Deerie walked past a mirror, and glanced a moment at her reflection. Agape caught a glimpse of the woman of the picture. The hair was longer now, and the breasts drooped somewhat; how long ago had that picture been taken? But the woman was moving on before Agape could assess the situation fully.
“No!” she said. “Stay and look a moment longer.”
The image turned, as the actress responded. She faced back and approached the mirror again.
Agape had spoken involuntarily, but realized that the woman had taken it as her own thought. It was amazing how well this worked! But it would be better to provide a rationale, so that Deerie would not get suspicious.
“I haven’t really looked at myself in some time,” Agape said. “I would like to reassure myself that I still look respectable.”
The woman stood before the mirror. She straightened her back and inhaled. Now her breasts lifted, becoming erect and prominent, and her belly flattened. Yes, she had a good figure; the years had not yet eroded it. “Yes, that’s nice,” Agape said. “I should maintain a better posture, so as to show myself off to advantage; there is no point in slouching and having others think I am getting old.”
Agape’s eye was caught by a brightening light to the side. She looked, and realized that the border around the wall-picture contained a series of panels that glowed gently. The brightening one had letters formed by shading: PRIDE. Deerie was experiencing the emotion of pride! That was how the player knew the emotions of the actor; by watching the panels glow.
“Yes, I am glad I paused to take stock of myself,” Agape said. “I am reassured.”
Deerie lifted her hand to her hair. The brown tresses were pinned back by a comb. She lifted this out and used it to comb out her hair. Because serfs had no clothes, they had no pockets; unless a woman wanted to carry a purse, which was a nuisance on Proton, she had few ways to keep articles with her. Thus the double-duty comb was common.
Deerie formed her hair into gentle inward curls about her shoulders, so that the outline of her face was softened. “Yes, I look better,” Agape said. She was becoming comfortable with this mode of communication, and was developing a certain rapport with her actress.
The woman set the comb back into the top of her hair, where it resembled part of a tiara, another nice effect. She walked on through the Commons, evidently going to some particular entertainment.
She came to a bank of food machines and punched for a cup of water. Agape was surprised. Water, when anything at all was available? What kind of relaxation was this?
But then Deerie moved on to an exercise region, and it made sense. She did not want to be burdened with digestion when working out, but water was all right.
Deerie got on the track that circled the region, and began jogging. Slowly she picked up speed, until her breath was heaving. A new panel glowed: EXHILARATION. No wonder she was healthy: her idea of entertainment was to run hard!
“May I join you?” a man inquired, falling in beside her. Deerie jumped, and so did Agape; neither had noticed his approach.
The actress turned her head to look at him. He was a tall, muscular man of about her own age, bronzed and handsome. Evidently somewhat of a professional when it came to physical exercise. “As you wish,” Deerie replied noncommittally.
“I have seen you here before,” the man said. Though he matched her pace, he was not the least winded. “Frankly, I like your look. Do you like mine?”
Suddenly Agape remembered what they were here for. Citizen Tan had taken a male body, and was out to seduce Deerie! She had to stop this before it got going!
“I don’t trust this man!” Agape said. “I don’t know him, and I fear his intentions.”
But for the first time she encountered resistance. Deerie, as it turned out, was interested in men, and this was the kind she liked. She had no illusions about their interest, but since she wasn’t seeking anything permanent, that didn’t bother her. She trusted her judgment, not the man, and she deemed this one as a fit companion for an hour’s fun. At least, so Agape interpreted the woman’s reactions.
“I think he’s a sadist,” Agape said desperately. “He wants to get me alone and hurt me, and make me cry, and then he will laugh and call me a foolish old maid.”
That thought had better effect. “Some other time,” Deerie said, and slowed and stepped off the track.
The man looked disappointed, but did not pursue her. He ran on down the track, and in a moment was out of sight.
“You certainly dispatched him, Deerie,” another man said.
She looked around. “Oh, hello, Handy,” she panted. “What are you doing here?”
“Just thought I’d see how the other half lives,” Handy said. “I never exercise myself.” He was tall and slender, with a handsome shock of blond hair. “I’m more of a gamesman myself.”
“I know,” Deerie agreed. “I’ve seen you play. But you’re only twenty-one; when you get to be my age, you’ll exercise or sag. Better to start early and stay in shape.”
Agape was relieved. These two knew each other, and were friendly, so Handy might serve as a buffer between Deerie and Tan’s actor. She should keep them together until the danger passed. “I never realized what good company Handy is,” she said for Deerie’s benefit.
Handy laughed in response to Deerie’s remark, for an instant startling Agape, because it was almost as if he had heard her words. “You may have a point! I would never have taken you for twenty-five!”
“For what?” Deerie asked, startled in her turn.
“I really thought you were my age, but someone said you were older. Maybe they were teasing me.”
“I’m thirty.”
He laughed again. “I’m not that gullible! Come on, how old really? Twenty-four?”
Deerie studied him. He was young, but a fine figure of a man. “Thirty, really,” she said, flattered.
“I don’t believe it. But I’m always ready to play a game. Will you bet on it?”
“I’ll bet, but you’ll lose.”
“Good enough. What are the stakes?”
Deerie eyed him, mixed emotions showing on the panels: SPECULATION, PLEASURE, SURPRISE. “What did you have in mind?”
He eyed her back. “You know, I never thought of you this way before, but you’re one pretty woman! If you are under thirty, I want your love.”
“And if I am thirty, what do I get?”
Handy spread his hands. “I have little to offer. Would you settle for instruction in gamesmanship?”
“No. I have no interest in the Game.”
“Then you must name something else. I being a young man with only one thing on my mind, can’t think of anything else.”
The panels were glowing more brightly. The actress was really flattered by the attention of this young man.
“Exercise!” Deerie exclaimed. “You will run with me ten loops around the track!”
“I’d collapse in two,” he said. “You look great running; I was watching you. From in front your breasts jog almost independently of your body, and from behind—”
“Take it or leave it!” she cut in, laughing.
He looked woebegone. “Oh, I’ll take it! But I have to win, because I won’t look a fraction as good as you on that track, especially after I collapse.”
They went to an information screen. “My name is Deerie,” the actress said. “I work for Citizen Tosme. How old am I, in standard Earth years?”
The screen flickered. Then the number 30 appeared.
“Oh, no!” Handy groaned. “Wait, let me verify this; maybe this unit’s out of whack.” He stepped up to the screen. “My name is Handy. I work for Citizen Merely as a furniture polisher. How old am I?”
The numbers appeared: 21.
“And are you sure she’s thirty?”
YES.
He sighed. “Well, I’m hung for it.” He looked at her again. “Damn, you sure don’t look it! Are you sure I can’t talk you into my kind of exercise instead?”
br /> Deerie, highly flattered and intrigued, was tempted. “Well—”
“Oh, thank you, you lovely creature!” he exclaimed. He was obviously sincere; he was getting an erection.
Suddenly Agape suffered a shock of suspicion. The first man had desisted immediately, while this one was intent on seduction. His every word was calculated flattery! Was this Tan’s actor?
She couldn’t gamble that he was not. She realized that the fact that Deerie knew him meant nothing; Tan could have chosen him partly for that reason. And Agape had almost been deceived—if that was the case.
“Too fast!” she said. “I really don’t know him that well. I’d better hold him off a while, just to be sure.” Because Agape realized that a direct negation might not take, at this point; Deerie’s panels were glowing, and among them LUST was gaining brightness. With a man, that one would be the first to glow, while with a woman it might be the last, but it could be very strong in its time, as Agape herself knew. She was not human, but she had emulated a human female for some time, studying the nuances, and when she had learned about sex she had discovered its compulsive component. How she wanted to be with Bane right now! But she was about to lose the fall, unless Handy really was an innocent friend. That seemed decreasingly likely.
Deerie was hesitating, her new thoughts at variance with her growing emotion. Agape jumped in to buttress her side. “He lost the bet! He’s just trying to get out of running. He really doesn’t care about me; he probably thinks I’m ancient, but he’d rather put up with me than wear himself out on the track.”
That got through. The actress was highly conscious of the age differential, which didn’t matter for incidental contacts but loomed larger in sexual matters. She did not wish to be foolish. “Hold on there,” she said. “I didn’t say I would. You lost the bet, remember! I don’t think I should let you off so easy.”
Handy’s erection was now at full mast. “Oh, Deerie, don’t tease me like this! You can see I’m not lying. I really do want you!” He glanced down at himself, as if confirming it.
“Every man wants every woman!” Agape retorted. Indeed, she knew that Citizen Tan wanted her, though that was more for the purpose of humiliating her than from actual desire.
“Every man does,” Deerie said, speaking the thought. “That is, a man doesn’t have to like or respect a woman, he just wants sex wherever he can find it.”
Well said! Agape was getting along well with Deerie, or maybe it was the other way around.
“But I like and respect you!” Handy protested.
“Sure you do, joker,” another woman said, noting the display. “That’s what you said to Jezebel last week, but then you cut her dead.”
What a break! Handy had a past, and now that was interfering with his present ploy. Tan’s ploy! How was he going to explain this?
He tried. “Jezebel was a cow compared to Deerie here. Deerie’s the one I really want.”
“My best friend—a cow?” the woman demanded. “Listen, jerk, I’ve got three quarters of a mind to take that rod of yours and bend it in half!”
“Like to see you try!” a muffled man’s voice came from somewhere. It seemed that the neighboring serfs were catching on to the sport.
“I had better get out of here before it gets embarrassing,” Agape said.
At this point, Deerie was glad to agree. She had been flattered and intrigued by Handy’s advance, and not at all dismayed by his erection, but she did not want to be a laughingstock. She made a quiet retreat, while Handy was occupied with the other woman.
Agape was relieved. She had survived the first advance. Now she just had to stay clear for the remainder of the period, and this fall would be hers. She couldn’t leave the Commons, but she could get involved in something else, so that Handy would have trouble approaching her.
“Let’s see, what do I usually do after I exercise?” she asked.
“I go to the pool and exercise some more,” Deerie answered herself.
Soon they were swimming. Her location was hardly unknown; it seemed that every woman in the Commons had heard about her episode with Handy the moment it happened. “Good going, girl!” one woman called as she swam by. “They think all they have to do is get it up, and any woman near will leap on!” And, surprisingly, even a few men were chuckling. They liked a good joke as well as the women did, so long as it was on someone else.
Thus it was that the time passed, and Deerie escaped her seduction. Agape had won the first fall!
But now it was the second period, and the onus was on her. The Game Computer confirmed that Handy was the one she had to seek. Her actress had to seduce Tan’s actor, or lose the fall. This was the part she hated most.
But she had to do it. She nerved herself, then began working on Deerie, who was sunning herself on the tanning beach. “I guess I wasn’t too nice to him. Maybe I should give him his settlement after all.”
Deerie, as it turned out, was amenable. She had been turned off the liaison because of the developing embarrassment, not because she disliked the notion. She got up and went in search of Handy.
He was glumly having a drink. Intoxicants were forbidden to serfs, but the convention remained: a person was allowed to decrease inhibitions after imbibing.
She sat down beside him. “Handy, I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have made it awkward for you this morning.”
He looked at her. Agape could guess his thoughts. Citizen Tan wanted to curse her, but he was aware that because he had lost the first fall, he would need to win both remaining falls. If he won the second by driving her forever away, he would have no chance to seduce her in the third period. So he had to do it carefully, in such a way as to set up for his next turn. Meanwhile the actor, Handy, unaware of this background, should be quite ready to accommodate her.
“These things happen,” he said. “I still think you’re a great-looking woman.”
Deerie was pleased. She of course did not know what lay behind this day’s contact. “Well, you did lose the bet, and I didn’t make you run. So if you want to work out your penalty the way you suggested—”
Now it seemed that Tan and Handy had a conflict. Citizen Tan had no intention of having sex, but serf Handy was obviously interested. He was starting another erection. He set aside his finished drink and went quickly to a couch, where he could sit without his condition showing as clearly.
Agape wondered how this kind of game proceeded when the sex occurred in the first period. Didn’t that put the female at a disadvantage for the second period, because the male was spent? But she realized that this would be the least of problems; the Game Computer would simply arrange for a sexual restorative to be given, and the man’s interest would be at its normal level. It would also be possible to adapt a new set of actors.
“No, I don’t care to be embarrassed again,” Handy was saying. “You got me all excited before, and then you left me standing in a crowd with my tower on display! Everyone knew I’d been stood up and not laid down. I’m afraid you are only setting me up to do it again.”
“Oh, no. Handy, no!” Deerie protested, following him to the couch. “That was an accident! Once the other people came in, I had to go, because I didn’t like it that public. But we can go to a privacy booth right now and do it. I promise I’ll make it up to you!”
She was doing very well! Handy’s erection was growing; he really did want her. But Citizen Tan needed to break this up. “I’ll tell you what: let it go for now, and if you’re still interested in three hours, then I’ll know you mean it. Then I’ll do it.”
Nice ploy! In three hours it would be Tan’s onus again. “I don’t think I can wait,” Agape said. “He’s got me all excited.”
Indeed he had. Deerie was now fully committed to the encounter, and hardly needed Agape’s encouraging thoughts. “I can’t wait!” she said. She was standing beside the couch; she straightened her back and inhaled.
Handy’s face was a study, as he warred with the opposing voice in h
is mind. His body definitely wanted consummation, but the voice was telling him he wasn’t interested.
Now was the time to strike. “I know he wants me,” Agape said. “But he is fearful of another scene like that of this morning. So I won’t wait; I will just climb up on him and do it!” Would this work?
It did. Deerie obeyed the thought without question. She practically threw herself on Handy, bearing him back lengthwise on the couch and coming down on top of him. Her mouth sought his for a hungry kiss as her groin rubbed against his.
But her lips found only mush in his. His erection was softening. He had been abruptly turned off! What had happened?
“What’s the matter, honey?” Deerie asked, as upset as Agape, though perhaps for different reason. “Here we are all set to do it, and you’re leaving!”
“I remembered something,” he mumbled.
“My age!” she said, chagrined.
“No, not that! You’re a great woman! But I heard somewhere that your employer, he—”
“Citizen Tosme? All I do is massage his feet!”
“And more, when he asks.”
“Well, of course. But that’s universal; serfs are at the disposal of their Citizens. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”
“But what I heard—you may not know this—is that because of this. Citizen Tosme has reserved you for himself. Anyone else who uses you will be gelded.”
“What?” Deerie was appalled. “That can’t be true! I’ve had numerous—”
“Within the last month?”
“Well, no, actually, I’ve been busy with my exercise schedule. But—”
“And no one has approached you,” he concluded. “Now we know why. I was foolish to—I mean, I just got carried away, and—”
Deerie was completely flustered, and Agape could not get through to her at all. The charge was surely a lie, that Handy would conveniently discover in three hours, but meanwhile he had the planet’s best excuse to avoid contact. Deerie herself was all too much afraid it was true; Citizens did that sort of thing when they chose. They did not like to share their sex objects with serfs. Tan had come up with a masterpiece of dissemblance that gave him the complete advantage for the moment.