Chapter 29
TRANSFORMED
A few days later, Sarah and Johner were reviewing the past day in the privacy of their bedroom.
Johner frowned, disturbed. "Something happened today that I’ve been waiting for. Jack Henderson called me; he wanted to know if Call was still with us. When I said yes, he asked to be invited to dinner."
"What did you say?"
"I said I’d get back to him, that you were the keeper of our social calendar. He said OK, but don’t forget him. He really wants to see her, Connor. What are we going to do about that?"
"We’re going to consult Call, of course. She must have faced this problem before."
Johner smiled, then laughed out loud. "She sure has---with me! I breathed down her neck pretty good on the old Betty---she had to make it perfectly clear that she’d die sooner than touch me. Even then I kept after her in my own sensitive, caring way, until Ripley came along and put Call right out of my mind."
"Ripley too? God, Johner, you were a hard case!"
"Right on. But in my own defense, when you’re on a small ship with only a couple of women, the Wicked Witch of the West would look good. And Annalee isn’t a wicked witch. Too bad I’m taken, think what an opportunity this would be for me to make time! ---Hey! ---Connor, stop it! Ow! Now stop it! One of us is going to get hurt---uh! Ouch!---and since I’ve turned into a wimp, it’ll probably be me!---Connor! No fair! Stop now!"
Johner was laughing helplessly and struggling to subdue her without hurting her. It was no easy task; Connor was very skillful. But after much laughter and mock combat, she was pinned to the bed, with Johner’s weight holding her down.
He looked down at her, still laughing. But as he looked his face changed, becoming softer, and his head came down to touch his forehead to hers. "You are so beautiful, and I love you so much." He rolled over to lie beside her, looking up at the ceiling.
After a moment’s silence, he said, "On the Betty, Call hated me, and she should have; I was the next thing to an animal. Nothing she said or did made the least difference to me. I remember---I never thought about how she felt at all. I only thought about what I wanted."
He put his arms up, hands behind
his head, and settled himself to talk, his eyes focused on nothing, his
attention inward.
"You know, I learned very young not to let anyone see what went on inside of me. The street is a very convincing teacher; if you don’t protect yourself you’re flayed alive. You push your feelings way down inside, and if you do that long enough, you forget they’re there. You’re without any feelings at all.
I guess I thought that’s what everyone did; anyway, it’s what I did. If you don’t feel anything, you can’t be hurt. But there are other feelings; sympathy, compassion, sensitivity to others. They all went; I felt nothing in myself, I felt nothing for others.
"What changed that, Connor? How did it happen that when you walked into my life I was suddenly different?" He thought about that for a minute. "No, I guess it wasn’t so sudden. It was the Auriga; after what happened there, things began to change for me. I think the last remnants of my youth died with the Auriga. I finally grew up while I watched my shipmates die; for the first time I got a glimmer of how senseless violence and killing are. Those---beings, those alien things---they had no conception of what they were destroying when they killed a man. But I began to see it; how individual each life is, and how important.
"When those---things killed the Captain, his woman, HiIliard, just quit living. She kept walking around with us for a while after that, but she quit living right there when he died. She loved him; she didn’t want to live without him. It was a revelation to me, Connor. I’d never recognized love before that. For the first time I realized, ‘These are people just like me, and they love; and because they love they’re never alone!’ It took a while to admit it to myself, but I wanted that, not to be alone.
"That realization started a huge revolution inside of me, Connor. So many things changed for me. The first night we met, when I ran to join you under that streetlight, I had finally rejected action without thought; motives had become important to me for the first time in my life. I saw a motive for action that night---a real simple motive; three against one.
I felt things that night too, Conner. I felt admiration for you, that’s something I don’t think I’d ever felt before. Envy, yes, of other people’s skill or courage; but not admiration. And I felt a powerful attraction to you that wasn’t just sexual. I was mystified by that---I didn’t understand what was happening to me at all.
"The first few weeks that I knew you, I was confused all the time. I didn’t know from one day to the next what I thought about anything; but finally out of that confusion one thing emerged. Whatever else I didn’t know in this world, I knew that I loved you. By the time I moved in with you, the revolution was pretty much over. I had become a person who could love. And I did love; and lo and behold, against all expectations, I was loved in return."
He was still staring at the ceiling, but one hand came out to reach for hers. "That was a miracle, Connor. I could feel the difference in myself when I opened my mind up to caring; I knew it was right for me, but I realized that I’d probably never be loved back. I thought I had pretty much resigned myself to loving without any return." He chuckled. "I guess that shows how ridiculously naïve I was on that subject!
"I had not the very least idea how powerfully my love for you would work on me. By the time I moved into your house I was starving, dying, for you to return my love. God! How I wanted you to love me! Resignation was not in it. I would have done anything, been anything, tried anything, if I thought it would bring me one moment of your love."
He turned toward her, and she moved quickly into his arms.
"And then you came to me, and put your arms around me, and raised your face up to mine to be kissed. I haven’t forgotten that moment; I never will. The joy I felt when I realized that you wanted me was the thing that wiped out all the first part of my life. It’s as if it happened to someone else." His arms tightened around her, and he buried his face in his special place, that warm hollow between her neck and her shoulder.
Sarah closed him in her arms, her hand cradling the back of his head, and began a soft murmured monologue of love words. "You are loved, Johner---I love you beyond all reason, beyond understanding---I am yours forever and ever, until the world’s end---there is no one else, there could be no one; you are mine—mine---"
Her words trailed off into a low
whisper, broken by kisses.