"I do. It's an idiotic hang-up. So I was mortified at the time. So now I know better."
"So what is still holding you back?"
"Whatever convinced me that sex and everything remotely associated with it is dirty or evil. I guess it predates even the tampon. Because I still know I can't do it with Darius, though I want to."
"You humans are more complicated than we nulls. We never have a problem of performance, when a master or mistress expresses desire."
"Well, Tom did, at one point."
"That was really a case of conflicting requirements. It passed."
"I think I envy you your simpler psyche, noncycles and all."
"You did not have sex before the rape, because you bled then. That's another complication nulls lack. But then what secret could you have had, so young? Or were you simply taught that sex is bad?"
"No, not directly. I had the same education everyone else did. Girls my age were getting into sex from the time I was eleven or twelve, and I guess I would have too, if there'd been love. But now I feel it: there's a deep guilt, and it's sexual in nature. I must've done something I managed to forget about, but it lingered."
They turned and walked on into the awfulness of unknown guilt. And came to another house.
"Why, that's my neighbor's house, early-on," Colene said, surprised. "My friend Buffy lived there. I'd almost forgotten; they moved later and we lost touch."
"Buffy?"
"Short for Elizabeth. She was my age, seven, when—oh, no!"
"You found something."
Colene tried to turn around. "I'd really rather leave it alone."
"So it must be what we seek."
"Oh, yeah. Oh, damn."
"You must explore it."
Colene gritted her teeth. "Yeah."
The front door of the house opened. A little girl ran out. She wore a flouncing blue dress with matching blue ties for her pigtails. "Lene!" she cried gladly, as if they had not seen each other in weeks. "Come in and play!"
Colene went with her. Colene was in a similar outfit, her dress being green, her hair tied back with a green ribbon. The two girls were of similar height and build, and both seemed carefree. It was a deliberate emulation of each other, as though they were twins, a game of identities.
"We got a new game today," Buffy said brightly. "With Dad. Mom's away."
Colene knew Buffy's father, a friendly and pleasant man who was often in the vicinity when they played. She thought it was because he wanted to be sure that no harm came to his little girl. But he had never actually played with them before, and she wasn't sure what game would interest an adult. "What is it?"
"He wants to lick your crack."
Colene was at a loss. "My what?"
"You know, between your legs." Buffy pulled up her dress and drew aside her panty to show her clean little cleft.
Colene wasn't sure about this. She had picked up the news, by the osmosis of family indirection, that no one other than her mother or another girl was ever to see that part of her that was covered by her panty, let alone touch it. "I don't think so." She wasn't saying no, just that she was uncertain of the propriety.
"It's okay, Lene. He does it all the time, to lots of girls. It doesn't hurt. It's fun."
"Fun?"
"Sure. It feels good. And he gives gifts."
Colene liked gifts. Christmas was her favorite time, because of the presents she got then. "What kind of gifts?"
"Nice dolls. Come on, I'll show you." Buffy hauled her to her bedroom, where she had a fine collection of dolls. "See? I got this one for a good licking." She picked up a fine big teddy bear.
"But isn't it wrong?"
Buffy looked at her with surprise. "What's wrong? It's fun. Only we don't tell Mom. It's not her kind of game."
"Mine neither," Colene said, knowing that her mother would Not Approve.
"So it's secret. That makes it more fun." Both girls loved secrets, and shared them constantly.
Still, Colene was uncertain. Secret hideaways, secret codes, secret stories—these were the stuff of joy. But to let a man put his face in there—that was a shameful secret. "I'd better not."
"Oh, c'mon! It's fun. I bet he's got a really nice doll for you. 'Cause he likes you. He said so. He said you're really cute."
"He did?" Colene was inordinately flattered. She wanted to be pretty and popular, but suspected that she was nothing of the kind.
"Sure. He said he'd really, really like to do you. So he must have a really nice gift. C'mon, let's see."
They went to the bedroom of Buffy's parents, and there was her father, sitting at a desk in the corner. "Hey, Dad, whatcha got for Lene?"
He gazed at them. "That depends. Does she want to play?"
Colene didn't answer, being more uncertain than ever.
"Show her what you got," Buffy said.
The man reached into a drawer and brought out the most beautiful doll she had ever seen. It was a horse, a mare, velvety black, standing about six inches tall at the shoulder. The long tail just touched the ground, and the mane flared back and fell to the right. Colene fell in love with it, that instant.
"See?" Buffy demanded. "She's real pretty!"
Colene reached toward it, then hesitated. If she took it, she would be agreeing to the game.
"Go ahead," the man said encouragingly. "See how she feels." He put the doll into her hands.
Colene held the mare doll, and stroked her back. She had never before felt such silkiness. The mane and tail were made of real, individual hairs. The face looked wise. This was a heaven doll.
"Keep her," the man said.
Reluctantly, Colene handed it back. "I can't."
"Oh, c'mon," Buffy said, exasperated. "It's nothing. I do it all the time."
"You do?"
"Sure. Like this." Buffy jumped up on the edge of the bed, swung her legs up so that her dress fell almost across her face, ripped off her panties, and braced her feet against the edge of the bed so that her knees were high and spread. What she called her crack was completely exposed. She let her back flop on the bed. "Watch."
The man kneeled on the floor, then leaned forward and put his face up against that open crevice. He licked it. "See?" Buffy said, completely undismayed. "It feels real good."
The funny thing was that it did look like fun. It obviously didn't hurt. And there was that horse doll. She truly wanted it. "Okay," she said at last.
"Good. Get beside me, like this. You got to do it right."
Colene got on the bed, removed her panties, braced her knees up and apart, and let her head fall back on the bedspread. She was wide open in a way she was sure was wrong. But she so much wanted that mare!
Buffy got up and put her panties back on. She looked at Colene. "Gee, yours is real pretty," she said enviously. Colene closed her eyes, not wanting to see anything. She felt the man's breath on her thighs, and willed herself not to move. If she didn't move, it wouldn't be her doing it. So she couldn't be blamed. She concentrated on the doll, desiring it intensely. She felt the mouth touching her cleft, kissing it, licking it. She focused on the doll. The tongue stroked the length of her slit, and nudged into its center, and it did feel warm and good. She thought of how wonderful it would be to have the doll. Her body felt increasingly good as the man's lips and tongue caressed the crevice. She imagined riding the horse, in some dreamland where it was full size. The pressure against her thighs and bottom felt divine. She hated it, yet wished it would continue forever. She drifted into a semi-dream state. It was as though that wonderful horse were carrying her away to some perfect other world, where everything felt so good.
"Okay, Lene," Buffy said. "You did real good." Colene realized that it was over. The man was gone, and the doll was on the bed beside her. She had earned it.
She got up and put her panties on. She hugged the doll. "Whatcha going to call her?" Buffy asked. The name came without thought. "Maresy." Buffy laughed. "Great! Let's go have some pop." Colene never told anyone else how she had won
the doll. It was just a gift from Buffy's dad. No one questioned it. She never did the act again, but that once was branded on her memory. At night she would lie with her bare knees up, and hug the doll. Sometimes she touched herself, feeling illicit pleasure, but also enormous guilt. She knew she shouldn't have done it. But she loved Maresy.
"Oral sex," Pussy said. "You had oral sex as a child. Why do you feel guilty?"
"Children are not supposed to do it," Colene said. "They just aren't. I knew I had done something horrible."
"But you liked it"
"I hated it!"
"You liked it."
"I hated that I liked it."
And here it was: her guilt was only partly for the act, and mostly because the act had felt good. She had sold herself for a doll, and maybe it would have been all right if she had hated the act, but she had liked it. The warm wet tongue had brought her a peculiar pleasure she never found anywhere else.
In time she managed to forget the act, but her love for Maresy Doll remained, though with a mysterious tinge of guilt. Maresy became her confidant for her most sensitive secrets.
Pussy shook her head. "We nulls do that sort of thing all the time. We always did. It is fun. Why did it make you so ashamed?"
"It just is," Colene said. "Children aren't supposed to know anything about sex."
Pussy shrugged. "Well, you did what you had to, to earn your doll. It didn't make any difference whether you liked it or hated it, it was what you had to do. So there's no point in feeling guilt, then or now."
"But I do feel guilt, then and now."
"Look, Colene. You were a child. You weren't expected to know everything that was right or wrong. The girl set you up, and the man took advantage of you. If there was guilt, it was theirs. You have no business feeling it."
"I went against my culture. That inspires guilt."
"You're no longer in your culture."
Colene nodded. "I guess you're right."
"It's not what you did, but how you feel about it that counts. You let your culture foist guilt on you. You don't have to keep it."
"But I was only seven!"
"Too young to know better."
"But I liked it."
"Does pleasure equate with guilt?"
Colene thought about that. "I guess you're right. I shouldn't have done it, and I knew that then and know it now. But I was led into it, and made a mistake. I shouldn't have to pay for that all the rest of my life."
"Exactly."
"When something else happened, like that tampon, that original sin came back to lend it force. I was paralyzed again, trying to avoid blame."
"And you were helpless when you were raped, and felt the guilt again. It was a continuing current, because you had never dealt with it. But now you have. You don't have to be a patsy anymore."
Slowly, Colene nodded. "I think I feel something letting go. The guilt's beginning to leak away."
"So now that you have explored the guilts that paralyzed you, you can return to Darius without inhibition."
"I wonder. Maybe there are other layers."
"We can find out. Let's go back."
They turned, and tried to walk back the way they had come. They made scant progress.
"Damn it, enough already!" Colene flared. "I was fooling about more layers. There isn't any more guilt. I've used up my deepest inner conflicts."
"Then why won't the monster let us go?"
"Because it's cheating!"
Pussy laughed. "How do we deal with a monster who cheats?"
"We force it to obey the rules."
"What rules?"
"Okay, then we bluff it back." Colene turned around in a full circle. "Monster, I'm done with you! I have fed you all I'm going to. If you don't lay off, I'm going to start feeding on you."
The only answer was a shifting of the foul clouds surrounding them. The clouds changed course to converge. Pussy wanted to urge caution, but saw that the girl was determined. There was something subtly different about her. She had weakened the dreadful bonds of her guilt, and now she was emerging as a qualitatively different person.
"Okay, you asked for it," Colene said. "I'm fed up with your crap, and I'm not going to take it any more." She stood and concentrated.
The clouds hesitated. They were responding!
Then they closed in again, faster.
"I warned you," Colene said evenly. She concentrated again.
This time the clouds were flung outward and blown apart. Could Colene have done that? This was something new.
"Let's get the hell out of here," Colene said.
But a ring of light formed around the horizon. It contracted, turning out to be fire. The flames burned high, surrounding them, drawing closer and hotter.
"Forget it, monster," Colene snapped. The flames abruptly melted and seeped into the ground harmlessly.
"How are you doing that?" Pussy asked, amazed.
"The monster works by animating the spooks of the mind. I can do it better, is all."
"But how, when you couldn't before?"
"I was internally conflicted before. Now I'm not. I may have some lingering hang-ups, but I know they'll dissipate, now that I've dug out their roots. I've had my surgery, and I'll be healing. Meanwhile I'm tired of getting hassled by this thing."
The ground shook rhythmically. Something huge was coming. It turned out to be a giant dinosaur. It spied Colene and changed, lowering its head and opening its mouth to reveal enormous teeth.
"Get out of here before I hurt you," Colene said, undismayed.
The predator lowered its head to snap her up. Colene snapped her fingers, and a phenomenally large head swept down and caught the entire dinosaur in its mouth. It chomped and gulped, and the dinosaur disappeared down its gullet, the long tail switching frantically behind.
"This is magic!" Pussy breathed.
"No, it's all illusion. Let's go."
"Now you can destroy the mind predator."
"No. I took its measure when it was taking mine. The thing is eternal. But I'm no longer its prey. It'll have to go after some more troubled mind. What it really seeks is renewing stress. I had an ongoing bundle of that, but I'm done with it now." She lifted one hand in a wave. "Bye, Monster!"
They started walking, and now they had traction. "So facing your buried guilt worked," Pussy said.
"Yeah. Before, I was fighting myself, and that limited my ability to handle an external enemy. Now I'm all together, and can do what I was made to do."
"Made to do?"
"I'm a magical mind. That's why Darius oriented on me in the first place. It wasn't a mistake after all. All the anchor people are special, or they can't make anchors. Darius is the Cyng of Hlahtar. Nona has fantastic powers of magic. Seqiro has similar powers of telepathy. I really am one of them. I can be magic, once I learn how. But I was crippled by my cultural conditioning and my ignorance, not to mention my layers of misplaced shame and guilt. Now I'm finally free of all that, thanks to you, and can realize my full potential."
"What is that?"
"I don't yet know the limits. I never believed in magic, before I got on the Virtual Mode. There's a lot to discover." Colene paused, her eyes dilating. "I can be all three to Darius! I can multiply joy, now that I'm not locked on dolor. I can do it all!"
Pussy had been encouraging her all along, but now she was afraid of overconfidence. "Are you sure? Could it be a trick of the monster, to lure you into a worse trap?"
"No. I know my own potential, now. I can see the future, and I am all three. Only it will take a little time, sexually, because I'm not there yet. I've fixed the problem, but still need time to heal. But the rest of me is unbound. I know where I'm going. Maresy will be better much faster. The whole hive is going to grow and prosper; Burgess loves it. And you and Doe will have virile boyfriends who really appreciate how you're made. We're all going to be happy."
This had the ring of conviction. "But what of Ddwng and the DoOon Mode?"
Co
lene looked into the larger ambiance. "Say, wow! So that's why Darius agreed to take the chain. He saw it long before I did."
"Saw what?"
"Ddwng! He's another magical mind. Terrific power, but he's hung up twice as bad as I ever was. He's fighting himself all over, and he keeps renewing it. He's paranoid, and he won't let go for anything. That's why he was going to torture the Caprines to make Cat talk: he couldn't believe there wasn't a dastardly plot. But what Darius said is true: the flaw is in Ddwng himself. He's a monkey with a jar."
"I don't understand."
"It's how they caught monkeys in India. They put out these anchored jars with trinkets or food in them, with the narrow openings just big enough for a monkey's hand to get in. But when the monkey grabbed what was inside, it wouldn't let go, and its closed fist was too big to get out the little hole. So it was caught. Ddwng wants power so bad he just can't let go of any piece of it. So he's finished."
"How can he be finished? He's the emperor."
"He's finished because he is what he is. He can't trust anyone else to possess the Chip, especially after the way Cat seemed to betray him, so he'll make himself the anchor, and go on the Virtual Mode himself. Then—"
"The monster!" Pussy exclaimed.
"Right. The mind predator will be waiting for him. In fact it's waiting now, because I've just clued it in. I don't like emperors who try to push me around. Ddwng's doomed. I see it happening. I had you to help me get through, but Ddwng has no one. Darius knew. When he strikes back, he really makes it count. How I love that man! Now come on, Puss; we've got lives to fulfill."
Colene forged onward, and Pussy hurried to keep pace. The monster made no further effort to stop them. In a moment they found the anchor and emerged from the Virtual Mode.
The others were standing there. "What happened?" Darius asked.
"As if you didn't know," Colene said, hugging him. Then she collapsed.
"Colene!" Pussy cried. But already Seqiro was reassuring her. The girl was well, just tired after her great mental and emotional effort. She would be all right after a few hours of rest. More than all right, in time.
In fact, all of them were going to be more than all right. The hive was strong.
Author's Note