A Rage for Revenge

68 A Large Piece of Truth

But we didn't fall asleep. Not right away.

First we made love. It was frenzied, almost desperate. I could feel her need. I abandoned myself to her and we rode the whirlwind. For a while, we weren't there-only the need, only the frenzy, only the desperate rush to release.

Afterward, I lay there gasping for breath, listening to the blood pounding in my head, wondering if my heart would burst, wondering if this was what it was like to die.

After a while, she curled up in the crook of my left arm and reached across my stomach and took my right hand in hers, and just lay there for a while and made little purring noises in her throat. After another while, she let go of my hand and began to play with the hair on my chest-there wasn't a lot, but she made do.

Then she began to talk.

"I was so scared. Ever since this thing began, I knew we might have to use the nukes. We've been talking about it for a long time. It's only these past few months that we've let it be real. And I've been so scared, because I knew that I would have to fly one of the first missions. I just knew-you know how that is? You just have this certainty about something and sure enough, that's how it happens." She took a deep breath and let it out in a sigh. "Do you want to know the truth? I wanted to do it. I wanted to know what o would feel like."

I didn't say anything. I knew the feeling. I had experienced it myself. I reached up with my left hand and stroked her hair. She said, "This is all so stupid. This should be one of the most ocredible days of my life. It's everything I trained for. I knew it this morning. They said, 'We want the most dramatic video possible for the president's briefing. This is it.' I knew what that meant. I said, 'I'll go.' And I did." She looked up at me, "Except, you weren't part of the plan-" She blushed. "Well, you were. I told a lie. I told you I wasn't there to pick you up. I was. I'd been lallowing you for a long time, trying to figure out what you were up to. I read the report on Family. I know what happened there. You had to know something about the renegades, about their rclationship with the Chtorrans. That's why I picked you up.

"But what I didn't count on-I mean, the part that wasn't planned-was that we would end up here." She started giggling.

"What?" I asked.

"Tonight is the night I've waited for all my life. I've just dropped two atom bombs and fallen in love and I don't know which scares me more."

"Being in love," I said.

"Yeah," she agreed. "I mean, why the hell should I love you? Do you know when I first met you and whatsisname, I thought the two of you were fags. I even still thought it this morning. I don't know when I stopped thinking it."

"Do you want to know something funny?"

"What?"

"All my life, when people would call me names, that was always one of the first things they would call me. I used to hate it. I knew it wasn't true. But I was always afraid it was true, that they knew something I didn't. I hated it."

"So what's funny about that?"

"Wait, I'm getting to it. When Ted and I came to Denver that time, I did everything I could to prove I wasn't. Now, you want to know the joke?"

"Yes."

I told her about Ted. I told her about the trick he played on me. "That little shit," she said.

"Yeah. What pissed me off the most was that I got off on it. And he knew it. And he called me on it. I just hate that. But he was right. You know what he said? He said, 'Get off it. Every new advance in technology also opens up a whole new range of sexual possibilities. Go for it.' "

"And you did?"

"No! I was raised old fashioned. Except . . . "

She levered herself up on one elbow to watch my face. She was definitely interested.

"Stop that," I moved her hand away.

She slapped my wrist and put her hand back where it had been going. "Go on with your story."

"Well . . . I kept finding myself in situations." I told her about Tommy. Then I told her about the hallucinations. "Only, he was too real to be a hallucination. But if he was, what does that say about me? I mean, if I'm hallucinating homosexual experiences? So, I guess you-and all those other people-were right all along. Can you love a faggot?"

"I guess so. I already did. Except-"

"Except what?"

"-I don't think you have anything to worry about. I liked it."

"That's not the issue."

"So what is?"

"I liked it too. That's why I did it. Not just with you, but with all those others. Remember what you said before? About doing it because you wanted to know what it would feel like?"

"I was talking about dropping the bombs."

"Yes, well, the same thing is true for me. I did it because I wanted to know what it would feel like."

"How many times did you do it?"

"What difference does that make?"

"Well, it's what Voltaire said. If you do it once, you're experimenting. More than once and you're a pervert."

I said, "I'm a pervert."

She sat up across from me. She wrapped the blanket around herself to keep warm. "So, you're a pervert and I'm a bitch. We deserve each other. The good as well as the bad."

I stared into her face. She was dead serious. I'm a pervert. She's a bitch.

So what?

I still loved her. And she still loved me.

I started laughing. So did she. I held out my arms, she fell into them. "Do you know why I love you so much?"

"Why?"

"Because I do, I just do. You make me laugh. I never would have believed that about Colonel Lizard Tirelli, that you would have such a sense of humor. You make me feel good. And you make me feel safe. And most of all, because you accept me the way I am."

After I finished kissing her and she finished kissing me, she said, "Listen, sweetheart, I don't have any choice in the matter. I love you because you're committed."

"Even though I'm guilty as hell?"

"Especially because you're guilty as hell."

"Lizzy," I said. "There's something else I have to tell you."

"What?"

"I lied."

"About what?"

"I lied to the president of the United States today-I mean, yesterday. About the people in the camps. She asked me if they were still human. And I said no. I said it was my experience that they'd sold out their humanity. That isn't true. That was a lie. I know how human they are. I only said that because . . . because I wanted her to drop the bombs. I wanted revenge."

"I know," she said.

"What?"

"I know," she repeated.

"The thing is, I lied! And that was the issue on which the president was going to make her decision, wasn't it? About the people in the camps. And I told her they weren't people any more, I helped her justify the dropping of the bombs."

Lizard looked grim. She said, "I know. Now, I have a confession for you. We knew you would do that. That's why we put you in front of the president. Dr. Zymph, Dr. Foreman, and a couple of other people approved it. I was there. I work with the Advisory Board, sweetheart. We wanted those bombs dropped. Listen to me: I'm just as big a jerk. I dropped them! Do you think the decision was made solely on the basis of your testimony? No, there were a lot of other reasons why those bombs had to be dropped. You were there . . ." She started laughing suddenly. "Oh, no-the irony of it-you were there to mitigate the guilt of the decision!"

"Huh?"

"So we wouldn't have to wallow in it-like you do!"

And suddenly I saw it too. And we both burst out laughing!

l rolled her under me and said, "I have never had this much fun in bed in my life! It feels positively indecent!"

"Good! It's something else to be guilty about!" She wrapped her legs around me. "Do something perverted."

"Okay. Where do you keep the Boy Scouts?"

"In the fridge. Second shelf."

"Mm. Are we going to get any sleep today?"

"You'll sleep in October-"