And what man would not? She was (is) sublime.
For a month after that demonstration of power I lived in a permanent ecstasy of her. When I was with her she showed me ways to love beyond the limits of any other creature on God’s earth. I say beyond the limits: with her there were no limits. And when I was away from her the reverie continued: because she seemed to have changed my world.
Then she left me.
I knew why: she’d gone to find someone to teach her how to use strength. But understanding her reasons made it no easier.
I broke down: lost my job, lost my identity, lost the few friends I had left in the world. I scarcely noticed. They were minor losses, beside the loss of Jacqueline. . .”
“Jacqueline.”
My God, she thought, can this really be the most influential man in the country? He looked so unprepossessing, so very unspectacular. His chin wasn’t even strong.
But Titus Penifer was power.
He ran more monopolies than he could count; his word in the financial world could break companies like sticks, destroying the ambitions of hundreds, the careers of thousands. Fortunes were made overnight in his shadow, entire corporations fell when he blew on them, casualties of his whim. This man knew power if any man knew it. He had to be learned from.
“You wouldn’t mind if I called you J., would you?”
“No.”
“Have you been waiting long?”
“Long enough.”
“I don’t normally leave beautiful women waiting.”
“Yes you do.”
She knew him already: two minutes in his presence was enough to find his measure. He would come quickest to her if she was quietly insolent.
“Do you always call women you’ve never met before by their initials?”
“It’s convenient for filing; do you mind?”
“It depends.”
“On what?”
“What I get in return for giving you the privilege.”
“It’s a privilege, is it, to know your name?”
“Yes.”
“Well. . . I’m flattered. Unless of course you grant that privilege widely?”
She shook her head. No, he could see she wasn’t profligate with her affections.
“Why have you waited so long to see me?” he said. “Why have I had reports of your wearing my secretaries down with your constant demands to meet with me? Do you want money? Because if you do you’ll go away empty-handed. I became rich by being mean, and the richer I get, the meaner I become.”
The remark was truth; he spoke it plainly.
“I don’t want money,” she said, equally plainly.
“That’s refreshing.”
“There’s richer than you.”
He raised his eyebrows in surprise. She could bite, this beauty.
“True,” he said. There were at least half a dozen richer men in the hemisphere.
“I’m not an adoring little nobody. I haven’t come here to screw a name. I’ve come here because we can be together. We have a great deal to offer each other.”
“Such as?” he said.
“I have my body.”
He smiled. It was the straightest offer he’d heard in years.
“And what do I offer you in return for such largesse?”
“I want to learn —”
“Learn?”
“— how to use power.”
She was stranger and stranger, this one.
“What do you mean?” he replied, playing for time. He hadn’t got the measure of her; she vexed him, confounded him.
“Shall I recite it for you again, in bourgeois?” she said, playing insolence with such a smile he almost felt attractive again.
“No need. You want to learn to use power. I suppose I could teach you —”
“I know you can.”
“You realize I’m a married man. Virginia and I have been together eighteen years.”
“You have three sons, four houses, a maid-servant called Mirabelle. You loathe New York, and you love Bangkok; your shirt collar is 16½, your favourite colour green.”
“Turquoise.”
“You’re getting subtler in your old age.”
“I’m not old.”
“Eighteen years a married man. It ages you prematurely.”
“Not me.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
“Take me.”
“What?”
“Take me.”
“Here?”
“Draw the blinds, lock the door, turn off the computer terminal, and take me. I dare you.”
“Dare?”
How long was it since anyone had dared him to do anything?