The Weapon - Passion - part 2
By Diana the Valkyrie
Love hurts


When I woke up again, it was very late morning, and we were in my bed again.
She must have noticed a change in my breathing, because she said "Oh, back
with us, Duncan? Need any help in waking up?" "No, no," I protested, "I'm
fine, look, wide awake." She laughed. "I don't need another cold shower,
Wendy." She laughed again, and evil sort of chuckle this time. "Please?" She
kissed me. "OK, you've talked me out of it. So, what shall we do today?"
"Let's check the newspaper first, see if there's any disasters or whatever
that you could help with."

So, we went downstairs, and she hovered over my shoulder while I paged through
the Telegraph. Royal scandal, political sex scandal, princess, unexpected and
climatologically impossible salt water flood wiping out the crops in Ramanmari
- Wendy giggled when I pointed that one out to her - cabinet minister caught
lying, financial scandal, strike, is this all that ever happens? "Nothing,
Wendy." "Oh. Well, suppose I go out and look for something?" "Won't work,
love, we're not interested in double parking and litter. But I have a question
for you." "Yes?" "Well, take last night. I fell asleep in your arms just above
the clouds, and I woke up in bed. Were you with me the whole time?"

"Oh. Uh. No, I wasn't."

"So, where were you," I asked, already knowing the answer.

"See, Duncan, you were fast asleep, I could see you weren't going to wake up
after getting the Wendy Special Knockout Treatment, and I thought, I bet
George is lonely, so I phoned him up, and he asked me round for a bit of a
kiss and cuddle, so I brought us back down, and tucked you into bed, and I
made sure I was back before you woke up, didn't I?" "And this morning?" "No, I
was with you the whole time." "Did you phone George?" "No, but I sent him an
email, he was at work." She can do that without a computer, she just induces
emf on the phone lines, it's like magic until you find out how she does it,
and then it's just rather simple engineering like wireless networking.
"Duncan, is this the Green-eyed Monster here, are you jealous?" "No, of course
not. Why would I be jealous?" "Hell, how would I know, I don't know, you think
I understand you humans? You're all, like weird. Well, I'm glad you're not
annoyed I spent some time with George." "Behind my back." "What do you mean,
behind your back?" "I mean, you didn't tell me, I had to guess." "I did too
tell you, I just told you." "But I had to ask" "Well, dammit, how am I
supposed to guess that you'd want to know. I mean it's not like you're jealous
or anything, is it!" "Yes I bloody am jealous" "But you just said you
weren't." "I lied, I'm jealous. Kiss and cuddle, is that all you two did?"
"Well, you know. One thing leads to another."

"Right, so while I'm asleep, you sneak out of the house and you're fucking
George's brains out." "It wasn't like that." "Oh? So how was it?" "You make it
sound so, so underhand, like it's some breach of trust." "And how am I
supposed to take it, in a mature sophisticated manner?" "Duncan, you know damn
well I was screwing George, we talked about it before I did it the first time,
you said I should, I didn't realise I had to ask your permission each time, do
I get individual bonk tokens, one-hour tickets or an overnight pass?" "Don't
you get sarcastic with me, young madam..." "Oh, it's madam, is it?" "If the
hat suits you, wear it." By now we were shouting at each other. "I didn't do
anything I'm ashamed of." "Oh, and what about your oath, love, protect and
obey?" "Which I do! Well, maybe I'm a bit light on the 'obey' but I do love
you, I do." "And that's a fine way you have of showing it, out screwing George
all the time." "It isn't all the time, and what do you think you and I were
doing just a couple of hours ago? Duncan, I love you, I really do." "Yes, and
you say exactly the same thing to him, don't you! It's often enough, when else
have you sneaked off to him, I know you did before you left for America last
week." And now she was crying, but I had the bit between my teeth, in full
flood, and wasn't stopping for anything. And there comes a point in this sort
of row when you've gone past communicating, gone past shouting, and you're
just trying to hurt each other. "Maybe you're just too immature", I said. "And
maybe you're too old," she said, finding my worst nightmare with unerring
accuracy. "And maybe you're not even human, just a bunch of incomprehensible
quantum mechanics," I said, going for the throat.

And then she was crying, and she dived for the mantlepiece, kicking over the
table on her way, she picked up the beautiful statue she'd made of her
carrying me while in flight, and threw it at me like a javelin, missing by
inches, and making a great gash in the plasterwork of the wall. Then she flew
out of the window, shattering the glass and curved up out of sight.

I sat there as my anger cooled, and I slowly realised with horror what I'd
just done.

At first, I was paralysed with shock. She just tried to kill me! Then I ran to
the window and yelled "Wendy!" but she wasn't anywhere in sight. Then I turned
and looked at the shambles the room was in. I sat down heavily in the
armchair, and looked at the broken table, the smashed crockery scattered all
over the floor, and at the statue. I went over and picked up the statue, it
was damaged, but not too badly, she obviously hadn't thrown it with all her
strength or it would have gone through the wall and probably through several
other houses in line with her throw. And now I come to think of it, she
wouldn't have missed what she was aiming at, which meant that she hadn't
actually intended it to hit me, which is just as well because a thing that
size and weight would definitely have killed me if it had hit me.

And by now I guessed she was halfway to the sun, heading for the centre where
she'd spend a long time crying her heart out. I felt like the worst kind of
heel, the sort that punches a woman on the face because he wants to hurt her.
And, of course, at some point in the relationship, if you keep doing that,
then she doesn't come back to you. And the thought that left a big empty
feeling inside of me, a hole big enough to lose an elephant in.

So then I thought, what on earth had gotten in to me? I'm not usually that
sort of rat. Well, it was obvious really. Green Eyed Monster, severe case of.
And, now that I was calming down, I realised that I had no real cause to be
jealous. Or rather, I did, but it was irrational. On the other hand, who said
emotions have to be rational? Of course they don't, that's why they're
emotions.

Wendy and I had different models for love, was the root of the problem, and I
think that's what she'd been trying to tell me. The model I was applying was
the man/woman model, in which it seems instinctive (and therefore probably
driven by evolutionary forces) that one man hooks up with one woman and vice
versa, like a pair of north and south magnetic poles forming a dipole. George,
in this model, was an interloper. Never mind that he'd saved my life, that was
something that my higher brain knew, but which cut no ice with my instincts.
But Wendy didn't have that model in her brain, the nearest thing she had was
the mother/baby model, which was what she was applying. And the mother/baby
model is very tolerant of multiple babies. So to Wendy's instincts, there was
nothing strange about her having a relationship with both me and George,
whereas to me it wasn't right (and presumably to George too).

OK, great analysis, Mycroft. Now what? And the answer, of course, was now
nothing. All I could do was sit tight and hope that she'd come back, I had no
way of contacting her. Well, there was something I could do. I held her statue
and cried.

. . .

Morning became afternoon. I didn't have any lunch, I didn't feel like eating.

Afternoon became late afternoon. All I could think of, was what an utter
arsehole I was.

The phone rang. I dived for it, hoping that it was ... but it wasn't. It was
George. "Hi Dunc. School's out! Would you and Wendy like to fly round this
evening, we can all go out for a hot curry." "Uh, George. Uh." "What?" "Uh. I
just. I've. Wendy and I. We." "What is it, Dunc, I can't understand you." I
swallowed, and tried to speak coherently. "I just had a blazing row with
Wendy, made her cry, and she isn't here right now." "Where is she?" "She, uh,
didn't say where she was going, she threw her statue at me and smashed through
a window. I'd say she's either on the far side of the moon, at the center of
the sun, or half way to Pluto by now." "Dunc! You idiot!" "I know." "You
lunatic" "George, you can't call me anything I haven't already called myself.
I'm sitting here cuddling her somewhat damaged statue wondering if I'll ever
see her again." "Of course you will. She'll have a good cry, then she'll be
back." "You think?" I asked, "George, I hurt her, hurt her badly, and I did it
on purpose." "You can't hurt her, she's damage-proof." "George, she's all too
easy to hurt, as you well know." "Oh. You mean that sort of hurt." "Yes."

"So what was it about." "Never mind." "Come on, Dunc, spit it out." "George,
the big rows are either about sex or money." "I'm guessing it wasn't about
money." "You guessed right." "Oh. So what do you plan to do?" "Yes, well,
that's kind of difficult. I can't contact her, all I can do it sit here and
cuddle her statue and hope she comes back soon." "Dunc, have you been crying?"
"Damn right I have, what to you think? I've been a complete arse, a bit of
self-pity doesn't add much to the tariff." "Are you on the booze?" "Not yet,
but I was planning to start about eightish if she isn't back by then." "From
what you've said, she won't be." "I know. Still, I've got a bottle of whiskey
here, and I plan to swallow most of it before staggering to bed." "I have a
better idea."

"Better idea, George? What's that?" "If Wendy comes back and finds you drunk
as a prime minister's son, and puking up your guts, that's not going to look
good on your report card." "If Wendy comes back." "She will. Look, Dunc, how
about I come round there, and take you out for a curry. And maybe a pint of
lager or two, not to get sloshed but just to help the curry go down, eh?" That
sounded like a better plan than mine, and it wasn't George's fault that she,
that Wendy, that they. Fucked. What man would say no when she offered?
Especially the second time, after you found out that her anatomy wasn't quite
what you expected, in some rather wonderful ways? "Good idea, son." "OK, I'll
be round right away."

He still had my car, so he was round in about ten minutes. "Snap out of it,
Dunc, it isn't the end of the world." "George, I hurt her, on purpose. On
purpose! If it isn't the end of the world then it's not far off." "Dunc,
she'll get over it, what was it all about, anyhow? Come on, let's go down the
Star of Punjab, a good brisk vindaloo will take your mind off it." I let him
hustle me out, hoping that he wouldn't ask me what it was all about again. But
he did, over poppadoms.

"It all started when she said she wanted a baby." "Yeah, I could see that
coming, you should have seen how she was mooning over this Ramanmari rugrat.
All gooey eyed, she was, and feeding it." "Feeding it? What do you mean? How?"
"She told me she just made a bit of lactose sugar in water, not ideal but
calories, and she breast-fed the ankle-biter. Anyway, that's not the point,
the point is, she was broody. Definitely baby-struck. All gooey and cooey,
talking to it, playing some game with her fingers and the kid. Typical woman!"

"She isn't a woman," I pointed out. "No," said George, "but she makes a pretty
good effort at emulating one, and broody is part of it, I guess." "Or maybe
that's her own instincts, there must be a drive to reproduce among the Black
Hole Folk, otherwise the race would die out." "Point," conceded George, "but
we don't know anything at all about them really, I mean, not how they think.
If thinking is what they do. Maybe they compute instead?" "No difference," I
said, starting in on an Onion Bhajee, "it's all just information processing,
what you do it with isn't as important as what you do to it. Question is, how
do we get her back?" "What do you mean 'we', Kimo Sabe?" I looked up from my
Onion Bhajee. "Huh?" "Dunc, you're the one pissed her off, you're the one has
to make it right." He was right, of course. "But how?" "Oh Dunc. You might be
brainy, but you're not very clever, are you?" "Actually, I feel about as
brainy as pond scum right now." "Flowers." "OK, I feel about as clever as a
flower." "No, I mean, you give her flowers, you give her flowers and you say
sorry and she kisses you and forgives you, and then, and then the key part
..." "She fucks my brains out?" "No, Dunc, you idiot, the key part is you
don't ever do it again."

Well, yes. Obviously. "And you tell her yes, she can have a baby." "George,
there's a couple of practical problems there." "Like what?" I counted them off
on my fingers. "No ovaries, no fallopian tubes, no womb ..." "Details,
details," said George, airily. "Oh, OK Mr Sexton Blake, then how do you
suggest getting round these minor details." "Haven't a clue," said George
cheerfully, "that's tactics, let Wendy handle tactics, you just concentrate on
strategy like you're supposed to."

So then they brought the vindaloos and the nan bread, the rice and the
Kingfisher lager, and we both dug in. "Ow," said George, "hot." "Not as hot as
where she is right now," I said, looking up, although since it was night time,
I suppose I should really have been looking down. "Yes," said George, "about
15 million degrees, I read." "She says it's nice and peaceful there." "I bet
you don't get people calling to sell double glazing." We both fell silent. I
was thinking about Wendy, I had a completely stupid mental picture of her
curled up there, sucking her thumb and crying. "Buck up, Dunc, she'll be fine"
Yeah.

Over khulfi, he asked me again. "So what was it about?" "I already told you,
George. Couples fight about sex and money, and she doesn't even know what
money is." "So it was about sex." "Yeah." "What about sex?" "Uh." "Surely you
don't have any complaints, if there's one thing she's really great it, it's
..." "No, not like that." "Well what?" He was obviously determined to drag it
out of me. I sighed. "It's you, George."

"Me?" George squeaked. A waiter glanced over at us.

"Yeah"

"What about me?" he asked.

"Look," I began. "It's like this," I tried. "Uh."

"Spit it out, Dunc."

"OK. I'm 47, you're half my age ... " "A bit more" "Not much more, point is,
I'm not some young stud any more." "She doesn't need a young stud, she'll milk
you dry whether you're young or old with that lemon squeezer of hers." "Yes,
well, anyway. So I find that in the middle of the night, she flies over to
your place to give you a seeing to, then back to me before I wake up, and I'm,
well, you know?" "No, I don't know, what are you?" "Jealous."

"You're what?" said George rather loudly, and the waiter came over to see if
we wanted something; I waved him off. "You must be crazy!" he continued. "You
go to sleep in her arms, you wake up in her arms, her body snuggled up to you,
her smell all around you. I'm lucky if I get a quick visit. Those few days in
Melbourne were like heaven for me, and you know what her main topic of
conversation was while we were there?" "No, what? Babies?" "She did coo over
every baby we met in the street, but no. Her main topic of conversation is
you, Dunc. All the time, she talks about you, what you like, what you think,
what she'd like to do with you, and you think you're jealous? Man, you don't
know what it's like. Has she ever so much as mentioned me to you?" "Er. No."

I looked at him. You never see it from the other guy's point of view, do you?
You're always so wrapped up in your own concerns, your own problems, you never
think what it's like to walk in his shoes. Even when she had sex with him,
she'd asked me first, and if I'd said "no" then that would have been no, and
he knew that. Urghh.

"George, look." And I explained to him about her theory of love, and how it
was actually quite different inside for her than it was for us. "She sees us
as her babies?" "No, George, you've missed the point. Point is, the "love"
mechanism for her is entirely derived from the mother/baby bond, whereas for
you and me, it's from the man/woman bond." "That's a bit clinical, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's what I told her, but she said, understanding how a rainbow
happens doesn't detract from the beauty, it makes you appreciate it all the
more."

I paid the bill, you can get an extremely good dinner at the Star of India for
two, for thirty pounds, and we went out to the car. The night sky was clear,
and I looked up. George did too. "I know what you're hoping to see," he said.
"Don't be silly, George, even if she were up there we wouldn't be able to see
her at night. No, I was looking at the stars, wondering what's going on up
there, wondering about this war, wondering where the Black Hole Folk hung out,
that sort of thing. It's different now, you look up and you know there's
people out there." "I wouldn't call a collection of black holes 'people'",
remarked George. "I would," I replied, "having met one of them."

On the way back, we called in at an all-night garage. George kindly refilled
my car with petrol, while I carefully chose a pot of chrysanthemums from the
wide selection of limp, dying and dried-up pots of chrysanthemums that they
had to offer. After all, it's the thought that counts, right? And where do you
get a really good floral tribute after midnight?

He drove me home. "Come in for coffee?" I invited. "Sure," he said, "but you
won't get me into bed with you." I laughed. Then I realised, that was the
first time I'd laughed since ... since. Since. Which stopped me laughing. I
put the kettle on, and went through the filter coffee ritual. I carried the
two mugs back into the living room, and found George looking at the statue. "I
hadn't seen this before, it's lovely." "Yes." "She made one for the Americans,
you know." I hadn't known that. "And for Lan Ho." "She did a few while we were
in Melbourne, she likes to make statues, and she likes to give them to
people." "She never made one for me," said George, sadly.

I got up and drew the curtains, to keep out the wind that was trying to
whistle in through the broken window. I turned to look at George. He really
was getting the short end of all this, wasn't he? I told him so. "Dunc, I'd
rather get the crumbs from this particular table than an entire banquet from
someone else." I nodded. "George, I want you to have that statue." He looked
down at it, and stroked her image. He shook his head. "Thanks, Dunc, but. You
know. It isn't the thing itself. It's who you get it from." I nodded, and took
the statue back from him, and put it back on the mantelpiece. "The damage
isn't too bad," he said, "I bet she can repair it when she gets back." "Yeah."

There was a long silence.

I sighed.

"Well," said George, "work tomorrow." "Yeah," I said. "Gotta go." "Yeah. Bye
George. I'll call you tomorrow." "Dunc, don't worry, she'll be back." "Yeah,
thanks." The fact that he said that, showed that he also had at least a
smidgeon of doubt.

George left, and I thought about whiskey, but he was right, if she did turn up
tonight, it would be best if I wasn't three sheets to the wind. So I made
myself another coffee instead, and when that was gone, I trudged up the stairs
and retired to my cold lonely bed.

...

I kind of hoped that when I woke up, she'd have her arms round me, like she
usually did. But I slept alone, and I woke alone. I thought briefly about
taking a cold shower like she forced me to have each morning, and then I
thought, no way, there's no enjoyment if she isn't there to rub me down
afterwards with a warm towel. So I just gave my teeth a bit of a scrub, and
trudged downstairs to see to something resembling breakfast. Then I moped
about the house for a few hours.

And then lunch. And then some more moping.

In the afternoon, George phoned. "She back yet?" "Nope." "Oh." There's was
lots more in the conversation, but that was the only important part. I watched
afternoon TV for a few minutes, thus refreshing my memory of why I don't watch
afternoon TV. I went outside to the garden and did a bit of digging, but as I
slowly worked my way along the vegetable bed, one spadeful at a time, I tried
not to think about how fast Wendy would do the same job.

Dusk arrived, but Wendy didn't. I went indoors and started pushing some
ingredients around to make some sort of supper. For one.

After supper, I switched on the TV again, hoping that the hypnotic trance
induced by a mind-numbing documentary about Mediterranean seaweed would
distract me from thinking about. About. Have you noticed that when you're
trying not to think about hippopotamuses, that's the only thing that occupies
your brain.

And I was sitting watching the TV when, suddenly, everything went dark.