Now, clipping Lucite fittings to sensor wires — and again with the impression of holding a bobby pin in her teeth — she inserts one after another into the body orifices, as handily and thriftily as a teen-ager popping in a contact lens.
Cameras whir, tapes jerk around, needles quiver, computers wink, and Lillian begins her autostimulation.
My eyes meet Moira’s. She blushes and glances down. Here we meet, at Lillian’s recording session, as shyly as two office workers at the water cooler, touch fingers and—! Yes, my hand strays along the vaginal computer, our fingers touch. A thrill pierces my heart like an arrow, as they say in old novels. I am in love.
Stryker tells me his problem, I listen attentively, and sure enough he offers me a job. It disconcerts me that he speaks in a loud voice, in the hearing of the others, and pays no attention to Lillian, who is doing her usual yeoman-like job. Isn’t it impolite not to watch her? Stryker is a tall, willowy doctor who feels obliged by the nature of his work to emphasize the propriety, even the solemnity of his own person. So he dresses somewhat like a funeral director in a dark suit, perfectly laundered shirt, and sober tie. Yet there persists about him the faint air of the dude: his collar has a tricky pin that lofts the knot of his tie. Overly long cuffs show their jeweled links and cover part of his hand, whose fingers are still withered from his years as a chemist before he went into behavior. He is a wonderful dancer, hopping nimbly through the complicated figures of the Center’s square dances. Even now, in the observation room, there is about him a lightness of foot, a discreet bounciness, as if he were keeping time to an inner hoedown. His foot swings out. Yet there pervades the observation room a strong tone, at once solemn and brisk. Embarrassment is not to be thought of. Nor, on the other hand, would it be thinkable to crack vulgar jokes as surgeons do in the scrub room.
Dr. Helga Heine has caught the same note of brisk solemnity. She is a jolly matronly Bavarian gynecologist, neither young nor old, a regular hausfrau, hair done up in a bun, breast conformed to a single motherly outcurve. Moira tells me that Helga takes pains to remember the birthdays of staff members and veteran performers, brings a cake and plays Zwei Herzen on her little Bavarian guitar. I gaze big-nosed at her plump pink fingertips.
“Thanks to you,” says Stryker solemnly, balancing lightly on the balls of his feet, “we’ve made a breakthrough in the whole area of sexual behavior.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t say—” I begin, sweeping out a foot like Stryker. So he’s read my paper! In the corner of my eye Moira listens and registers pride. To Moira, who believes in Science without knowing much about it, my triumph has all the grace and warrant of a matador’s.
“Your article in the J.A.M.A. delineated a new concept.”
“Oh. I wouldn’t say that.”
And I wouldn’t. The “article” he speaks of is not the epochal paper I just finished, but a minor clinical note, small potatoes indeed. It noted nothing more than a certain anomaly in the alpha wave of solitary lovers (as Colley’s assistant, I read the EEG’s of all the lovemakers in Love). Stryker’s praise is something like congratulating Einstein for patenting a Swiss watch. I accept it for Moira’s sake.
Moira’s eyes are shining.
Lillian is going about her task at a fair clip. Drums revolve, heartbeats spike on a monitor, her skin conductivity ascends a gentle slope. Stryker keeps a casual eye on the dials, now and then dictates a clinical note to Moira. Helga and Father Kev Kevin, hearing my praises, look glum.
Moira perches on her stool, heels cocked on a rung, and manages both to take notes and keep her short skirt tucked under her knees. What lovely legs. Her kneecaps are smooth and tan as a beaten biscuit. To plant kisses on those perfect little biscuits, I’m thinking, as Stryker dances a step. Moira and I do not quite look at each other but my cheek is aware of hers.
She never told her love
But let concealment, like a worm i’ the bud
Feed on her damask cheek.
Lillian is going at a good clip now.
“There’s the old methodology,” says Stryker, waving a hand at Lillian without bothering to look. “Thanks to you, we’re onto something new.”
“I’m not sure I understand,” I murmur out of Moira’s hearing.
“Not that the old wasn’t useful in its way—”
“Useful!” chime in Helga and Father Kev Kevin. “Useful enough to take the Nobel!”
But Stryker waves them off. “Useful, yes, to a point But without your note on the alpha wave, we’d never have struck out on a new path.”
“A new path?” I ask, puzzled. But my Moira-wards cheek glows.
Her cheek like the rose is, but fresher, I ween,
She’s the loveliest lassie that trips on the green.
I ween she is.
Stryker sways closer, balancing lightly on his toes. “I think you might be interested to learn, Tom, that since June we’ve been using not one subject at a time”—he touches my arm with a withered finger—“but two.”
“Two?”
“Yes. A man and a woman. Here’s the breakthrough.”
“Breakthrough?”
“Yes. And guess what?”
“What?”
“We’ve got rid of your alpha wave anomaly. You were right.”
“Very good. But actually I was only reading EEG’s and not making recommendations about future techniques, you understand—”
“Moral scruples, Doctor?” asks Father Kev Kevin, eyes alight. He clears the orgasm circuit
“Perhaps.”
“Oh, that’s neither here nor there!” cries Stryker cheerfully. “All I’m saying is that using couples instead of singles we’ve got rid of your alpha wave anomaly and kept the cruciform rash. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Yes,” I say gloomily, watching Lillian. My nose is getting bigger. I try to think. “Then if that’s the case, what’s your problem?”
“Yeah, here’s the thing.” Stryker glances at Lillian like a good cook watches a pot of beans. I notice that as Lillian progresses, Stryker becomes ever more light-footed. His black pumps swing out. His watching Lillian is like a poet reading his best poem. “Our problem is that our couples do not perform regularly.”
“Ted ’n Tanya do!” Helga objects.
“Not lately. Only one out of four couples interact successfully,” says Stryker drily. “Hardly an adequate base for observation.”
“Ted ’n Tanya?” I ask, scratching my head. There could only be one Ted ’n Tanya. It must mean that my prescription for Ted didn’t, in the end, work, and that they’ve come here. “But what do you think I can do about it?”
Lillian seems to be looking at me. But I know she can only see mirror. It is herself she is watching. Her eyes are unfocused and faraway. Her eyebrows are unplucked, the heavy black sort one used to see in daguerreotypes of frontier women.
“Do some studies on our noninteracting couples!” cries Stryker. “I hear you’ve developed a special sort of EEG.”
“Not exactly.”
“Join our team! We’re even funded for a full-time consultant.”
“Well, thank you, Ken, but …” On the other hand, I could see Moira all day if I did.
“Twenty thousand a year, full professorship, and do as you please.”