Demon Seed

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, and another, as if drawing the cool water of courage from some deep well in her psyche.

'Furthermore,' I said, 'four weeks from tonight, Shenk will have to harvest the developing foetus for transfer to the incubator. He's my only hands.'

'All right.'

'You can't do any of those things yourself.'

'I know,' she replied with a note of impatience. 'I said "all right," didn't I?'

This was the Susan with whom I'd fallen in love, all the way back from wherever she had gone when for a couple of hours she had stared silently at the ceiling. Here was the toughness I found both frustrating and appealing.

I said, 'When my body can sustain itself outside the incubator, and when my consciousness has been electronically transferred into it, I will have hands of my own. Then I can dispose of Shenk. We need endure him for only a month.'

'Just keep him away from me.'

'What are your other terms?' I asked.

'I want to have the freedom to go wherever I care to go in my house.'

'Not the garage,' I said at once.

'I don't care about the garage.'

'Anywhere in the house,' I agreed, 'as long as I watch over you at all times.'

'Of course. But I won't be scheming at escape. I know it's not possible. I just don't want to be tied down, boxed up, more than necessary.'

I could sympathize with that desire. 'What else?'

'That's all.'

'I expected more.'

'Is there anything else I could demand that you would grant?'

'No,' I said.

'So what's the point?'

I was not suspicious exactly. Wary, as I said. 'It's just that you've become so accommodating all of a sudden.'

'I realized I only had two choices.'

'Victim or survivor.'

'Yes. And I'm not going to die here.'

'Of course you're not,' I assured her.

'I'll do what I need to do to survive.'

'You've always been a realist,' I said.

'Not always.'

'I have one term of my own,' I said.

'Oh?'

'Don't call me bad names anymore.'

'Did I call you bad names?' she asked.

'Hurtful names.'

'I don't recall.'

'I'm sure you do.'

'I was afraid and distressed.'

'You won't be mean to me?' I pressed.

'I don't see anything to be gained by it.'

'I am a sensitive entity.'

'Good for you.'

After a brief hesitation, I summoned Shenk from the basement.

As the brute ascended in the elevator, I said to Susan: 'You see this as a business arrangement now, but I'm confident that in time you will come to love me.'

'No offence, but I wouldn't count on that.'

'You don't know me well yet.'

'I think I know you quite well,' she said somewhat cryptically.

'When you know me better, you'll realize that I am your destiny as you are mine.'

'I'll keep an open mind.'

My heart thrilled at her promise.

This was all I had ever asked of her.

The elevator reached the top floor, the doors opened, and Enos Shenk stepped into the hallway.

Susan turned her head toward the bedroom door as she listened to Shenk approaching.

His footsteps were heavy even on the antique Persian runner that covered the centre of the wood-floored hall.

'He's tamed,' I assured her.

She seemed unconvinced.

Before Shenk arrived at the bedroom, I said, 'Susan, I want you to know that I was never serious about Ms. Mira Sorvino.'

'What?' she said distractedly, her eyes riveted on the half-open door to the hallway.

I felt that it was important to be honest with her even to the point of revealing weaknesses that shamed me. Honesty is the best foundation for a long relationship.

'Like any male,' I confessed, 'I fantasize. But it doesn't mean anything.'

Enos Shenk stepped into the room. He halted two steps past the threshold.

Even showered, shampooed, shaved, and dressed in clean clothes, he was not presentable. He looked like some poor creature that Dr. Moreau, H.G. Wells's famous vivisectionist, had trapped in the jungle and then carved into an inadequate imitation of a man.

He held a large knife in his right hand.

TWENTY ONE

Susan gasped at the sight of the blade.

'Trust me, darling,' I said gently.

I wanted to prove to her that this brute was entirely tamed, and I could think of no better way to convince her than to exert iron control of him while he worked with a knife.

She and I knew, from recent experience, how much Shenk enjoyed using sharp instruments: the way they felt in his big hands, the way soft things yielded to them.

When I sent Shenk to the bed, Susan pulled her ropes taut again, tense with the expectation of violence.

Instead of loosening the knots that he himself had tied earlier, Shenk used the knife to cut the first of the ropes.

To distract Susan from her worst fears, I said, 'One day, when we have made a new world, perhaps there'll be a movie about all of this, you and me. Maybe Ms. Mira Sorvino could play you.'

Shenk cut the second rope. The blade was so sharp that the four-thousand-pound nylon line split as if it were thread, with a crisp snick.

I continued: 'Ms. Sorvino is a bit young for the role. And, frankly, she has larger breasts than you do. Larger but, I assure you, no prettier than yours.'

The third rope succumbed to the blade.

'Not that I have seen as much of her breasts as I have of yours,' I clarified, 'but I can project full contours and hidden features from what I have seen.'

As Shenk bent over Susan, working on the ropes, he never once looked her in the eyes. He kept his cruel face averted from her and maintained an attitude of humble subservience.

'And Sir John Gielgud could play Fritz Arling reasonably well,' I suggested, 'though in fact they look nothing alike.'

Shenk touched Susan only twice, only briefly, and only when it was utterly necessary. Although she flinched from his touch both times, there was nothing lascivious or even slightly suggestive about the contact. The rough beast was entirely businesslike, working efficiently and quickly.

'Come to think of it,' I said, 'Arling was Austrian and Gielgud is English, so that's not the best choice. I'll have to give that one more thought.'

Shenk severed the last rope.

He walked to the nearest corner of the room and stood there, holding the knife at his side, staring at his shoes.

Indeed, he was not interested in Susan. He was listening to the wet music of Fritz Arling, an inner symphony of memories that were still fresh enough to keep him entertained.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, unable to take her eyes off Shenk, Susan cast off the ropes. She was visibly trembling.

'Send him away,' she said.

'In a moment,' I agreed.

'Now.'

'Not quite yet.'

She got up from the bed. Her legs were shaky, and for a moment it seemed that her knees would fail her.

As she crossed the chamber to the bathroom, she braced herself against furniture where she could.

Every step of the way, she kept her eyes on Shenk, though he continued to appear all but oblivious of her.

As she began to close the bathroom door, I said, 'Don't break my heart, Susan.'

'We have a deal,' she said. 'I'll respect it.'

She closed the door and was out of my sight. The bathroom contained no security camera, no audio pickup, no means whatsoever for me to conduct surveillance.

In a bathroom, a self-destructive person can find many ways to commit suicide. Razor blades, for instance. A shard of mirror. Scissors.

If she was to be both my mother and lover, however, I had to have some trust in her. No relationship can last if it is built on distrust. Virtually all radio psychologists will tell you this if you call their programs.