Frank assured her that he did and eagerly led her to it. The short walk was marked by the shedding of their clothes like leaves in a strong autumn wind. By the time they fell to the bed, their branches were bare. And a moment later they entwined. . .
It was at that same moment that Mercy was making a confession to Dr. Peerloin over their after-dinner coffee. “I know I shouldn’t have stayed when I saw it was him,” she was saying. “And I shouldn’t have looked at his interview, but--”
“Nonsense,” Dr. Peerloin interrupted. “You’re human. Of course you couldn’t resist the temptation to look at his interview sheet. In your position, I would have done the same thing myself.”
“But it was awful. The man’s an absolute satyr!”
“How fortunate for you, my dear.” Dr. Peerloin clapped her hands. “When one is young and female, one doesn’t often have the opportunity — particularly in our emasculated society—of matching one’s mettle with a real man.”
“But he’s disgusting!”
“Bosh! He’s simply a full-blooded American male. And there aren’t too many of those around today. As your superior at the Observatory, I have to tell you to stay away from him. But as your friend and another woman, if I were you I’d call him up and apologize for being rude on the phone today, and leave the way open for him to follow through with his interest in you.”
“You really think I should call him?”
“A virile man like that? Absolutely!” Dr. Peerloin nodded vigorously . . .
Her nod was canceled out by Amelia’s shaking her head sadly but sympathetically at Frank. “Don’t feel bad, sweetie,” she told him. “It had to happen sooner or later. The pace you used to go at! Nobody could keep it up. Just too much too soon, baby. And there’s a kind of justice in it, you’ll admit. It’s sort of ironic, a Casanova like you, and now you can’t!”
“I think I’d like to be alone now.” Frank felt almost as tragic as he sounded.
“All right, baby. I’ll get dressed and go. I can still catch a late movie.” She patted him on the shoulder and went into the living room to retrieve her clothes. A while later she called out a goodbye to him and the door slammed behind her.
More time passed and Frank sat on the edge of the bed, still not moving. He sat there a long time before the ringing of the telephone prompted him to raise his head. Wearily, he got to his feet and went into the living room to answer it.
“Hello?” He listened. He listened a long time. And while he was listening, a transformation came over him. His shoulders straightened. The pained expression vanished from his face. The lines of inner anguish disappeared from his forehead. Finally, he spoke. “Well, if you aren’t the most changeable girl. I thought you hated me.” He listened again, briefly this time. “Well, sure I want to see you again. Would you -- that is, do you think it would be all right if you came up here for dinner?” He laughed at the response. “Oh, you’d be surprised at what a good cook I am. . .. You will? Say seven-thirty tomorrow night. . . . Swell. See you then, Mercy.”
The early part of the next evening, for Frank, was both a repetition of the previous night with Amelia and as different from it as night from day. There was the dinner, the low lights, the soft music, the conversation, and then the dancing and the kiss, the couch and more kisses and more intimate caresses. It was the same pattern, but a different girl — and a very different Frank. The difference was in the way he felt about Mercy. Amelia had been a simple convenience wanted more out of pique than passion. Mercy, on the other hand, turned him on emotionally as well as physically from the moment she arrived. And by the time they strode hand-in-hand into his darkened bedroom, Frank had every reason to believe that Mercy was as eager as he was. Thus he was all the more taken aback a few passion-filled moments later by the sharp reaction which marked her cry in the darkness.
“No!” Mercy pulled away so abruptly that she almost fell out of the bed.
“No?”
“NO!”
“But—?” The suddenness of it left Frank confused and speechless.
“I’m sorry,” she half-sobbed. “Honestly I am, but I just can’t.”
“Why not?” It seemed a logical question.
“I can’t explain.” The tears were cascading down Mercy’s cheeks now. “I’m sorry. I know it’s not fair, but -”
She couldn’t go on. She leaped to her feet and ran out of the room. A few minutes later the front door of the apartment slammed behind her.
Only then did it hit Frank. He dropped his feet over the edge of the bed and sat with his head in his hands. Twenty-four hours had passed, but he was in exactly the same position he’d been in the night before. With one difference. Last night he’d known what had gone wrong. Tonight he simply couldn’t comprehend what had happened. Why had Mercy all of a sudden reacted to him that way?
If Frank had been in Dr. Peerloin’s office the next morning, he might have had the answer. Mercy was sobbing out her version of the evening to the woman scientist.
“I really wanted to go through with it,” Mercy sniffled. “But I was suddenly overpowered by this feeling that it was wrong. Morally wrong.”
Dr. Peerloin stared at her uncornprehendingly. “But you and this young man have already—”
“I know!” Mercy wailed. “Ridiculous, isn’t it? But somehow that was all right because it was a scientific experiment. The wires buzzing, the wheels whirring, the lights flashing, the cameras grinding, the hum of the machines—all that seemed to reassure me that I wasn’t doing anything to feel guilty about. It was all in the interests of research, you see. But in his bed last night, in his arms that way, naked, just doing it for selfish satisfactions-— well, it just seemed terribly, terribly wrong. Sex like that-— it just disgusts me! I know I’m not being scientific about it. But I don’t care! It disgusts me!”
“Where have I failed?” Dr. Peerloin murmured to herself.
“And men disgust me too,” Mercy decided. “They’re animals! Just like animals, they’ve only got one thing on their minds. Sex!” Mercy didn’t care that she was being both irrelevant and irrational. “Animals!” she repeated. “Animals!”
Lion-like, Frank Pollener followed the statuesque blonde into her bedroom a few nights later. “Oh, it’ll be such a pleasure to make it with a real man after that husband of mine,” she cooed. Mouselike, Frank Pollener emerged a half-hour later. “And I thought my husband had problems!” the blonde called after him as he slunk out the door.
Animalistically, he made another attempt about a week later. But it ended with him feeling like a vegetable.
It took him two weeks to work up his courage again. “You’re some wolf,” the girl said to him just before she decided to stop fighting him off and succumb. “Harmless as a pussycat,” was her later verdict as she watched Frank slink out with his tail between his legs.
A few more such incidents, and Frank reached the conclusion that the beast in him was a dead duck. It wasn’t an easy conclusion to face. Backslider though he was, Frank recognized that he couldn’t face it without the help of the Causocratic Effectivism which once had guided his life. Indeed, as he thought about it, he decided that all his troubles stemmed from the moment he had turned his back on the tenets of the Swami Rhee Va. He decided to call the Swami long-distance, confess his departure from those tenets, and ask for forgiveness, re-acceptance and — most of all—advice.
“Impotency is the Nirvana of Causocratic Effectivism,” the Swami told him after Frank had poured out his troubles to him.