(So he has and what do you think I’m talking about? He’s still in the house; he would not leave without saying goodbye.)
(Oh, nonsense, Jake and I aren’t that formal.)
(Boss, Jake is a gentleman to his fingertips. He might feel free to duck out without formality in dealing with his old friend Johann Smith—but not with a lady. ‘Johann’ is one thing, ‘Joan Eunice’ is another matter.)
(But he knows I’m Johann.)
(So? Then why did he kiss our hand? Joan, I’m going to have to watch you every second; you don’t know anything about men.)
(I spent almost a century being one.)
(Irrelevant. Hush up; he maybe here any time, I’ve got to tell this bang. Joan, the last few months before I was killed I was Jake’s mistress.)
(How was the old goat?)
(Is that all you have to say?)
(Eunice, you think I know nothing about men. Possibly true, in one sense. But I can teach you about men—from the inside—the way you can teach me about men from the outside. Jake is tough. Yet I saw him collapse twice in grief over you. Understandable that your death would upset him some. Understandable that it was a strain on him to help out in the masquerade of not letting me know that I had inherited your lovely body. Nevertheless you were just a girl he had known through business, one who helped him with my affairs. Not one he knew intimately. Yet this tough old lawyer collapsed twice. Over you. So he must have known you far better than anyone guessed. How? And where? Only one answer. In bed.)
(Not always in bed, you dirty old man with a girl’s name. In bed, certainly. But lots of other places, too. In his car. Is your car. Several times in this house—)
(Be damned! Then all my servants know it, too.)
(I doubt if they suspect. We used your study to work—and did work—and Cunningham didn’t let us be disturbed any more than he would have disturbed you and me. You asked a rude question, you’ll get a blunt answer. The old goat was good. And quite daring in grabbing every chance. We hardly missed a day up to the time I was killed.)
(A couple of j.d.’s, you two. Well, ‘My hat’s off to the Duke.’)
(Jealous, Boss?)
(No, envious. I wouldn’t have been up to it the first day] laid eyes on you. Impossible. And now still more impossible. Just envious. The old goat.)
(Not impossible, Joan.)
(Eh?)
(I was shocked when I saw Jake. My death must have hurt him terribly. I know it did, he loved me. But we can pull him out of it, Joan, you and I—only this time we won’t use your study.)
(What? Why, that’s incest!)
(Don’t be ridiculous, dear. I was no relation to Jake and I don’t think you are, either.)
(I mean it would feel like incest. Jake? Jake? Eunice, when I admitted that J supposed that I would— eventually—be ‘actively female,’ I didn’t have Jake in mind.)
(I did.)
(Then get it out of your mind! Forget it. Dr. Hedrick if you want to—at least I’ll try to cooperate—after I get used to being female. Your former husband, Joe, I owe that to yo-u—)
(Not Joe.)
(Why not? You spoke highly of him in that respect, and I always thought you thought well of him in other respects. Not urging you—hell, I can’t think about sex other than abstractly about any man; rm not yet reoriented. But I had already decided to go along with your need for Joe.)
(Boss, I can’t. Not with Joe. Because he was my husband. To him, I’d be a zombie. A walking corpse. I doubt if he would touch us. . . and if he did, I’d be terribly tempted to tell him. Tell him I’m still here. Can’t. I know it.)
(And 1 can’t make it with Jake. It’s the same with Jake, too, you know. A walking corpse.)
(Not quite the same. Surely, he knows we’re a patchwork, your brain Sand my body. But he loved us both. He’s loved you much longer than he’s loved me. While Joe doesn’t even know you.)