Honeymoon for Three

prospect yet. He decided to find Penny’s campsite.
    The campground was dark and silent. The inhabitants slept in their tents or campers. It was too cold and too dark for anybody to be outside drinking wine at one of the wooden picnic tables. Alfred used his flashlight sparingly and walked warily along the rough roads of the campground, trying not to run into one of the many tall evergreen trees, or step on a large pinecone, or, worst of all, come into contact with one of the bears that his imagination saw prowling at night, looking for food.
    It was a large campground, and he wasn’t at all sure of his directions. He had the feeling that he was going over the same paths again and again. Just as he was about to give up and return to his car—assuming he could find it—he spotted the green VW. In the dark it looked black.
    He had to make sure it was the correct car. He came right up to it and stooped in front of the license plate. He shone the flashlight on it, shielding it with his hand so its rays wouldn’t spread. This was Gary’s car, all right. Next to the car was a small tent. What he would call a pup tent. It must be the smallest tent in the campground, just big enough for two people. If they were friendly. That thought brought back Alfred’s rage.
    He stood motionless, a few feet from the tent, and stared at its dark outline. When he looked directly at it, the fabric blended into the blackness of the night and disappeared. The way he would like to make Gary disappear.
    He heard noises coming from inside the tent. Whispers. Soft giggles. Then grunts. A stifled shout. He knew what they were doing. He pictured Penny’s body, the way it had looked when he saw it from her window. Perfect. The body of a goddess. And that bastard was ravishing her.
    Alfred wanted to dive on top of the tent and bring it crashing down on them, then beat them with a fallen tree branch until they stopped. Stopped the whispers. And the giggles. The grunts and the cries. He would silence them. Forever.
    No. He couldn’t do that. He couldn’t kill Penny. Gary, yes. He could kill Gary in the blink of an eye. Easily. Without remorse. But Penny might still be his. She might see the light. Recognize that he was the only one who truly loved her. For months he had watched her from a distance. He had been afraid to approach her, afraid that she would reject him. Just like the one other girl he had been brave enough to approach had rejected him. But now he was ready to act. He had to act—before it was too late.
    He silently backed away from the tent until he couldn’t hear the noises inside. Slowly his insides cooled. His skin cooled off more rapidly, matching the temperature of the night air. He shivered. He forced himself to start walking back toward his car. He needed to get some sleep. If he could.

    CHAPTER 5
    Penny laughed as she put a dime into the slot that turned on the water for the shower. A shower with class—cobwebs, peeling paint, and aromatic canvas curtains. What a way to start her wedding day. A nontraditional wedding day if there ever were one. Their conformity scores had been correct.
    She and Gary had met through a computer matching service called Human Inventory. Although as Gary, the IBMer, had pointed out, the probability that the service actually used a computer in 1964 was not high. Computers were just barely up to that kind of challenge, and the programmers who could make them work were still too scarce for a startup company to employ.
    The concept sounded good. Even if they’d only used a punched card sorter, it had worked for her and Gary. All applicants had taken a series of tests for interests and attitudes. Interests of matched couples didn’t have to coincide exactly; some diversity was good, but the scores should be close on several attitudes. And they were. They had both scored very low on conformity. Thus her easy acceptance of the current situation. And they had both scored high on—she peeked through the curtains to make sure nobody else was about, afraid that somebody might read her thoughts—attitude toward sex. Those scores had also been correct.
    ***
    Gary fired up the Coleman stove he and Penny had purchased by pooling their Blue Chip Stamps and pondered how his life had changed so much in four short months. Well, okay, six months. Although it was just four months since Penny and he had met each other face to face. But for two months before that they had corresponded anonymously, through