For Us, The Living

"And every night and every day." He kissed her again.

Later she stretched and yawned and made little contented sounds. "Hungry?"

"I guess I am. Yes, I am. If I could make magic in that witch's den of yours I'd bring you your breakfast in bed."

"It won't take but a moment. But thanks. Will you have yours in bed?"

"No, I'll come joggle your elbow and get in your way." He followed her to the kitchen nook.

"Tell me, Diana, when were all these fresh fruits delivered?"

"Last summer, mostly. I unfreeze them as I need them. Father picked out my supplies. He's in foods."

"Your father? Is your father alive?"

"Surely. Why not?"

"And your mother?"

"Yes. She's a surgeon. Why? Did you think they were dead?"

"I didn't think so consciously. I just hadn't thought about it. You were you. I didn't fill in your background. Say, does your father keep a shotgun around the house?"

"Whatever for?"

"It just seemed possible that he might think I'd wronged our Nell."

"Wronged our Nell? What does that mean?"

"It's just an expression. What I mean is this: If he knew about us, wouldn't he disapprove pretty violently? After all we may be married to each other but the world doesn't know it."

"But why should the world know it, or Father, unless we choose to tell him? And even if he didn't like you—and I'm sure he will—how would that affect us? He would never dream of mentioning it. Listen, Perry, you must realize that marriage, as an institution, has changed enormously. We talked about this once before. Marriage isn't a public contract anymore. It's strictly in the private sphere. You and I love each other and want to live together. We are doing so. Therefore we are married."

"Then there isn't any ceremony, nor any contract?"

"You can have all the ceremony you want if you care to apply to any of the churches. But I hope you won't ask me to do it. It would embarrass me terribly, and make me feel—well—dirtied."

His brow wrinkled. "I don't understand some of your customs darling, but the way that suits you suits me."

"We could draw up a domestic economy contract if you want one. Personally I'd rather not bother. We both have comfortable credit accounts and it would just mean a lot of u

"I don't want to be a gigolo."

"What's a gigolo?"

"A man who lets a woman support him in exchange for love making."

Her lip trembled and tears welled up in her eyes.

"Perry, you shouldn't have said that to me."

"Sweetheart! Please—Oh, Lord, I'm sorry, I truly am. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings, but good heavens, I don't know the customs of this topsy-turvy world."

The tears stopped. "OK, darling. I should have made allowances. But let's say no more about credits and contracts. We don't need to."

After breakfast Perry re-opened the subject. "Dian' darling, there is just one thing that worries me about this casual modern way of getting married. What about children?"

She looked at him levelly and soberly. "Do you want to give me a child, Perry?"

"Why, no. Well, no, I don't mean no. I'd want to, I suppose, if you wanted to. I wasn't thinking about us personally; I was thinking about children in general. Say, have I already? I mean do you think it likely?"

"No, not until we decide to and want to."

"That's good. I mean of course it would be an honor and a privilege, but there is your career—and as for me—Look, Dian', how can I be a father?"

"Why not, Perry?"

"You know. This isn't my body."

"I think it is, Perry. Perhaps we can find out."

"Suppose you wake up some morning and I'm not in this body anymore—Suppose Gordon comes back?"

She put her arms around him. "I don't think that will happen, Perry. Don't ask me why for I don't know. But I feel sure of it just the same.

"But you ask about children. Children aren't a financial burden as they were in your day. A child's own credit account is enough to support it. A child can live with its parents if it wants to and they want it, or if it chooses, it can grow up in a development center. If parents separate, the child can go with which ever it chooses."

"It sounds awfully cold-blooded."

"It's not, really. In most cases children spend most of their childhood with one or both parents. Usually parents will insist on a child spending at least a year or two in a development center to be sure that the child is adjusted to social living. Take my case for example. I lived with one or the other of my parents practically all the time until I was eighteen, except for two years in a development center between fourteen and sixteen."

"You say one or the other of your parents. Aren't they married anymore?"

"Oh yes. But they are not very domestic, and their work keeps them apart a lot of the time. But take the case of my half brother Pharion. He's the son of a very talented actress who fell madly in love with Dad for a while and wanted a child by him. But they never married. He grew up in a development center almost entirely because he didn't like his parents. He was a sober minded boy and they were both too frivolous for him. Then there is my half sister Susan; she's mother's child by another great surgeon. I don't believe they were in love at all the way you mean it, but I am sure that they both hoped that their child would be a genius in surgery. Sue has lived with mother all her life."

"That sounds polygamous to me."

"No—I really don't think you could call it that. There is no custom against polygamy or polyandry, if anyone wants to. I have two friends, girls, who live together. They have a friend, a man, who lives with them most of the time. Of course I don't know but I think they are both married to him."

Perry shook his head. "I don't understand it. It seems u

"Don't worry about it, darling. You will understand in time."

Perry was much too busy for the next several days to trouble his mind with misgivings and doubts. He was happy, happier he thought than he had ever been in his life—or lives?—he could not be sure which was the proper term. Life was a picnic, a honeymoon, a delightful and interesting school, a Cook's tour, and the land of the Lotus Eaters, all rolled into one. He listened for hours to records of events that fascinated him, studied new techniques and advances in science in a medium that made his early day studies seem left handed and awkward, trudged through the mountain snows with Diana, watched her rehearse her dances, listened with her to gorgeous music and stirring drama, flew about the country-side in their car, and spent the nights in his darling's arms. Their intimacy ripened and grew. She encouraged him to talk of his early life, his childhood in Kansas, the adolescent triumph of wi

Meanwhile, as he observed the life of the modern world, listened to the records and studied the code of customs, he found in talking with Diana that his opinions had changed from the world that he had left, and that he was begi