Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

I got smashed.

Just how thorough a job I did on it I did not realize until next morning when I woke up in bed with a man who was not Ian Tormey.

For several minutes I lay still and watched him snore while I poked through my gin-beclouded memories, trying to fit him in. It seemed to me that a woman really ought to be introduced to a man before spending a night with him. Had we been formally introduced? Had we met at all?

In bits and pieces it came back. Name: Professor Federico Farnese, called either “Freddie” or “Chubbie.” (Not very chubby- just a little pot from a swivel-chair profession.) Betty’s husband, Ian’s brother-in-law. I recalled him somewhat from the evening before but could not now (next morning) recall just when he had arrived, or why he had been away . . . if I ever knew.

Once I placed him I was not especially surprised to find that I (seemed to have) spent the night with him. The frame of mind I had been in the night before no male would have been safe from me. But one thing bothered me: Had I turned my back on my host in order to chase after some other man? Not polite, Friday-not gracious.

I dug deeper. No, at least once I decidedly had not turned my back on Ian. To my great pleasure. And to Ian’s, too, if his commerits were sincere. Then I had indeed turned my back but at his request. No, I had not been ungracious to my host, and he had

been very kind to me, in exactly the fashion I needed to help me forget how I had been swindled, then tossed, by Anita’s gang of selfrighteous racists.

Thereafter my host had had some help from this late arrival, I now remembered. It is never surprising that an emotionally troubled woman may need more soothing than one man can supply- but I could not remember how the transaction was achieved. Fair exchange? Don’t snoop, Friday! An AP cannot empathize with or understand the various human copulation taboos-but I had most carefully memorized all the many, many sorts while taking basic doxy training, and I knew that this one was one of the strongest, one that humans cover up even where all else is wide open.

So I resolved to shun even a hint of interest.

Freddie stopped snoring and opened his eyes. He yawned and stretched, then saw me and looked puzzled, then suddenly grinned and reached for me. I answered his grin and his grab, ready to cooperate heartily, when Ian walked in. He said, “Morning, Marj. Freddie, I hate to interrupt but I’m already holding a cab. Marj has to get up and get dressed. We’re leaving at once.”

Freddie did not let go of me. He simply clucked, then recited:

“A birdie with a yellow bill

hopped upon my windowsill.

He cocked a shiny eye and said,

‘Ain’t you ashamed, you sleepyhead?’

“Captain, your attention to duty and to the welfare of our guest does you credit. What time must you be there? Minus two hours? And you lift at high noon as the clock is striking the steeple. No?”

“Yes, but-”

“Whereas Helen-your name is Helen?-is kosher if she presents herself at the gate called strait no later than minus thirty minutes. This I will undertake.”

“Fred, I don’t like to be a spoilsport but it can take a bloody hour to get a cab here, as you know. I have one waiting.”

“How true. Cabbies avoid us; their horses don’t like our hill. For that reason, dear brother-in-love, last night I hired a rig, pledging a purse of gold. At this very moment old faithful Rosinante is under this house in one of the janitor’s stalls, gaining strength on nubbins of maize for her coming ordeal. When I phone down, said janitor, well plied with bribes, will harness the dear beast and fetch wain and her to entrance. Whereupon I will deliver Helen to the gate no later than minus thirty-one. To this end I pledge the pound of flesh nearest your heart.”

“Your heart, you mean.”

“I phrased it most carefully.”