Love 40

In 1991 I was solicited for a story for a new British magazine, FAR POINT. I make an honest effort to oblige such requests, though I really do hate to take time off from my novels. So I checked to see if I had any loose notions, and I did have one, so I wrote it up. I don't regard

"Love 40" as the greatest of stories, just the best I could come up with on short notice. I always do the best I can, but conditions make the result vary. Would it have been accepted if it had been submitted by an unknown author? I hope so, but I can't be sure. I never liked the system when I couldn't sell my stories because I was unknown, and I don't like it now that I am known, but it's the only game in town. So I hope you enjoy the story, and I hope it helps establish a market that you can sell to yourself, if that's your ambition.

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Galen hardly noticed the Oriental girl in the next court. He was concentrating on the tennis balls coming at him from the machine. It was set to feed a variety of balls, so that he could get his exercise the fun way. The girl was evidently setting up for something similar.

Actually, he wasn't paying much attention to the tennis balls either. He was hardly a tennis player, or even a reasonable duffer. He was a special investigator. Several people had mysteriously changed their lives after staying at this resort, and the resort administration had hired him to find out whether anything sinister was going on. Because many extremely wealthy foreign tourists stopped here, and the very hint of danger or scandal could cost the resort heavily.

So Galen, during his Vacation from the police force, was not only earning a very nice spot fee, but was being treated to the kind of luxury living that millionaires expected. He was methodically exploring every one of the facilities, constantly watching for anything sinister or even out of the ordinary. He luxuriated in the Jacuzzi, had an expert massage, exercised on the most modern equipment, played a round of golf, feasted morning noon and evening, danced with the most exquisitely garbed and amenable girls and watched a wider assortment of TV than he had known existed, including some he had thought to be illegal.

He was coming to realize that laws did not have the same bearing on the wealthy as on ordinary folk. Now he was trying one of the lesser facilities, because as yet he had found nothing to account for the management's unease.

He wasn't doing well. The machine was keeping score on his responses, and the score read LOVE 40. That meant that he was supposedly the server, and was about to be skunked on the game.

There was a flash. Galen paused, missing his shot. What had happened?

The girl in the next court paused too. Galen looked at her, and found her looking at him.

This time his shock was of recognition. Not of her, exactly, for he had never seen her before this session. But of their relationship. This was the woman he loved.

They walked together and embraced. Then they kissed. It was the sweetest kiss Galen had known.

They drew their faces apart and gazed at each other. The girl looked amazed and alarmed, but she did not try to move away from him. Her pupils were large despite the brightness of the day, and her jaw slack. It was the gaze of sheer adoration.

"I, uh, do you speak English?" he asked.

"Yes," she replied. "I love you."

"And I love you. But I don't know you. I don't understand this."

"This is very bad," she said. "I must go before my father sees."

"Yes. I'm sure we have nothing in common."

"Nothing," she agreed.

Then they kissed again. She was the most precious thing he could imagine.

After a moment they tried to separate again, and could not. "Maybe we'd better introduce ourselves," he said. "I am Galen Holt, here on temporary business. I go back to Massachusetts next week."

"I am—in your language I call myself Sue," she said. "Next week I return to Japan with my family."

"Then we'll never see each other again."

"Never."

"I've never done anything this weird before," Galen said. "I have a girlfriend back home. I don't hit on strangers."

"I have never been close to a man of your race before," she said. "This is a great scandal. I must go immediately."

They kissed a third time. It was infinitely wonderful.

"Your place or mine?" he asked, failing to make a joke of it.

"You have a room to yourself?" she asked, and saw his nod. "Then it must be there."

"You know this is absolutely crazy." But they were already walking off the courts, forgetting the rackets and balls.

Then a man was calling. Sue jumped. "It is my father! We must get far away from each other."

"Yes."

But they did not follow through. They stopped and kissed once more.

Sue's father arrived. He was well dressed and formidable. Galen wanted to be anywhere else, but he could not let go of Sue.

Under the man's glare, Galen and Sue made a valiant effort to separate. They drew a few inches apart. It felt like the end of all joy. Then they flung themselves together again.

Sue's father, realizing that something very strange was occurring, addressed Galen in English. "What is this spell you have cast on my daughter?"

Galen turned his head to the man without letting Sue go. "I don't know, sir. We were just practicing tennis shots in adjacent courts, and suddenly it happened. I love her."

Then he made a connection. This astonishing development—could it be related to his investigation? The people could have been changed two at a time. There were an equal number of men and women affected, though he hadn't thought of it that way before. Could sudden, overwhelming love account for it? There had been one suicide, two disappearances, one rape and two abrupt resignations from high places. All coming without warning or explanation. Galen had been alert for some kind of criminal involvement, but maybe he had been focusing on the wrong thing.

Yet instant love—how was it possible, let alone reasonable? He could appreciate how a man might see a lovely young woman in a tennis outfit, and be smitten by her body, and try to seduce her. Perhaps even to rape her. But that was only one case of six. Maybe if she rejected his advances and he was depressive, he could commit suicide. That might account for a second case. Or if she returned his interest, but they were married to others, then they might run away together. Thus the two disappearances. Or if he were important in government, and started an affair with a woman he met here, but couldn't keep out of the notice of the press, he might resign so he could pursue his illicit love in private.

It was coming together. Instant love could account for what had been happening. But how did it happen? He had not even been paying attention to Sue, or she to him, when suddenly they had found each other to be compellingly attractive. It couldn't be purely physical, for though Galen was healthy, he was no Adonis in body and was strictly average in face. As for Sue—well, it was hard to be objective, because he loved her, but all Orientals did look remarkably similar to him, and she was slightly thickset and not exactly of starlet aspect.

He had never entertained the slightest notion of dating one. This wasn't bigotry, just culture; his ignorance of the ways of Japan was monumental. As for her personality—he had yet to discover what it was. This was truly blind love.

Meanwhile Sue was speaking rapidly to her father in Japanese, evidently supporting Galen's ridiculous story. She clung desperately close to Galen.

The man assessed the situation. He was evidently conscious of being in a foreign land, and he did not want to generate an international incident. But he was not about to let his daughter get into trouble with a stranger. He wanted a quick and polite termination of the incident.

"What exactly were you doing when it happened?" he asked gruffly.

Sue spoke more Japanese, pointing to her court. Galen agreed, pointing to his.

A Japanese woman came out, evidently Sue's mother. The man spoke to her. She went unquestioningly to the court where Sue had practiced. Then the man went to Galen's court.

Following instructions, they picked up the rackets, and turned on the machines. The balls started flinging out.

There was a flash. Simultaneously the man and woman paused, looking surprised.

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