“I face each day here with some fear, yes. But I do what must be done, and if you want to call that cowardly, then do so. You and your people face the future by pretending that all the bad things that could happen won’t happen to you. You lie to yourselves, and then you live within your lies, until you are no longer aware of the harm that can come to you and those that you care for. Our standards differ, Tom. By mine, it is your people who are the cowards!”
“Huh . . . . Well, there is a lot of truth in what you just said. But let’s go back to my original question. Have I ever gotten you pregnant?”
“Tom, enough has been said tonight. Go to sleep.”
“I’m not sleepy, you can’t sleep, and I want some answers. Do I have a child?”
“You have hundreds of children, Tom. I’ll get you the exact number in the morning.”
Well, that’s as heavy a kick in the head as a normal man ever gets, but I still wasn’t satisfied.
“Nice of you to tell me about it. Did you think that I didn’t care? I mean, most of those had to be by women that I didn’t love, but I certainly cared for them. You, however, are a very special case. I love you, and I want a straight answer. Have we made any children together? Answer me.”
“Yes, Tom, we have. We have created three lovely sons together. When last I saw them, they were six years old. And since you were about to ask it, no, I have never had another child by any other man.”
If I knew anything at all about this woman, I knew that she had doubtless been with each of the kids for every minute of their time since they were born. And if she had last seen her kids when they were six, that meant that she knew that I had not see them during that time. As I understood the laws of causality, this all meant that my children’s early childhood was forever lost to me.
It is not nice to rob a man of his children’s childhood. Nonetheless, I resolved to keep my cool.
“I didn’t know that I was going to ask about your previous love life, but thank you, anyway. So, the boys are all six, now? You’d better explain that.”
“Very well. Among my people, it is customary for a woman to live with each of her babies alone for the child’s first year. After that, she usually brings all of her children together, and raises them as an equal age group from their first to their fifteenth year, when they all go out on their own.”
“Then from what you’ve said, you are what? Nine years older now than when when I first met you?”
“It’s just over ten years, Tom.”
“You don’t look any older.”
“My people don’t age as quickly as your people do.”
“Then how old are you now?”
“Please, Tom, leave a girl with some secrets.”
“All right. I guess it doesn’t really matter. You said that your people let your kids go pretty early. Fifteen seems a bit young, but I guess in your sort of world, nobody can possibly get hurt. But mostly, I’m more than a little angry about this business of my children being six years old, and I’ve never even seen them yet. They’re my kids, too, you know, and I should have some say-so as to how they’re brought up!”
“In your culture, perhaps. Not in mine. Even in yours, a woman must be married to a man before he has any rights over her or her offspring.”
“Which gets us to something that I have been wanting to do since the first morning I spent on this weird little island. Barb, I want to marry you. You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met, the smartest, and the most desirable. I love you. Will you marry me? Please, say yes.”
“But there are so many things that we have to discuss first. . . .”
“Then we’ll discuss them, but later. For right now, answer me. Yes or no.”
“Well then, yes, Tom. I will marry you.”
A double victory! First I got my nerve up to ask her, and then she said yes!
* * *
The next morning, I bounced into the breakfast room in the Taj Mahal.
“Ian, I want you to be the best man.”
“My impression was that I always had been, though I didn’t want to rub it in. Still, it’s rather nice to hear you admit it.”
“No, stupid! I want you to be my best man. I’m getting married!”
“Married? To what? A woman? Just who is this poor deluded girl?”
“Barbara, of course.”
“The poor thing. And I’d had such hopes for her.” Ian shook his head and went back to eating his inevitable stack of pancakes.
My brilliant parry and tart riposte were forestalled by a waitress bringing in my breakfast. She said it was Eggs-Something-or-Another-in-French, and it mostly involved a lot of heavy cream and garlic. It smelled good but looked sort of wimpy.
Before I could remember what I was going to say, Ian interrupted.
“Tom, would you please tell me why any sane man, or even one sadly like yourself, would want to get married? I mean, consider your position. You are sound of body and perhaps even of mind. You are infinitely wealthy, for all practical purposes, and you are currently surrounded by hordes of attractive women who have somehow been deceived into thinking that you are sexually desirable. You should be happy as you are, especially since you are presently in a position to make hundreds of those sadly deluded women happy as well. Yet instead of simply enjoying yourself, you are proposing to abandon all of your advantages in order to make just one woman miserable. Please attempt to explain your ridiculous line of reasoning.”
“There’s nothing to explain. I love the girl, and I want her to stay with me, even when this whole stupid charade ends. And it will end, you know, someday.”
“I know that nothing is forever, this side of heaven, and okay, I can see some sense in wanting to nail down a good one before she gets away. What I can’t see you doing is giving up the vast harem of increasingly naked ladies that you currently enjoy.”
“Well, I hadn’t planned to give it up. Why should I? I mean, Barb doesn’t mind my sexual generosity. In fact, she schedules it, and seems to think to think that I am just doing my manly duty. Furthermore, all of the other girls are pretty enthusiastic about the arrangement, as you well know.”
“So you are planning on committing adultery even while you are planning your marriage?”
“How can there be a crime if all the parties involved are willing, consenting adults?”
“Oh, there can, there can. Ask any politician or police chief. Victimless crimes are where all the graft is, which is of course why we had so many of them, back home. Whenever you hear somebody screaming about how we have to stamp out prostitution, or pornography, or drugs, or gambling, or anything of the sort, you can be certain that the people behind him, or more likely her, are sure to make a lot of money out of it. Real crimes, like murder, or assault and battery, or theft, simply don’t lend themselves to the paying of political contributions and other graft. But I wasn’t talking about crime. I was talking about sin, which is a different matter entirely.”
“I don’t see how I can be sinning, either, especially since I don’t believe in your strange religion in the first place.”
“Your position on religion is common knowledge. By the way, what is Barbara’s religion?”
“I don’t think she has one. Religion doesn’t seem to fit into the Smoothies’ way of thinking.”
“I’ve noticed that. Tom, I strongly advise that you sit down with Barbara and talk out exactly what you expect from one another in this marriage. I shudder to say it, but you might even want to get a lawyer involved, and write up a prenuptial agreement, because what you are calling a marriage doesn’t have much in common with what most other people would call a marriage.”
“All right. I’ll do both of those things.”
“You really are serious about this marriage business, aren’t you?” Ian asked, “I mean, this isn’t just another one of your illiterate jokes, is it?”
“Ian, I am dead serious. I asked Barb to marry me, and she said yes. It’s that simple.”
“Nothing is ever that simple. Now, about this best man thing. As I recall, the bride’s parents are responsible for the reception, so I don’t have to worry about that. Who are Barb’s parents, by the way?”