“Is this the same Mr. A. P. who was up before us the week before last?” the voice asked.
“It is,” Mrs. Birmingham said, without reluctance.
“And this last week he was not present at the meeting?” The voice then declared: “Mr. A. P. is not being judged for his absence last week, and his lapse of the previous week has already been dealt with by this gathering.”
The mood of the gathering was now varied. As always, many of the members were curious; some were bored and not particularly concerned. A few appeared unusually interested, and it was those to whom Allen paid attention.
“Mr. A. P.,” the voice said. “Was this the first time you had met the young woman?”
“No,” he said. “I’d seen her before.” It was a trap, practiced as a matter of routine: if his reply was that yes, this was the first time, he was open for the charge of promiscuity. Sexual misconduct was better understood if it was confined to one partner; Miss J. E. had been cleared by that point, and he intended to use it, too.
“Often?” the voice asked, infinitely toneless.
“Not in excess. We were good friends. We still are. I think a great deal of Miss G. M. I have the highest respect for her, and so does my wife.”
“Your wife knows her?” the voice asked. It answered its own question: “He just said so.”
Allen said: “Let me make this clear. Miss G. M. is a responsible woman, and I have absolute faith in her moral integrity. Otherwise I wouldn’t have admitted her to my office.” His job was a matter of public knowledge, so he took the plunge. “In my position as Director of Telemedia, I must be highly careful of my choice of friends. Therefore—”
“How long have you been director?”
He hesitated. “Monday was my first day.”
“And that was the day this young woman appeared?”
“People streamed in and out all day. Bundles of ‘flowers’ arrived; you’re familiar with the protocol of congratulation. I was besieged by well-wishers. Miss G.M. was one of them. She dropped by to wish me luck.”
The voice said: “A great deal of luck.” Several persons smirked knowingly. “You locked the door, did you? You ripped out the intercom? You phoned for a Getabout to pick the two of you up as soon as possible?”
To his knowledge this information wasn’t available on the official report. He felt uneasy. “I locked the door because people had been barging in all day. I was nervous and irritable. Frankly, I was a little overwhelmed by the job, and I didn’t care to see anybody. As to the intercom—” He lied shamelessly, without conscience. Under the system there was no choice. “Being unfamiliar with my new office I inadvertently tripped over the wires. The wires broke. Anybody in business is aware that such things happen frequently—and at exactly such times.”
“Indeed,” the voice said.
“Miss G.M.,, [sic]” Allen went on, “stayed about ten minutes. When the monitoring device entered, I was saying goodbye to her. As she left she asked if she could kiss me, as a token of congratulation. Before I could say no, she had done so. That was what happened, and that was what the monitor saw.”
“You tried to destroy the monitor.”
“Miss G.M. screamed; she was taken unawares. It had entered by the window and neither of us noticed it. To be honest, we both imagined it was some sort of menace. I’m not clear now as to exactly what I thought it was. I heard Miss G.M. scream; I saw a blur of motion. Instinctively I kicked out, and my foot connected with it.”
“This man you hit.”
“At Miss G.M.’s scream the door was forced and a number of hysterical people burst in. There was bedlam for a time, which is reported. A man ran up and started to grab at Miss G.M. I thought it was an attack aimed at Miss G.M., and I had no choice but to defend her. As a gentleman it was incumbent on me.”
“Does the record bear that out?” the voice asked.
Mrs. Birmingham consulted. “The individual who was struck was attempting physically to apprehend the young woman.” She turned a page. “However, it is stated that Mr A.P. had instructed the woman to flee the scene.”
“Naturally,” Allen said. “Since I feared an attack on her I wanted her to escape to safety. Consider the situation. Miss G.M. enters my office to wish me—”
“This is the same Miss G.M.,” the voice interrupted, “with whom you spent four days and nights on an inter-S ship? The same Miss G.M. who registered under a phony name in order to conceal her identity? Is this not the same Miss G.M. with whom you have committed adultery at a number of times, in a number of places? Is it not true that all this has been concealed from your wife and that in reality your wife has never met this woman and could not possibly have any opinion of her except the normal opinion of a wife toward her husband’s mistress?”
General pandemonium.
Allen waited for the noise to die down. “I have never committed adultery with anybody. I have no romantic relationship with Miss G.M. I have never—”
“You fondled her; you kissed her; don’t you call that romantic?”
“Any man,” Allen said, “who is capable of sexual activity during his first day at a new job is an unusual man.”
Appreciative laughter. And a scatter of applause.
“Is Miss G.M. pretty?” This, in all probability, was a wife. The planted questioner, with extra information at his disposal, had temporarily retired.
“I suppose,” Allen said. “Now that I think of it. Yes, she was attractive. Some men would think so.”
“When did you first meet her?”
“Oh, about—” And then he broke off. He had almost fallen on that one. Two weeks was the wrong answer. No friendship of two weeks included a hug and kiss, in the Morec world. “I’ll have to think back,” he said, as if it were decades. “Let’s see, when I first met her I was working for . . .” He let his voice trail off, until the questioner became impatient and asked:
“How did you meet her?”
In the back of his mind Allen sensed that the enemy was closing in. There were many questions he couldn’t answer, questions for which no evasion would work. This was one of them.
“I don’t remember,” he said, and saw the floor open to receive him. “Some mutual friends, maybe.”
“Where does she work?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you take a four-day trip with her?”
“Prove that I did.” He had the way out of that, at least. “Is that in the report?”
Mrs. Birmingham searched, and shook her head no.
“Mr. A.P.,” the voice said, “I’d like to ask you this.” He couldn’t tell if this were the same accuser; warily, he assumed it was. “Two weeks ago, when you arrived home drunk. Had you been with this woman?”
“No,” he said, which was true.
“Are you positive? You had been alone at your office; you took a sliver to Hokkaido; you showed up several hours later clearly having had—”
“I didn’t even know her then,” he said. And realized his utter and final mistake. But now, alas, it was too late.
“You met her less than two weeks ago?”
“I had seen her before.” His voice came out insect-frail, weak with awareness of defeat. “But I didn’t know her well.”
“What happened between you and her during the last two weeks? Was that when the relationship grew?”
Allen reflected at length. No matter how he answered, the situation was hopeless. But it was bound to end this way. “I’m not aware,” he said at last, half-idly, “that it ever grew, then or any other time.”
“To you a relationship with a young woman not your wife that involves petting and fondling and the juxtaposition of bodies—”
“To a diseased mind any relationship is foul,” Allen said. He got to his feet and faced the people below him. “I’d like to see who I’m talking to. Come on out from under your rock; let’s see what you look like.”
The impersonal voice went on: “Are you in the habit of putting your hands on the bodies of young women with whom you happen, during the course of the day, to come in contact? Do you use your job as a means by which—”
“I tell you what,” Allen said. “If you’ll identify yourself I’ll knock the living Jesus out of you. I’m fed-up with this faceless accusation. Obscene, sadistic minds are using these meetings to pry out all the sordid details, tainting every harmless act by pawing over it, reading filth and guilt into every normal human relationship. Before I step off this stage I have one general, theoretical statement to make. The world would be a lot better place if there was no morbid in- quisition like this. More harm is done in one of these sessions than in all the copulation between man and woman since the creation of the world.”