She looked at him curiously for a change, even with surprise. "All
right," she said after a bit, "I'll do it, if only because I got such a
kick out of the look on your face when I shut the door of the chute."
She spun the car illegally in a tight U-turn. She said harshly, not
looking at Phil, "I never hot rod at old people, you know. They don't
have enough hormones to make it fun. Those two girls were real funnies."
Phil made no comment. They sped for a while in silence. Then he became
vaguely aware that Mitzie was stealing glances at him.
"If you should manage to cook up a little nerve and change your mind,"
she said angrily, "you might possibly find us at the Tan Jet much later
tonight."
He still made no comment. She went on softly, "Night's the only time,
you know, at least in this century. Night in the city. I love the pale
yellow streets and the bright yellow tunnels. They've taken the jungles
away from us, the high seas and the highways, even space and the air.
They've abolished half of the night. They've tried to steal danger.
But we've found it again in the city; we who've got nerve and hate the
sheep!
"Well, here's your 3010 Opperly," she said, jerking the car to a stop.
Phil opened the door and started out. Only then did Mitzie seem to
see the bright marquee and realize that the address was that of Fun
Incorporated's wrestling center. She thrust herself across the seat as
he reached the curb and turned to shut the door.
"So this is what you were looking for!" she yelled at him, her suddenly
passionate voice making her mask puff away from and then huff to her
mouth. "You turn me down, you sniff at my friends and my ways, you're
above violence and sex, and all the while you're planning to satisfy
yourself vicariously, watching male-female!" For an instant before
she slammed the door in his face, lightning seemed to shoot out of
the lace-shirred eyeholes of the black mask. "At least I make my own
thrills, you rotten little virgin!"
VI
The crowd pouring down the corridor squeezed out of Phil his wincing
recollection of Mitzie's last crack. He slithered his way along the
wall, rubbed by shoulder and hip, trodden by heel and toe, set coughing
by gray-blue clouds of tobacco, weed, and so-called Venus weed, and
regaled by such remarks as, "Aaha, he could of thrown her any time he
wanted to," and "What I don't like are those dumb women referees!"
Phil finally wedged his way into an eddy of the crowd near a side
corridor. He unhopefully gasped, "Juno Jones." Old Rubberarm whispered
throatily, "Come right in, Mack," and narrowly arched his gray arm to
let Phil duck through at that point, meanwhile bracing his slaty length
against a general surge of the crowd and whipping back the tentacle-end
of his arm to stop a gent in brown with tennis-ball eyes who tried to
duck in after Phil.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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