"Well—I feel so damn useless!"
She put her soft, strong hand on my chest. "To me you are not useless. Why do you feel useless to yourself?"
"Well—look at this bed!" It was a bed the like of which Americans never dream; it could do everything but kiss you good night—and, like the city, it was beautiful, its bones did not show. "This sack, at home, would cost more—if they could build it—than the best house my mother ever lived in."
She thought about that. "Would you like to send money to your mother?" She beckoned the bedside communicator. "Is Elmendorf Air Force Base of America address enough?"
(I don't recall ever telling her where Mother lived.) "No, no!" I gestured at the talker, shutting it off. "I do not want to send her money. Her husband supports her. He won't take money from me. That's not the point."
"Then I don't see the point as yet. Beds do not matter, it is who is in a bed that counts. My darling, if you don't like this bed, we can get another. Or sleep on the floor. Beds do not matter."
"This bed is okay. The only thing wrong is that I didn't pay for it. You did. This house. My clothes. The food I eat. My—my toys! Every damned thing I have you gave me. Know what I am. Star? A gigolo! Do you Know what a gigolo is? A somewhat-male prostitute."
One of my wife's most exasperating habits was, sometimes, to refuse to snap back at me when she knew I was spoiling for a row. She looked at me thoughtfully. "America is a busy place, isn't it? People work all the time, especially men."
"Well...yes."
"It isn't the custom everywhere, even on Earth. A Frenchman isn't unhappy if he has free time; he orders another cafe au lait and lets the saucers pile up. Nor am I fond of work. Oscar, I ruined our evening from laziness, too anxious to avoid having to redo a weary task tomorrow. I will not make that mistake twice."
"Star, that doesn't matter. That's over with."
"I know. The first issue is rarely the key. Nor the second. Nor, sometimes, the twenty-second. Oscar, you are not a gigolo."
"What do you call it? When it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and acts like a duck, I call it a duck. Call it a bunch of roses. It still quacks."
"No. All this around us—" She waved. "Bed. This beautiful chamber. The food we eat. My clothes and yours. Our lovely pools. The night majordomo on watch against the chance that you or I might demand a singing bird or a ripe melon. Our captive gardens. All we see or touch or use or fancy—and a thousand times as much in distant places, all these you earned with your own strong hands; they are yours, by right."
I snorted. "They are," she insisted. "That was our contract. I promised you great adventure, and greater treasure, and even greater danger. You agreed. You said, ‘Princess, you've hired yourself a boy.' " She smiled. "Such a big boy. Darling, I think the dangers were greater than you guessed...so it has pleased me, until now, that the treasure is greater than you were likely to have guessed. Please don't be shy about accepting it. You have earned it and more—as much as you are ever willing to accept"
"Uh—Even if you are right, it's too much. I'm drowning in marshmallows!"
"But, Oscar, you don't have to take one bit you don't want. We can live simply. In one room with bed folded into wall if it pleases you."
"That's no solution."
"Perhaps you would like bachelor digs, out in town?"
" ‘Tossing my shoes,' eh?"
She said levelly, "My husband, if your shoes are ever tossed, you must toss them. I jumped over your sword. I shall not jump back."
"Take it easy!" I said. "It was your suggestion. If I took it wrong, I'm sorry. I know you don t go back on your word. But you might be regretting it."
"I am not regretting it. Are you?"
"No, Star, no! But—"
"That's a long pause for so short a word," she said gravely. "Will you tell me?"
"Uh...that's just it. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Tell what, Oscar? There are so many things to tell."
"Well, a lot of things. What I was getting into. About you being the Empress of the whole works, in particular...before you let me jump over the sword with you."
Her face did not change but tears rolled down her cheeks. "I could answer that you did not ask me—"
"I didn't know what to ask!"
"That is true. I could assert, truthfully, that had you asked I would have answered. I could protest that I did not ‘let you' jump over the sword, that you overruled my protests that it was not necessary to offer me the honor of marriage by the laws of your people...that I was a wench you could tumble at will. I could point out that I am not an empress, not royal, but a working woman whose job does not permit her even the luxury of being noble. All these are true. But I will not hide behind them; I will meet your question." She slipped into Nevian. "Milord Hero, I feared sorely that if I did not bend to your will, you would leave me!"
"Milady wife, truly did you think that your champion would desert you in your peril?" I went on in English, "Well, that nails it to the barn. You married me because the Egg damned well had to be recovered and Your Wisdom told you that I was necessary to the job—and might bug out if you didn't. Well, Your Wisdom wasn't sharp on that point; I don't bug out. Stupid of me but I'm stubborn." I started to get out of bed.
"Milord love!" She was dying openly.
"Excuse me. Got to find a pair of shoes. See how far I can throw them." I was being nasty as only a man can be who has had his pride wounded.
"Please, Oscar, please! Hear me first."
I heaved a sigh. "Talk ahead."
She grabbed my hand so hard I would have lost fingers had I tried to pull loose. "Hear me out. My beloved, it was not that at all. I knew that you would not give up our quest until it was finished or we were dead. I knew! Not only had I reports reaching back years before I ever saw you but also we had shared joy and danger and hardship; I knew your mettle. But, had it been needed, I could have bound you with a net of words, persuaded you to agree to betrothal only—until the quest was over. You are a romantic, you would have agreed. But, darling, darling! I wanted to many you...bind you to me by your rules, so that"—she stopped to sniff back tears—"so that, when you saw all this, and this, and this, and the things you call ‘your toys,' you still would stay with me. It was not politics, it was low—love romantic and unreasoned, love for your own sweet self."
She dropped her face into her hands and I could barely hear her. "But I know so little of love. Love is a butterfly that lights when it listeth, leaves as it chooses; it is never bound with chains. I sinned. I tried to bind you. Unjust I knew it was, cruel to you I now see it to be." Star looked up with crooked smile. "Even Her Wisdom has no wisdom when it comes to being a woman. But, though silly wench I be, I am not too stubborn to know that I have wronged my beloved when my face is rubbed in it. Go, go, get your sword; I will jump back over it and my champion will be free of his silken cage. Go, milord Hero, while my heart is firm."
"Go fetch your own sword, wench. That paddling is long overdue."
Suddenly she grinned, all hoyden. "But, darling, my sword is in Karth-Hokesh. Don't you remember?"
"You can't avoid it this time!" I grabbed her. Star is a handful and slippery, with amazing muscles. But I'm bigger and she didn't fight as hard as she could have. Still I lost skin and picked up bruises before I got her legs pinned and one arm twisted behind her. I gave her a couple of hearty spanks, hard enough to print each finger in pink, then lost interest.
Now tell me, were those words straight from her heart—or was it acting by the smartest woman in twenty universes?