'I command you to listen to me.'
`You can order me to do a lot of other things, but no lectures. Not in these twenty-four hours.'
`I see,' I said. I paused. `Return my kiss tenderly, with affection but without lust.'
She sat up beside me, looked coldly into my eyes for a moment and then, softening, brought her lips gently to mine.
I lay back onto the pillow and said: `Kiss my face with the tenderness you'd feel … if my face were the white rose.'
A brief tautness crossed her face before, eyes closed, she framed my face with her hands and lowered her lips to begin
gently kissing it.
'Thank you, Linda, that was beautiful. You are beautiful.'
She didn't open her eyes or interrupt her delicate kissing but after a while I said: `Lie back now on the bed and close
your eyes.'
She obeyed. Her face looked more relaxed than I had ever seen it.
`Pretend that I am a prince who loves you with a spiritual devotion beyond anything known outside of the most
overdone fairy tale. You are worshipped by him. Your beauty exceeds that of any creature that God has ever created. And you are a perfect perfect person, without spiritual or physical flaw. And the prince, your husband, comes to you now on your wedding night to express at last the pure, religious, sacred, holy passion he has for you. Receive his love with joy: I had spoken slowly and hypnotically and began with what I hoped was appropriate delicacy and religiosity to caress her body and touch it with the most spiritual kisses. Spiritual kisses, for the average reader's information, are relatively dry, 'gentle and poorly aimed: that is, they approach central target zones but always manage to just miss. I was proceeding with increasing devotion and pleasure when her body suddenly disappeared: she had leapt out of bed.
`Stop touching me,' she yelled.
I felt as embarrassed and undignified as I had the night before. `Are you taking away my power already?'
I said.
`Yes, yes!' She was trembling.
I remained on my hands and knees looking up at her.
`Get dressed,' she said. `Get out' `But Linda The deal is over. Off. Get out.'
`Our deal was-'
`Out!' she shouted.
`Okay,' I said, getting down off the bed. `I'll leave. But at nine forty-five tonight I'll be back. The deal is on.'
`No. No no no. It's off. You're insane. I don't know what you want, but no, never, it's off.'
I slowly dressed and, receiving no new command from a sitting, face-averted Linda, I left.
I remained outside the apartment building, trailed her downtown when she left about an hour later, remained outside
an apartment in the Village until five thirty in the afternoon and then followed her to a restaurant, where she ate. She didn't seem to be aware that I was following her or even that I might be following. Organic chemistry picked her up after supper and starting with him, she wandered from bar to bar, picking up friends, losing them, gaining others, drinking heavily and generally doing nothing interesting. At nine forty-five on the dot I moved in. Linda was seated at a table with three men I'd sever seen before; she looked drowsy and drunk. One of the men had his hand way up under
her skirt. I came to the table, looked hypnotically into her eyes and said: `it's a quarter of ten now, Linda. Come with
me.'
Her blurred eyes cleared briefly, she coughed sad wobbled to her feet.
`Hey, where you going, baby?' one of the men asked. Another took hold of her arm.
`Linda is following me,' I said and took a step nearer the guy who had taken her arm and loomed over him and stared
down with what I tried to make seem suppressed fury. He released her.
I glared once briefly at each of the other two men and turned and left. With what must have been considerably less dignity than Peter or Matthew following Jesus, Linda followed.
Chapter Fifty-nine
[Being a questioning of Dr. Lucius Rhinehart by Inspector Nathaniel Putt of the New York City police regarding the unfortunate escape of thirty-three mental patients from a performance of Hair. Six of the patients are still at large.]
`Mr. Rhinehart, I-' `It's Dr. Rhinehart,' interrupted Dr. Mann irritably.
`Ah, excuse me,' said Inspector Putt, ceasing his pacing briefly to. stare back at Dr. Mann seated beside Dr. Rhinehart
on a low, ancient couch in the inspector's office. `Dr. Rhinehart, first, I must inform you that you are entitled to have a
lawyer present to rep-'
`Lawyers make me nervous.'
`- resent you. I see. All right. Let's proceed. Did you or did you not meet with Eric Cannon in the cafeteria of QSH
between the hours of ten thirty and eleven fifteen on August 12?'
`I did.'
`You did?'
`I did.'
`I see. For what purpose?'
`He invited me to see him. Since he was a distinguished former patient of mine, I went' `What did you talk about?'
`We talked about his desire to see the musical Hair. He informed me that many of the patients wanted to see Hair.'
`Anything else?'