I learned about her, I learned those small, intimate things that are idiomatic, but revealing—the silly, dumb things. She rarely used makeup, but carried five kinds of shampoo. She rarely became ill, but was subject to ingrown toenails. She insisted on sleeping on the right side of the bed and always seemed to get up an hour before I did. She insisted on carrying certain clothes with her everywhere, even though we had wardrobes in houses all over the world. If we were scheduled to meet someone of importance or prominence she read up on them religiously, but always seemed to give that person the impression she reacted to him or her as a person, not as a shah or a crown prince or a Beaux Arts prizewinner.
She had everything she wanted, or so I thought, which was probably my first mistake.
3
I wanted Madelon and I got her. Getting a woman I wanted was not all that difficult. Standing on my money and fame, I was very tall. Sometimes I wondered how well I might do as a lover without money, but I was too lazy to try.
I wanted Madelon because she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, and the least boring. Sooner or later all women bored me, and most men. When there are no surprises even the most attractive people grow stale. Madelon may have aroused a great variety of emotions in me, from love to hate, at times, but she never bored me and boredom is the greatest sin. Even those who work at not being boring can become boring because their efforts show.
But Madelon was beautiful inside as well as out, and I had had my fill of beautiful flesh and gargoyle minds.
It wasn’t so much that I “got” Madelon as that I married her. I attracted her, our sex life was outstanding, and my wealth was exactly the convenience she needed. My money was her freedom. I opened up to her as I had not to anyone else. I tried to show her my world, at least the art part of it. The business part was the game part, a sort of global chess, or interplanetary poker, and dull to most people.
I took her to a concert by a young synthecizor musician whose career one of my foundations was sponsoring. Afterwards we lay on a fur-covered liquibed under the one-way glass dome of my New York apartment and watched the lights in the towers and the flying insect dots of helos.
“Are all musicians as arrogant as that electronic music composer who cornered you in the foyer?” Madelon asked.
“No, thank god. But when you are convinced you have conceived something the world must experience, you are anxious to have it presented.”
“But he was demanding you sponsor it!” She shook her head angrily, spreading out her hair on my chest. “What an ego!”
“Everyone has one,” I said, my fingertips on her flesh. “People are certain I have a very big one because of all the art and events I assist. But I want the art to come into existence, not to further my own fame or ego.”
“Oh, Brian,” she said, flipping over and pressing her voluptuous body to mine. “Sometimes you just modest yourself right out the back door!”
I didn’t reply. People never understand. She would, I hoped, in time. I wanted to midwife creativity, not scratch my ego onto the base of greatness.
I took a deep breath and said it. “Why don’t we get married?”
Her eyes opened wide in astonishment. “Married?” She sat up and waved her hand around at the jewel towers of New York. “You mean legally, in front of God and everybody?”
I nodded and she seemed amused. “What is the point of that?”
she asked. “If I should find I am in that small percentage for whom the shots don’t work, I can always abort, or you could sign on as the father. There’s no need for marriage, Brian.”
“What about your family?” I asked. “From what you tell me your father is an old-fashioned tiger.”
“He doesn’t tell me what to do, even when he wants to.”
“Well, let’s just say he might like me better if we were married.”
“I didn’t think you sought anyone’s approval for anything.”
“I’m a very self-indulgent person,” I said. “I do only what I want to do. I want to go to Mars some day and I shall. I might have to pass on the stars, however. But right now I want us to be married, legally, and in front of whoever.”
“And what will you want tomorrow?” she asked. “Not to be?”
I pulled her down to me and kissed her. “You don’t seem to understand, my dear. I am a very powerful man and what I want, I get.”
She looked at me through slitted eyes. “Oh? Really? Do I have anything to say about that?”
“Anything you want.”
“In that case, I say yes.”
We were married atop the Temple of the Magicians, in Uxmal, Yucatan, two weeks later. It was sunset and the temple faces east. We had torches, and a few close friends. There was no particular reason for the Mayan pyramid setting, it was just that they had closed the monument for a month to handle the new digs and there were no tourists there. We drank and feasted half the night, toasting the ancients and getting toasted. Madelon’s father was there, a wiry tough man of fifty, who said little and saw much. He and I stood on the sheer western edge of the stone, looking down at the wide, steep steps, and listened to the song that Alison had written, coming from the other side of the temple. We looked out over the dark jungle, seeing the faint bulk of the rains to our right, and the white tent covering the new tomb finds.
“Thorne,” said Sam Morgana, “if you hurt her, I’ll slice you to dogmeat.”
I turned to look at him, a lean, hard face in the night. He took a swallow from his wineglass and looked at me without expression “I don’t like threats, Sam,” I said. “Not even that kind.”
He nodded “Yeah, neither do I.” He finished his wine and went back around the temple, leaving me alone. After a little time Madelon came, and put her arm around me.
“How do you feel about virgin sacrifices,” I asked.
“I’m disqualified.”
“Oh, drat, I knew we should have waited.”
“It’s not too late to call Rent-A-Virgin.”
We stood there for a time and the world was stilclass="underline" There was night and jungle, starlight and the crescent moon silvering a path across the glossy dark leaves below. The people started leaving, laughing and calling out good wishes, going down the steps, but holding onto the safety chain. Sam was the last to leave. He stood a moment, looking at us, then waved and started down. Madelon broke free and ran to him to kiss him goodbye, and then we were alone.
Madelon and I walked back around to the eastern side of the temple and found that our friends had created a pagan couch for us just within the rectangular door. It was covered with fur and a gorgeous shimmercloth canopy hung down over and behind us. There were several large candles flickering in the cool predawn breeze, bowls of fresh fruit and a carafe of wine. The air was scented with exotic flowers and primeval jungle.
As the first light of dawn lightened the east we made love in the spot where Mayan chiefs had stood, hundreds of years before, greeting their sun god.
After our marriage Madelon Morgana became, not Madelon Thorne, but Madelon Morgana. She blossomed in a marvelous and delightful way. The instant status that was hers was something she handled well, and with dignity and tact. Being the wife or companion of someone rich, or famous, or powerful is often a troublesome position. It was interesting watching her test her wings. At first I was a convenient and attractive aid, a refuge, a teacher, a shoulder, an open door, a defender. She liked what I was, then later, even more, who I was.