"Really?" He waved at his mouth.
"Yes. It worked, Doc. Now relax."
"Who… called you?"
"Mr. Patrise. Two days ago."
"How'd'e know- ok"
"You know I'm a good babysitter," she said, but the weeping edged back into her voice.
"C'mere," Doc said, with a gluey tongue. "Hug."
She wrapped her arms around him. It brought a much pleas-anter dizziness.
"Ouch," she said, and pried the key ring out of his fingers. "What are you doing with these?"
"Uh? Oh. I got the Touch now, I guess. I wanted 'em, and they came."
She put the keys on the nightstand, gingerly.
Doc said, "I ought to get up. See some people. What time is it?"
"About four."
"What four?"
She laughed. "In the afternoon. Don't get in a hurry. Stagger Lee says you could have died."
"Now he tells me. I want to see Fay"
Ginny was quiet for a breath. "Fay's not here. She's-staying at my place for a few days, and I'm staying down the hall here."
"Why? I mean… why isn't she…"
"Things are changing, Doc. Fay wanted to be by herself, just now. And Mr. Patrise said he thinks I should move in here. It doesn't have to be with you, if you don't want that. Do you want that?"
"I don't know… you might not want me. All the time, I mean."
"I think I want all the time you've got. Doc. But… I have to ask you something."
He tumbled the possibilities over in his head. "Go ahead."
"Something's not there between us. 1 love what von do with me-I love you, Doc-but it\ like there's something you're dodg ing, or afraid of, or-I've been wanting to ask for so long, but I was scared you'd just run away." She leaned over him. "You can't run now," she said. "I've got you prisoner."
He started to laugh. Then his ribs ached, and it finished in a long cough.
"What's wrong, Doc?" she said, alarmed.
"Not wrong. I think. It's…"
And he told her.
For at least half a minute she was perfectly still, looking down at him with her mouth open and her eyes wide. "That's it? I mean, that's really it?"
"Yeah."
"But… why didn't you just ask me?"
"I didn't want to…"
"Do it? That doesn't sound right."
"I thought maybe I could just not… be that way."
She said gently, "Your friend Robin, who can't get away from home, and doesn't even have you to talk to anymore-do you think that means he's not gay now?"
"It doesn't matter what I am, if you run away. You are not… a prisoner."
"No," she said, and her smile melted into the Gioconda's. "Unless we both agree that, for a little while, I am."
"There are things I won't do. I've seen… a lot of stuff. I saw Whisper Who Dares. And whatever I am, I'm not that."
"Do you think I didn't- Whisper? Do you think I could have believed that}"
He felt suddenly very small.
"And I know there are things you won't do," she said. "You won't ever do anything that makes me feel bad about myself, or about you. I trust you on that. Because trust me on this: you won't get the chance to say 'That'll never happen again'."
He nodded slowly.
"We got some kind of a deal, lover?"
"Deal," he said, and pulled her against himself for, oh, who cared how long.
Finally she said, "So do you want to get up and start the day? Your scraggly red beard is, I gotta say, pretty scratchy."
He rubbed his chin. "Yuck." He let her help him stand up. "I'll get cleaned up. And all of a sudden I'm really hungry." "I'm not surprised. What would you like?" "Uh… some eggs over very, very easy. And coffee." When Doc got out of the bathroom Ginny was standing beside the service tray. Her face was taut. Without a word, she held out a copy of the Centurion, folded to Lucius's column.
THE CONTRARIAN FLOW
by Lucius Birdsong
It has been a while now that I have been writing this here colyum (as some of you choose to call it) and there is a question that many of you have asked, one way and another, and one way and another I have not ever answered it.
The question is not what you would call a stumper. It is Why do you call that column of yours what you call it? And since this may well be the last time I write it and you read it, things being what they are and all, your correspondent would like to finally let the thing out of whatever the thing is in.