Teleman couldn't remember when he had first experienced the strange
torment. The restlessness, the almost frightening desire to behave like
some mad criminal, would come upon him at the most unexpected moments.
He'd find himself turning his head and staring wildly at the women
who passed him on the travel strip. He'd watch them while they went
striding on ahead of him toward the mating and child-rearing centers,
never taking his eyes from them until they were swallowed up in the
golden glow from the distant buildings.
It was incredible, and completely unlawful. It made no sense at all.
He was an engineer and a construction worker, not a sex-privileged
man. Theoretically all physical desire had been eliminated from his
biogenetic heritage for four generations.
In the year 2061 only one man in fifty was supposed to feel the
stirring. He had read about it in books, of course. But the scientific
descriptions had never stirred him before, and neither had the sight of
the passing women, swaying their hips in voluptuous abandonment as they
went about their appointed tasks.
The very word "seductive" had been to him an intellectual concept
solely. Emotionally it had awakened no response in him, no real
understanding of how a man could be drawn from his work by enticements
of the flesh that were as coldly meaningless as a row of numerals set
down at random on a blank sheet of paper.
Meaningless once, but now.... NOW.... Another woman passed him, her
eyes downcast, her tightly-sheathed breasts burgeoning despite their
bound state, breaking through the restraining, semi-translucent fabric.
Like great tropical blooms the breasts of the women seemed, ensnared by
clinging vines which were parasitic and wholly pernicious, a new growth
introduced by Man in a jungle of his own cruel planting.
How cruel it was to select one woman out of fifty and say to her alone:
"You may mate and bear children." How cruel to compel the rest to
conceal their charms and pretend to be completely sexless!
Teleman drew in his breath sharply. What was happening to him? Why
should he feel angry and resentful when he knew that only one woman in
fifty could be stirred by the sight of a man, or respond to a man's
love-making? Had not all other women been made virtually sexless in
their mental processes by selective mating and other gene-altering
techniques?
Surely a woman without physical desire had no need to appear seductive
or to flaunt her charms. And surely a man without physical desire would
not care at all if a woman lacked a mating look, and was just a human
being more fragile than himself with contours that were softer and more
rounded.
Am I going mad? he wondered. In all the books there was no reference
to the possibility of a change in non-sex-privileged men and women. It
could hardly occur biologically. How could it, when all desire had
been bred out of the non-sex-privileged for four generations?
To every man his appointed task, his niche in the social fabric. And
to every woman. The sex-privileged were naturally in the minority.
How could it have been otherwise, when there was so great a need for
trained specialists in an advanced technological society? How could
a reasonable and thoughtful man fly in the face of what history had
confirmed time and time again?
Had not three great societies gone down in flaming ruin because Man had
permitted his animal instincts to block the road to progress?
Another woman passed him and this time the stirring became almost
uncontrollable. He had a wild desire to abandon all restraint, cross
the strip to her side and plead with her for permission to take her
into his arms and make passionate love to her. She was blonde and very
beautiful, her hair a golden fleece spread fanwise across the dazzling
whiteness of her shoulders. Her garments were free-flowing, all of her
charms tantalizingly unconfined. The tips of her full breasts were
clearly visible, pushing against the material of her tunic, and the
other curving, secret places of her body were revealed in the play of
light and shadow, the rippling of fabric. Her eyes were not downcast,
but bold and fearless and she met his gaze searchingly and without
embarrassment, as if she were greeting a sex-privileged man without
shame in the mating center.
He knew at once that she was a sex-privileged woman. No modesty of
attire had been imposed on her. Her lips were heavily rouged and her
slender young body had the supple grace of one adept in the arts which
can only be learned at Eros' shrine.
She returned his gaze steadily for an instant, with an unmistakable
look of amorous invitation. Then, slowly, her eyes hardened and her
lips curled in scorn and derision. His hesitation and the flush which
had mounted to his cheekbones had quite transparently given him away.
He was not one of the sex-privileged. She instantly lost all interest
in him, and moved away from him with a slight shrug, as if the stern
taboos erected by society did not in any way concern her.
A feeling of despair, of bitter hopelessness, made him groan inwardly
and increase the length of his stride. Swiftly the moving travel strip
continued to carry him toward the heart of the city, past suburban
gardens bright with vermillion-petaled flowers and small artificial
lakes which gleamed like gigantic garnets in the early morning sunlight.
It was difficult to wait patiently on the travel strip for the city to
sweep close. Walking was not illegal and few energetic men and women
could resist an impulse to exercise their legs and swing their arms
before their technological duties compelled them to perform just one
task well in a glass-enclosed activity cell.
One task well! He must never allow himself to forget how important
that was. There would always be a constantly growing need for men
and women conditioned by heredity and training to bend a machine to
their will or secure the right answers to difficult problems in the
research laboratories and industrial administration units. Without such
specialists the entire fabric of twenty-first century civilization
would be rent asunder. In fact--
Teleman began to tremble. A non-sex-privileged woman had brushed with
outrageous brazenness against him and he had thrown out one arm in
an instinctive gesture of self-protection. Off balance, he had gone
stumbling past her, and now she was at his side, grasping him firmly by
the elbow and helping him to his feet.
She was trembling also, and her breath was warm on his face. The dark
wilderness of her hair was more intoxicatingly fragrant than he had
ever dreamed a woman's hair could be. She was whispering strange words
to him, her breath quickening.
"It is breaking down! Can't you feel it? Can't you tell? For five days
and nights now I have wanted only one thing--to be embraced by a man.
But no man free to choose a mate would look at me twice, because I am
not supposed to feel as I do. If I should attempt to visit a mating
center I would be condemned to death. The man, too, would be punished.
To court me would be a crime--anti-social, monstrous."
She touched the small, glittering insignia on her right breast,
invisible from a distance, which indicated all too clearly her precise
status as a specialized industrial worker. Instinctively Teleman
glanced down at his own status insignia. On his right shoulder there
gleamed a tiny silver bridge supported by hydraulic pillars, a miracle
in miniature of engineering perfection.
For the first time the silver emblem seemed a badge of dishonor, an
insult to his dignity as a man with the blood warm in his veins and a
desperate need to love and be loved.
Her voice became cajoling. "To a sex-privileged man making love to me
would be a crime. But you can look at me, touch me, hold me close if
you wish. The Monitors have passed no laws to protect a woman like me
or a man like you. Who would believe that we could desire each other in
an intimate, physical way? Let us show them how mistaken they are! Let
us make a mockery of their cruel laws here and now! Let us make love
boldly as we have every right to do."
"No!" he heard himself protesting. Forcibly, almost brutally, he freed
himself, untwining her clinging arms and turning his face aside to
avoid the maddening thrust of her lips against his tightly clenched
teeth.
"For five minutes I have been watching you!" she cried. "Listen to me.
Don't be a fool. I _know_ you feel as I do. You have followed and
disrobed with your eyes every woman who passed you on the strip, and
some of them were quite ugly, if you would like me to be completely
honest about it. Perhaps you resent candor in a woman and prefer
the lying sort. I don't particularly care, because I know that I am
so desirable in your sight that you would like to take me into your
arms and tell me how beautiful I am. To whisper it tenderly while you
unloosen my gown and--"
"No! It would be a dark and terrible crime!" Hammers had started
pounding in Teleman's temples and he could scarcely breathe.
"You fool, you fool!" she went on quickly, unbuckling the golden belt
at her waist and throwing back her head. Her shimmering dark hair
was a miracle of loveliness, the sunlight bright upon it. She stood
very straight, her knees together, her full red lips slightly parted,
morning-dew moist.
"Some of the women who passed were not beautiful at all. But others
were radiant and when you stared at them your eyes lit up. In your
eyes desire was a high-leaping flame. You were powerless to quench its
bright splendor. You were tormented and afraid. But you did not really
want the fire to dwindle and expire. I was watching you closely. I
could not have been mistaken. There are some things no woman can be
deceived about."
She moved close to him again. She caught his right earlobe between her
lips, nibbled at it, whispered passionately into the chambered recess,
"Fire! In your veins and in mine! In every breath we draw and when we
breathe as one."
"No!" he cried, in desperate protest.
"Look at me," she pleaded. "Am I not beautiful? Make love to me now.
Do not be afraid. There are no other pedestrians close to us at the
moment. If they see us at all we will in nowise astonish them. The
sex-privileged often embrace quickly and furtively on their way to
the mating center, when distance turns them into small, barely
distinguishable figures black against the sunrise. Everyone expects it
of them, since they are naturally on fire with impatience."
"I have never seen--"
"At close range, no. But surely you have seen men and women acting
strangely at a great distance, bobbing like tiny sails in a breeze when
fortune favors them, and gives them as wide an expanse of empty travel
strip to rejoice in as we now have at our disposal."
"There are at least five men and women coming toward us," he protested,
but his throat was so dry the words were barely audible.
"Mere marionettes, dwarfed by distance. Think of them as such.
What do they know of love's splendor? In all likelihood they are
non-sex-privileged men and women, empty husks, hollow shells filled
with ashes. We were like them once, but all that is changed now.
Embrace me quickly and boldly. Hurry! Whisper sweet words to me. Call
me your life and your bride. Lover, be bold. Lover be sweet and gentle
and fierce and ardent. Can you not see that I am aflame with passion?
Make haste, my darling, my dearest one. The opportunity may not come
again."
He looked at her then, really saw her in all of her womanly
completeness for the first time. She had loosened all of the
constricting bands which had confined her charms from neck to ankle
only a moment before, so that her attire was now as free-flowing as the
garb that was worn in the mating centers and occasionally on the travel
strip by sex-privileged women who were unusually bold and fearless.
He did not stare at her garb for long. In mute adoration, his temples
throbbing, he let his gaze travel downward from her pale, beautiful
face to her swelling bosom and perfectly formed hips and the enchanting
whiteness of her sylph-slender thighs.
The twin mounds of her breasts were rose-tipped and tip-tilted and
there was a tiny mole just above her navel which made the whiteness
seem even more of a miracle, just as a tiny beauty-patch will often
enhance the loveliness of a face designed by nature to drive a man to a
frenzy of desire, amidst a carnival-bright shower of confetti and the
strains of amorous music.
His temples swelled to bursting and there was a roaring in his ears and
deep within his groin a trip-hammer had started up and was pounding
faster and faster.
She moaned and swayed toward him. Then she was in his arms and he could
no longer see even her full, red lips, moist and trembling and so
hungry for kisses that he feared for an instant that he would not be
permitted to breathe.
He spread his mouth over her lips to subdue their vehemence and her
tongue rebelled and came through in darting defiance and with so fierce
an ardor that his mouth seemed filled with weaving filaments of flame.
His hands moved up and down and across her back and he held her
so tightly pressed to his finely muscled body and she pressed so
passionately against him in return that it was hard to believe that
human flesh could endure so close an embrace without dissolving into
fiery motes swirling mindlessly about in the blazing heat of the sun.
But the ecstasy which came to them both in the same moment was not
mindless and if there was a dissolving it was of a different nature
entirely.