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hurtled through the door, caromed off two walls, hit the outer office door at
a dead run and barely managed to get through before shattering the glass
panel.
He was down the hall, into the self-service elevator, and safe before the two
women could get to their feet. Nate Kleiser knew what fate befell those who
were not fleet of foot.
As he ran down the street toward Michigan Avenue, he heard screaming and,
looking up, saw Dr.
Bremmer, her breasts now bare, hanging from the eighteenth story window. He
could barely make out what she was yelling.
If you leave me I'll kill myself!
Some people have alternatives, Nate thought, and ran.
Having gone straight from O'Hare Airport to Dr. Bremmer's office, Nate had no
hotel in which to hide. It was, in fact, the first time in six years he had
been out of his isolated Toronto house for more than two hours. He needed a
drink desperately. Imps of Hell prodded the soft optic chiasma with fondue
forks.
A neon Budweiser sign and a dark-thick doorway presented themselves, and he
slipped inside. He was lucky. It was eye-of-the-hurricane hour between the
closet alcoholics who needed three swift ones straight up before they could
face the crabgrass and waiting ladies in Wilmette, and the bar vampires who
hung by their curled toes from the bar-rail till closing time. The bar was
deserted, nearly deserted.
He slid into a shadowed booth, blew out the candle in its metal shell, and
waited for the waiter, hoping it would not be a waitress. It was a waitress.
Pouf skirt, net-mesh opera hose, spike heels, quiet good taste.
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He hid his face and ordered three doubles of McCormick bourbon, no water, no
rocks, no glass if possible, just pour them in my hands. She stared at him for
a long moment, started to say Don't I know you from some
And Nate croaked in a frog-like, hideous voice, You couldn't possibly, I just
got out of
Dannemora, serving eighteen-to-life for raping, killing and eating a choir
boy, not necessarily in that order.
She fled, and the bartender brought the drinks, standing well back from the
booth as Nate slid the bills across the table.
It went that way for the next three and a half hours, till Nate's buzz was
sufficiently nestled-in to permit conversation with the odd little man whose
yogurt-soft eyes preceded him into the booth. Nate found himself unburdening
his woes, and the little man, who matched him drink for drink, offered various
unworkable solutions.
Look, I like you, said the little man, so I'll try and help you out. See, I'm
something of a lay analyst myself. I've done just a whole lot of reading.
Fromm, Freud, Bettelheim, Kahlil Gibran, that whole crowd.
Now what
I'd say is this: see, everybody has both male and female in him, you know what
I mean? I think the female part of you is trying to assert itself. Have you
ever thought of having sloppy sex with a man?
Nate felt a hand crawling up his thigh. It was impossible. Nobody had arms
that long, to reach across a booth, under a table. He yelped and looked down.
The waitress was crawling around down there on hands and knees.
Nate bolted from the bar and didn't stop till he'd reached a crowded
intersection.
When the light changed, and Nate stopped on the curb, he knew he was in
trouble. It was State
Street, and the clubs were letting out.
They chased him fifteen blocks and he lost the last two women-a gorgeous black
girl with an enormous natural and a fiftyish matron who kept trying to use her
Emba Cerulean mink stole to lasso him-
in a pitfall-riddled construction site. He heard their shrieks as they dropped
from sight, but he didn't slow down.
There was a motor hotel on the comer of Ohio and the Shore Drive and he pulled
the tattered remnants of his clothing about him, making sure his wallet with
the credit cards had not been lost when the
Girl
Scouts-Girl Scouts!?!-
had ripped the arms off his jacket.
Inside, safe for the moment, he registered. The desk clerk, a whispery young
man with white-on-
white shirt, white-on-white tie, white-on-white face, looked at him with
undisguised affection and offered the key to the bridal suite.
A single, away from everything, Nate insisted, and went up in the elevator,
leaving the desk clerk breathing heavily.
The room was quiet and small. Nate pulled the drapes, locked the door, wedged
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a chair under the doorknob, and slumped on the edge of the bed. After a while
he felt moderately sober, moderately relaxed, and thoroughly sick to his
stomach. He undressed slowly and took a hot shower.
Soaping himself, he thought. It was a good place to think, in the shower.
Life had been at least supportable in Toronto. He'd devised a way to live. It
was a ghastly way to live, but it was at least, well, supportable. But after
Lois and the three bottles of Dexamils, he knew he had to do something, to try
and arrest this hideous condition that had been getting worse and worse as
he'd grown older. Only twenty-seven years old, and my life is hopeless, he
thonght. He'd thought that every year since he had reached puberty.
Then he'd heard of Dr. Bremmer and he'd been dubious. She was a woman, after
all. But desperation knows no rationalizing deterrents, and he'd long
distanced an appointment. Now that had gone bananas, and he was thoroughly
peeled. It was getting worse. The trip to Chicago had been a lousy idea.
Now what will I do? How the hell will I get safely out of this enemy
territory?
He turned and looked in the full-length mirror.
He saw himself naked.
He did have a good body.
And have a pleasant face, really quite a handsome and compelling face.
he did
As he watched, his image began to shimmer and flow. His hair grew longer, more
blond, even blonde, and breasts began to bulge as the hair vanished from his
body. The image altered, as he stared, into the most beautiful woman he had
ever seen. The words of the little man in the bar skimmed across his mind and
were gone in an instant, lost in the adoration he felt for the fantastic
creature in the mirror.
I love you, he said, finding it difficult to speak coherently.
He reached for her, and she drew back. Don't you put a hand on me you lecher,
she said.
But I love you...I really love you!
I'm not that kind of a girl, she said.
But I don't just want your body, Nate said. There was an imploring note in his
voice. I want to love you, to have you with me all my life. I can make a good
home for you. I've been waiting for you all my life.
Well...she said, maybe we can just talk a while. But keep your hands to
yourself.
I will, Nate promised, I will. I'll keep my hands to myself.
And they lived happily ever after.
Los Angeles, California; New York City/1971
8 ONE LIFE, FURNISHED
IN EARLY
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POVERTY
And so it was-strangely, strangely-that I found myself standing in the
backyard of the house I had lived in when I was seven years old. At thirteen
minutes till midnight on no special magical winter's night, in a town that had
held me only till I was physically able to run away. In Ohio, in winter, near
midnight--certain
I could go back.
Back to a time when what was now...was then.
Not truly knowing why
I even wanted to go back. But certain that I could. Without magic, without
science, without alchemy, without supernatural assistance; just go back.
Because I had to, I needed to...go back.
Back; thirty-five years and more. To find myself at the age of seven, before
any of it had begun;
before any of the directions had been taken; to find out what turning point in
my life it had been that had wrenched me from the course all little boys took
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