Isaac Asimov's I, Robot: To Preserve by Reichert Mickey Zucker

Author:Reichert, Mickey Zucker [Reichert, Mickey Zucker]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-01-05T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11

Careful not to wake Pal, Susan Calvin hefted herself onto one elbow to study him in the scant illumination of her bedroom. A line of moonlight through the mini blinds struck glimmers of scarlet and indigo through his tousled hair. Eyes closed, breaths deep and rhythmical, he looked childlike and vulnerable, a strange contrast to the Harley-riding ex-Marine who had shot three armed strangers in Central Park. She had always found him attractive but never more so than at this moment.

The previous night, Pal had alternated gentleness with an almost brutal passion to invoke pleasure and desire like nothing Susan had experienced or imagined. In its wake, the memory of her session with Kendall seemed watery and dull, something altogether worthless and forgettable. She did not blame her fellow resident for the lapse; he was an inexperienced lover who had not yet recognized his homosexuality. Without that session of insubstantial lovemaking, he might still be deep in denial, and it had also allowed Susan to realize the difference between a bland lover and one who could take her to the summit of excitement.

At times, Susan had secretly worried that she lacked any carnal drive. Throughout her life, men her own age had paid her little attention, and she had convinced herself it did not bother her, had thrown herself into her studies, honing her intellect to its peak. It had taken Pal to demonstrate that she was, in fact, a sexual creature with normal yearnings, even though she had buried them for so many years. She appreciated this man of action who had come into her life at its lowest ebb, who had made her feel like a desirable woman for only the second time in her life.

The urge to touch Pal, to stroke back the hair that had slipped across his brow, to reawaken him as a man, seized Susan. Without something solid and real to assure her of his presence, he might disappear, a figment of her desperate imagination, a dream, a ghost of beauty and passion she did not deserve. Worried to awaken him, she kept her hands to herself but listened intently until she heard the regular hiss of his breathing, then leaned in to catch the mingled aromas that had come to define him. Bare-chested and partially wrapped in her blanket, he no longer bore the scent of his laundry detergent. Unwashed scalp had taken the place of shampoo, and his deodorant had worn off hours ago. Now he smelled like an amalgam of Pal and Susan and sex, a heady aroma that made her burn with the urge to do it all again. It took strength of will not to envelop him, to draw him into another session of enthusiastic lovemaking.

Instead, Susan glanced at her Vox. It was 7:04 a.m. A winking dot over the hour informed her she had waiting messages. Susan looked back at Pal, as much to reassure herself he was still present as anything else. He continued to sleep beneath her stare.

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