I looked back from it to my wife, admired the long sweep of her limbs and the sudden, rising curves. The Pirate was curled up on her stomach, a cubical cat, with his paws tucked in as a muff. Both of them seemed asleep. “How about some breakfast?” I said, “I’m starved.”
“You fix it,” she answered. “If I move, I’ll disturb Pirate.”
“You promised to love, honor, and fix me breakfast,” I replied and tickled the soles of her feet. She gasped and drew up her legs; the cat squawked and landed on the floor.
“Oh dear!” she said, sitting up. “You made me move too fast and now I’ve offended him.”
“Never mind the cat, woman; you’re married to me.” But I knew that I had made a mistake. In the presence of others, people not under the drug, one should move with great care. I simply hadn’t thought about the cat; no doubt he thought we were behaving like drunken jumping jacks. I intentionally slowed down and tried to woo him.
No use—he was streaking toward his door. I could have stopped him, for to me his movement was a molasses crawl, but had I done so I would simply have frightened him more. I let him go and went to the kitchen.
Do you know, Mary was right; tempus fugit drug is no good for honeymoons. The ecstatic happiness that I had felt before was masked by the euphoria of the drug, though I did not feel the loss at the time because the drug’s euphoria is compelling. But the loss was real; I had substituted for the true magic a chemical fake.
And there are some precious things which cannot or should not be hurried. Mary was right, as usual. Nevertheless it was a good day—or month, however you care to look at it. But I wished that I had stuck to the real thing.
Late that evening we came out of it. I felt the slight irritability which marks the loosening hold of the drug, found my ringwatch and timed my reflexes. When they were back to normal I timed Mary’s, whereupon she informed me that she had been out of it for twenty minutes or so—pretty accurate matching of dosage to have been based on body weights alone.
“Do you want to go under again?” she asked me.
I pulled her to me and kissed her. “No; frankly, I’m glad to be back.”
“I’m so glad.”
I had the usual ravenous appetite that one has afterward no matter how many times one eats while under; I mentioned it. “In a minute,” she said. “I want to call Pirate. He has not been in all day.”
I had not missed him during the day—or “month”—just past; the euphoria is like that. “Don’t worry about it,” I told her. “He often stays out all day.”
“He has not before.”
“He has with me,” I answered.
“I think I offended him—I know I did.”
“Then he is probably down at Old John’s. That is his usual way of punishing me when he does not like the service. He’ll be all right.”
“But it’s late at night—I’m afraid a coyote might get him.”
“Don’t be silly; there are no coyotes this far east.”
“A fox, then—or something. Do you mind, darling? I’ll just step out and call him.” She headed for the door.
“Put on something, then,” I ordered. “It will be nippy out there.”
She hesitated, then went back to the bedroom and got a negligee I had bought for her the day we had gone down to the village. She went out; I put more wood on the fire and went into the kitchen.
She must have left the door dilated for, while I was trying to make up my mind between convenience of a “Soup-to-Nuts” and the pleasure of planning a meal from separate units, I heard her saying, “Bad, bad cat! You worried mama,” in that cooing voice suitable for babies and felines.
I called out, “Fetch him in and close the door—and mind the penguins!” She did not answer and I did not hear the door relax, so I went back into the living room.