“Folsom Duncan,” the man said, bowing slightly. He was wearing a long black leather coat that had to be lined against the cold unless he was superhuman.
“And you’re a writer as well, sir?” Barb asked, curiously. She knew she had made a mistake when about half the group laughed.
“You see!” Duncan said, mock angrily. “What is it with this genre? I’ve got to start writing mysteries or that unicorn story or something!”
“He’s one of the biggest writers in science fiction,” the bookseller said, grimacing at Barbara’s faux pas. “At least based on sales. And he’s always lamenting that there aren’t enough good looking females reading SF.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Duncan said, waving his hand and wafting cigar smoke around. “It’s totally normal. I’m not by any stretch a household name. And the publishing industry is so diverse that readers of one genre rarely know another. Which is why I should write romances or teeny-bopper thrillers or Goth or something. That’s the way to get the chicks for free. And getting the chicks for free is the only true pursuit for a grown-up male. Before puberty, of course, it’s avoiding them like the plague.”
“You’re married,” Barb pointed out, noting the wedding ring.
“It doesn’t mean I can’t flirt,” Duncan said, smiling. When he smiled his face came alive and Barbara admitted that she did find him attractive. “I’m not quite as aggressive about it as Donald here, but I certainly enjoy the dance. It helps, however, to have the cachet of being a ‘published author.’ It sort of breaks the ice. Among other things, it skips right over the lousy pick-up lines. Women come up to me and say ‘So what’s your next book, Mr. Duncan?’ Very refreshing.”
“Well, not much,” the brunette said, laughing. “Mostly they say, ‘Who the hell are you?’ ”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Duncan said, sorrowfully. “I’m going to write a book about unicorns. Get surrounded by young lovelies that have to know what’s going to happen to ‘whatsername.’ ‘Well, young lovely nubile lady,’ I’ll say, ‘it just so happens that I have my latest work in progress up in my room. I’ll squeeze you in between nine and nine-thirty. I hope you can handle multiple orgasms.’ ”
“I have some problems with that,” Barb said, her eyes wide.
“Oh, so would I,” Duncan admitted, hastily. “Among other things, my wife would kill me and there’s all these laws and things about underage females. But it’s a lovely thought.”
“Women don’t like anything that’s got a scrap of science to it,” one of the men at the table said. He was a heavyset older guy with a thick gray-brown beard. “They only want to read horsey stories about dragons and unicorns.”
“Hey!” the brunette snapped.
“Most women,” the man corrected.
“Well, there’s a bit of a reality to that,” Duncan said. “I mean, market-wise it’s indisputable. But the question is, why?”
“Do tell us, laddy!” Don said, taking another heavy drink. “You’re the thinker in this lot.”
“Not the only one by a stretch,” Duncan said. “But there are a few known facts about the differences, physiologically, between male and female brains. One of them is that in fetal development, males get more separation between the two lobes of the brain. It’s actually a function of testosterone. That means they can separate logic from emotion more effectively than females. That gives them the ability to look at things with clearer logic, in general.”
“I think I’m pretty logical,” the brunette said. She didn’t seem as upset about his statements as she had been about the “scrap of science” comment.
“Ah, but you’re a bit odd, as a female,” Duncan pointed out. “You yourself have commented that you act more like one of the boys. And I, who find virtually any woman from fifteen to fifty to be worthy of a passing thought about afternoon delight, am not physically attracted to you at all. Because you do come across as ‘one of the guys’ and I am irresolubly het. I suspect you’ve got a bit less connections than most women, ergo you can deal with a situation with less emotional input. Now, me, I probably have a few more connections than your average bear, thus my gift of gab and a bit of ability to write.
“It’s not a hard and fast thing; human beings are individuals not groups. It’s more of a bell curve with males trending more to the ‘logic’ side and women more to the ‘emotion’ side. Now, the point to that is that each has strengths and weaknesses. I suspect that it’s why females gravitate, in general, to more emotional or nurturing professions. In business they tend more towards marketing rather than operations. In medicine they tend towards nursing and softer arts rather than, oh, surgery. And they bring strengths to those areas. It’s not a matter of better or worse. A coldly analytical SOB makes a great accountant and a fair operations manager but a lousy marketing guru. But it would also explain why they tend more towards fantasy rather than SF. And especially tend away from military fiction which is much more cold and brutal than most of the rest of the genre.”
“I’ve read a fair amount of military fiction,” Barbara said. “And I certainly don’t come across as one of the guys.”
“Not in the slightest,” Duncan said, waggling his eyebrows. “However, have you any military background?”
“My dad was in the Air Force,” Barbara said.
“Culture modifies nature,” Duncan said, shrugging. “You were inculcated in the military culture. It might be why you gravitated over here; it seems to happen. Military people just seem to turn up around us. I think it’s something in the tone of the laughter that says: ‘Really bad no-shit story being told over here.’ I suspect, however, that you’re not much of a science fiction reader.”
“No, not really,” Barb admitted. “I got forced to read some in high school, but I never really liked it.”
“Bleck,” Duncan said, sticking out his tongue. “Probably Bradbury or Ellison. Bradbury shouldn’t happen to a goat.”
“Hey, I like Bradbury,” the brunette said.
“I know, and I forgive you,” Duncan said. “You also like Ellison, which is a far greater sin against man and God. However, as the Lord said, let he who is without sin cast the first stone and I do admit to occasionally reading Asimov and enjoying it. Albeit, his very early work before he got full of himself. ‘Christmas on Ganymede’ was really the height of his writing oeuvre.”
“You’re a Christian?” Barbara asked, surprised.
“Catholic,” Duncan said, shrugging. “Sort of. I know the tune and can dance to it. I really think of myself as a fallen pagan of Christ.”
“What’s that?” Don said, screwing up his face. “That’s one I hadn’t heard before.”
“All the old gods got wrapped into the Christian pantheon as saints and angels and such like,” Duncan said taking a sip of his own drink. Barb had assumed from the color that it was whiskey as well, but she suddenly suspected that it was iced tea. Which seemed an awfully cold drink for such a freezing night. “My namesake, for example, is naught more than various war-gods absorbed by the early Christian church. And as a Catholic, I don’t have to pray straight to the Big Guy. I can use the chain of command, which works just fine for my brain. So in the very few cases where I think prayer is in order, and occasionally when it’s not but I think he might like a word or two, I pray to Michael. Certainly worked for me in Division.”
“How?” one of the men asked.