Phoenix

Her face was chalk-white; the color had drained from her mouth, leaving the lipstick like paint on a corpse. She was rigid with shock. She hardly seemed to hear him, and let him lead her, like a child, to the sofa. Oh, God, why did she have to come in just now?

"Lie down here for a minute, Fran. Here, put your feet up on the arm. Fran, it's all right, I'm all right; take it easy, now. I'll be right back."

He retreated into the bedroom, quietly closed the door behind him, and leaned against it for a moment. His whole body slumped.

The room was quiet, just a third-floor bedroom in an old house, now a converted rooming-house for students, half filled with sunlight. Max heard his own breathing loud in the silence, looked down at his naked body, then at his pants, draped over the bed. He stared at them and closed his eyes. His body grew rigid.

Slowly, the pants began to stir as if with a breeze; but all else was still. Sunlight cut across the stationary dust-motes suspended in mid-air, and the warm summer noon seemed to hold its breath. The pants legs flapped.

Then, suddenly, the room was filled with a timeless density. The silence of the moment before thickened into a tangible, measurable dimension, possessing a reality of its own. He could taste the silence.

He rose three feet into the air, his head clearing the ceiling by inches. As he did so, the tension dissolved from his muscles; he lay loose-flung on the air and watched articles of clothing, first his briefs, then pants, sweatshirt, socks and finally shoes, moving to him and draping themselves over, around, up and onto his body, flowing onto him as if themselves fluid.

The door opened before he reached it. He took a deep breath, set his feet on the floor, and walked into the other room. Fran started upright as he came in, and flinched away.

"Fran, are you afraid of me?"

She nodded, moving her mouth mutely.

Easy, for God's sake, easy, the girl's on the ragged edge of hysterics. Take the light touch.

"Afraid of me? Now that I'm fully clothed again and didn't even attempt felonious rape?"

"Don't laugh," she said, finding her voice. "I know what you're trying to do. But--don't. And don't tell me that I didn't see--what I saw." Her eyes moved quickly, a little rabbit movement, to the charred carpet, and away again.

"Fran." He seated himself beside her and took her face in his hands. "I'm not denying anything. What you saw--it happened, yes--but it wasn't--" he ran out of words.

"I'm not crazy! And it wasn't an illusion!"

"Okay, then! I'm a warlock! I weave dark spells! I've sold my soul to the devil! Do you like that any better?" He flung the words at her, bitterly.

"_Are_ you, Max?" she asked softly, when he had run down.

"I don't know. I don't--Fran!" He fell against her, and felt her arms reach out for him, hold him as he collapsed at her side.

The touch did what words had failed to do; he felt the rigid, frozen fright flow out of her as she held him; hard, clasping his spent body in her arms. With a sigh, she drew his head against the softness of her breast and let him lie there.

This was the best way. It had come to him without words; perhaps there were no words. But what had he done to Fran, to this shy girl who held him now so tightly? He sensed, through the tension of her terror and its release, that she loved him--did he love her? When he had asked himself that, he could not answer--yet now, in his response to her, he sensed his own answer.

Words, more words--what did they mean? Reasoning was a barrier, not a path. He had always felt most apart from her when he had tried to think out their relationship into words. Better to let the words go, better to react.

They lay together unmoving on the sofa for a moment which was, for them, timeless--perhaps fifteen minutes, perhaps two or three hours. They exchanged no words, no gestures, not even a kiss. They simply were, sharing a moment of that meshed, tangible silence in which there was no Max, no Fran; instead a gestalt, a separate emotional entity.

"Tell me about it," she said finally.

It was like surfacing after a deep dive. He blinked. "I don't know what happened."

"How did it begin?"

He turned slightly, snuggling closer to her, his cheek buried against her neck, his shoulder tucked under her arm, her arms warm around his body. He paused, then reached out for words and found that the words were there.

"If you want to be rational about it--that is, if we can be rational about it--I guess it's what you'd call a wild talent."