Читать книгу For a Good Time Call... - Donald Ph.D. Ladew - Страница 5

William worked as a technical writer for an aerospace firm in the San Fernando Valley. It was all part of the big picture, his big picture. He wrote descriptions of things other men designed. They were all probably over six feet. It made him sad.

After work, sitting at the bus stop, he forgot about the appointment. The redhead sat across from him, and as usual she didn't notice him. He descended into his normal state of apathy. Then he noticed the strange ad again and thought about going. It was crazy. She's probably five feet ten. He was derisive, disgusted. Great! I'll get a close look at the buttons on her dress.

Once back at the flat, things felt strange. He was like two people. One jabbering away how stupid it all was, the other blank, detached. He took a shower, then as he shaved he was further depressed by what he saw in the mirror. Short black hair, light gray eyes beneath straight, black brows split by an inability to avoid the good left jab. A beaky nose which had also suffered from those left jabs. He still had the mustache, a remnant of his Navy days.

He dressed carefully in a pair of gray slacks, white cotton button-down shirt, burgundy tie and dark blue blazer, then put a quick brush on his boots; all the while the other person was yammering on about what an idiot he was, how he'd probably catch some disfiguring disease, or get mugged.

When he was in high school, he overheard the neighbor lady tell his step father it was too bad he had a short upper lip. He didn't stay around to hear what he said. She made it sound like leprosy. If he hung around maybe they'd make him wear a bell or something. Anyhow the image stuck. He was sure it must be bad, so he kept the mustache. She probably had no idea she had added to the dwindling spiral of his self-esteem.

During his second hitch in Viet Nam, a military intelligence type was sent down from “I” Corps to debrief William and the rest of the team after they went for a little swim in the Rung Sat, one of the foulest swamps in the world.

He took one look at William and said, “Who's the toy soldier?” William tried to tell the commander he was tired, which was true.

The commander said he understood, but that was no excuse for breaking the guy's legs, then trying to run over him with a truck. As far as William was concerned the intelligence weenie was real lucky he hadn't run over his head. Didn't matter, he still got busted and lost two months pay.

So there he was, trying to ignore all the strange internal comments about the state of his decaying sanity. At five thirty, “the other guy” got up and went down to the bus stop. A pretty girl from his building was there. She spoke to him!

"Hi there. You look sharp, got a hot date?" she smiled.

William was so stunned, he mumbled something incoherent and stood there like a deranged department store dummy. Maybe he was hallucinating. Mercifully, the bus came and took him away.

The Bellefourche Towers was located on another park, in the best part of the city. The doorman probably got paid more than William. He told the man he had an appointment with Miss Annie-Brown in suite 1201A. The doorman squinted at something on a clipboard and grudgingly opened the doors, as large as the entrance to the cathedral at Rheims. He pointed to a bank of elevators across a vast expanse of parquet floor.

Make a great roller-rink, William thought.

"The one on the left, Mr. Holt-Fennimore," he said.

William wondered somewhat uncharitably, if she's a call-girl she must be working twenty four hours a day. The elevator rose swiftly and silently, with no sickening lurches or sudden stops. There were only two suites on the twelfth floor. He pressed the doorbell and heard the muted peel of musical chimes.

God, what am I doing? he thought. He was getting ready to leave when the door opened.

He saw...a tall woman...no ...a lady about five feet tall. What the...for a moment he was sure he saw a tall woman, now here was this petite girl with lavender eyes and shiny black hair, smiling at him...up at him. She was a wearing a dark green sheath, cut up the thigh in the Chinese style.

"Please enter, Mr. Holt-Fennimore." Her voice was as musical as a rare jungle bird.

He'd seen places like this on T.V. They went into a drawing room that was bigger than William's apartment.

"Please sit here." She indicated a plush divan, long enough to seat ten abreast.

He sank into the couch until it seemed it would swallow him in one soft, silent gulp. She sat beside him and her dress rode up her thighs provocatively. He tried not to look. Fortunately he failed. William felt gauche and uncomfortable.

"Why did you call, Mr. Holt-Fennimore?" she asked.

"Huh! Oh, well, I didn't have anything else to do...I mean I was bored...what I mean is, well it was such an interesting ad..."

He tried to sink further into the couch. Maybe he'd run out of ways to insert his foot in his stupid mouth.

"All good reasons to call, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. Before we begin, it is necessary that I gather personal data." She brought out a strange machine. It was modern and shiny. She disconnected a pair of metal plates from it, and moved toward him. He wasn't having any of that.

"Hey, wait a minute, what are those? I don't fool around with machines. What are you, some kind of psychiatrist? I don't associate with those freaks."

Maybe this is what the shrinks call a rural electrification project, he thought.

"It isn't dangerous, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. This is a “Persolyser”, a personality analyzer. I must be certain I tailor your good time as close to your real wishes as possible. This device will help me do that. It is painless, and there are no unpleasant after-effects at all. I assure you, sir, I may not give you a bad time. I am not trained for that. That sort of thing is handled by another company."

Christ, this is too weird, he thought. "You must be from another country," he said. "I don't recognize your accent. Are you from Europe?"

She gave him a sweet smile. "I come from far, far away. Is my accent unpleasant?" she asked.

"Oh, no, Miss Annie-Brown, it's beautiful." It just sort of popped out, and he felt himself blush.

Her eyes glittered with pleasure. "Thank you. May I attach these?" He was so captivated he would have let her attach them to his eyelids.

"Oh, sure, if you have to."

"I do."

She attached them gently. They were cool against his temples. She flipped a switch and William went to sleep. When he woke up, he didn't realize he'd nodded off. Well, he hadn't been asleep, exactly. His throat felt dry as though he'd been talking for a long time. Miss Annie-Brown sat across from him watching intently.

"When are you going to use the machine?" he asked.

She grinned deliciously. "Ahhh, but I have, Mr. Holt-Fennimore, for three of your medium time divisions."

"Oh, I'll be damned. Do you have anything to drink? I'm bone dry."

"Would you like liquid stimulants, sweetened water, or water as essence?" she asked.

"Huh? Oh, I get it. What sort of liquid stimulants do you have?"

She went to one side of the room, and rolled a tray over to where they were sitting. She removed a bottle of champagne from a silver ice bucket. Holy Toledo! Dom Perignon 1975. William had had a summer job in a wine shop.

She handled the bottle like the maitre 'd at the Chez Larousse on South Street. He sipped slowly. Gods be praised: effervescence, liquid sunshine, a hint of apple. She must have one great expense account, he thought.

Miss Annie- Brown drank hers as if she had stock in Moet.

"Look, Miss Annie-Brown," William said, "I'm not stupid. I've been acting a little foolish, but I'm not stupid."

"You are not stupid! Your intelligence quotient is 43:12:AA:65 on the Grizz-Zimma scale."

"Damn right! I know everything has a price, and I'm sure yours is way beyond anything I can pay." He figured he might as well get a few things settled right off the bat.

"You are right, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. There is no such thing as a free breakfast. Did I get that right?"

"Sure, absolutely." He finished his third glass and she immediately poured another. "Besides you haven't really told me anything. Just what sort of good time did you have in mind?" William felt as if he was leering like a pervert in a girl's school.

"I can't tell you here. We must go to the briefing locus. Do you mind rapid travel, Mr. Holt-Fennimore?" He didn't miss the impish grin.

Her statement had a hint of challenge, and he was feeling the booze. Anyway, that was his excuse. In reality an odd phenomenon was taking place. He wasn't bored. He was interested.

"No," he answered confidently, "I don't mind rapid travel."

She stood sinuously, stretched, and smoothed her dress down over her hips. "Will you follow me please?"

Hey, now we're getting somewhere, he thought. She moved gracefully across the drawing room, and the silken dress moved lovingly over her shapely bottom. He reached out and snagged the half empty bottle of champagne and followed, never taking his eyes from that delightfully undulating rump.

They went into a bedroom...but there wasn't any bed! Against one wall was a dressing table, and other articles one might expect to find in a wealthy woman's boudoir.

Instead of a bed there was a shiny metal plate about six feet square in the middle of the floor. It was surrounded by a series of ceramic tubes pulsating with a pale green light. He felt an energetic tingle, like too much electricity in the air.

Pretty kinky, Miss Annie-Brown, he thought. You want to do it on an electric plate, that's okay with me. William was really beginning to feel the champagne.

She stepped over the glowing pipes and held her hand out to him. The way he was feeling, he'd have walked across a bed of red hot coals to take that dainty hand. It was warm and soft. He stumbled slightly, but managed to get on the plate.

"Please stand in the center, Mr. Holt-Fennimore."

He didn't let go of her hand. He stood where she told him, and waited with anticipation for the next phase of this strange evening.

She carried an object in her hand that looked like an extra-wide belt. She reached around him and fastened it. Her hair in his face felt soft and fresh, with a hint of exotic perfume. She was like the Dom Perignon, delicious and intoxicating.

She reached down and pushed some raised studs on her belt, then did the same to his. Small square lights glowed on each. Then she looked up at him and smiled enigmatically.

A baritone humming began. It was more visceral than audible. The cool light from the tubes around the stage got brighter, pulsing up and down every half second.

He started to get a queasy feeling. It didn't make sense, not on three glasses of Dom Perignon. Great wines don't have that effect. Headaches are the product of northern California chemistry sets, sometimes called wineries, sluicing out the juice of the grape faster than the North Slope pumps oil.

The feeling of electrical energy became increasingly apparent. There was a nimbus of flickering blue-light around Miss Annie-Brown's hair, then an unbelievably loud snap, and William found himself on his knees in a clinically white room with a tinge of sulphur smell in the air. It was similar to the after-effects of summer lightning.

Miss Annie-Brown was gone. William was slightly drunk, and had the bottle clutched tightly in his left hand. He took a healthy pull and looked around. At first glance the room was entirely featureless. There were no square corners. It was basically a box with rounded corners.

"Mr. Holt-Fennimore, can you hear me?" A voice, a man's voice. He couldn't tell where it was coming from.

"That's me. What's happening?"

"Welcome to locus 41-10Y." A chair-like object began to rise magically out of the floor in the center of the room.

William looked at it with surprise. "Hello, where'd you come from?"

The place was hilarious. He giggled foolishly and couldn't seem to stop. Screw it, who cares, he thought. He took another drink from the bottle. Then as he was trying to sit in the chair, the wall in front of him slowly became clear, like a picture window.

Behind it, in a chair similar to his, sat a middle-aged man in a brown suit with bushy eyebrows and a friendly smile.

"Mr. Holt-Fennimore, I am the director of “For A Good Time Call” in this quadrant. It's time to get down to business. Would you like to have a good time?" He had a mellow, salesman's voice.

"Sure, why not? Where's Miss Annie-Brown? Now she's what I call a good time."

"Let me ask you a few questions, Mr. Holt-Fennimore. Are you happy in your current existence?"

Damn! What a shitty thing to ask, William thought, this guys going to ruin a perfectly good dream.

It all came back, the boredom, the disconnection from life. A short body trapped in a six-foot world. He hadn't had a purpose since he was in the Navy, and that was a pretty rigid view of what life is supposed to be.

"Not much, Mr..."

"You may call me Mr. Carson. How far would you be willing to go to change your life?" he asked.

“Christ, I feel like a character in one of those plays where the hero sells his soul to the devil”, William muttered.

"Are you the devil by any chance?" he asked.

Carson laughed. "I'm afraid not. May I call you William?"

"Sure."

"William, Miss Annie-Brown is not your good time. We could provide that experience well enough, but what about tomorrow, or next week, or next year? No, our concept of a good time is something that lasts a good deal longer than one evening."

The little man with bushy eyebrows was very sincere. William began to sober up.

"Look, what's going on here? Is this some kind of secret government installation? You CIA guys into those crazy drug experiments again? I told Miss Annie-Brown, I'm not stupid. I know the state of our current technology, and there's nothing like this anywhere on earth."

Mr. Carson smiled and said nothing.

"Exactly where am I? Is this some secret base out in the desert? You don't mind my saying so, it looks like a George Lucas movie set." In the back of his mind he knew where he was, but he couldn't confront the answer he was getting.

"I will answer your questions, William. Your current location is approximately six million miles beyond the planet you call Pluto. This is not a secret government installation. It is a legitimate business establishment." He was very matter of fact.

William's jaw was hanging down a foot. "Whooaa!" He was beginning to catch on. "Are you telling me, you and Miss Annie-Brown are not from Earth? I get it, you're from some sort of galactic civilization, another planet," he said sarcastically.

"That is correct, William. Sorry, I thought you knew." He delivered his answer as though that sort of thing happened every day.

"It may come as a surprise to you, Mr. Carson, but we, that is people from Earth, aren't doing a lot of business off-planet these days. As a matter of fact we aren't doing any business out this way at all."

"Good, good. That means my company will have first shoot at your planet," he said.

"That's first shot, Mr. Carson." William corrected him automatically.

"Thank you, William. Wonderful language. Let me tell you what we do. First of all we don't go around grabbing people at random. A great deal of research goes into the selection of a client/solver. For instance, even when you have all the required physical attributes and are well within the proper intelligence profile, without a powerful desire to change your life we would not take you."

"Okay, okay, you select carefully. It's like I told Miss Annie-Brown, I don't have any money or anything of value to exchange for this good time. I don't know how it is out in the rest of the galaxy, but I'd bet you fellows want your nickel, your pound of flesh, whatever you use for money."

William damn well knew the way the world was. One way or the other, dues had to be paid.

"You are partly mistaken, William. You do have something to exchange. Your time and your service. I see that our company name has been somewhat misleading. We are not a travel agency, although a being who takes our service usually gets to travel extensively. We are not vacation consultants. We are in fact a galactic employment agency with offices throughout this quadrant. We, however, provide something more than just bodies to our clients. We provide catalysts for change. We give our clients an employee who will bring new viewpoints to their problems.

"Our clients pay very well for this service. We also collect ten percent of your first year's salary. To you we guarantee that at some point during your employment you will know that you are “having a good time”. If not, we refund your salary, and a hundred thousand credit separation fee, when and if the contract is terminated."

William was momentarily speechless. "I'll be damned. I'll be doubled damned!" It was too weird. "I don't have any skill anyone out there, I mean out here wants."

Mr. Carson, if that was really his name, which William doubted, touched some panels, and a screen with strange symbols appeared.

"William, let me be the judge of that. You have more skills than you think. You are a competent technical writer. You have had good training as an engineer, with minor studies in journalism. You spent six years in the Navy as a S.E.A.L."

William felt a kind of isolation. Culture shock or something was beginning to set in. How did Carson know all that stuff? he wondered. William had more questions than he could think straight enough to ask.

Mr. Carson went on. "I've investigated that organization in your libraries. As warriors they are considered the finest. You were rated very resourceful by your superiors. Your military records indicate you are quick to learn new languages. Oh yes, William, you have many qualities that are highly valued out among the inhabited worlds.

"You have personal problems, that is true. Part of our exchange is to find a position, and a client, that will give you the opportunity to resolve these difficulties. Please note that I said, give you the opportunity. We don't take a hand in the actual resolution. No personal problem was ever resolved for one sentient directly by another. A being may be shown a path, but he must go the rest of the way himself.

"The solution to your problem lies within you. It is up to you to find it. What we do is locate a situation where the potential for change, challenge, A Good Time, exists"

William found himself listening closely to everything Carson said. It fit his concept of problems and solutions to a tee. That he had no answer to his troubles wasn't someone else's fault.

William had a thousand questions. "Mr. Carson, suppose I take this job you're offering, what are the conditions?"

He smiled. It was a nice smile. "Your first contract will be for five years. For all the benefits it brings, you must finish the assignment to the complete satisfaction of the client. If the client should chose, they can terminate the contract early, without prejudice. It will be as though you fulfilled the complete term, as far as pay and bonuses go. However to fulfill the contract, the client is also aware that some time may be necessary for him to get the full benefit of your unique viewpoints. I will tell you this, William, there is potential for danger on many of these contracts. Your client has full responsibility for any medical repairs the body may require as a result of work done for the client."

Wonderful, William thought.

"If your body is damaged beyond re-assembly, through no fault of your own, or through negligence on the client's part, a five hundred thousand credit indemnity will be paid to anyone you designate. I want you to know this seldom happens. Our clients do business with us for the very reason that they need something new, a uniqueness of viewpoint not available from beings of their own race or other races."

"Other races. Judas Priest! You are for real, aren't you?"

"Oh, to be sure, William. We are very much as you say, for real. I hope you don't have any problem with xenophobia. I have not noticed any such aberration in your personality profile."

"I know what that means. Well, Jesus, I don't know. I've never thought about it. If you've read our more creative literature on the subject, you probably know we've created all sorts of bug-eyed monsters, living out there." He had to laugh. "I mean out here."

"William, I have a news crash for you. Of the races which have produced literature as you know it, that is, fiction, every one of them has stories of “bug-eyes monsters”, living “out there”. I hope you won't be offended if I tell you that some of the races I have contacted would consider you the bug-eyed monster."

That made sense. "May I ask you something personal?"

Carson nodded agreeably.

"Am I seeing you as you really are, or are you some sort of projection?" Might as well satisfy that question while we're on the subject, William thought.

Mr. Carson's bushy eyebrows went up at least an inch. "You are perceptive, William. The answer to your question is no, this is not my true body shape. Your next question, prompted by an innate curiosity peculiar to your race is, what in fact do I look like?" He grinned mischievously. "Are you sure you won't be shocked or disgusted?"

"I don't know, Mr. Carson, I hope not," he told him.

Carson passed his hands over a control panel. There was a shimmering where he sat, and then he reappeared, not disgusting at all. He looked a lot like an over-weight badger with a few notable exceptions. His teeth looked human, and his deep brown eyes were circular and luminous. His forefeet weren't paws at all. He had well developed hands with long, flexible fingers, and a really long tail. It must have been three feet at least. He was scratching a large furry ear vigorously with his tail. The whole thing struck William as impossibly funny.

"Well, I see you are not frightened or disgusted. However, I did not think I was quite so laughable." He sounded grumpy.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Carson, this is quite a shock to me. I'm wondering what Miss Annie-Brown looks like." He suddenly felt sad at the prospect of her being another little badger or worse.

"Ahhh...then you would be quite surprised. She is in fact entirely humanoid although a bit taller than she appeared to you on Earth."

"I thought something was strange when I first saw her. Taller, wouldn't you know it," he muttered. "So, where to from here, Mr. Carson?"

Carson ignored the question. "Are you interested in employment, William?"

Time to fish or cut bait. "Yeah, I guess I am, Mr. Carson." I sure as hell ain't going anywhere back on old Earth. Can you give me an example of one of your employee-client deals; like how it worked out?" William asked.

"I understand, William. Indeed I can." His long tail lashed around randomly, then ended back at the tufted ear scratching vigorously.

"I recently had a request from a race of insectoids many parsecs east of here. They are a successful monarchy. For the past two thousand years they have been following a planned selective breeding program. The purpose of the program was to produce a superior being who would eventually become their queen.

"These people, the Aridnii, have been in conflict with a race of arachnids for the last thousand years. During a battle between the two groups, the breeding area was overrun and the undeveloped pupa—their queen to be—was stolen by the arachnid warriors. The insectoids were unable to rescue their precious offspring, though many attempts were made. They didn't succeed because the arachnids could predict exactly how they would attack. A thousand years of warfare had taught each race all there was to know about the other.

"As time passed, the loss of the special offspring was sapping the Aridnii's will to fight, even to survive. They were on the verge of succumbing, not as individuals, but as an entire race. That was when my company was contacted. My staff and I spent many time cycles studying the situation.

"It was peculiar. Even though the insectoid race was going under, the arachnids were not attacking. This was odd, after all it looked like the logical time for them to mount an all-out attack. Many opportunities for mentally devastating psychological tactics existed. Yet they were doing none of these things. They were in fact amazingly quiescent.

"Can you guess what the problem was, Mr. Holt-Fennimore?"

William spouted out the first thing that came to his mind. "Well, sure, Mr. Carson. No game. No game equals no survival."

Mr. Carson sat up in his chair with a start. "Whauugg!" Then he rattled off something in a strange language. "And you said you had nothing to offer. You have stated, in a few seconds, a problem which took us months of your time to understand. Then it took more time to work out a solution."

It seemed simple enough to William. "So how did you teach the arachnids the concept of game and no-game?" he asked.

Mr. Carson laughed happily. "Ahhh..William, I'm going to enjoy finding a place for you. Indeed, how did we solve the problem? We found a philosopher who was bored." He chuckled cheerfully.

"He was from a university planet where he'd been teaching dull juveniles the basics of logic and various philosophical concepts for many years. He was literally dying of boredom. What he wanted, what he needed, was a way to put some of his vast learning into practice. He needed to see the application of his theories create effects in a real environment. He was beginning to doubt the reality, the worth of his own existence.

"I arranged for him to be attached to a group of itinerant entertainers, which we then put into the area under arachnid control. They planned to perform for the ruler of the arachnid forces. Our research indicated that the leader of this force loved games, particularly games involving numbers.

"Our man taught the ruler all the games he knew. In the process he saw to it the ruler never lost, won easily every time. At first the ruler thought this was fine. Then he became resentful.

"Our man was very calm during all this and asked him what was wrong. Of course, the ruler thought it was no fun winning all the time." Mr. Carson paused to give his ear a particularly energetic tug.

"The philosopher maneuvered the ruler into a discussion of the nature of games, and during their many talks the ruler realized that in taking the insectoid's queen, he had created a no-game condition which threatened the survival, not only of the insectoids, but also his own race. Instinctively, he and his own people knew this, which explained why, since the capture, the arachnids had made no overt moves against the other race. The philosopher and the ruler worked out a way by which our man would secure the pupa and return it to the insectoids. The ruler made it appear as though it was accomplished by a clandestine raid, about which he and his people knew nothing, with the philosopher acting as intermediary.

"So you see, William, client and employee both got something they wanted and needed. The philosopher was revitalized. He had an example of his philosophy in action to back up the workability of the theories he taught. The insectoids got their pupa back, and a future—a game—was restored. Our last report from the area was that the two races are fighting again, happily strengthening the survival characteristics of their breeding males, insuring the survival of each race."

"That's a hell of a story, Mr. Carson, but I can't believe things always work out so well for all your clients and employees."

"Of course not. But our success rate is very high, or we wouldn't be in business," he said.

Well, why not? William thought to himself. "I'm sure not surviving worth crap now. I'm not happy with my lot. If it takes something as crazy as this to find a solution, what the hell, I've got nothing to lose."

"There are several possibilities, William. It hasn't been decided which of these will be for you. We're going to send you back to Miss Annie-Brown's apartment now. It'll be a week or so before we're ready to make you an offer. I suggest you terminate all activities that would prevent you from leaving and prepare yourself for notification. If there are further questions, call Miss Annie-Brown." He sat and rubbed his small hands together in a very human gesture.

"This has been a most enlightening evening. I look forward to seeing you again before your assignment. I have a good feeling about this, Mr. Holt-Fennimore."

"Uh...thank you, Mr. Carson."

The chair disappeared into the floor, the characteristic hum started up and William was banged back down to the Bellefourche Towers. Beam me down, Scotty, was his last thought.

When William was in underwater demolition, they went on twenty mile underwater exercises, after which he was physically whipped. That's how he felt when he found himself back in Miss Annie-Brown's bedroom sitting on the cool ceramic plate.

She was waiting with her hand held out. As he stepped over the softly pulsating tubes his knees were trembling. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He looked at Miss Annie-Brown closely. She looked the same—delicious. When she noticed him looking at her, she smiled gently.

"I imagine you know this is not my true form?" she said when they got back to the couch in the sitting room.

It was sad. "Yes, I do now. I knew you were too good to be true."

"Mr. Holt-Fennimore, you say very poetical, sweet things. I thank you most sincerely." Her expression was utterly feminine, and he was barely able to resist the desire to touch her, if only in some small way.

She was still wearing her belt. She reached down and pressed one of the studs. She, well...the area she occupied began to change, and there she was as he had first seen her, about five-foot seven.

She took the belt off. It was amazing. There was no difference in her appearance except the seven inches. The same shiny black hair and lavender eyes. The same great...ah well, no use thinking about that.

"I've always wondered if people who live on other planets would look like people from Earth, or maybe like Mr. Carson. Considering how many stars there are in the galaxy, I'm not surprised there'd be people like you and him."

She brought over another bottle of Dom Perignon and filled two glasses. Then she giggled charmingly. "I wouldn't care if this were a planet full of Droggish-Fermed, I would forgive all for the wonderful creation of champagne."

"Hear! Hear!" What the hell's a Droggish-Fermed? he wondered.

"William," something in her voice got his attention immediately. "When men and women like each other on this planet, how do they...demonstrate this...affection?" she asked.

William blushed, and she noticed it immediately.

"I don't mean to embarrass you, William. I'm just naturally curious."

As he learned later, like women of Earth, those from distant planets weren't always completely up-front with their intentions.

They were sitting on the divan, and somehow she was very close. He didn't know how she managed it, but sitting there next to him she didn't seem taller. He thought the temperature control must be on the blink, it was awfully warm in there.

"Oh, I'm not embarrassed, Miss Annie-Brown," he lied. "We have many ways. Maybe we send, I mean a man, uh...a male, would send a gift to the lady—perhaps flowers or candy, maybe a bottle of fine perfume.

"Yes," she seemed even closer. "I have read of these rituals. I think they are very nice. We have similar customs where I come from. But tell me, if a man and woman like each other, is there some more...direct way they express this affection?" Her voice was a soft as an English duvet, and twice as inviting.

"Ummm, yes, Miss Annie-Brown. Something tells me you already know about these customs."

She looked at William intently. "You are right, I do know about them. Do you like me, William?" she asked.

Jesus! he thought. What a non sequitur! What's not to like? I've got to do something about the temperature. I'm going into thermal overload.

"Yes, I do, Miss Annie-Brown. You're the most beautiful woman I have ever seen."

"Good." She smiled like someone who's just received the news they been waiting for. "I like you, William. I am female."

He groaned silently. Jesus have mercy. That was the understatement of the bloody damn century!

"I want to experience the kissing and touching rituals, William. Will you show me how it is done?" she murmured.

Somehow William managed not to shout Hooray! or Whoopee! But he sure as hell thought them. She was delicious beyond belief, and he thanked the creator of this particular universe for creating a race that was so like his own.

Later, much later, she said she enjoyed the rituals and that William must be a great expert in their practice.

He told himself that she spoke truly, and hoped it was so, because as far as he was concerned, in that very much neglected area of his life, the experience was the best.