'Tm sorry, Josif said. I think I dozed off.
With your eyes wide open? Kyaren laughed. She sounded tired.
Ansset looked carefully at Josif. Josif thought that the boy was trying to tell him something; trying to tell him that he knew Josif had lied, that Josif had not been dozing. Why don't you go to bed? Ansset asked. You're tired.
Josif nodded. I will
And I'd better leave, too, Ansset said. It was wonderful. Thank you.
Ansset got up and went toward the door. Kyaren went with him, talking all the way. Josif, however, ignored courtesy and returned to the bedroom. It took no thought at all. He knew what he had to do. Ansset was obviously not just a casual friend, not just a superior officer in government. Kyaren would have him back, again and again. And so Josif started taking his clothing from the shelves and putting it in his duffle.
But he was tired, and soon sat down on the edge of the bed, holding the edges of his half-full duffle and wondering what good it would do. The thought of leaving Kyaren was terrifying. The thought of not leaving her was worse.
I have done this before, he thought. This has all happened before, and what good does it do?
He remembered Pyoter, and then it was impossible for him to get up, to finish packing, to leave. It was Pyoter he had first loved, who had taken Josif as a shy child of unusual beauty and shown him love and loving. Josif then discovered what he had not known about himself. That when he trusted, he held back nothing. That when he loved, he could not love anyone else. He and Pyoter had been everywhere together, done everything together. They had both said we so often that the word I came only with difficulty to their lips. Only a year apart in age, their friendship had been so boyish and exuberant that no one had thought there was anything sexual in it; but Josif also learned that he could not love without lovemaking, that it was a part of it, the center of the yearning. And so he and Pyoter had shared everything and it seemed it would go on forever.
Until Bant. Bant had known at once. Josif never knew what made the difference or why he changed. Just that one day everything had been the same; Bant a friend of sorts, but very distant, Pyoter the beginning and end of the world to him. And then the next day, it had all been changed. Pyoter was a stranger, and Bant, who had finally taken Josif to his bed, had completely replaced him.
It horrified Josif that he could change that quickly, that overnight his attitudes could change. He refused to think it might be just the sex; he reconstructed events and saw the seeds of the change months before, when Bant had first hired him as his secretary and they had begun their friendly banter in the office. Josif now remembered the touches, the smiles, the warmth; he had been changing all along, and only noticed it all at once.
He could not bear to be disloyal to Pyoter. He had tried, for weeks, to keep things the same between them. It was impossible. Pyoter wasn't a fool, and Josif watched him getting more and more hurt as it became clearer and clearer that Josif no longer belonged to him as he had. And finally Pyoter said, Why didn't you just leave at once, instead of tearing me up bit by bit like this?
This time, Josif thought, this time I must leave. Before I destroy Kyaren, Because this boy I cannot resist, and sooner or later the change will come, if he's here often. Sooner or later it will not be Kyaren I come to with my thoughts and my feelings; or, even if the boy never becomes my friend, it will get to a point where I will be so obsessed by him, as I was obsessed by Bant, that I cannot bear to be with Kyaren anymore.
The duffle lay at his feet, half full. Why don't I go? Josif asked himself. Why am I still here? I know what I have to do, I know why, it's the way I am and the only way to stop myself is to stop everything, and yet here I sit and I haven't packed and I'm not leaving and why not?
The answer stood in the door, her face surprised, uncomprehending.
. What are you doing? Kyaren asked.
Packing, Josif answered, but he knew even then that he would not leave. He had never been able to leave Pyoter or Bant willingly; he would not be able to leave Kyaren either. I am not in control of myself, Josif realized. I gave myself to her, and I can't just decide to take myself back.
Why? Kyaren asked, already hurt because she could not comprehend what he was doing.
If I stay, I'll destroy her as I destroyed Pyoter.
We'll still be friends, Josif answered.
What brought this on? Why now, at three o'clock in the morning? What did I do?
Ansset, Josif said.
She misunderstood. How can yon possibly be jealous of him? He's only fifteen! They give them drugs in the Songhouse, he's sterile, puberty is put off for years-he hardly even has a sex, Josif--
I'm not jealous of him, Josif answered.
She stood regarding him for a while, and then realized what he meant.
Still the old sixty-two percent, is it? she asked.
No, he answered, I just see the potential, I want to avoid it.
There is no potential, she said.
You don't understand.
Damn right I don't. You mean that all this time, I've just been filling your bed until you could find a beautiful boy to fill it?
Maybe postponing it would have been better, Josif thought. Postponing is definitely better. I can't do this tonight. Because Ansset is only potential, and Kyaren is real, Kyaren I love now, and I can't bear the hurt and anger in her voice. No, he said softly, fervently. Kyaren, you don't understand. I didn't choose you. I didn't choose Bant. Things like this happen. They just happen, and I don't have any control over it.
You mean that in just one evening you suddenly forget that you love me-
No! he cried out, in agony. No! Kyaren, I just know that it's possible, it's possible and I don't want it to happen, don't you see?
"I don't, she said. If you love me, you love me.
Josif got up, walked to her, knocking over the duffel in the process. Kyaren, I don't want to leave you.
Then don't,
It's because I love you that I want to leave.
If you love me, you'll stay, she said.
He had known it, from the moment she appeared in the door. He couldn't leave her. When the change came, it would come, and then it would be irreversible, and then he would leave because he loved someone else and there was something in him that made it impossible for him to love two people at once. But now the one person was Kyaren, and he could not leave her because she wanted him to stay.
I'll hurt you, he said.
You could not hurt me worse than leaving me now, for no reason.
He wondered if she was right, or if it was easier for no reason than for the reason that there would be in the future. Surely it was. Surely it was easier to bear if you didn't have to know who it was who took your lover's heart from you. But maybe not; she was a woman, and Josif did not understand women. Maybe she was right, and it would be better this way.
Besides, Josif, what makes you think Ansset would ever have you? He didn't have two emperors, you know.
She was right. She was right and he knew it and he went to the duffel and unpacked it and put the clothing away. He never will, Josif said. I was a fool. I'm just tired. And he undressed and got into the bed.
They made love in silence, and several times Kyaren seemed surprised by the force of his passion tonight. She did not realize that in spite of his best efforts he kept seeing the curls clinging to Ansset's neck, the soft cheek that he had not touched except in his mind but that was all the softer because of that. He tried to take Ansset's face out of his mind. And failed.
Kyaren sighed contentedly afterward, and kissed him. She thinks it's all better now, Josif thought bitterly. She thinks she's kept me. She would have kept me better if she had let me go now.