The Collected Short Fiction

Lilith's (1976)

Palin must have noticed the shop shortly after it opened. He rode home that way every weekday evening. The district depressed him; its sameness did—the same colorless tower blocks everywhere on the slope above the river, the same slow procession of derelict terraces as the bus ground uphill, the same hostilities scrawled on walls, attacking the nearby travelers' camp. The January rain on the glass of the bus made the view worse, more the same: the houses were smudged brown blotches, the boards in their windows were bedraggled slashes of dark crayon; huge pale unsteady lumps of tower-blocks floated past. Palin sat swathed in layers of tobacco-smoke, coughing; the driver had driven him upstairs when he'd tried to stand, bloody little Hitler. The bus throbbed throatily at a stop. As Palin glanced about, trying to blink the smarting from his eyes, he caught sight of an unfamiliar protrusion on a terraced house, like a railway signal at STOP but written on: the streaming letters said—The bus shook itself and breasted the headlong rain.

The next day the gray sky was saving up its rain. LILITH'S, Palin read before the bus whipped the sign away. The window of the terraced house contained a display; many of its neighbors were plugged with bricks or boards. The main road framed the side street with an anonymous dilapidated shop and an abandoned gap-toothed WO LWO TH'S. Palin craned back as the progress of the bus closed the side street. What on earth was that in the window beneath the sign?

For the rest of January he made sure he sat upstairs, on the right side. He opened the window to clear the glass, despite the protests of coughing smokers. If the bus failed to stop by the street, angry frustration welled in him, threatening to explode his silence—it felt like his impotence with Emily. The morning journeys began to frustrate him too, for then the bus used another road, higher up the slope. But even when the bus dawdled, and daylight spread further into the evenings, Palin couldn't make out what was sitting in that window.

It looked something like a person. It sat pinkly in the display, wearing a woman's black underwear. Around it were books, posters, vaguer objects. Perhaps it was only a mannequin—of course that was what it must be. But why did it have a huge white blossom in place of a head?

In March, determined to know, he got off the bus opposite the shop.

It was only two stops before his. Nevertheless he'd had to argue himself off the bus. It was a long walk home, his mind had reminded him. He didn't like the area, he just wanted to rest after wrestling with people's taxes and their complaints all day; it was raining, it was absurd to give in to his impulse. One evening he'd determined to get off, but his arguments had carried him past the stop. The next day, despite drizzle, he hustled himself to the doors of the bus.

Beneath the bus stop's metal flag he felt isolated, faintly ridiculous. Among the paved paths between the tower blocks rectangles of unkempt grass lay juicily stranded, like life thrown away by a sea. Children spied on him from concrete balconies. A doll with a trampled head lay at the foot of a stack of balconies; the doll's mouth was burst wide. Down the slope men plodded home, stopping to threaten the travelers' camp.

Palin crossed the road. On one corner of the side street, within the anonymous shop, a dog biscuit lay on bare boards, gathering dust. He hurried along the blinded terrace. LILITH'S signal waved him on, gesturing in the moist wind. The pink figure sat waiting, its face lost in white convolutions like coral.

It wasn't a mannequin. It was a Love Mate; the carton against which it rested said so. Its title on the carton was clumsily stenciled, but its limbs and body were well-shaped, even attractive if that kind of thing attracted you. Its head was wrapped in tissue paper.

Palin shrugged wryly. At least he knew now; it wouldn't bother him again. Behind the display he could see what looked very much like the front room of a terraced house, patched with astrological posters. Bare floorboards supported a counter of bare boards, piles of books about witchcraft, odd objects beneath cloth; on a book a girl held a carved man toward the carving's living subject, who stumbled toward her, glassy-eyed. There was something deeper in the dimness, Palin saw, between the books and Tarot decks and phallic ornaments. It was a girl, dim beyond the counter. Her large dark eyes gazed from her heart-shaped face. Her beauty shivered through him.

What beauty? He could hardly see her. He shook his head, frowning. He didn't intend to be lured in. He'd had enough of feminine allure, that promised but frustrated; he'd had enough with Emily. So stop gazing at this dim girl. He was still trying to see what was so beautiful about her when something tapped him on the shoulder.

Only rain. But when he turned, a man was staring at him from the steps of the house opposite, front-door key in hand. As he gazed at Palin, his expression burned with hatred and disgust. Palin tried to stare him out, then strode toward the main road; he felt the stare following him. At the road he looked back. The man was staring at the shop now, a crusader in dirty overalls; his stance was a furious threat.

A fortnight later Palin returned to the shop.

It was spring, it was pleasant to walk home a little way. If he got off the bus here he needn't sit upstairs, suffering smoke for the sake of a glance. He might see a present for Emily in the shop. None of these was his real reason. For a fortnight he had been trying to fathom what had made the girl so beautiful.

It wasn't just her large eyes, her small softly rounded heart-shaped face. Then what? He never saw her body; she always wore a long dress and the dimness. Her full lips and her eyes smiled at him, an encouraging smile, promising, mysterious. Promising what, for heaven's sake? He snorted at his eager fantasies. But the next evening he went back, peering for her slight smile.

Often he was watched from the house opposite. Once, when children stood in an alley to gaze at the shop, the man rushed out and chased them away. Sometimes Palin saw the man's head displayed in a small upstairs window above the front door, a hostile Toby jug. Let him try to chase Palin away, just let him try.

But it was absurd, this fascination. What could come of it? Traffic droned along the main road, dust and fumes swirled. Perhaps he should buy Emily a present and be done with the shop. She'd been aloof from him today—her period, no doubt, some such excuse. Among the plain-wrapped books— Joy of the Body, Glory of the Flesh—and unlabeled vials and what he guessed from the coy pictures on their closed boxes to be penis candles, Palin saw several packs of Tarot cards. They were the kind of thing she might like. He didn't: too inexplicable, unpredictable.

No. He wouldn't buy her a present for being moody. When she was friendlier, maybe. If she ever was. He and Emily were drifting apart, slowly as flight in a nightmare, each making timid attempts to break it off, giving hints of impatience and boredom; neither was willing to make a decisive move. He couldn't be sure they had drifted too far to reunite. But it was so much work, judging her moods, trying to keep her happy, to know what she was thinking. It was always work, with women. The girl gazed smiling from deep in the shop.

That was the girl's appeal. He gasped; his face hung open-mouthed on the window. She wasn't like Emily, she hadn't encouraged him only to make him struggle to please her. She simply waited, displaying her smile on the velvety dimness, an intimate smile if he wanted it to be. She would be willing, anxious to please, peaceful and quiet and submissive. She was there if he wanted her. All that was in her smile, her eyes.

Nonsense. It was only his fantasy. For a moment he wondered whether she had fantasies. She was always sitting behind the counter in the dimness; what could she think all day? But it would be wonderful to have a woman who would do exactly what he wanted, whenever he wanted it. Like the Love Mate. Oh no. He didn't need that sort of thing.

Why not?

His answers to that seemed weaker each day. On the neck of the figure was a bulb of coralline convolutions, as if white brains had boiled from the head: but beyond that shock the body was beautiful—the long slim arms and delicate hands, the smooth thighs mysteriously closed, the round full breasts that he was sure were clothed for decency, not for support. The figure looked soft, not rubbery at all; even the pink flesh no longer looked unnatural, simply new, young, virgin. The girl's body beneath the long dress could be no more beautiful. It was as if she veiled herself in the dimness the better to display her body in the window.

He couldn't. It wasn't the florid glaring Toby jug that held him back; but he couldn't go into the shop and ask. Asking a girl would be all the more difficult. She knew whose face was beneath the blossom of tissue paper; somehow that would be most disturbing of all. But to have a body waiting when he came home, ready for whatever he'd worked up during the day—He'd feel absurd, a fool. He listened to his mind debating, astonished. That he, of all people, should be trying to counter argument with feelings! The girl's face flickered softly on the dimness, smiling.

It was Emily who decided him.

He'd invited her home to cook dinner. She had offered him dinner at her flat earlier that week, but he found her flat intimidating: the old warmly dark furniture, inherited or bargained for in obscure shops; a huge soft smiling lion; Kafka, Mick Jagger, The Story of O, women's magazines for recipes, Taxes: the Journal of the Inland Revenue Staff Federation, The Magus —too many contradictions, they bewildered him. He blamed her flat for inhibiting him sexually.

The first time there he'd been too eager; he had barely entered her before ejaculating. Then for weeks his erections had dwindled nervously; her flat had watched like a crowd of critics. When he managed erections again he felt sure Emily was growing bored with his lack of consistent rhythm, the time he took to come—sometimes she was dry before he came. In his house he felt easier, more in command.

But he hadn't felt easier this time. All day Emily had kept glancing at him from her desk. He sensed that she wanted to call off their evening; perhaps she was waiting for him to give her the chance. He avoided talking to her, except briefly.

On the bus they were silent. Around them conversations shifted beneath the laboring of the bus. LILITH'S signaled, then sank back into the side street. Bricks of Palin's house glowed orange, painted amid the dark terrace. The hall carpet welcomed him, borrowing orange from the Chinese lampshade.

They'd planned an elaborate dinner. "I know, shall I cook you something simple, a surprise?" Emily said now. She glanced at his face. "If you don't mind," she said.

No, no, he didn't mind: but why couldn't she have said before instead of skulking around the subject all day? Still, a simple meal gave them more time to get to the local cinema, as they planned. "Oh, do we have to go out after dinner?" Emily said. "Let's just stay in."

He enjoyed dinner. He drank just enough wine and felt mellow. He was glad they were staying in. When they'd washed up he switched on the light over the stairs and waited for her. "Oh, not tonight," she said.

"What do you mean, not tonight?"

"I can't. You know. My period," she said irritably. "What do you think I mean?"

That really made the evening, that did—her having that now, of all nights. And she looked at him as if he should have known, have kept count! There was nothing to do except switch on the box, and he could have watched that by himself. He'd tried talking to Emily over wine before, but she didn't seem very interested in model soldiers or even war games. Abruptly, halfway through a film he was watching, she said "I'm going." She didn't wait for him to see her out.

Next day brought a raise in salary. Emily went out at lunchtime to buy clothes. She didn't speak to Palin all day, not even to show him what she'd bought. At her desk she presented her back to him; her long blond hair looked defiantly indifferent, shaking at him when she shook her head.

He sat downstairs on the bus home. Why shouldn't he get off at the shop? He did so, although the day was overcast: the sky was like dishwater, spilling into the river. The dog biscuit was still displayed, unattainable beyond dusty glass.

He dawdled toward LILITH'S. Should he buy Emily an apologetic present—Tarot cards, perhaps? No, he was damned if he would. He'd bought her too much already just to get her in the right mood, and then half the time it wasn't worth the effort. This time he was going to pay for something assured, for pleasure he needn't struggle for. The white coralline bulb went by. Before he was quite ready Palin's strides had carried him into the shop.

Dimness floated over him. It felt as if he'd walked into someone's front room by mistake, where they were musing in the dark; the room was full of the girl, it didn't feel like a shop at all. Though it was irrational, Palin almost fled. But he could see the counter now, which helped make the room a shop. The girl's smile formed from the darkness. Very slowly her heart-shaped face began to glow.

Her smile waited for him to speak. Could he really ask to buy the figure? He needn't commit himself yet, he realized gratefully. "How much is the, the er...?" he said, waggling his fingers toward the window.

"What thing do you mean?"

Her voice was low. He had to strain to perceive it, like her face. But straining, he heard how appealing it was: its musical lilt, its rich huskiness; welcome, readiness to please, a mysterious sexual tension. Perhaps more of that was in his strain than in her voice.

"The thing in the window," he said. "The er..." What was it called, for God's sake? "The Love Mate!" he remembered, almost shouting with relief.

"How much will she be worth to you?"

He'd wanted her to tell him. He didn't want to commit himself yet, to admit he wanted to buy the thing. But she smiled from the shadows, glowing, waiting. "Well, I don't know." Then he must guess. "Ten pounds," he said, hoping that wouldn't offend her, hoping she'd name a price now; haggling with a woman made him uncomfortable.

"Ten pounds for her?" She seemed sad but resigned. Her face rose through the dimness; she stood up from her easy chair behind the counter. She was very tall. "I must take your offer," she said. If she sounded as if she were submitting to the inevitable, somehow her tone included Palin too.

As she moved toward the window he realized with an unpleasant shock that she was crippled. Beneath the long dress she was hobbling unsteadily, lopsidedly. He could see nothing of her except her face and delicate hands.

She lifted the pink figure gently from the display. Then she pulled off the underwear and threw it into a corner of the room. Palin realized she had dressed the figure only so as to avoid possible prosecution. Naked now, the figure glowed.

The girl straightened the figure's arms at its sides, then pulled the legs up until the feet rested under the armpits. Palin saw the hairless genitals gape in shadow, and was momentarily excited. The girl was opening the carton. He must ask her to unwrap the head. But he couldn't; he was sure it was her face, on the perfected body; he could only buy so long as the knowledge remained unspoken between them, unacknowledged. He fumbled in his wallet. The open genitals slid into the carton. Beyond the window he saw the Toby jug, frowning down.

As he handed her the notes the girl clasped his hand deliberately. Her smile seemed a promise. But what did her clasp mean? Au revoir, an appeal to him, a gesture of friendship? He saw her long body twist lopsidedly beneath her dress as she sat down in the easy chair. Suddenly he felt oppressed, a stranger who'd strayed into a house that had too strong a personality. "Goodbye," he said curtly, and was out amid the comforting gray of sky, pavement, river. The gaze of the Toby jug turned on him.

He was glad to escape the gazes, from the shop and from the house opposite. He felt the figure shifting within the carton. Buses carried friezes of faces beside him, staring. It was all right, they couldn't see into the carton. He draped his coat wider over the stenciled name. As the Love Mate thumped against its box, he felt absurd. What on earth had persuaded him to buy this dummy? Well, it was only ten pounds. He wondered how one went about selling such a thing.

The damn thing was heavy. He dumped it on the front doorstep while he groped for his key. Suddenly he remembered he had yet to see the face. All at once he was excited: to have that face waiting for him in the dimness, mysterious, welcoming—perhaps it was money well spent, after all. He hurried into the front room to open the carton. He halted; then he carried the carton to his bedroom and drew the curtains.

The pink genitals yawned from the box. He found the bare pink hole unnerving, so still in its cardboard frame. After a while he grasped the upturned buttocks to pull out the doll. They felt velvety as peaches, and shockingly warm; he couldn't imagine what they were made of. He pulled the doll out as far as its knees, then shook it onto the bed. It landed on its splayed buttocks and rolled back; he almost expected it to roll upright again. The bandages of tissue faced him. He could see her face already. He arranged the limbs, arms limp at the sides, knees high and wide; they resisted him a little, but stayed placed. Then he reached for the convoluted paper mask. His fingers dug beneath it at the chin and tore it upward. He recoiled, almost slipping off the bed. The head was bald and faceless.

The doll lay ready for him. The front of the head was smooth, pink, slightly flattened. The smooth vacancy lay turned up as if gazing at the ceiling. Palin thrust himself off the bed and shoved the doll's limbs roughly together, then he stuffed the doll into the carton and threw it into the spare bedroom. As he hurried downstairs he felt cheated, uneasy, vaguely angry, somehow disgusted.

But why? He mused as he cooked his fish fingers. Suppose it had had a face? The face would have been stiff, lifeless, gazing with fake eyes. A mask of the girl's face would have been dismaying. His dreams were supposed to give the doll a face, the face he most wanted; only he could provide that. He hadn't been cheated. It was just that he doubted it would work.

There was only one way to find out. By the time he'd eaten, the sun had sunk beyond the roofs opposite. He drew the squashed figure from its box. He was sorry he'd been so brutal; the body was beautiful, it seemed a pity to spoil it. He straightened the limbs and carried it into his bedroom. The curtain filled the room with orange twilight. Instead of a pink blank, the face was a vague oval orange glow.

He raised the knees wide. As he undressed he gazed at the figure. All right, Emily. I'm going to have you as you've never been had before. He didn't believe a word of it. Emily's thighs were looser, a little flabby; her breasts flattened somewhat when she lay back. His penis dangled unconvinced.

The body glowed warmly, enticing. It looked unnatural only in its perfection. It was wrong for Emily, for her contradictions. Suddenly he remembered the girl's face in the dimness, her body hidden beyond the proffered body. That face on that body would be perfection. He stared, astonished by a coincidence: the figure's right hand lay almost in the shape of the girl's clasp on his.

He gazed. As its glow flickered with his gaze, the unfeatured head seemed to shift. He imagined the heart-shaped face, her glowing smile, gradually gathering light to its outlines, gazing intimately at him. Her smile formed from the orange glow. The slow growth of his imagination made the prospect more arousing. She lay waiting for him, arms and legs wide. His penis jerked erect at once.

He knelt above her. Impulsively he clasped the hand. A shock ran through him; her hand was soft and warm, firm in his—indistinguishable from the girl's hand, for the moment anyway. He raised her hands above her head. He stared at the wall behind the bed; her face glowed vaguely. Though his penis jerked impatiently, thumping in time with his heart, he was putting off the moment of entry. He was sure disappointment lay there, in the bald pinkish crevice. At last he lowered himself on her, and gasped.

It wasn't like Emily's slick ridges, sometimes rough. He didn't have to thrust. It gave softly as he slid in; it felt like velvet. It seemed to ripple back over the shaft of his penis, kissing each nerve. As his crotch touched hers her legs closed softly, warmly over his back. He lay in her, feeling the ripples of sensation along his penis.

She waited. He could take as long as he liked, move her any way he wanted. He wouldn't have to suffer an unsatisfactory position, as had happened with Emily; it annoyed him to have to direct her, he felt she should know when she was wrong. Now he could have exactly what he wanted.

The thought excited him. His penis swelled, filling the velvet more snugly; pleasure trickled through his nerves, intensifying. The velvet rippled over his penis; as he thrust wildly, the ripples became waves. He clutched the velvety shoulders, he pressed his face against the smooth cheek. The ripples were velvet lips around his penis, drawing out his orgasm as he clawed at her shoulders, biting the pillow.

He lay in her. Her breasts were firm beneath his chest. The velvet stayed snug on his dwindling penis. Her legs clasped him.

Her face was a dark glow now; it smiled warmly. Suddenly he gasped. For the first night of his life he was achieving a second erection.

The dark blot hung almost still on the blue sky. Everyone on the bus gazed ahead at it, wondering. It was black smoke, spread wide and thin on the sky above the terrace. Palin gazed; anxiety swelled in his stomach. The smoke filled an enormous patch of sky over the slope down by the river. It grew; its formlessness hardly shifted. Its tail hung down toward a terraced street. It wasn't that street, it couldn't be. But it was.

He thrust aside the closing doors of the bus. There was little to see except smoke and charring. The houses on both sides protruded bricks and blackened struts. Between them lay a black tangle from which poked sooty metal, bits of glass coated with smoke, crumbling bricks, most of LILITH'S signal.

The man stood on the steps opposite. As he recognized Palin, something like triumph filled his eyes. "She was in there," he said grimly. His voice rang flatly in the dilapidated street. "She's dead. Burned alive."

Palin thought the man intended him to hear how right that was. But he grinned at the man; he'd destroyed his triumph. "Oh no she isn't," he said, and walked away. He felt no sorrow at all. She was still alive, in his mind. Somehow the burning would bring her more alive, in the submissive body. He would keep her alive.

He hurried home. He need feel no guilt about his lack of feeling. He could hardly say he'd known the girl; only the image he kept in his mind. But he was anxious to make love to her body—because it was her body, he'd wished it on her. He felt she would like to be remembered so.

He'd left the front-room curtains drawn. That was foolish, it told thieves the house was empty. He hurried into the room: a bit late now, but never mind. Sunlight fanned through a gap. His model soldiers glittered on the mantelpiece on a bookcase; he glimpsed bright pink where the sunlight fell on the chair facing the window. He turned, frowning.

The faceless head met him, shining bright pink in the sunlight. It was as if the face had been lopped off cleanly, leaving the smooth chopped flesh. "God!" He flinched back; his fist thumped the window through the curtain.

He'd carried the figure downstairs this morning. Of course, he'd been half-asleep. He'd arranged the body in the chair, knees parted, hands on knees, face upturned slightly. Why, for God's sake? Because, because he'd thought she might seem welcoming when he returned.

She did. He drew the curtains and gazed at her—her long legs, her soft firm breasts. Beautiful. He hadn't grown too used to her, over the weeks. Yet he flinched from her. "I'm sorry," he said, seeking the smile in the orange glow.

He gazed at the naked slightly parted lips of her vagina. She sat waiting for him. He picked her up tenderly. As she lay on the bed, compassion and excitement mingled in him: he wouldn't let her die, he'd keep her with him, make sure she would never slip from his memory.

While he undressed, an idea excited him further. He'd often wanted to ask Emily but had never dared. He turned her over and spread her buttocks gently; they glowed, soft, warm. His breath hissed between his teeth as he slid in. The sensation of velvet streamed along his penis. Around the bed, soldiers glittered coldly.

When he went up to bed that night she still lay there. He lifted her, she lay warm in his arms. After a moment he slid her between the sheets. She seemed welcoming among the cold stiff soldiers, too welcoming for him to put away: there was welcome even on the smooth head, its perfect curve, its softness. In the dark he drew her clasping hand around his chest. Her face nestled warmly against his shoulder, a large constant kiss.

A few weeks later he gave away his soldiers. He couldn't stand them now. They looked dwarfed, tinny, absurdly unreal. When he thought how painstakingly he'd painted in each historical accuracy, it seemed childish. It was childish to work to make them lifelike, when he had her.

He sent them to John Hulbert, as an apology for cutting short their postal war game. Palin had been enjoying the game; it relaxed him, the leisurely research, the long slow pondering, the week-long rests between moves. Now he found she distracted him. As she sat near him, in her chair within the orange curtained glow of the front room, her empty face seemed like a mute reproach, a plea. He became impatient with the game. He left Napoleon hanging about outside Waterloo, and sent the model soldiers. When he took her to bed that night he felt enormously virtuous.

It was the tea break. Palin cleared a space among his work as best he could; he was helping someone slower to move all their post over seven days old off their desk before the 5CI count. Piles of paper lay on the floor among the cabinets, where the clerical assistants were searching for the misfiled files. One of Palin's colleagues was showing a letter around the office; another taxpayer had written to H. M. Inspector of Taxis — the joke would appear in Taxes eventually, if it hadn't been printed there too often. "Are you going to the Lakes this year?" Palin's neighbor asked.

"Yes, that's right." It was always restful in the Lakes. Palin realized with surprise that he hadn't thought about his holidays for weeks. Usually by this time of year he was anticipating them eagerly, even impatiently. He must be relaxing more at home.

Emily was answering her phone. She came over to Palin. "It's one of yours," she said, handing him her scribble of the taxpayer's name. There had been a time when she and Palin would deal with each other's telephone inquiries. Now they never did; they would have been too nervous, wary of making a mistake on each other's territory. In fact Emily hardly spoke to him now, although she made sure he overheard her phone conversations with her new boyfriend. Palin found the file and went to the phone. He was uneasily aware of Emily, sitting beside him.

The caller was a married woman. She'd bought some life insurance, but her tax code hadn't changed. Palin explained patiently that it had been allowed for in her husband's code number. He explained patiently again. Again. Yes, madam. Yes, you see. The point is. I'm afraid there's nothing I can do. "I'm sorry, madam. As far as the Inland Revenue is concerned, once you're married your money is your husband's."

Emily was gazing silently at him. What was wrong with her? How could he ever have been involved with a woman who stared like that? "What's up with you?" he demanded.

"Oh, nothing. It just sounded so much like you."

"What did? What the hell do you mean?"

She gazed at him for a pause, then said it anyway. "Your attitude to women."

"It's the Revenue's attitude." She gazed at him. "Seems to me that when a woman gets married," and his rage rushed him past whatever he'd meant to say, "she ought to know her place."

"Marriage doesn't enter into it as far as you're concerned."

"And just what's that supposed to mean?"

"I'll tell you what it means. It means," though he tried to hush her, "that women are fine so long as they don't have feelings. They're good to have around to cook your dinner. And for stuffing, when you're capable of it. But by God, don't let their feelings get in your way. Who are you kidding that that's the Revenue's attitude?"

It was as if he'd lifted a lid and couldn't replace it. Well, his own lid was off now. "I've a girl at home who's a damn sight more willing!" he shouted.

"God help her, then." Everyone was listening. The Tax Officers (Higher Grade) watched, frowning; one stood up to intervene. Palin hurried back to his desk, ducking his hot red face. "A damn sight more willing," he muttered. And a hell of a lot cheaper to take on holiday.

He was at home and staring at the pink figure in her chair before he wondered how on earth he was going to take her.

The carton was too cumbersome, and there wouldn't be room in his luggage. How could he get her to the hotel—post her ahead? No, that would be heartless. Suddenly he imagined the chambermaid finding her in his room, in his bed. God, no. He stared at her dim glowing face. He would have to hope a solution came to him. If none did, he'd simply have to stay at home.

Everyone from the office stood around his bed. Emily was pointing, laughing. As his penis thrust violently, desperately, the doll's body parted; a pink split widened up the belly, through the chest; it opened the head wide, cleaving a flat pink vertical mouth. Palin fell into the chill plastic crack, and awoke. A weight rested on his shoulder, against his cheek: smooth, slick, chill. He flinched, and the blank head rolled limply on its pillow. He calmed his breathing, then embraced her, angry with himself. But it took him a long time to call forth the girl's smile, and sleep.

Emily was transferred to another section of the office. When Palin saw her moving he was glad. But next day everyone seemed to glance persistently at him, even the girl who had taken Emily's place. Were they blaming him? Couldn't they see the scene had been Emily's fault, her and her moods?

His dull anger grew. When he reached home he had to let it out. "I've had a bloody awful day. All because of women, bloody women. And you're not much bloody good, are you? Don't have my dinner waiting, do you?"

He'd said too much. He'd filled the punk bulb of a head with misery; he could feel the misery swelling unbearably, because it had no outlet. "All right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said. He was just depressing himself, that was the misery he felt. He needed a holiday. "Can't even take you on holiday, can I?" he shouted. "You'll just have to sit at home for a couple of weeks. It won't do you any harm."

He was being a swine. He felt worse as he cooked and ate dinner. Leaving her alone after a scene like that—When he found he was gobbling, he restrained himself. Don't be ridiculous. She could wait. He'd nearly finished dinner.

She hadn't moved. As he sat her face was turned aside from him a little. He leapt up and turned her head, but then she faced him only because she had no choice. Her still head reproached him.

Cowboys galloped tinily on a twenty-inch desert; the dim face nagged at the edge of his vision. "Oh, for God's sake. Can't I even watch television now?" No need to shout; he lowered his voice. "Look, I've said I'm sorry. But I've got to have a holiday."

He leapt up and shoved her head away. She faced the wall, unprotesting. Minute steers stampeded. Her bare pink shoulder held still. "Can't you see I'm sorry?" he shouted. "God almighty, are you trying to make me feel worse? Can't you say anything?"

He hurled himself forward and switched off the television. "Satisfied now?" he shouted. He was throwing the silence at her, challenging her to maintain her aloofness. He waited, already triumphant. Then, in his silence, he heard what he had been saying.

God, had he had such a bad day that he was talking to a bloody dummy? That was all it was. "That's all you are!" he shouted. It was alive only when he made it live. But he knew that wasn't true, for he could feel its presence now.

Only because he'd worked himself up. That, and the way he'd given the dummy the girl's presence. Well, the girl was very dead. "You're dead," he told it, and wondered why he'd been so morbid as to sit a corpse in his front room. No, not a corpse—something that had never been alive. He was beginning to dislike the sight of it. "You're going in your box for a while," he said.

Couldn't he stop talking to it, for God's sake? No, not while he was oppressed by so much stifling emotion—mute reproach, wounded rebuff, heavy as gas in the air. Even the dim orange light seemed thicker. He hurried from the room, slamming the door.

Standing aimlessly in the hall, he knew he must get rid of the figure. He had been overworking, he needed a holiday—when he allowed a dummy to make him think twice about that, it was time to get rid of it. God, it had made him give away his soldiers, call off the war game. That was more than enough.

He'd grasped the door handle when it occurred to him to wonder why he'd bought the doll at all. He had never found such things attractive. He remembered the witch on the book in the window, the stumbling glassy-eyed man. Had the girl learned something from the books to lure him into the shop? In that case, what might she have meant the Love Mate to be?

It didn't matter. He didn't believe in that sort of thing. The Love Mate was just a doll, and the girl was dead. He shoved the door open.

The figure sat glowing in the orange twilight, face turned aside. He strode to the curtains and wrenched them wide. Now the figure's long legs, slim arms and delicate hands were unnaturally pink; the genitals gaped like a split in plastic. But when he went to pick up the figure, the girl's face began to settle on the head at once, smiling reproachfully, trying to be brave. Palin brought an opaque plastic bag from the kitchen and dragged it over the blank head.

He carried the figure into the backyard. Grass straggled, squared by concrete; a vague cat scurried away from the dustbin. He couldn't burn the figure, it might be too violently inflammable. Instead he thrust it into the bin, tangling its limbs. He pressed down the plastic lid on the bagged head and turned away.

He heard the lid spring off. As he whirled, the doll popped up like a faceless Jack-in-the-box. It sat in the bin, dim pink in the twilight, its white faintly fluttering head turned up to him.

It was only the spring in its limbs. Palin thrust it down again, clamping the lid tight. But the head pushed the lid up; the white bag stared at him. He needed to settle the lid more firmly. He found a saw in the shed.

But he couldn't bear sawing through the neck. He couldn't stand the sight of the head rolling from side to side in its bag as the throat began to part. He disentangled the figure from the bin and sawed half through the left arm at the shoulder and elbow. That'd keep her down. He thrust the head into the garbage, stuffed in the limbs. This time the lid stayed clamped. Ten pounds down the drain, he thought. Cats spied warily from the alley walls.

He gazed from the kitchen window. The lidded bin looked reassuring, actually calming. Palin felt enormously relieved, free at last. He'd never fall for anything like that again. By God, he was going to enjoy his holiday. That was what he needed. Cats were staring down at the bin. Let them fish in it if they wanted to, they'd be disappointed.

The gathering darkness was warm. Soon he went to bed. He missed his soldiers; the room looked bare. Could he beg them back from John Hulbert? He didn't see how. Even that didn't seem to matter. He sank easily into untroubled sleep.

He was making love to a girl. Her eyes sparkled; she panted; she smiled widely, laughing—he made her feel alive as she never had before. As soon as he was free he'd gone to her. He'd dressed and run to find her. He was laughing too, as they worked together toward orgasm. He'd found her and carried her easily to bed. Her left arm lay carelessly above her head, carelessly twisted, impossibly twisted. He'd found her and dragged her out the rest of the way, as cats struggled from between her limbs.

When he awoke screaming he was lying face down on the bed, in her.

The bag had gone. Dawn twilight crawled on her face. For a moment it gave her a face, a charred fixed grin, eyes like holes in coal. Then he was screaming again, struggling with her slippery limbs; his erection nailed him in her. He began to wrench at her head. The neck gave way almost at once. The head rolled from the pillow; he heard it thud on the floor.

The thighs clamped about him in a last convulsion, stiff as rigor mortis.