!" she echoed back, struggling to think of some kind of answer.
"I said not for the loop!" He stood up and walked away from her, then turned back, pointed at her. "All these stupid affairs, all the phony relationships. Haven't you had enough?"
"Enough? This is life, and I'll never have enough of life."
But Ham was determined not to play fair.
"If this is life, Capitol's an asteroid." A clumsy line, not like him. "Do you know what life is, Arran? Life is centuries of playing loop after loop, as I've done, screwing every actress who can raise a fee, all so I can make enough money to buy somec and the luxuries of life. And all of a sudden a few years ago, I realized that the luxuries didn't mean a damn thing, and what did I care if I lived forever? Life was so utterly meaningless, just a succession of high-paid tarts!"
Arran managed to squeeze out some tears of rag, The loop never stops. "Are you calling me a tart?"
"You?" Ham looked absolutely stricken. The man can act, Arran reminded herself, even as she cursed him for throwing her such a rotten curve. "Not you, Arran, don't even think it!"
"What can I think, with you coming here and accusing me of being a phony!"
"No," he said, sitting beside her on the bed again, putting his arm around her bare shoulders. She nestled to him again, as she had a dozen times before, years ago. She looked up at his face, and saw that his eyes were filled with tears.
"Why are you-- why are you crying?" she asked, hesitantly.
"I'm crying for us," he said.
"Why?" she asked. "What do we have to cry over?"
"All the years we've lost."
"I don't know about you, but my years have been pretty full," she said, laughing, hoping he would laugh, too.
He didn't. "We were right for each other. Not just as a team of actors, Arran, but as people. You weren't very good back then at the beginning-- neither was I. I've looked at the loops. When we were with other people, we were as phony as two-bit beginners. But those loops still sold, made us rich, gave us a chance to learn the trade. Do you know why?"
"I don't agree with your assessment of the past," Arran said coldly, wondering what the hell he was trying to accomplish by continuing to refer to the loops instead of staying in character properly.
"We sold those tapes because of each other. Because we actually looked real when we told each other we loved, when we chattered for hours about nothing. We really enjoyed each other's company."
"I wish I were enjoying your company now. Telling me I'm a phony and then saying I have no talent."
"Talent! What a joke," Ham said. He touched her cheek, gently, turning her face so she would look at him. "Of course you have talent, and so have I. We have money, too, and fame, and everything money can buy. Even friends. But tell me, Arran, how long has it been since you really loved anybody?"
Arran thought back through her most recent lovers. Any she wanted to make Ham's character jealous over? No... "I don't think I've ever really loved anybody."
"That's not true," Ham said. "It's not true, you loved me. Centuries ago, Arran, you truly loved me."
"Perhaps," she said. "But what does it have to do with now?"
"Don't you love me now?" Ham asked, and he looked so sincerely concerned that Arran was tempted to break character and laugh with delight, applaud his excellent performance. But the bastard vas still making it hard for her, and so she decided to make it hard for him.
"Love you now?" she asked. "You're just another pair of eager gonads, my friend." That'd shock the fans. And, she hoped, completely mess up Ham's nasty little joke.
But Ham stayed right in character. He looked hurt, pulled away from her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I was wrong." And to Arran's shock he began to dress.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
"Leaving," he said.
Leaving, Arran thought with panic. Leaving now? Without letting the scene have a climax? All this buildup, all the shattered traditions, and then leaving without a climax? The man was a monster!
"You can't go!"
"I was wrong. I'm sorry. I've embarrassed myself," he said.
"No, no, Ham, don't leave. I haven't seen you in so long!"
"You've never seen me," he answered. "Or you wouldn't have been capable of saying what you just did."
Making me pay for throwing a curve back at him, Arran thought. I'd like to kill him. What a fantastic actor, though. "I'm sorry I said it," Arran said, wearing contrition as if she had been dipped in it. "Forgive me. I didn't mean it."
"You just want me to stay so I won't ruin your damn scene."
Arran gave up in despair. Why am I doing this, anyway? But the realization that breaking character now would wreck the whole loop kept, her going. She went and threw herself on the bed. "That's right!" she said, weeping. "Leave me now, when I want you so much."
Silence. She just lay there. Let him react.
But he said nothing. Just let the pause hang. She couldn't even hear him move.
Finally he spoke. "Do you mean it?"
"Mmm-hmm," she said, managing to hiccough through her tears. A cliche, but it got 'em every time.
"Not as an actress, Arran, please. As yourself. Do you love me? Do you want me?"
She rolled partway onto her side, lifted herself on one elbow, and said, the tears forcing a little catch in her voice, "I need you like I need somec, Ham. Why have you stayed away so long?"
He looked relieved. He walked slowly back to her. And everything was peaceful again. They made love four more times, between each of the courses of dinner, and for variety they let the servants watch. I've done it once before, Arran remembered, but it was five loops ago, about, and these are different servants anyway. Of course the servants, underpaid beginning actors all, used it as an excuse to get some interesting onstage time, and turned it into an orgy among themselves, managing every conceivable sexual act in only an hour and a half. Arran barely noticed them, though. They were the kind of fool who thought the audience wanted quantity. If some sex is good, a lot is better, they think. Arran knew better. Tease them. Let them beg. Let them find beauty in it, too, not just titillation, not just lust. That's why she was a star, and they were playing servants in somebody else's loop.
That night Ham and Arran slept in each other's arms.
And in the morning, Arran woke to find Ham staring at her, his face an odd mixture of love and pain. "Ham," she said softly, stroking his cheek. "What do you want?"
The longing in his face only increased. "Marry me," he said softly.
"Do you really mean it?" she asked, in her little-girl voice.
"I mean it. Time our wakings together, always."
"Always is a long time," she said. It was a good all-purpose line.
"And I mean it," he said. "Marry me. Mother knows we've made enough money over the years. We don't ever have to let these other bastards into our lives again. We don't ever have to wear these damned loop recorders again." And as he said that, he patted the recorder strapped to her thigh.
Arran inwardly groaned. He wasn't through with the games yet. Of course the audience wouldn't know what he meant-- the computer that created the loop from the loop recorder was programmed to delete the recorder itself from the holo. The audience never saw it. And now Ham was referring to it. What was he trying to do, give her a nervous breakdown? Some friend.