"Sex and/or Mr. Morrison" (1967)

Carol Emshwiller's story is truly weird, an invasive sexualized peeping-tom or stalking situation with the usual gender roles reversed and some suggestion that one or both characters might actually be aliens from outer space, perhaps something like David Bowie's man who fell to earth. It is deeply and richly creepy. As described, Mr. Morrison's place is such a sty that the unnamed first-person narrator can conceal herself in the piles of dirty laundry. She is there for one reason—to see him naked, not so much for sexual reasons as curiosity. But inevitably it is sexually charged. She invades his home and sneaks about undetected. For his part, Mr. Morrison is a grossly obese middle-aged man living by himself. The narrator is attracted to him. She lives in the room below him. "He's too big to be a quiet man," she writes. "The house groans with him and settles when he steps out of bed." She doesn't mind hearing him, even enjoys it. But she wants to know who he is, "one of the Normals or one of the Others?" This is never really explained and could mean anything, from the aforementioned possibility of aliens to questions of sexuality or class. I also saw an internet synopsis that said the narrator is elderly—a clue I missed. At any rate, into the place she goes, making some close reconnoiters, as in the kneehole of a desk the man is sitting at. It's intense, but it's also hard to believe he would miss her. Is she that small? Is she not generating body heat? I think you see the problem. Maybe he would miss her under the bed or even in a pile of clothes, but really. Meanwhile, she is reveling sensuously in the experience, the smells, the sights, the textures. She's intoxicated with herself in this invasion, like a burglar prompted to a bowel movement in the act. We're inside certain nether regions of brain function here. Not to say the story isn't working, but it's just so powerfully repellent. It's like finding out someone is so attracted to a fetishized body part of yours they have masturbated near you. No harm no foul, maybe, but still. In this case, breaking and entering is involved. Now there is also some interesting play in this story with the gender reversals, subverting perhaps some predisposition to outrage because it is a woman. As with the Mary Kay Letourneau story, it's still often hard to entirely avoid a double standard, probably because cases like these are so rare. This story makes a woman the predator but her victim could control her simply by noticing her. Does that make the story comic, with or without the overlay of aliens? Or is it just an exposition of creepy—and illegal—behavior? The more I think about it the more I think it's another one that might actually qualify as dangerous.

Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison