"I'm right here," I said. "If there's anything you want or need, only say the word."

"When I realized this condition was not about to go away, I set out to understand it better by reducing it to its parts. First I had to find out if it had any parts. I went to libraries and bookstores, read magazines and technical journals, watched cable TV, made lists and diagrams, made multicolored charts, made phone calls to technical writers and scientists, talked to a Sikh holy man in Iron City and even studied the occult, hiding the books in the attic so you and Denise wouldn't find them and wonder what was going on."

"All this without my knowing. The whole point of Babette is that she speaks to me, she reveals and confides."

"This is not a story about your disappointment at my silence. The theme of this story is my pain and my attempts to end it."

"I'll make some hot chocolate. Would you like that?"

"Stay. This is a crucial part. All this energy, this research, study and concealment, but I was getting nowhere. The condition would not yield. It hung over my life, gave me no rest. Then one day I was reading to Mr. Treadwell from the National Examiner. An ad caught my eye. Never mind exactly what it said. Volunteers wanted for secret research. This is all you have to know."

"I thought it was my former wives who practiced guile. Sweet deceivers. Tense, breathy, high-cheekboned, bilingual."

"I answered the ad and was interviewed by a small firm doing research in psychobiology. Do you know what that is?"

"No."

"Do you know how complex the human brain is?"

"I have some idea."

"No, you don't. Let's call the company Gray Research, although that's not the true name. Let's call my contact Mr. Gray. Mr. Gray is a composite. I was eventually in touch with three or four or more people at the firm."

"One of those long low pale brick buildings with electrified fencing and low-profile shrubbery."

"I never saw their headquarters. Never mind why. The point is I took test after test. Emotional, psychological, motor response, brain activity. Mr. Gray said there were three finalists and I was one of them."

"Finalists for what?"

"We were to be test subjects in the development of a super experimental and top secret drug, code-name Dylar, that he'd been working on for years. He'd found a Dylar receptor in the human brain and was putting the finishing touches on the tablet itself. But he also told me there were dangers in running tests on a human. I could die. I could live but my brain could die. The left side of my brain cquld die but the right side could live. This would mean that the left side of my body would live but the right side would die. There were many grim specters. I could walk sideways but not forward. I could not distinguish words from things, so that if someone said 'speeding bullet,' I would fall to the floor and take cover. Mr. Gray wanted me to know the risks. There were releases and other documents for me to sign. The firm had lawyers, priests."

"They let you go ahead, a human test animal."

"No, they didn't. They said it was way too risky-legally, ethically and so forth. They went to work designing computer molecules and computer brains. I refused to accept this. I'd come so far, come so close. I want you to try to understand what happened next. If I'm going to tell you the story at all, I have to include this aspect of it, this grubby little corner of the human heart. You say Babette reveals and confides."

"This is the point of Babette."

"Good. I will reveal and confide. Mr. Gray and I made a private arrangement. Forget the priests, the lawyers, the psychobiologists. We would conduct the experiments on our own. I would be cured of my condition, he would be acclaimed for a wonderful medical breakthrough."

"What's so grubby about this?"

"It involved an indiscretion. This was the only way I could get Mr. Gray to let me use the drug. It was my last resort, my last hope. First I'd offered him my mind. Now I offered my body."

I felt a sensation of warmth creeping up my back and radiating outward across my shoulders. Babette looked straight up. I was propped on an elbow, facing her, studying her features. When I spoke finally it was in a reasonable and inquiring voice-the voice of a man who seeks genuinely to understand some timeless human riddle.

"How do you offer your body to a composite of three or more people? This is a compound person. He is like a police sketch of one person's eyebrows, another person's nose. Let's concentrate on the genitals. How many sets are we talking about?"

"Just one person's, Jack. A key person, the project manager."

"So we are no longer referring to the Mr. Gray who is a composite."

"He is now one person. We went to a grubby little motel room. Never mind where or when. It had the TV up near the ceiling. This is all I remember. Grubby, tacky. I was heartsick. But so, so desperate."

"You call this an indiscretion, as if we haven't had a revolution in frank and bold language. Call it what it was, describe it honestly, give it the credit it deserves. You entered a motel room, excited by its impersonality, the functionalism and bad taste of the furnishings. You walked barefoot on the fïre-retardant carpet. Mr. Gray went around opening doors, looking for a full-length mirror. He watched you undress. You lay on the bed, embracing. Then he entered you."

"Don't use that term. You know how I feel about that usage."

"He effected what is called entry. In other words he inserted himself. One minute he was fully dressed, putting the car rental keys on the dresser. The next minute he was inside you."

"No one was inside anyone. That is stupid usage. I did what I had to do. I was remote. I was operating outside myself. It was a capitalist transaction. You cherish the wife who tells you everything. 1 am doing my best to be that person.

"All right, I'm only trying to understand. How many times did you go to this motel?"

"More or less on a continuing basis for some months. That was the agreement."

I felt heat rising along the back of my neck. I watched her carefully. A sadness showed in her eyes. I lay back and looked at the ceiling. The radio came on. She began to cry softly.

"There's some Jell-O with banana slices," I said. "Steffie made it."

"She's a good girl."

"I can easily get you some."

"No, thank you."

"Why did the radio come on?"

"The auto-timer is broken. I'll take it to the shop tomorrow."

"I'll take it."

"it's all right," she said. "It's no trouble. I can easily take it."

"Did you enjoy having sex with him?"

"I only remember the TV up near the ceiling, aimed down at us."

"Did he have a sense of humor? I know women appreciate men who can joke about sex. I can't, unfortunately, and after this I don't think there's much chance I'll be able to learn."

"It's better if you know him as Mr. Gray. That's all. He's not tall, short, young or old. He doesn't laugh or cry. It's for your own good."

"I have a question. Why didn't Gray Research run tests on animals? Animals must be better than computers in some respects."

'That's just the point. No animal has this condition. This is a human condition. Animals fear many things, Mr. Gray said. But their brains aren't sophisticated enough to accommodate this particular state of mind."

For the first time I began to get an inkling of what she'd been talking about all along. My body went cold. I felt hollow inside. I rose from my supine position, once again propping myself on an elbow to look down at her. She started to cry again.

"You have to tell me, Babette. You've taken me this far, put me through this much. I have to know. What's the condition?"

The longer she wept, the more certain I became that I knew what she was going to say. I felt an impulse to get dressed and leave, take a room somewhere until this whole thing blew over. Babette raised her face to me, sorrowing and pale, her eyes showing a helpless desolation. We faced each other, propped on elbows, like a sculpture of lounging philosophers in a classical academy. The radio turned itself off.