The Man Who Fell to Earth

She sat on the couch while he talked to Farnsworth and picked up an old comic book and lazily looked over some of the more sexy pages while she finished the drink. But this bored her, and Tommy was still talking about some kind of research project that they were doing in the southern part of the state and about selling shares of this and that. She set the comic book down, finished her drink, picked up one of his books that sat on the end table. He’d had hundreds of books sent to the house, and the room was getting crowded with them. The book turned out to be some kind of poetry and she put it back hastily, picking up another. It was called Thermonuclear Engines and was filled with lines and numbers. She began to feel silly again, dressed in these clothes. She got up and resolutely fixed two drinks of gin, leaving one on top of the television set and taking the other back to the couch with her. Yet, silly as she felt, she found herself automatically taking a seductive, movie-star pose on the couch, and stretching her heavy legs out lazily. She watched him over the top of her glass, saw the glow of the lamplight on his white hair and on his delicate, brownish, almost transparent skin, and then his graceful, womanish hand that lay casually, lightly on the desk. At that moment she began consciously to review what she was up to and, in the soft light, with the gin wanning her stomach, she began to feel a touch of wicked excitement in her from flirting at the edge of the idea of that strange, delicate body against hers. Looking at him and letting her imagination play with the thought, she knew that the particular thrill came from his strangeness — his strange, unmanlike, unsexual nature. Maybe she was like those women who like to make love with freaks and cripples. Well, he was both — and she did not care now, was not ashamed, with the tight pants on and the gin in her. If she could arouse him — if he could be aroused — she would be proud of herself. And if not — he was a dear man anyway and he wouldn’t be offended. She felt her heart go out to him then in quick, warm sentiment; as she finished her drink she felt, for the first time in years, an emotion resembling love, along with the desire that she had been working herself up to all day long — since this morning when she had gone out in her aged print dress and bought panties and earrings, makeup and tights, without admitting to herself the final meaning of the vague plan that had entered her mind.

She got still another drink, telling herself that she ought to go easy. But she was getting nervous, waiting. He was talking now about somebody named Bryce and Farnsworth was saying that this Bryce was trying to see him, wanted to come to work for them, but wanted to see Tommy first, and Tommy was saying it was impossible and Farnsworth was saying they needed all the men they could get with Bryce’s training. She began to be impatient. Who cared about this Bryce? But then, abruptly, Tommy ended the conversation, hung up the phone, and after remaining silent for a minute looked over at her, smiling thoughtfully. “My new place is ready, down in the southern part of the state. Would you like to go there with me? As my housekeeper?”

Well that was a shock. She blinked at him. “Housekeeper?”

“Yes. The house will be ready Saturday, but there will be furniture to arrange, things of that sort to take care of. I’ll need someone to help with it all. And,” he smiled, getting up with his cane and limping over toward her, “you know I dislike meeting strangers. You could talk to people for me.” He stood up over her.

She blinked up at him. “I fixed you a drink. On the television.” His offer was hard to believe. She had known about the house from when the real estate people had come by that second week — a huge old mansion that he was buying, and nine hundred acres of land, down east in the mountains.

He picked up the glass, sniffed it, and said, “Gin?”

“I thought you ought to try it,” she said. “It’s pretty good. Sweet.”

“No,” he said. “No. But I’ll be glad to have some wine with you.”

“Sure, Tommy.” She got up, staggering a bit, and went to the kitchen for his bottle of Sauterne and his crystal glass. “You don’t need me,” she called, from the kitchen.

His voice was solemn. “Why yes I do. Betty Jo.”

She came back in, standing close to him as she handed him the glass. He was such a nice man. She felt almost ashamed of herself wanting to seduce him, as though he were a baby. She could not help being drunkenly amused. He probably didn’t know what it was all about. He was the kind that probably peed in a silver pot when he was little and ran away if a girl tried to touch him. Or maybe he was queer — anybody who sat around reading all the time and looked like he did… But he didn’t talk like a queer. She liked to hear him talk. He looked tired now. But he looked tired all the time.