Always before, her seductions had gone exactly according to plan, since, for the most part, they were carefully orchestrated beforehand. But this seemed disturbingly different; Ondine was practically living inside her mind, and she could keep no secrets, practice no coquetry. It was a vulnerable situation, but somehow liberating... and gradually it came to seem excitingly intimate.
Arriangel experienced only dimly the memories Ondine unearthed: a scent, a sound, a fleeting image. But when Ondine drew the memory of Garso-Yao from her, she again felt that strange twist in her perceptions, as though she were moving in layers of dream, as if she had lived through that long-ago grief many times before. She came from the probe crying, feeling some gray emotion that she could put no name to.
Ondine held her and smoothed her hair, saying nothing. Arriangel leaned against her and sobbed, dismayed but unable to stop.
When finally she caught her breath, she said, "I'm sorry. Sorry. I don't know what's wrong."
"Don't worry. I pick at scabs, to see the bright blood beneath. I have to; it's my art. . . but you don't have to like it." Ondine laughed a slightly forced laugh.
Arriangel pressed her head against Ondine, whose fragrance suddenly seemed very sweet. She became aware of the shape of Ondine's breasts beneath the thin fabric of her blouse, the silky warmth of Ondine's skin against her cheek.
She felt an impulse to kiss that skin; it grew until she could no longer resist it.
"No," said Ondine, and pushed her gently away. "I have no interest in such things. If I accommodated you, it would mean nothing. It would be no more than a passionless courtesy."
"Oh?' Arriangel's face burned; she could not remember the last time she had been refused.
"It's nothing to do with you, Arriangel. I'm very old; I've had countless lovers, and we made love in all the possible ways... a thousand times, ten thousand. After so long a time, it all becomes friction — an activity no more dignified than, say, picking fleas from each other's fur." She laughed, a bit ruefully. "The centuries wear away one's tolerance for indignity, I'm afraid."
"I see," said Arriangel, drawing away.
"No, don't be offended. Actually, I've grown fond of you... surprisingly so. You're sweet and intelligent; you take a more genuine interest in my art than anyone has in many years. Anyway, were I inclined to have sex with anyone, I'd have many reasons to choose you. If that helps."
"I'm not offended." But she was, a little. Despite this, Arriangel still found Ondine desirable. "After the portrait is done, may I stay with you, for a while?"
Ondine almost, but not quite, frowned. But after a long pause, she said, "Why not?", as though it were a decision of no moment.
"What I can't understand," said Tafilis, "is why Ondine found such a shallow little creature attractive. Love is strange, truly." He fixed an expression of melodramatic surprise on his face.
"She has a clean soul," muttered Memfis.
"How absurdly mystical."
"Perhaps. On the other hand, who would deny that dirty souls exist?" Memfis glanced at his brother, and saw annoyance cross his face.
"Really?" said Tafilis. "Well, I can already tell you that it won't work. Ondine's glands may have dried up — but not Arriangel's."
Memfis shrugged. "Love is more than dripping glands, though I don't expect you to understand that. You were never imaginative, except in the devising of torments."
"Perhaps not," said Tafilis dubiously. "But remember: our customers are no more imaginative than I."
Arriangel continued to find Ondine absorbing. Infatuation ripened into devotion, and finally she came to believe that she loved Ondine — for her brilliance, for her wry charm, for her kindness, for her vast and fascinating experience of life in Dilvermoon. And for her beauty, though that came to seem less important as the weeks passed.
One evening, over a late dinner, Arriangel spoke idly. "Were you always so beautiful?"
"Indeed not," answered Ondine easily. "Why, once I was a squat little mudhen of a woman, with a face like a colicky frog. No, over the years I've enriched a series of lineamentors great and small, hiring their knives. I've worked hard to uncover my internal landscape. And why not? I'm a maker — should I not remake myself, if it amuses me?'
"I guess so. I've never thought to do so — maybe I'm hopelessly dull."
"Not at all, and why should you wish to tamper with a beauty as spectacular as yours? That it came to you effortlessly is a miracle." Ondine touched her hand lightly. "I find your beauty a delight. It reassures me that occasionally the universe acts benevolently."
"That's a pleasant idea." But then another thought struck Arriangel. "I suppose I don't understand. If the pleasures of the body are unimportant to you, why does it matter what you look like?'
Ondine smiled. "I admit my philosophy lacks consistency. And anyway, would you have loved me, if I were still a toad?'
Arriangel laughed, hoping that the question was entirely rhetorical. And Ondine's ambiguous response kept alive the hope that she would one day invite Arriangel to her bed. Meanwhile, she seemed not to mind whenever Arriangel visited an old lover for the night.
When finally Ondine declared the portrait finished, Arriangel expected to see it immediately, but Ondine assumed a strangely disengaged expression. "No," she said. "If you take possession of the portrait, then I must ask you to leave my home."
"But why?" Arriangel was bewildered.
"It's my rule. Too much honesty between lovers isn't good."
"But we're not lovers."
"Aren't we?" Ondine seemed saddened.
Arriangel shook her head, confused. "Is it that you think I'd be offended?"
"Perhaps." But Ondine's expression said otherwise, and Arriangel couldn't think of another reason.
"Well, it doesn't matter to me," said Arriangel, and was almost sure that she meant it.
* * *
"So, when do you start to meddler?" asked Tafilis.
"Not yet," answered Memfis. "Don't you have anything else to do?"
"Nothing compelling."
He remained, watching over Memfis's shoulder, while the devotion between Ondine and Arriangel deepened.
It was a difficult task, to show this subtle progression dramatically, but Memfis accomplished it by choosing a melange of tender moments: an exchange of smiles, a gentle touch, a small kindness, a few words of comfortable conversation, meals taken together, thoughts shared.
Each brief segment was recorded as a series of almost-still images, and the effect was of memories dimmed by time but still golden. He ended each segment with a long-held shot of Ondine's eyes, growing younger.
A year passed, and then another.
Arriangel still desired Ondine, but accepted her celibacy. This was a disappointment, but survivable — or so she told herself. The two years she spent in Ondine's home were the most consistently happy years she could remember.
She eventually asked Ondine to instruct her in the craft of collateral portraiture, but Ondine refused gracefully. "No matter how talented you might prove to be, you would always be at a competitive disadvantage —and there would be competition, I can assure you."
Instead, she encouraged Arriangel to find a form all her own, and Arriangel soon settled on an ancient craft of Old Earth — jewelry formed of slender wires and molten glass. She gained a degree of skill at this craft, which added to her contentment. None of her old friends could create anything without the aid of conceptualizers and synthesizers, and she felt pleasantly set apart from them ... a person of special substance.
But eventually she had enough rings for all her fingers. Her friends no longer accepted her gifts with genuine enthusiasm, and she grew restless. She began to be curious about her portrait, which Ondine kept in a gallery , forbidden to Arriangel.