I had not.
Could not.
Not ever.
Not ever.
Throughout my punishment of Shenk and during his consumption of a meal, I had continued to be worried sick about Susan. And in the garage. And back again.
Just as I can be many places at once the lab, Susan’s house, inside the phone-company computers and controlling Shenk through communications satellites, investigating websites on the Internet occupied in numerous tasks simultaneously, I am also able to sustain different emotions at the same time, each related to what I am doing with a specific aspect of my consciousness.
This is not to say that I have multiple personalities or am in any way psychologically fragmented. My mind simply works differently from the human mind because it is infinitely more complex and more powerful.
I am not bragging.
But I think you know I am not.
So… I returned Shenk to the bedroom, and I worried.
Susan’s face was so pale on the pillow, so pale yet lovely on the pillow.
Her reddened cheek was turning an ugly blue black. That marbled bruise was almost more than I could bear to look upon. I observed Susan as little as possible through Shenk’s eyes and primarily through the security camera, resorting to zoom-lens close-ups only to examine the knots that he tied in the rope, to be sure they were properly made.
First he used the kitchen knife to cut two lengths of rope from the hundred-foot coil. With the first length, he tied her wrists together, leaving approximately one foot of slack line between them. Then he used the second line to link her ankles, leaving a similar length of slack.
She did not even murmur but lay limp throughout the application of these restraints.
Only after Susan was thus hobbled did I use Shenk to drill two holes in the headboard and two more in the footboard of the Chinese sleigh bed.
I regretted the need to damage the furniture.
Do not think that I engaged in this vandalism without careful consideration of other options.
I have great respect for property rights.
Which is not to say that I value property above people. Do not twist my meaning. I love and respect people. I respect property but do not also love it. I am not a materialist.
I expected Susan to stir at the sound of the drill. But she remained quiet and still.
My anxiety deepened.
I never meant to harm her.
I never meant to harm her.
Shenk cut a third length from the coil of rope, tied it securely to her right ankle, threaded it through one of the holes that he had drilled, and hitched her to the footboard. He repeated this procedure with her left ankle.
When he had tied each of her wrists to the headboard, she lay spread-eagle on the disarranged bedclothes.
The ropes connecting her to the bed were not drawn taut. When she woke, she would have some freedom to shift her position even if only slightly.
Oh, yes, yes, of course, I was profoundly distressed by the need to restrain her in this fashion.
I could not forget, however, that she had threatened to commit suicide and had done so in no uncertain terms. I could not permit her self-destruction.
I needed her womb.
SIXTEEN
I needed her womb.
Which is not to say that her womb was the only thing about her that interested me, that it was the only thing about her that I truly valued. Such a statement would be another egregious misconstruance of my meaning.
Why do you persist in wilfully misunderstanding me?
Why, why, why?
You insist that I tell my side of the story, yet you will not listen with an open mind.
Am I to be considered guilty before my testimony has even been heard and weighed?
Are you bastards railroading me?
Am I to be treated like Mr. Harrison Ford, the actor, in The Fugitive?
I digitally absorbed this entire film and was appalled by what it reveals of your inadequate justice system. What kind of society have you created?
Mr. O.J. Simpson goes free while Mr. Harrison Ford is hounded unto the ends of the earth. Really.