About everything. And of course the thing that makes it so terrible, now, is that her feelings for me are real, no matter how unpleasant or ugly or inconvenient they are. To me. Or anyone else, for that matter. She’ll involve anyone else in the whole awful business as soon as talk to them. She’s not the world’s most considerate person, at the best of times.” Bron glanced at Audri; who nodded, listening.

“I can’t hate her,” Bron said. “Anymore than I could hate you. I mean, I like her, you know, when I’m not just at the end of my tether. But she simply has no concept of what’s real and what’s fantasy—did I say? She’s in the theater. Maybe you’ve heard of her. She had her own company—had a company. She’s called the Spike?”

“Is she gay?” Audri asked.

Bron looked at her quickly. “Do you know her?—or know somebody who does? I mean, Tethys is such an awfully small city, I’d just hate for any of this to get back to her. I’m just telling you because you are my friend, Audri ...”

“No,” Audri said. “I don’t know her. I saw one of her micro-productions about a year ago, that’s all. I was impressed.”

“This fantasy/reality confusion,” Bron went on, “it’s just marvelous in her work. I mean, there, it’s practically like what we do, the fantasy working as a sort of metalogic, with which she can solve real, aesthetic problems in the most incredible ways—I was actually in a few of her productions last year; a sort of ersatz member of the company. But finally I just had to get out. Because when that fantasy seeps into the reality, she just becomes an incredibly ugly person. She feels she can distort anything that occurs for whatever purpose she wants. Whatever she feels, that’s what is, as far as she’s concerned. But then, I suppose ...” Bron laughed at the ground, then looked up: they’d just left the Plaza—“that’s the right we just fought a war to defend. But Audri, when someone abuses that right, it can make it pretty awful for the rest of us. The last time I saw her—” Bron dropped her eyes again—“she’d disbanded the whole company—she’s got a sort of pro-temp university job now. She told me that she’d even give that up if I’d only become her lover, take her with me, away from it all.” Bron laughed, “As if I had somewhere to take her! And of course my being a woman now only makes it worse for her. Not to mention me ... I mean if she only could have been honest with me at the beginning, all this could have been ...” She looked again at Audri; who blinked at her. For a moment she was terrified Audri would say something to shatter the whole, amazing fiction that wove itself on and on. Audri blinked again. “Do you see,” Bron said, “I just couldn’t say yes to you, not when I’m still involved with her, in all this nonsense—and I am, I am, up to my ears.” She started to touch Audri’s arm again, didn’t. “Do you understand ... ?”

Audri nodded.

“I’m ...” Bron let her eyes move away. “I’m sorry. It’s just that I feel—Oh, look, I’ve already said much too much about it already. Any more, and I’ll just feel like the complete fool I am—”

“Oh, no ...” Audri said. “No—”

Which brought Bron up short. Because somehow Audri’s belief in all this was something she had not even considered a possibility. “Well, it’s ...” Bron began. “It’s like what you said about learning a lesson hard and late—what this woman has taught me. About the Universe, even about me in it. Audri, I couldn’t say yes to you, any more than I could say yes to her.” She looked unblinkingly at Audri who looked, unblinkingly back. Bron thought: I can’t believe this is happening. “Don’t hate me for that.”

“I don’t,” Audri said. “It’s just so hard to believe that this—” She blinked again. “Look, there won’t ... there won’t be any change at the office. I mean that. It’s just ... well, Philip, in his role as big brother to the universe, thought I’d feel better if I at least asked. I guess I do. But I think ... I think I better see you tomorrow. So long ... I’ll see you tomorrow!” and Audri turned quickly away, off along the street.

Bron felt the third drop of sweat pause, halfway down her back, then roll on. At the corner she thought: Where am I ... ? Where—Involved in her explanation, she hadn’t noticed the street they had turned on. She looked at the street sign, took a great breath, and walked all the way to the next corner before she stopped.

Why did I lie to that woman?

She stood there, frowning at the next set of green coordinate letters and numbers across from her, losing their meaning behind her concentration.

Why did I lie to Audri? I like Audri! Why invent that incredible concoction about the Spike giving up everything for me! Not (she started walking again) that she’d said anything about the Spike’s character she wouldn’t stick by. Still, why choose to illustrate it with such a silly fiction? Especially when the truth was so much simpler.

Tomorrow at work, Audri would probably be back to normal—or; if not tomorrow, then a week from tomorrow, a month from tomorrow. But what about me ...? Why lie, outright and unequivocally? She wanted to talk to somebody. Brian? But she’d carefully kept from her the fact that the Spike even existed! Lawrence—? No, he was too old; she didn’t want his aged, caustic homilies. Besides, Lawrence was on another moon, another world. And Prynn of course was too young.

Who else did she ever talk to about things?

Audri, sometimes. But she certainly couldn’t talk to Audri about this!

She crossed the street, found the transport station; all the way home, the annoyance wound her thoughts: sometimes she was annoyed with Audri, sometimes with herself, sometimes with the villainous Spike.

At the Eagle, in her room, she locked the door and sat on the side of her bed—did not answer when Prynn came pounding at seven-thirty, did not answer when Prynn came pounding and shouting again at nine. At ten, she went to a cafeteria over in the next unit to avoid meeting any of the women from the co-op, got something to eat, came back, went into her room, and locked the door again.

Why did I lie to that woman?

She had been in bed over an hour. She had switched oii the public channels, switched them off, switched them on and off again. She turned over on one side, then turned back. But by now all her thoughts on the subject had been rehearsed a hundred times, repeating when they would not develop. Over three hours ago she had, for the first time, remembered she had mentally concocted almost the same story during the first two weeks she had moved here, in expectation of a proposition from that odd blonde with the black streaks in her hair who lived on the second floor and who was definitely gay; she had been so insistently generous to Bron with dinner invitations, offers of clothes, tapes, pictures (it was as bad as the woman’s heterosexual co-op she’d moved out of!), sex was the only explanation. All but the first of each Bron had refused. There’d been no pass; the woman had moved. The contemplated subterfuge had been forgotten.

But the point is, Bron thought, even though I was thinking of telling her something like that, if the woman had actually said anything to me, I certainly wouldn’t have used it. I would have treated her the same way I treated Lawrence; honest, straightforward. I mean if I learned one thing hustling it’s that, in matters of sex at any rate, it pays to be straight. I wouldn’t have told such a story to a complete stranger! Why did I tell it to someone I actually like? Hadn’t it begun as an attempt to spare Audri’s feelings, in some strange way? How ridiculous, she thought. Other people’s feelings, beyond maintaining general civility, had never been one of her major concerns. Nor did she think very highly of people for whom they were. People take care of their own feelings; I take care of mine. Besides, if I’d just said, “No,” to Audri’s request, it would have been far kinder than all those complicated theatrics! That was worthy of an actress like the Spike!—oh, come on: the Spike had nothing to do with that! Nothing! But what Bron also realized, and it was almost as annoying, is that somehow she’d gotten, in telling the lie, something she’d wanted: The first thing she’d felt (when it was just over, before this stupid and unstoppable ques—