gotta grab my jacket there, anyway."
"Wait, is he a friend or a coworker?"
"He's a friend I work with. Come on, what's the big deal?"
"Well, first you spring this on me, then you change your story and tell me he'sa coworker, now he's a friend again. I don't want to be put on display for yourpals. If we're going to meet your friends, I'll dress for it, put on somemakeup. This isn't fair."
"Linda," Art said, placating.
"No," she said. "Screw it. I'm not here to meet your friends. I came all the wayacross town to meet you at your office because you wanted to head back to yourplace after work, and you play headgames with me like this?"
"All right," Art said. "I'll show you back out to the lobby and you can waitwith Tonaishah while I get my jacket."
"Don't take that tone with me," she said.
"What tone?" Art said. "Jesus Christ! You can't wait in the hall, it's againstpolicy. You don't have a badge, so you have to be with me or in the lobby. Idon't give a shit if you meet Fede or not."
"I won't tell you again, Art," she said. "Moderate your tone. I won't be shoutedat."
Art tried to rewind the conversation and figure out how they came to this pass,but he couldn't. Was Linda really acting *this* nuts? Or was he just reading herwrong or pushing her buttons or something?
"Let's start over," he said, grabbing both of her hands in his. "I need to getmy jacket from my office. You can come with me if you want to, and meet myfriend Fede. Otherwise you can wait in the lobby, I won't be a minute."
"Let's go meet Fede," she said. "I hope he wasn't expecting anything special,I'm not really dressed for it."
He stifled a snotty remark. After all that, she was going to go and meet Fede?So what the hell were they arguing about? On the other hand, he'd gotten hisway, hadn't he? He led her by the hand to his office, and beyond every doorwaythey passed was a V/DT Experience Designer pretending not to peek at them asthey walked by, having heard every word through the tricky acoustics of O'MalleyHouse.
"Fede," he said, stiffly, "This is Linda. Linda, this is Fede."
Fede stood and treated Linda to his big, suave grin. Fede might be short and hemight have paranoid delusions, but he was trim and well groomed, with the sortof finicky moustache that looked like a rotting caterpillar if you didn't trimit every morning. He liked to work out, and had a tight waist and a gut youcould bounce a quarter off of, and liked to wear tight shirts that showed offhis overall fitness, made him stand out among the spongy mouse-potatoes of thecorporate world. Art had never given it much thought, but now, standing withFede and Linda in his tiny office, breathing in Fede's Lilac Vegetal and Linda'snew-car-smell shampoo, he felt paunchy and sloppy.
"Ah," Fede said, taking her hand. "The one you hit with your car. It's apleasure. You seem to be recovering nicely, too."
Linda smiled and gave him a peck on the cheek, a few strands of her bobbed hairsticking to his moustache like cobwebs as she pulled away.
"It was just a love tap," she said. "I'll be fine."
"Fede's from New York," Art said. "We colonials like to stick together aroundthe office. And Linda's from Los Angeles."
"Aren't there any, you know, British people in London?" Linda said, wrinklingher nose.
"There's Tonaishah," Art said weakly.
"Who?" Fede said.
"The receptionist," Linda said. "Not a very nice person."
"With the eyes?" Fede said, wriggling his fingers around his temples to indicateelaborate eye makeup.
"That's her," Linda said.
"Nasty piece of work," Fede said. "Never trusted her."
"*You're* not another UE person, are you?" Linda said, sizing Fede up and givingArt a playful elbow in the ribs.
"Who, me? Nah. I'm a management consultant. I work in Chelsea mostly, but when Icome slumming in Piccadilly, I like to comandeer Art's office. He's not bad, fora UE-geek."
"Not bad at all," Linda said, slipping an arm around Art's waist, wrapping herfingers around the waistband of his trousers. "Did you need to grab your jacket,honey?"
Art's jacket was hanging on the back of his office door, and to get at it, hehad to crush himself against Linda and maneuver the door shut. He felt herbreasts soft on his chest, felt her breath tickle his ear, and forgot all abouttheir argument in the corridor.
"All right," Art said, hooking his jacket over his shoulder with a finger,feeling flushed and fluttery. "OK, let's go."
"Lovely to have met you, Fede," Linda said, taking his hand.
"And likewise," Fede said.
15.
Vigorous sex ensued.
16.
Art rolled out of bed at dark o'clock in the morning, awakened by circadians andendorphins and bladder. He staggered to the toilet in the familiar gloom of hisshabby little rooms, did his business, marveled at the tenderness of hisprivates, fumbled for the flush mechanism -- "British" and "Plumbing" being twocompletely opposite notions -- and staggered back to bed. The screen of hiscomm, nestled on the end table, washed the room in liquid-crystal light. He'dtugged the sheets off of Linda when he got up, and there she was, chest risingand falling softly, body rumpled and sprawled after their gymnastics. It hadbeen transcendent and messy, and the sheets were coarse with dried fluids.
He knelt on the bed and fussed with the covers some, trying for an equitable --if not chivalrously so -- division of blankets. He bent forward to kiss at abite-mark he'd left on her shoulder.
His back went "pop."
Somewhere down in the lumbar, somewhere just above his tailbone, a deep andunforgiving *pop*, ominous as the cocking of a revolver. He put his hand thereand it felt OK, so he cautiously lay back. Three-quarters of the way down, hisentire lower back seized up, needles of fire raced down his legs and through hisgroin, and he collapsed.
He *barked* with pain, an inhuman sound he hadn't known he could make, and therapid emptying of his lungs deepened the spasm, and he mewled. Linda opened agroggy eye and put her hand on his shoulder. "What is it, hon?"
He tried to straighten out, to find a position in which the horrible, relentlesspain returned whence it came. Each motion was agony. Finally, the pain subsided,and he found himself pretzelled, knees up, body twisted to the left, headtwisted to the right. He did not dare budge from this posture, terrified thatthe pain would return.
"It's my back," he gasped.
"Whah? Your back?"
"I -- I put it out. Haven't done it in years. I need an icepack, OK? There'resome headache pills in the medicine cabinet. Three of those."
"Seriously?"
"Look, I'd get 'em myself, but I can't even sit up, much less walk. I gotta icethis down now before it gets too inflamed."
"How did it happen?"
"It just happens. Tai Chi helps. Please, I need ice."
Half an hour later, he had gingerly arranged himself with his knees up and hiships straight, and he was breathing deeply, willing the spasms to unclench."Thanks," he said.
"What now? Should I call a doctor?"
"He'd just give me painkillers and tell me to lose some weight. I'll probably belike this for a week. Shit. Fede's going to kill me. I was supposed to go toBoston next Friday, too."
"Boston? What for? For how long?"
Art bunched the sheets in his fists. He hadn't meant to tell her about Bostonyet -- he and Fede hadn't worked out his cover story. "Meetings," he said. "Twoor three days. I was going to take some personal time and go see my family, too.Goddamnit. Pass me my comm, OK?"
"You're going to *work* now?"
"I'm just going to send Fede a message and send out for some muscle-relaxants.There's a twenty-four-hour chemist's at Paddington Station that delivers."
"I'll do it, you lie flat."
And so it began. Bad enough to be helpless, weak as a kitten and immobile, butto be at the whim of someone else, to have to provide sufficient excuse forevery use of his comm, every crawl across the flat... Christ. "Just give me mycomm, please. I can do it faster than I can explain how to do i
t."
In thirty-six hours, he was ready to tear the throat out of anyone who tried tocommunicate with him. He'd harangued Linda out of the flat and crawled to thekitchen floor, painstakingly assembling a nest of pillows and sofa cushions,close to the icemaker and the painkillers and toilet. His landlady, anunfriendly Chinese lady who had apparently been wealthy beyond words in