“I simply can’t believe I’m so unattractive that Frank Pollener, lecher-at-law, would turn his back on my naked offering of myself. You really are sure you’re Frank Pollener?”
“Don’t start that again!”
“Sorry. It’s just inconceivable to me that the Frank Pollener I know could—-”
“That’s just it. I’m Frank Pollener all right, but I’m not the Frank Pollener you know—or once knew.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve fallen in love with somebody else!”
“No. There’s nobody else. I know this is hard to believe, Gloria, but right now there isn’t one other woman in my life.”
“You mean you’re not sleeping with anybody?”
“That’s right.” Frank nodded earnestly. “And it’s been that way for more than a month now. I’ve maintained complete celibacy,” he told her proudly.
“I don’t get it. Have you got religion or something?”
“In a way. But it isn’t exactly religion. It’s moral conviction. Have you ever heard of Swami Rhee Va?”
“Way down upon the . . .” Gloria hummed morosely.
“No-no-no! I’m talking about the great Nepalese teacher who founded the school of passive insistence, or non-action violence as his disciples sometimes humorously call it among themselves. Swami Rhee Va is the prophet of Causocratic Effectivism, the philosophy which I now non-struggle to embrace.”
“Better you should non-struggle to embrace me,” Gloria suggested.
“You don’t understand. That’s the whole point. By not embracing you, I reaffirm that I am.”
“But you’re not.”
“I know. That’s why I am.”
“Am what?” Gloria wanted to know.
“Just am. You see, am-ness is all.”
“All what?”
“All there am.” Frank spoke with the certitude of the zealot.
“Who’s on first?” Gloria gave up.
“Look, let me try to explain. I’ll tell it to you in Swami Rhee Va’s own words which he spake to me when I had the great honor of meeting him personally.”
“Spake?”
“It’s the parlance of Causocratic Effectivism. I fall into it naturally when I’m talking about it. I forgot for a moment that you weren’t one of us. Sorry about that.”
“Don’t mention it. Go ahead with what you were saying. Spake up.”
“Yes. Well, to reduce it to its essentials, this is how the Swami put it: I do, therefore I am; I don’t, therefore I am.” Frank paused and looked at Gloria intently, allowing time for the full import of the words to sink in. “Do you grasp the all-encompassing significance?” he asked eagerly after a moment.
“I’m not sure. It sounds-—well—contradictory.”
“Of course! That’s it!” Frank clapped his hands together. “It is contradictory! But as the Swami says, that, after all, is the secret of life. (Everything has its opposite, every action its opposing reaction. Once you’ve grasped that, it’s easy to see why non-action is the only rational code to live by. Am-ness through non-action is the ultimate in beingness; it is at long last the realization of the sound of one hand clapping.”
“It is?”
“Yes. And that is the foundation upon which Causocratic Effectivism rests. Once that is accepted, everything else one does—-or doesn’t—follow naturally. You see, it’s simply a matter of subjugating one’s individuality to the universal all.”
“I see,” Gloria lied.
“You do? Good. Then of course you understand why I can’t possibly make love to-you.”
“Well now,” Gloria admitted, “I’m still the teensiest bit confused about that.”
“Don’t you see? The world is on the skids. Right?”
“I guess so.”
“It’s undeniable. Viet Nam. The Cold War. Civil Rights. Lynchings. Crime in the streets. High taxes. Promiscuity--”
“Look who’s talking!”
“Never mind that. I’m a changed man. I told you. The point is, why is the world in the mess it’s in?”
“God is dead,” Gloria guessed.
“Beside the point.” Frank waved the suggestion away. “The world is the way it is because of action!”
“So where’s the action?” Gloria wriggled suggestively.
“People act.” Frank ignored the wriggle. “And every action has its result. Obviously, the results are dire. All you have to do is look around you to see that. But here’s the crux of it: Usually when people act, they don’t intend their actions to have such results. Yet their intent doesn’t seem to influence the consequences. Only the action does that. Now, it follows that the only way to improve the world, if this is the case, is to abstain from taking action.”
“Couldn’t you abstain tomorrow?” Gloria murmured wistfully.
“If we don’t start now,” Frank told her with conviction, “tomorrow may never come. H-bombs, germ warfare, nuclear stockpiles . . .”
“Maybe I’m stupid, but I just don’t see how your making love to me is going to start World War Three.”
“Of course you don’t. Neither do I,” Frank admitted. “But people never see the consequences of their actions beforehand. That’s why we believers in Causocratic Effectivism have pledged ourselves to commit no action unless we have first seriously contemplated its effect on the world at large and honestly arrived at the conclusion that it will have a beneficent result.”
“But “making love to me when we’re both willing can’t possibly harm the world.”
“We can’t know that. As a follower of Swami Rhee-Va, I refrain from committing any acts which might seem to have neutral consequences. Such acts are the biggest pitfall we face. If we see negative consequences, all but fools refrain from action. It’s when we are blind to such results that we are most susceptible to acts which sow the seeds of folly. So I must be able to honestly foresee a positive result before I act at all.”
Gloria thought about it. “Isn’t the pleasure you’ll derive from making love to me a positive result?” she asked after a moment.
“Well yes. But that’s only a surface result. Swami Rhee-Va cautions us to look deeper.”
“So look.” Gloria stretched out on the couch provocatively. One hand toyed with her long red hair. One lissome leg, bent at the knee, swayed like a beckoning finger. The subdued lamplight rippled over the twin, seemingly translucent bubbles on her breasts to etch more clearly the quivering yearning of their long, ruby-colored tips. “Take a good look!” Her voice was husky.
“Umm . . .” Frank looked. He’d been celibate for a month. And a month is a long time. But he hadn’t forgotten. “Umm . . .”
“And it would make me so happy too,” Gloria cooed in a sultry fashion. “That would be another beneficent result. Wouldn’t it?”
“Well, yes. Still—”
“You’re muttering, Frank. Why don’t you come sit over here where I can hear you better.” Gloria patted the couch alongside one of her voluptuous hips. Her eyes smoldered as he hesitatingly accepted the invitation. “There, that’s better, isn’t it?” Her fingers patted his thigh as if to reassure him that it was indeed better.
Frank flinched at the heat of her touch. “Wait a minute!” he said. “I have the feeling that my am-ness is in jeopardy.”
“Don’t be afraid,” Gloria murmured. “I wouldn’t hurt your am-ness for anything in the world.” She let the fingers of her other hand trail over his ears and neck.
“I’d better move away from here,” Frank decided. “It’s hard for me to think when you’re so close, when you touch me that way.”
“Don’t do that.” Her nails dug into Frank as she restrained him. “That would be retreating. Worse, it would be an unconsidered action which might have all kinds of unforeseen consequences.”
“That’s true,” Frank admitted. He stayed put. “It wouldn’t be at all consistent with Causocratic Effectivism.” Gloria’s breath was hot in his ears as she spoke.