NINE

“FROM THE BEGINNING I found New York City to be more exciting than any place I had been because of its tempo and cosmopolitan population. I discovered that all of us had a similar reaction. For the Androgyne, it was as if we were mountain lions slipped into a boxcar filled with sheep. Everywhere I turned there were attractive females. (I almost wrote nutritious instead of attractive, for that’s what they were to me. They literally looked delicious, making my mouth water.) I found myself standing stupidly on street corners, turning this way and that to follow the feminine scents. I could close my eyes and taste their skin on my lips, feel their breasts in my hands. Every avenue, every block presented still more exotic delicacies.

“I would walk for hours on end just to peruse the selection, and whenever I stood on a corner to wait for the light to change and I was in the midst of a half dozen or so young women, I would feel my heart pound and my body stir in a way unlike it ever had before.

“In the beginning, before Nicholas and I emerged simultaneously, I often went out on a hunt and nearly failed to consummate it because every time I settled on a victim, I thought there just might be a better one around the corner. I would find myself wandering for hours without making a decision and suddenly I would realize I was going to let the night pass without a kill.

“Nicholas told me he had had comparable experiences when he and Alison first arrived in New York. Only he had one additional reaction—like a child locked in a candy store, he became gluttonous, sometimes making two kills a night, one in one borough and one in another. Normally, there were a number of violent deaths in the city, so he didn’t think his actions would matter, but his hunger drew the attention of other Androgyne, when one, who was a homicide detective, realized what was happening. They confronted him in a bar in Greenwich Village.

“‘Actually,’ he told me, ‘this detective seized my arm, showed me his badge and asked me to come out with him. There were two other Androgyne waiting in his car, both in tuxedos. They had just come from some party at Gracie Mansion and they were very angry. They told me I was putting the entire community in danger of being discovered and making it very difficult for others to hunt. They took me for a ride down to some deserted docks on the West Side and frightened me so much I retreated into Alison and remained submerged for weeks,’ he said.

“By the time Clea and I had arrived in New York, Nicholas was calmer and more sophisticated. In fact, I was glad when he began to appear with me because he could show me around. He knew which bars and discos were frequented by single young women, which were mostly gay, and which catered to a much younger crowd. Occasionally, we both wanted a very young girl. They have a different sort of energy, what Nicholas sometimes referred to as a ‘cleaner-burning fuel.’

“Nicholas believed, and I suppose there is some validity to that belief, that we are what we eat, or in our case, what we consume. In a real sense, we are the sum total of all of our victims. Our prey become the building blocks with which we construct ourselves.

“Sometimes, it was a question of variety. We sought diversity for its own sake. We are not incapable of boredom and just as there is a monotony in consuming the same old thing, there is a monotony in choosing the same old prey. And when it came to seeking variety, what better place to be than New York? Here we had a wonderful choice of black women, Oriental, East Europeans, Hispanic, etc., all within a relatively small area; and Nicholas, as I said, already knew where we could find what we wanted.

“So, we would begin our evenings by first deciding what each of us desired or perhaps needed. Usually, we were in agreement; our needs were remarkably similar, perhaps because Alison and Clea had similar needs; but occasionally one or the other had to compromise if we were to hunt together.

“I suppose we could say we benefited somewhat from Alison and Clea being so theatrical. Both Nicholas and I had inherited their dramatic tendencies. Before every hunt we would decide on roles to play. Sometimes we were brothers in business; sometimes he or I would be visiting from another country, usually a country that would be of interest to our prey. Occasionally, we passed ourselves off as models or actors. We loved affecting accents. Nicholas does this great Englishman, Lord Livingston. Whatever we decided to be, we found that young women were gullible. Few, if any, challenged us, and even those who did, did so with the air of nonchalance. They didn’t really care. Everyone, in one way or another, was trying to be someone else anyway.

“She was a waitress who was really an actress; she was a legal secretary, but she expected to become a lawyer; she was a hostess, but she wanted to be an artist. On and on it went—a world of dual identities. We fit right in.

“Actually, there was never a question of our being successful; together we glided smoothly and easily over the hunting grounds, or what the inferiors disdainfully refer to as their ‘watering holes.’ How ironic. Just as a tiger or lion might go down to a ‘watering hole’ in the jungle and wait in the shadows, braced to pounce on its prey, we went to these bars and discotheques.

“Immediately after we made our entrances, we would stand and gaze out over the crowd of revelers and drink in the mixture of the hot, sweaty scents undetectable to them. We surveyed the panorama: a tableau of youth, vigor and energy. Their excited faces were made to look more so when they danced and bathed in the silver and blue, orange and pink flashing lights that dropped their rainbow of colors from dazzling ceilings filled with spinning silver balls and multicolored cubes—a veritable man-made galaxy of sensuous stars. It encouraged abandon. The loud music permeated through every pore of their bodies so that the incessant rhythms became kin with their very heartbeats.

“‘See,’ Nicholas said, ‘how even though they go onto the dance floor with a partner, they soon lose any bond and isolate themselves in their own private fantasy. Especially the women,’ he added, probably because they were our primary concern.

“But it was true. Women, whom I would imagine to be mousy, shy types, withdrawn and cloistered within their conservative clothes and hairstyles, were out there gyrating, beckoning to some phantom of the disco, imagining themselves the center of his libidinous attention, desired, craved, about to be chosen for a night of ecstasy.

“Nicholas and I agreed—nothing in this modern society trumpeted the self-centered nature of it as much as this frenzied dancing. It was almost as if we could hear them chanting: ‘Me, me, me, look at me, me, me.’ It made it all that much easier for us.

“We descended like two bats out of the darkness above them, directed toward our particular victims by our own special radar, a sensing in on the vulnerable, the sweet, the rich-blooded and ripe women longing to be held and wanted and stroked. We invaded dreams, honed in on the hungriest. Frustration hung over them like a cloud threatening to burst with the cold rain of disappointment. Satisfaction was eluding them yet again.

“We saw their desperation grow as the night wore on. Their eyes moved from one man to another hoping to find themselves discovered.

“But most drifted off, still unattached by the evening’s end. They stopped dancing and retreated to what solace they could find with companions who had met a similar fate. They gathered at the bar, forced laughter, and punctuated their inane discussions with an occasional glance back at the lucky fish who had been hooked and were being reeled in.

“‘The world is a lonely place,’ Nicholas said and then laughed. ‘Fortunately, for us.’

“Of course, he was right. Wherever lust is married to loneliness, there is a wedding feast to which Androgyne have an open invitation.

“We plunged, moving like two dark shadows over the floor, our eyes riveted on our prey. Even before we arrived, they sensed our coming and were drawn to us. A smile, a query, a suggestion and they were snared easy as one, two, three.

“I can’t recall the names or even a particular face. Now, whenever I think back to those days, the different young women meld into one. Even the different races, the black, the brown, the yellow and the white lose identity. I see a universal victim; I see beneath the skin, for whenever an Androgyne takes his prey, he draws from her essence, from deep down into her very being, and therefore the color of her eyes and hair, the color of her skin, her height, her weight is incidental.

“It is as if we walked about with X-ray eyes. Inferior men, whose ken is limited, whose vision is shorter, whose senses are restricted, whose very being is circumscribed and fixed, would find no pleasure in our view. But that is why they would rather make love to a woman who has had a plastic surgeon reform her face, stuff her breasts with silicone, tighten her buttocks, suck fat out of her midsection than make love to many of the women we choose. And therefore, why we often have such good choices: the leftovers.

“All these nights were the same for Nicholas and me: We came, we saw, we conquered. In the beginning and for a while afterward, we simply let our instincts gravitate us to one or the other of the pair we targeted. If there were significant differences between one or the other and one of us had an advantage, we managed to compensate the next time out.

“But one night as we left the apartment to go on a hunt, Nicholas told me of Alison’s displeasure. What surprised me was his agreement—she wasn’t all wrong; he had been getting the short end of things too many times, not that we were keeping track.

“Despite my surprise, I didn’t argue. When it came time to make our choices, I let him go first. He went first the next time out and the time after that as well.

“One night, I challenged his choice.

“‘You’ve taken the richest prize for some time now, Nicholas,’ I told him. ‘Tonight should be my turn. I have felt Clea’s concern, just as you felt Alison’s.’

“‘But I had a lot to make up for,’ he replied. When he grimaced and whined like that, I saw Alison’s face flash in his.

“‘That’s not true,’ I said softly. ‘Even if there was some sort of imbalance, surely we have corrected it by now. I should take the girl on the right.’

“‘No,’ he said. ‘If you want to take them together, I take the one on the right. Otherwise, we go after lone prey.’

“This recalcitrance wasn’t like him. He had had a bad metamorphosis, I concluded. If I had a propensity for the tongue in cheek, I would have said, he wasn’t himself tonight.

“‘Then we’ll have to go our separate ways tonight,’ I said. ‘I’m sorry.’

“‘So be it,’ Nicholas replied. I decided to let him have this entire watering hole and went off to another location. Soon after that, our synchronized metamorphosing came to an end, and we hunted in different parts of the city.

“I can’t say I didn’t miss his companionship. Whenever I metamorphosed, I watched Alison carefully to see if she was on the verge of changing. I think she misunderstood my intentions, and I know that even Clea, when she reads this, might not believe me when I say, I did not expect or intend what happened next.”

At mention of my name, I paused in the reading of the diary and took a deep breath. My coffee was cold, but I sipped it anyway. My detective stared at me without speaking.

“Are you all right?” he finally asked. I nodded, but closed my eyes.

“You know,” I said, “that Nicholas knows you’re here.” I turned to him. “You listened in on my phone call before,” I said accusingly.

“Couldn’t help it,” he said shaking his head. “I don’t know whether I am a man who has become a detective, or a detective who just happens to be a man. I do so many things instinctively these days. Would you believe that two days ago I followed a man from Westwood to East L.A. because I thought he looked suspicious and might be involved in a cocaine ring dealing UCLA students? Turned out he was a shoe wholesaler. Yet I still wonder if there was something in the heels of those shoes … Anyway, I can’t help myself. But I apologize. I shouldn’t have done it.”

“They’re going to want to kill you even more now,” I said.

“Oh? So maybe we can safely assume that bullet was meant for me.”

“Maybe,” I admitted.

“I’d better stay away from the windows.”

“I wouldn’t joke about it.”

“I’m not. Anyway, it looks like I would be wise to remain here until morning.” He put his hands behind his head and smiled.

“Isn’t there anyone who will miss you, wonder where you are and what’s happened to you?” I asked. “Family, friends, girlfriends?”

“Everyone close to me is used to my not showing up for days on end. I don’t even have an answering machine anymore because the tapes run out, there are so many messages.”

“You like this life?”

“I told you,” he said. “It’s who I am. Same as you in a sense … it’s the hand I’ve been dealt.”

“Hardly the same thing. You have alternatives.”

“Apparently, so do you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here right now listening to all this, right?”

“If you can consider suicide an alternative,” I said.

“You sound like you’re having second thoughts. Are you?”

I thought about Michael and about the agony of my existence.

“You began by telling me God had made your kind first; you were the chosen people.”

“It’s what we were told,” I said.

“You don’t believe it anymore?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just say, I have doubts.”

“Isn’t that blasphemy?”

“If thinking is blasphemy, if feeling deeply is blasphemy, if challenging and questioning is blasphemy, then yes, I am guilty of blasphemy,” I replied.

“Jesus,” he said, “when you get fired up like that, you are so beautiful, you make me crumble inside. I want to be putty in your hands.” I nodded. “Typical inferior reaction, huh?” he asked, smirking.

“Yes.”

“What’s to become of us? Will we forever be prey for Androgyne, dust for worms?” He laughed at the expression on my face.

“The philosophical detective,” I said. “You don’t make love like a man with his mind in the clouds.”

“I guess I know when to come down to earth.” His gaze dropped hungrily to the diary in my hands. Or was he simply afraid of the look in my eyes? Anticipating what lay ahead in these pages, I felt myself stirred. I ran my tongue across my lips and pulled my shoulders back so my firm breasts would lift. But my detective didn’t seem to notice; his mind was locked on one thing.

“You’re right about yourself,” I said dryly. “You are a detective who just happens to be a man.”

He roared, and I turned back to the diary.

“Nicholas believes I tried to prevent his metamorphosing during those days in New York by seducing Alison so that she would fight his interfering emergence. The truth is Alison seduced me so that I would keep Clea from reappearing.”

“I’ve heard that sort of defense before,” my detective remarked. “Three out of four rapists have it imbedded in their brains: She was asking for it. Some juries buy it, especially the ones with frustrated spinsters complementing the angry men. Women are definitely at a disadvantage in this society, even androgynous ones.”

I didn’t look up from the diary. I let his words pass over me like an annoying wind.

“Sexual relations between two Androgyne are, on the surface, not much different from sexual relations between two inferiors. But when we are truly attracted to each other, we have the ability to see both of our dual personalities. Sporadically, Nicholas flashed in and out of Alison’s face.

“I suppose the easiest way for an inferior to understand this would be for him or her to imagine his lover’s sibling. Sometimes, brothers and sisters have such a close resemblance anyway.

“Essentially, what this means for us is the necessity of a compatibility, not only between the male and female Androgyne who happen to be metamorphosed at the time, but a compatibility between their submerged personalities as well. In essence four people fall in love or make love every time an androgynous female and an androgynous male do.”

“Holy shit,” the detective said. When I looked up at him, I saw his eyes were wide and he was shaking his head. “Can you imagine the confusion on Valentine’s Day.”

“This concept is probably beyond your ability to understand,” I replied dryly.

“I mean, it’s hard enough nowadays for only two people to fall in love and maintain a relationship, but to have to have four independent personalities compatible … the divorce rate would double. Good business for marriage counselors, of course,” he muttered.

“I wonder if I’m wasting my time with you,” I said.

“Easy. I’m just trying to come to grips with all this. The line between tragedy and comedy is really a very thin one. What’s tragic one day becomes absurdly comical after the passage of time.”

“We happen to be in the present right now and right now, it’s not comical to me.”

“Okay, okay. Let me ask you this. If Nicholas didn’t want Alison to fall in love with Richard and you didn’t want Richard to fall in love with Alison, how could it happen? Given what you just read from Richard’s diary, that is.”

“If you will recall, I told you I found Nicholas quite attractive from the start and he … before his conversion … imagined himself kissing me, wanting me.”

“Ah, so the seeds were always there?”

“Yes, but it’s a little more complicated than all that. There is one aspect of our particular being that put us into jealous conflict. You inferiors suffer from Oedipal complexes and Electra complexes … sons jealous of mothers and their lovers, daughters jealous of fathers and theirs … we suffer from a Narcissistic jealousy—we can’t help but resent it when our male or female counterparts fall in love with someone else.”

“So no matter who Richard fell for, you would be jealous?”

“Exactly.”

“And vice versa, which explains why he killed Michael Barrington,” the detective concluded quickly.

“Yes,” I said. I felt a tightening in my abdomen. It was as if a giant vise had been clamped down on my torso. I knew it was Richard’s rage. His entire submerged being was closed into a red fist. The pain of my betrayal forced him to embrace himself with a male Androgyne’s might. He was literally crushing himself to death within me. I had to take deep breaths.

My detective put his hand on my shoulder.

“Are you able to go on?”

“Yes,” I said even though I was crying. “You see,” I continued, “it was even worse because I had fallen in love with an inferior. Richard did all he could to destroy it, including seducing him.”

My detective nodded, his eyes filled with sympathy.

“And in a way it all started with this mess between you and Alison, Richard and Nicholas?”

“Yes.”

“Then let me hear the rest of it,” he said. “If you’re sure you can go on.”

I nodded. A few deep breaths relieved the knotting within me and I was able to resume reading.

“Alison continued to pursue me in little ways: parading about half naked under the guise of wanting my opinion of this dress or that, asking me to massage her because she had a muscular ache here or there, coming in on me whenever I showered or dressed … on and on it went: the seduction. I tried to resist. I had other things to do, but she’d be there in the morning, bringing me a cup of coffee. Dressed in a diaphanous nightgown, she would sit at the foot of my bed and peer alluringly at me over her own coffee cup.

“One night after I had emerged and I was preparing to go out on a hunt, she came to me in tears. She had auditioned for a commercial and not gotten it.

“‘I’m losing my uniqueness,’ she cried. ‘I’m not as beautiful as I was. Something terrible is happening.’

“‘Nonsense,’ I told her. ‘It’s only in your mind. You’re more beautiful than ever. I don’t see how anyone can resist you.’

“‘You do,’ she said. She denies saying these things and doing these things now, but she did.

“‘I don’t resist you, I don’t want to upset the balance we’ve all maintained so well.’

She pouted.

“‘If I can’t be attractive to you, I must be losing it,’ she insisted. She was crying now so I put my arm around her and kissed her to comfort her, trying to keep it brotherly.”

“Oh brother,” the detective quipped.

“But she misunderstood, deliberately misunderstood. She turned her lips to me. I tried closing my eyes so I wouldn’t look into hers, and when I did so, she brought her lips to mine. It was the first time I had kissed an androgynous female passionately. For me it was as if I were an inferior male making love to a female for the first time, a willing, demanding, lustful female. Unfamiliar with this experience, I groped about awkwardly looking for a graceful way to restrain myself, but she continued to arouse me until I lost complete control.

“Before I knew it we were wrapped in each other’s arms, our bodies naked. I heard Clea’s cries, and I was sure Alison heard Nicholas’s, but we were both beyond their influence, caught up in our own sexual roller coaster.

“I forgot about my hunt, forgot the real reason for my metamorphosis. We stayed with each other all that night and into the next morning. Every time I fell asleep, I saw Clea trying to begin her metamorphosis. It was like a recurrent nightmare, appearing each time in a different version of the same story: Clea trying to pry open a heavy dark door, getting it partially open only to have it slam shut on her fingers; Clea coming up through a manhole on a dark street, but just as she began to emerge, a heavy truck running over the lid and sending her falling back to the sewers; Clea in the Arctic Ocean under a ceiling of ice searching for an opening, but just after she found one, the ice closing, driving her under the water. Her cheeks were bursting; her eyes were bulging.

“I woke abruptly, the bad dreams forcing me to regress to childhood. Alison comforted me as would a mother comfort her infant. She embraced me and rocked me in her arms, kissing my cheeks and stroking my forehead until I felt safe again and could close my eyes.

“Making love to Alison was draining, as making love to an Androgyne would be for any other Androgyne because it’s giving without drawing the needed energy. When I awoke late in the morning of the following day, I felt exhausted. Nothing she could give me to eat helped. We both knew I needed a victim desperately, but I was so tired, I didn’t have the stamina to go out, and especially didn’t look vigorous and attractive enough to attract prey. My image in the mirror looked pale, sickly.”

“Why didn’t the lovemaking have the same effect on Alison?” my detective asked.

“He’s getting to that. Be patient,” I told him and read on.

“Alison came to me and sat on the bed. She held my hand and stroked my hair affectionately.

“‘Poor Richard,’ she said. ‘And poor Clea.’

“I saw the tight, little smile in her face. She was enjoying the disadvantageous position Clea and I were in. Part of that was Nicholas’s influence, of course, even though he was sinking deeply. I know Alison didn’t realize it yet, but she should have. She should have felt more fatigue and needed Nicholas to metamorphose for a kill, as much as I needed to kill for Clea and myself.

“But something of me had combined with something of her and the fertilization had given her a healthy pregnant woman’s vigor. Only she had yet to realize the reason for her vitality.

“I started to get up.

“‘Oh rest,’ she said. She sighed deeply. Then she looked at me and laughed. ‘I’ll bring you breakfast in bed.’

“She pressed me back against the pillow and kissed my cheek. I knew what she meant.

“She was gone for a little more than an hour before returning with a teenage prostitute, some runaway surviving on what she could offer between her legs. I thought the girl was rather dim, like a lamp during a brownout. Her vibrancy had already dwindled. It wouldn’t be anything close to a quality kill, but it would be sufficient to give me enough strength to stand on my own two feet.

“‘What’s wrong with him?’ the girl asked. She had thin red hair chopped short, a narrow face with a small mouth and a small nose. Her gray eyes looked more like two orbs with blotches of ash at their centers. There was a slight blush in her rather gaunt cheeks. She was small breasted, but she had a narrow waist and long, inviting legs. She wore a pair of jeans cut so the cheeks of her buttocks spilled out from under the jagged hems. Her dark blue blouse was opened so that her shallow cleavage was visible.

“‘Nothing’s wrong with him,’ Alison said. ‘Except he’s terribly depressed. His girlfriend left him for another man,’ she said with an impish smile. I could feel Clea cringe within me.

“‘Oh,’ the teenage prostitute laughed at that, her laughter sounding like the tinkle of broken glasses. She could understand and appreciate Alison’s fabrication. Human misery was the trough from which she now fed herself and she felt more comfortable in the presence of other unlucky people. It made her feel less alone, less diminished.

“‘Can you cheer him up?’ Alison asked her.

“‘Sure,’ she said. She smiled at me and her toothy grin suddenly suggested the vicious grimace of a skeleton. Very portentous, I thought as she sauntered over to the side of the bed.

“‘You gonna watch?’ she asked Alison. ‘Cause that’s another ten dollars if you do.’

“Alison considered it. She looked at me to see my reaction. I had none.

“‘All right,’ she said pulling the vanity chair away from the vanity table and placing it at the other side of the bed. ‘Another ten dollars.’

“The teenage prostitute looked happy about it. I thought she was as happy about having an audience as she was about getting another ten dollars.

“‘Hi there,’ she said to me. She unbuttoned the remainder of her skimpy shirt and stripped it away. The flesh around her nipples quivered. Because I didn’t move, because I simply lay there gazing up quietly, my eyes expressionless, she paused and looked at Alison.

“‘He ain’t paralyzed or nothin’, is he?’

“‘Paralyzed with depression,’ Alison said. The teenage prostitute nodded as though she had come across this many, many times.

“For a moment I had the weird feeling I was about to be examined by a physician. Are prostitutes a kind of surgeon of the soul? I wondered. Could their sort of sex be considered a treatment, a remedy for frustration or loneliness?

“I looked at Alison, and I knew she was wondering something similar by the way she gazed at the young girl and at me.

“Amazingly, the young prostitute said, ‘I can cure that.’

“She peeled away my blanket to find me naked beneath. I could see she was grateful for little favors—undressing her clients or patients, as it were, was more like menial labor. The real art work came afterward.

“She dropped her own shorts with a quick, almost invisible movement unfastening them. She wore nothing underneath. Her hip bones were very prominent and her small stomach looked sunken, in retreat. The path of pubic hair curled upward until it became a thin line to her bellybutton. She really wasn’t very attractive, even to a desperately frustrated man, I thought. Surely Alison could have done better. The wry smile on her face told me she hadn’t tried to; in fact, she might have sought just such a victim on purpose. She didn’t want Clea’s beauty nourished beyond her own.

“The teenage girl straddled me and stroked my genitals with a knowing hand. I was so disgusted, I was half tempted to resist, but hunger and need took control. When I was hard and erect, the victim lowered herself onto me, unknowingly, like a Roman soldier impaling himself on a stake. She slipped me into her and began her slow rise and fall.

“I gazed at Alison who seemed genuinely absorbed in what was happening. Then I turned my attention to the victim and began to draw from her.

“Her eyes opened with surprise as I became more vigorous. She assumed she was performing well and doing what she had been brought here to do. She was, of course, but she was still unaware of it.

“Soon, however, something that had become perfunctory and routine to her took on a new significance. She who thought herself expert at arousing her customers, now found herself quite aroused. Her breathing quickened and so did her pace. The faster she drove herself at me, the faster I accepted and demanded more.

“The climax came quickly and I drew her life out of her in slow, long thrusts, siphoning the energy, the very essence of her fragile being. Her dim light that had brightened for a few ecstatic moments, dimmed rapidly again. Her ashen eyes darkened as blood drained from her lips and the surface of her skin. I felt her fold as if she were a paper doll. Her eyes went up and back into her head, her throat closed with a gurgle and her heart flattened and stopped as if it were a punctured bicycle tire. Then her thin, bony form fell softly to me and I threw off what was now the empty shell of her.

“I sat up quickly, revived. Alison rose without speaking and went out to get a garbage bag. While I dressed, she slipped the bag over the corpse and tied it neatly closed.

“‘Can you drop this in the incinerator?’ she asked. ‘I have to get ready for an audition. I’m up for a network commercial.’

“‘This was the best you could do,’ I said disdainfully, pointing to the shrouded corpse. She was smiling with ugly self-satisfaction. I could feel Clea rising, her anger now creating stronger impetus for a metamorphosis.

“‘On a moment’s notice, yes. I would think you would be a little more appreciative,’ she said, which only inflamed Clea’s ire more.

“I seized the bag and lifted it off the bed with one hand.

“‘Will we have supper together?’ Alison called, ‘or will Clea be returning?’

“‘I don’t know,’ I said. I didn’t. I only knew I had to go out and hunt for myself, for my hunger hadn’t been satiated and Clea demanded more nourishment.

“Late that evening I did return, swollen, spry and strong. I had taken a beautiful young NYU co-ed in Washington Square Park, who happened to have been a drama student on scholarship. Her talent enriched both my and Clea’s blood.

“The apartment was dark when I arrived. I was set to go to our room and retreat. Clea was gaining on me, her strength growing every moment.

“At first I thought neither Alison nor Nicholas was home, but when I flicked the light switch, I found Alison sitting in the darkness. She looked distraught, even somewhat dazed.

“‘What are you doing sitting there in the dark?’ I asked. When she didn’t reply, I thought I knew the answer. ‘You didn’t get the commercial?’

“‘I didn’t even go to the audition,’ she replied.

“‘Oh? and why not?’

“‘After you left I started to get ready. When I gazed at myself in the mirror, I sensed something different. There was something different about the way I was thinking … the sound of my thoughts … something different in my eyes…’

“‘Oh?’

“‘You know what I’m talking about. You knew before I left, didn’t you?’

“‘No,’ I lied.

“‘I’m pregnant. I didn’t sense it before because I was so concerned about you, I didn’t think about myself. But Nicholas…’

“She looked down, the tears streaming.

“‘Alison,’ I said moving toward her. She cowered away.

“‘No!’ she cried. ‘Don’t touch me.’

“Her eyes were wide, wild. I stood still, waiting. She began to sob.

“‘You did this to me, to us. Poor Nicholas,’ she said shaking her head. ‘When I close my eyes, I see him sleeping in a coffin.’

“‘Alison, you can’t … you shouldn’t blame me. You wanted it as much as I did; you were driven by the same passions. You neglected to take precautions.’

“‘You knew what you were doing; it was deliberate, planned…’ she said, her eyes red with accusation. I shook my head.

“‘You’re rationalizing your own guilt,’ I said, but I could see how it was and I didn’t want to get into an argument. Besides, Clea was pounding on the door. My voice was up in pitch, my skin was tightening.

“I left her sitting there and retreated to the bedroom.”

“What happened after that?” the detective asked as I was closing Richard’s diary.

“In the morning when I emerged, Alison was already gone. She couldn’t abort the child, but she wanted to make arrangements immediately for some other Androgyne to adopt it. She wasn’t ready to be a mother. Actually, she’s never been ready and never will.”

“So where is the child … Richard’s child?”

“I don’t know. Alison wouldn’t tell, and neither Richard nor I pursued.”

“Richard would have no say in its disposition?”

“No.”

My detective was thoughtful for a long moment.

“What happened afterward, when Nicholas could reappear?”

“I told you … he was angry; he accused Richard of rape. I had moved out of the apartment by then. My New York days were coming to an end. I had been seen in a play by a movie director, and he offered me a part in a film, a lead.”

“Playmates. You played that woman imprisoned in the home of that mad family.”

“You’ve seen that?”

“I’ve seen all of your films.”

I studied him. I shouldn’t have any reason to be suspicious of that, I thought. I had many fans who had seen every one of my films, but somehow, I had never expected so much devotion from him.

“Yes, well it wasn’t my best performance by any means, but it had sufficient enough impact to start my career rolling.”

“Rocketing would be more like it. And so you returned to La-La Land?”

“Yes, but it wasn’t pleasant at first. For one thing there was my mother’s unexpected death.”

“Strange way to refer to murder,” he said. I looked up sharply.

“It was officially labeled an accidental death.”

He shook his head.

“A cover-up if I ever saw one. But now, after hearing all that you have told me, I have one question for you—why did you and your people want to disguise a murder as an accident?”

“How did you know we did?”

“I didn’t,” he said smiling. “I only suspected someone had. Thanks for confirming it,” he added and sat back with a smug smile of self-satisfaction smeared over his face.

“You bastard.”

He shrugged.

“I told you—I’m a good detective. Now, will you tell me why?”

“Why should I?”

“I have a feeling you never approved of what they did; you never liked the cover-up, and that’s part of why you came to me in the first place, part of why you are disgusted being what you are.”

He really was a good detective. He was right, of course. I would tell him all of it.