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UNDER THE MOONS OF EDEN
Copyright 1996, by Christopher Leeson
(Send notes and comments to cdl25@usa.net)
Chapter 8
*Affliction is enamour'd of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity.*
ROMEO AND JULIET
Had I had a man's strength that night, and Drew my weakness,
nothing on Klink would have prevented me from raping him. I actually
tried to, but only managed to rip his -- my -- shirt. After that,
just as I would have done in his place, Alan bound me hand and foot.
I must have been some sight -- naked, wild-eyed, and trussed up like
a kidnap victim.
My senior officers, first Komisov, then Philbrick, each having
extricated themselves from the chaos outside just long enough to have
a look in on me.
"How is -- she?" Philbrick had whispered. It was not the first
time that I had been called a "she," of course, but it was the first
time that Philbrick had so referred to me in my presence. I would
have resented it more, had I not been too far gone to care.
"Not good," sighed Alan. "Did you see Dr. Lowry?"
"No," grimaced Philbrick. "It's an orgy out there. We're
restraining as many women as we can, but who's going to guard the
guards?"
"I don't know, sir."
Philbrick straightened up. "Carry on, Private. Make the major
your priority. If we find Lowry, we'll bring her to you, too."
"Yes, sir."
Philbrick had left abruptly then and I thought that my
reputation was going with him. He had seen me tied up like a rabid
animal. What could ever induce him to turn command over to me again?
I was ruined. I moaned like a thing in pain.
Alan comforted me, but his touch only added fuel to my fire. He
seemed to understand and whispered, "I'm sorry, Major."
I bit my lip and closed my eyes.
"Is -- is there anything I can do to make you more comfortable?"
"Kiss me, please," I gasped.
There was a moment of silence. "I shouldn't do that," he
finally said.
"I know you shouldn't! Do it anyway."
"Try to rest."
"I don't need rest!" I cried. "I can't rest."
"We shouldn't do anything that will make things harder for you
once you get better, Major."
"I may never get better," I groaned. "It may be like this from
now on. What will you do then?"
"I'll take care of you, any way that I have to," he said.
#
I finally slept the sleep of exhaustion and awoke at dawn, still
tied up, my bladder killing me. I heard movement in the other room.
"Alan --!" I shouted, but stopped myself. I had never
addressed the medic by his first name before and that slip bothered
me for some reason. I sank back into my pillow, wondering whether I
should fret about something so minor after all else that had been
said and done.
The young soldier slipped in through the door. "Major? Are you
feeling better?"
I looked at him hard, trying to read his thoughts. The respect
and regard I detected in his expression encouraged me. "I've got to
take a piss," I said.
"But what about --?"
"It's gone," I said breathlessly. "And if you let me loose, I
promise that I won't try to seduce you."
"If I let you go, are you going to court martial me instead?" he
asked wryly.
"That's the least of your worries."
He stood weighing my words carefully, like a prospector
evaluating a pan full of river sand.
Suddenly I remembered that there was more to this nightmare than
just Alan and me. "What happened to us all last night?"
"Whatever it was, it seems to be over for now."
I rested back. If the craving had become long-term, it surely
would have driven me out of my mind. "I'm glad of that," I said
shakily, "but now cut me loose before I have to do something in front
of you that I'd rather not."
He did and then discretely withdrew. I took care of what I had
to, and then threw on some clothes. While I was dressing, the medic
called out that he saw Lowry returning to the infirmary.
"Let me talk to her first," I said.
I found the doctor seated disconsolately upon one of the
infirmary beds wearing a robe. I guessed that she must have eluded
Philbrick's search throughout the whole night -- and that worried me.
The brunette glanced up, dazed.
"Sebastian!" I exclaimed.
She closed her eyes and lowered her head with a tormented
grimace. I sat down beside her and, holding her close, we just sat
there quietly for a short while.
"You know," Lowry smiled crookedly, "your bedside manner is
getting better, Rupe."
I returned a very brief laugh. "That's never been my strong
suit. It must be these new genes."
"At least you kept your jeans on. -- You did, didn't you?"
I shifted uneasily. "Nothing happened. -- No thanks to me," I
added. "Bad night for you?"
"I don't know. I enjoyed it while it was happening."
I got the story out of her by fits and starts. Half the time
she was laughing, and half crying. The madness had come upon her in
the darkness, just as it had come upon me. The first person she had
seen was Alan Drew -- and had reacted to him exactly as I had. Unlike
me, she had eluded him in the tall trees.
Only minutes later Lowry had run into a young soldier, Stan
Kitterson, and ordered him, "Stand where you are, soldier!"
She had pulled rank on Kitterson, just as I had tried to pull it
on Alan. The difference was that Kitterson had not been advised that
he could, or should, ignore the commands of the medical officer.
Anyway, how much resistance could a young man offer when confronted
by a beautiful woman demanding sex? They made love in a grove until
Lowry had drained him dry, and then they had remained there together,
sleeping entwined in one another's arms. The spell of lust had
dissipated by the time Sebastian awoke at dawn, and she had fled away
in panic, as if Kitterson had been her ravisher, instead of the other
way around.
Alan arrived at that point. I turned Lowry over to the poor
fellow and went to find Capt. Philbrick. Ames was with him, a little
chagrined, I thought, but otherwise not looking too badly off.
Philbrick regarded me suspiciously at first, but I was coherent
enough and so he started speaking more freely after a couple minutes.
The other women's experiences, it seemed, had been pretty similar to
Lowry's and mine. Sometimes they had found men willing to have sex,
sometimes they were constrained and confined. Some of the women who
were tied up had slipped their bonds before the night was out and had
gotten themselves laid anyway.
This was a serious business and it called for another powwow.
To my relief, Lowry managed to pull herself together in time for the
staff meeting.
The whole affair had us baffled, but one peculiarity of it
seemed especially important -- five women -- Hitchcock, Logan,
D'Aubers, McKenny, and Bakshi -- had not succumbed to the madness
though more than two hundred others had. Hitchcock and Logan were
known to be pregnant and that suggested a theory. Philbrick asked
Lowry to scan the soldiers for -- he used the word "anomalies," but
we all knew what he meant.
#
I waited just outside the infirmary while Dr. Lowry examined the
immune soldiers. Their readouts, as we had feared, were positive. I
felt sorry for the shocked soldiers. Motherhood was a staggering
thing for anyone to have to face without fore-planning, but it was
made worse by the circumstances of the 54th. Lowry told them to get
some rest and come back to talk once they had had time to sort their
situations through.
At least the three of them had gotten where they were by making
the conscious choice to go to bed with somebody. But scores of their
comrades had had no say in the matter. I asked Lowry what we could
expect for the Group as a whole and she suggested that it was normal
for about three percent of sexual encounters to result in conception,
but it would be about a week before our equipment could detect
anything. I noted the paleness of her face as she referred to the
matter.
There was going to be a lot of anxiety around the camp for a
while, I realized. And if it hadn't been for the grace of God and
Alan Drew, I might have been sweating out visions of learning wet-
nursing along with so many others.
I accompanied the doctor toward the end of the day when she went
to make her follow-up report to Philbrick.
"What we experienced a couple nights ago," Lowry began, "was not
normal, of course. We've all been trying to make some sense of it,
but we've been reduced to guessing again. I mean --" The strain of
our roller-coaster history was written plain in the woman's drawn
face. "-- I mean, I think that the -- the Madness -- was
artificially-induced. If someone or something is inflicting such a
thing upon our psyches, we have to ask ourselves, why? What's being
gained and by whom?"
"Why didn't it affect the men?" I asked.
"Maybe it did," Philbrick suggested. "I've never seen a sorrier
example of undiscipline and bad judgement on the part of this
outfit."
"A long time ago I identified an anomalous particle lodged in
the medulla of each transformee," Sebastian reminded us. "It may
have nothing to do with what's happened, or it might have
everything."
"How?" the captain queried.
"It's just possible that this particle is a receiver for an
externally-originating impulse -- one which affects that part of the
brain which controls human sexual activity. Whatever its nature, it
was powerful enough to override almost all contrary inhibition. But
it's worse than that."
Worse? Wasn't it bad enough? I thought.
"Just as you cite, Captain, the men were not acting entirely
normal either. We already know that human bodies, like many
mammalian species, produce hormones known as pheromones. One of the
most important functions of pheromones is to excite sexual interest
in a prospective mate. Most legal and illegal aphrodisiacs make use
of synthetic human pheromones, in fact."
She went on to explain how these airborne substances reached
one's partner's brain by way of the respiratory system. Lowry
thought that our transformees' sexual pheromones had been
artificially enhanced some way and then massively released during the
Madness -- in a manner analogous to sweating when the temperature
roses. That might serve to explain why so many of the men had
behaved so irresponsibly.
"But even if all this speculation were true," the doctor
continued, "we're still left with the question of 'why?' Every time
I think about the phenomena we've been experiencing, the more certain
I am that we're being biologically and emotionally manipulated to
some end. I believe that someone or something wants us to produce
the largest possible number of children in the shortest possible time
frame."
Philbrick and I looked at one another, not exactly in surprise,
and not exactly in disagreement.
"One thing that makes me think so," Sebastian pressed, "is the
way that the pregnant women were exempt from the Madness. Their
bodies were already awash in the hormones of the gestation cycle.
But why would this sort of immunity be built in, unless the desired
end of the Madness has been already achieved -- pregnancy?
It all fit. Our women have been sent back to us young, healthy,
and physically attractive. The transformation process had halted
when we were evenly divided sex-wise. Were we all the unwilling
subjects of a breeding experiment? I gritted my teeth. It was just
too demeaning to contemplate.
The obvious question soon occurred to Philbrick: "Why would
aliens want human children born here?"
"I'm getting on very thin ice," Lowry admitted, "but these
phenomena might not be human-specific. In fact, they're probably the
reason why the Asymmetrics avoided colonizing this world themselves.
Either the Assies couldn't disarm whatever is responsible, despite
all their power, or they decided that doing so would be just too
difficult or costly. If our transformations are not of Assie design,
and I really don't believe that they are, some other beings -- or the
automated equipment that they left behind -- must be."
That made sense to me. If the phenomenon had attacked the first
Assie explorers just as it had attacked us, their people would
naturally have written Klink off as a place unsuitable for
settlement. On the other hand, what could be more natural than to
use this mild and fertile world for some other purpose, such as a
prison colony? Maybe the Assies would even have thought that its
effect on the enemy would make a good joke. Well, maybe -- but I'd
have liked to put a blaster to the back of the head of the comedian
who had dreamed up such a stunt!
"As to why some independent factor would want to accelerate
reproduction of higher life forms, there may be more than one
possibility," speculated the doctor.
"For instance?" I asked.
"For instance, the secret masters of Klink may have been
philanthropic and realized that our settlement couldn't survive if it
remained all-male.
"Or, the original inhabitants of this planet might have suffered
the catastrophic loss of their female population -- possibly through
a sex-specific plague. If they were facing extinction as a race,
they might have created some elaborate process to transform male
survivors into fertile females on a massive scale."
"What about the -- insanity?" asked Capt. Philbrick.
Lowry shrugged. "Maybe the Klinkian males had as much or more
psychological resistance to assuming the female role as human ones
do. If that was the case, the survival of the species depended upon
overcoming it by some means -- and an artificially-induced mating
frenzy is one way to that end."
"Where are these people now?" I inquired. "If they're extinct,
what made their plan fail?"
"That's a question for archeology," said Sebastian with heavy
sigh.
"Why weren't we affected immediately after landing on Klink?" I
asked. "It took about a month before the first transformations
occurred."
"I don't know," Lowry admitted. "Maybe it takes a little while
for this planet to draw a bead on its new arrivals."
The talk went back and forth for a while, but we didn't make
much more progress. All we really knew was that we were up against
something much bigger than we were. We had little choice, it seemed,
but to live with it and treat the symptoms as best we might.
#
Would the Madness come back? It was ironic that Sebastian and I
had been speculating how the special circumstances of Klink would
give the women a natural superiority over the men. But the Madness
had more than redressed the imbalance. If a woman -- or at least a
transformee with a bead in her brain -- didn't play it sweet with her
man, he could put her through the Madness cold turkey the next time
it came along. Even if pregnant and temporarily immune to the
phenomenon, she'd still be dependent. A gravid female always needs
help from outside herself, whether it's a government check or the
commitment of a well-disposed working male. And in a world of
primitive agriculture and hunting, it sure wasn't going to be the
government.
By the end of seven days, Sebastian's scanner had started
discovering the expected new pregnancies. She found four, but
actually only about half the affected females had asked for a scan;
the rest, seemingly, would rather not face the truth so soon. But
four was already within the average that Lowry had expected for the
population as a whole. This caused the doctor to speculate whether
the fertility of the affected women had been increased.
But what was more perturbing to her, no doubt, was the fact that
one of the new pregnancies was her own.
It broke my heart to see my friend staggered by still another
piece of bad luck. Lowry had taken as many emotional body blows as
anyone else had so far, and it was only her resilience, her
determination to carry on, that sometimes made us forget that fact.
Nonetheless, she kept a stiff upper lip while she was breaking the
news to me -- a lip so stiff that I wondered whether she wasn't
repressing again.
I certainly expected some of the women receiving the sad tidings
to ask for termination, but none did. This seemed impossible to me,
considering. Lowry, analyzing her own feelings as well as her
observation of others, could only assume that that option had been
programmed out of the transformee psychology. Apparently, in some
important areas at least, we had less free will than a lab rat.
Lacking for better alternates, Philbrick decided that with so
many of our people falling in love and conceiving children, the old
model of our organization was about to fall apart anyway, and so it
would be wise to anticipate it. In largest part, restructuring
ourselves meant taking the risky step of sanctioning marriage between
transformees and non-transformees. The whole idea still sounded
strange to us, but the alternative was a sexual free-for-all.
Philbrick realized that in order for Klinkian marriage to serve
its intended purpose, it had to be more than a mere reassignment of
roommates. It had to operate under rules which the command
structure, and the Group as a whole, was committed to enforce. It
also had to have ritual, because ritual is the easiest way to give
mystique and a sense of importance to any societal institution.
Also, public ceremony allows for group-participation, and group-
participation in this case would establish the marriage partnership
as the basic building block from which the community, or whatever it
was that we were turning into, had to be built from.
Having decided to take such a daunting step, we furthermore
needed to put forward some recognized person of authority empowered
to perform the ceremony and give it solemnity. For some reason,
Philbrick didn't want the latter job himself, so he appointed Captain
Ames as a kind of Justice of the Peace. She also was placed at the
head of a committee consisting of formerly-married soldiers, both
male and female, to draw up the actual rules which would govern
Klinkian matrimony for the foreseeable future.
The commission in fact came up with a logical list of
regulations, the most important being a pledge that the partners must
materially support one another to the best of their ability. The
same consideration was also extended to any children begotten by
them. Mistakes would be made, and some matches would fall apart, but
care had to be taken that the couple's children would suffer least of
all. Desertion of mates or offspring without adequate justification
would result in stern discipline, as would adultery -- since adultery
bred quarrels and internecine strife would be detrimental to the
group's survival.
We also understood that the barracks system, which had seemed so
natural up to now, was nearing its end. Communal living would not
suit either the needs of married couples nor families with children.
We would have to do a great deal of new carpentry, it seemed, on top
of all the other crucial things we had to accomplish in so short a
time.
The committee had recommended that new mothers should be granted
discretionary leave from routine duties. We had no day-care centers
and what was the sense of assigning someone the duty of raising
somebody else's children? What had seemed logical at home was
illogical on Klink. Almost everything we had taken for granted
before had been based upon a high-technology labor force and service
infrastructure that made nurturing obligations inconvenient.
Like it or not, Klink would be a world of long hours of back-
breaking physical labor, a kind of labor which men could perform
best. The other work must naturally fall to the women. This work
included child-tending, which was a full-time job all by itself.
Nobody need necessarily like this, but what was the alternative? The
only social structures that would exist for about the next thousand
years would be the family and the -- well, tribe, for want of a
better term. The dawning reality bothered me but, fortunately for
their morale, few others seemed to be thinking that far ahead.
More marriages took place in the immediate aftermath of the
commission's report than anyone had expected. Because Hitchcock and
Roberts had requested their nuptials long before any of the others,
their wedding was held first. We all stood by as Ames recited the
simple ceremonial script which she had written herself, based on what
she remembered from weddings and movies which featured weddings: "Do
you take this --" "Do you pledge to --" etc. etc.
Without intending it, Hitchcock's wedding had established a
custom that would be with us for some while -- that of the bride
taking her marriage oath under an assumed woman's name. For
Hitchcock it was Mary, of course -- and over the following days we
would be introduced to Ellen, Lorena, Ilene, Racine, Dysis, Colette,
and many others.
*******
Chapter 9
*How all the other passions fleet to air
As doubtful thoughts, and rash-embraced despair,
And shuddering fear, and green-eyed jealousy.*
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
What the 54th had to accomplish before it became self-
sufficient was enough to daunt the bravest soul. Amid the
overwhelming variety of local flora, we still had to identify those
species which might be cultivatable plants. We would also have to
experiment with domesticating animals, and if successful, manage
their breeding.
But man does not live by bread alone. If our little outpost was
not to fall into barbarism within a generation or two, we had to take
care of cultural matters. I especially wished to preserve for
posterity the history of our extra-stellar origin and our advent upon
Klink, along with the Group's memories of our former homes, our
families, our knowledge of other places and other ways. These had to
be written down.
I wondered, as I contemplated the subject, how the kids of Klink
would appreciate the strange role which the Assies had played in our
story. Would they feel the same animosity against them that most of
us felt? Or would they see aliens as benign figures of myth, as the
gods who had led their ancestors into the Promised Land?
It would be up to us of the first generation to prevent the
darkness of ignorance from descending and so it worried me that we
had so few books of worth. Even these few would be lost in no great
length of time, unless copies were made.
Above all, we had to see to it that the arts of reading and
writing would be passed on, as well as the basics of arithmetic and
geometry. Knowledge could not flourish in a vacuum, I realized, and
so we needed to create a societal order that made practical use of
such arts. The groundwork for this had to be lain down diligently,
so that poetry and engineering might flower again once the population
had increased enough to justify it.
But what should our first step be? To preserve our books,
didn't we have to learn how to make paper? Ancient Egypt had done
very well in that regard using the stems of the papyrus. The Romans,
as advanced as they were, had failed to improve upon the technique.
Did Klink have anything like papyrus? Or could we instead use fired
mud bricks, like the ancient Mesopotamians? There was plenty of mud
on Klink at least, but I shuddered to think of the entire Holy Bible
arduously transcribed and preserved on bricks! One could build a
church out of a single copy!
But what about the other necessities which any people needed,
like clothes? It would be a shame if civilized men had to revert to
wearing skins in a single generation. Was there no shearable beast
in this part of Klink to provide us with wool? Was there no plant
fiber to serve us for cotton? I had heard of primitive tribes on
Earth deriving a supple cloth out of boiled and beaten tree bark.
Might there be a bark upon Klink that we could similarly reduce to a
durable fabric?
Inevitably, each problem which I tried to brainstorm led to
another, greater, problem which had to be solved first. For a man to
fetch a pail of water, he first must build the pail. Life upon
Klink, I could now see, would be an unending challenge to our wits
and ingenuity. Did any of our crew already know things that would
speed us along, ease our burden? Clearly, we had to accept ideas and
contributions from all the ranks and not leave everything to an
overwhelmed and not-particularly-inspired leadership.
#
I saw Sebastian every day, but she never alluded to the baby she
was carrying, though it must have preoccupied her every waking hour.
I wanted to be a better friend to her than I had been in the past,
but what could I do for her? Did I dare trespass upon something so
personal?
A couple weeks after the first wedding, I went into the
infirmary and discovered Sebastian wearing a look of dazed disbelief.
"You're smiling," I observed carefully.
"You wouldn't believe what just happened, Rupe!"
"What?"
"I was just proposed to."
"By who?"
"Nobody special. Just the father of my child."
"Pvt. Kitterson?"
"The same. I guess he's feeling guilty, or responsible, or
something."
"Well, he took his sweet time about stepping forward!"
Sebastian shook her head. "His offer was a carefully considered
one, that's all. Anyway, Kitterson's not to blame. The aliens did
this."
"You're very generous."
She shrugged.
"What are you going to do?"
"Well, I'm not going to marry Kitterson!"
"Why not?"
"I don't love him."
I stared open-mouthed.
"Love. You know what that is, Rupe. It's important when you're
talking about marriage."
"Sure --" I stammered.
"Well, I don't feel anything when I look at Pvt. Stanley
Kitterson."
"I suppose that's natural --"
She flashed me a crooked smile. "We left what's natural back a
few million light years, old friend. Now we're just talking about
chemistry."
Sebastian crossed over to the table to pour herself a glass of
juice from a small plastic tub. We were experimenting with a
recently-discovered bush-fruit that we had dubbed the "red berry."
So far, red berries had proven out tasty, safe, and nutritious. "Want
some?" she asked.
"Thanks, yes. It's hot outside."
I took the proffered beaker. Only faintly sweet, the pink
mixture must have been three-fourths creek water. Still, red-berry
juice made a welcome departure from our usual ration of powdered
coffee or tea.
"If it had been someone else, not Kitterson, I might had said
yes," Lowry remarked suddenly.
That floored me. "You don't mean it!"
"I said 'might.' I'm not really sure what I'm capable of
feeling or doing yet, Rupe. Are you?"
I dodged her question. "Do you have any particular man in
mind?"
"Don't make me embarrass myself."
This answer intrigued me. I wanted to explore it a little more
and so I said, "Stanley's got a nice body, though, doesn't he?"
"I'm surprised that you noticed," she quipped. "Or maybe I
shouldn't be."
Despite her evasion, I wasn't put off the track. I wondered who
in the 54th could she find more interesting than Kitterson, and why.
Then a startling thought came to me. She could mean Alan Drew! They
certainly worked closely together and had by this time gotten to know
one another very well. I suddenly realized that I had never heard a
word of criticism come from one against the other. The idea of these
two forming a couple bothered me somehow. I suddenly saw a closed
loop forming in front of me, my two best friends on the inside and me
left out in the cold.
"Klink calling Breen! How is it up in the stratosphere?"
"Sorry," I said, "my mind wandered. So, you turned Kitterson
down. You've got a Plan B?"
"No, and that scares me."
"You're scared about rearing a child alone, aren't you?" I
hadn't intended to be so blunt about it.
She returned an uneasy glance. "It's so hard, Rupe."
"I know --," I began, regretting that I had brought up the
subject in the first place.
"No, you don't know! Not everything."
"Am I dumb or something?"
"No, of course not. But it's just not what goes on here on
Klink. It bothers me that -- that David and Wanda are soon going to
have a baby brother or sister, and --" her tone grew shaky "-- and
they're never going to know it. And, well, that seems sort of sad to
me."
David and Wanda were her -- his -- son and daughter back on
Earth, I knew. Sebastian's separation from them had been like an
open wound from the beginning.
"They think I'm dead," she went on in that same unsteady tenor.
"Maybe that's for the best. It would probably hurt them more if they
knew that their dad was still alive, but that he -- he couldn't ever
come home." Sebastian's voice began to break. "It sure would be
hard. . . going back to them. . . the way I am now. . . even if it
were possible. . . ."
Suddenly there were glittering beads in the corners of her eyes.
I reached out to her, wanted to comfort her, but she shook her head.
"I'm all right."
She steadied herself and we chatted for a while longer, on other
subjects -- about her work, about my ideas regarding agriculture, the
three R's, and paper- and cloth- making. Nonetheless, I drew the
impression that her heart wasn't into any of the subjects on the
table.
"How are you getting along with Drew?" Sebastian suddenly
inquired.
Now this was a question from left field! "Fine," I responded
warily. "Did he say anything to make you think that we're having a
problem?"
"No. What's there to say?"
"Nothing at all!" I answered with a nervous grin.
Her sudden interest in Alan Drew started a bell ringing in my
mind. Why the odd question? Was Sebastian hoping that there
actually was some friction between the medic and myself? If so, why?
Maybe my relationship with Alan was somehow becoming an inconvenience
to her. Could that be it? I hoped not.
"Rupe, did I say something wrong?"
"Wrong? Of course not! Doc, what are you going on about?"
She gave me a funny look at that point and abandoned the
subject. I had suffered a sudden mood swing, and so, after letting a
couple more minutes of pointless conversation pass by, I excused
myself. As I withdrew I felt Sebastian's studying gaze burning into
my back.
#
I had hoped that my periodic funks lay behind me, but I was
downcast for the rest of the day and could hardly sleep at all that
night.
I got up listlessly the next morning and chomped down a ration
biscuit for breakfast. Even this simple act depressed me. I thought
we should be drawing less from our limited stores. How could we ever
provide for five hundred people once they were exhausted? Were we
all going to be starving by this time next year?
I looked outside. It was clouded-over, which did not improve my
mood. I went to my log book and started a new entry, just to give
myself something to do. Before I realized it, droplets were spotting
the pages in front of me. I wiped the splashes off the open pages
with my sleeve, wiped my nose, and pushed the book away before I
damaged it more. I slouched down on the desk, thinking about my
conversation with Sebastian. She was my friend, she was the most
important man -- person -- in the whole camp. She had suffered so
much, had done so much for others. Now, I realized, her happiness
had to come first, no matter the personal consequences for me. Yet I
could not shake off a sense of profound loss, the core meaning of
which eluded me in some way. My eyes burned and I started thinking
that it hadn't been such a lucky stroke that Alan Drew had saved my
life up on Woolenska's Leap.
I lifted my head suddenly. The death wish had returned!
My mind raced. If I was getting suicidal, I needed help
immediately. I had to be with my watcher!
I left my hut and crossed over to Alan's barracks. The young
medic was inside along with two other soldiers, and the three young
men snapped to attention at the sight of me. "At ease," I said, then
added in a low and tentative voice, "Gentlemen, could you give Pvt.
Drew and me some privacy?"
I waited for the men to disappear, then turned toward Alan, only
to find myself somewhat at a loss for words.
"Sir?" he queried.
"I'm sorry," I began, feeling on the spot. "I mean, I'm having
a rough time of it right now. I -- could use some company."
He regarded me curiously.
"If you're feeling depressed maybe we should take a walk
together," he suggested.
"If you think that would be a good idea."
Alan lightly placed his hand upon the small of my back and
guided me outside. I found that while I had nothing specific to say,
I felt better just being with -- someone.
"I had a bad night," I admitted finally. "I don't think I got
two hour's sleep."
"You do seem keyed up, Major. I'd recommend exercise. Or would
you want to go back to your hut and catch up on that rest you
missed?"
"I don't want to be alone."
He seemed to smile, though his mouth didn't change. "Then why
don't we follow along the stream?"
I nodded. There is something about the human eye and ear that
loves water, its sound, the glint of light off its ripples. The sun
came out as we started along and it very quickly grew hot. We made
for the coolness of the adjacent arbors, whose supple branches, like
willow whips, were bent so low that they swept the grass when the
breeze stirred them. Once we were out of sight of the camp I relaxed.
"You were doing so well," Alan remarked. "Did anything happen?"
"I was talking to Sebastian --" I began unwisely.
"Did you quarrel?"
"No. It's personal," I hedged.
"All right, don't tell me anything that you don't want to."
I was grateful to let the matter drop and we soon came to the
"swimming hole," a broad, deep portion of the stream where the
troopers liked to take their baths. The water was always cold
because it issued from an artesian spring up in the nearby hills, but
a bracing dip would be a needed relief from the subtropical heat. I
sat down; the shaded rock beneath me felt cool through my denim.
There were some small brown animals playing on the rocks not far
away, their faces fox-like, their pelts dotted with darker spots.
Some Klinkian animals were very wary, we had learned, but
others, like these, seemingly had no instinct of fear regarding
humans. I supposed that they would acquire one in time. We had such
ineffective hunting tools that we were simply unable to pass up any
easy prey, and that was too bad. Klink as we had found it reminded
me of the Genesis story -- of the harmony which supposedly prevailed
between the first animals and the first Man and Woman. Then there
arose Sin, and fear came into the world.
While I definitely desired company, little of what was bothering
me could be put into simple terms. Because I thought that I
shouldn't just sit there like a dummy, I tried to make conversation,
but the first time I opened my mouth I betrayed myself.
"You and Sebastian are very good friends, aren't you?"
"Yes, we are. Why?"
"No reason."
He looked at me keenly. "There must be a reason. You hinted
that talking to Dr. Lowry depressed you."
"It's just that --"
He waited patiently for me to go on.
I took a deep breath. "-- It's just that with people working
together so closely, they, well, they naturally tend to get --
close."
"I suppose the doctor and I are close, on one level."
"What level?"
"The level of working well together." He searched my features
as if I had said something remarkable. I looked away.
"What's this about?" he asked.
"It's nothing. It's just that Dr. Lowry hinted -- just hinted -
- that she was interested in somebody -- a man -- but wouldn't say
who it was."
"You've never been a busybody before."
I met his gaze in surprise. I wasn't used to be spoken to by a
subordinate that way but, then again, his statement was within bounds
for a friend, or even for a medical advisor.
"I'm not a busybody. I was just wondering --"
"You were just wondering whether something was developing
between Dr. Lowry and myself?"
I gulped hard. Had I been so transparent?
"Well, you needn't have worried --"
"I wasn't worried!" I broke in.
"You don't have to worry," he persisted. "Sebastian is my
superior and my friend, that's all."
"That's all I thought you were!"
"Besides," he concluded, "I'm not that kind of a man."
His words had struck me powerfully. I looked down into the
stream, in one sense relieved by them but, in another, and for
reasons which evaded me, disappointed. "No, I didn't suppose that
you were! Really, I don't know how all these men can be falling in
love with, and even marrying, people who were males themselves just a
couple months ago. It's -- illogical."
Alan shook his head. "I didn't mean that. I don't even know
what's logical or not anymore. What I'm saying is that I'm not the
sort who could be personally interested in two people at the same
time."
Two people? I stared in amazement. Alan's confession was even
more appalling than Sebastian's. "You're interested in somebody?" I
blurted. "-- No, don't tell me! It's not my business."
He placed his hand lightly on my lower arm. "Of course it's
your business, Major. Friends talk things over. You do consider us
friends, don't you?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Then you might be just exactly the person I need to advise me."
I felt a bit mystified. "Advice is cheap," I replied uneasily.
Did Alan really expect me to give him advice to further his love
affair? For some reason my mood was sinking again.
"My problem is that I'm attracted to this -- woman -- but she's
been having a rough time of it since her transformation, and she
can't possibly feel the same way that I do."
"Maybe you should just try to forget her then."
He smiled. "I couldn't do that -- not unless she told me
straight out that she could never reciprocate."
"Why don't you be up front with her then?" I suggested, hoping
that he would not take my advice too seriously.
"Two reasons," Alan replied wistfully. "I think that she's
becoming accustomed to being a woman, and, if I'm patient, the day
will come when she won't reject me straight-off."
"It could take a long time," I warned.
"Maybe, but there's a worse problem. She's of a higher rank.
It's always been drilled into us soldiers that we had to respect the
braid and never fraternize. But it's driving me crazy! I want to
touch her, I want to hold her, I want to tell her how much I care."
"It sounds hopeless," I put in. "You'd better give it up! You
shouldn't chase after a person -- especially an officer -- unless
they give you some sort of encouragement."
"I do see things that encourage me. Many small, wonderful
things. If I could only be sure that I'm not misunderstanding."
This was getting worse and worse! I tried to guess who it was
that he was talking about. Capt. Ames? Tritcher? Lt. Pitts? Any
one of those supernally beautiful women might have captured the eye
of a man of discerning taste like Alan Drew. He must have had the
opportunity to speak to all of them at length through his medical
duties. I suspected Ames especially. She was a such a cat -- always
trying to draw attention to herself!
"I can't give up hope," sighed Alan. "Not until I'm forced to."
He was so stubborn! Unfortunately, men like Drew usually got
what they set their sights upon.
"It seems like you've got it bad for this -- lucky person," I
observed.
"Lucky? It's a catastrophe! She's an officer. I'm nobody.
We're friends now, but if I say the wrong thing at the wrong time
that might all be over!"
"Don't call yourself a nobody!" I admonished him. "In a couple
years everything that we've learned to take for granted might change.
You're going to be a doctor, just about the most important person
around here. And you can be pretty sure that this separation into
military rank isn't going to go on forever. The people with the
special skills or insights to help us to survive are going to be the
important ones. You have many talents and qualities that any
sensible person would respect."
"Do I? Like what?"
I drew in a deep draft of air, thinking hard and trying to
answer honestly. "Well, you're steady, hard-working. You're
intelligent and understanding. You've got taste, and you've got
talent. You're good at your job, and you have skills that we
wouldn't want to do without. You're also a very compassionate man
with a fine -- uh, bedside manner."
"Anything else?"
"Well, physically, a woman -- if we had any real women around
here -- would find you a fine figure of a man -- I imagine."
"I'm flattered."
"It's not flattery! And it's not just me who thinks so! No, I
mean --" I felt my face getting hot. "It's, well --" Alan had a
way of getting me flustered, this time much too flustered to go on.
"I'd like to take a dip," the young man stated abruptly, thereby
taking me off the hook. "Would you join me, Major, or would that be
fraternization?"
"Technically it would be -- but everyone knows I'm crazy so I
can do anything I want."
"That's the wonderful thing about being crazy," he grinned
brightly.
Alan stripped to his shorts. I took off my sandals and cutoffs,
exposing my own droopy drawers, but, unlike him, I kept my shirt on.
He jackknifed into the pool and I followed after, feet-first.
The chill went right through me as I stabbed through the surface
tension, but my inner thermostat quickly adjusted. We swam back and
forth for a while, floating, dipping, paddling.
Before long, we emerged soaking wet and so shook ourselves off
like dogs. I wrung out my hair; I must have had a pondful of water
in it. Why had I kept it so long all this while? I thought that it
made sense to get a short trim once I got back to camp.
"I hate this hair," I remarked.
"You shouldn't. It's -- lovely."
I looked at him incredulously. It was not the sort of
compliment that I was used to, and so I laughed it off.
We went out into the sun to dry ourselves. We had had a good
swim and I now felt better, but Alan's mood had altered subtly in the
course of our exercise and his glance was making me vaguely
uncomfortable.
"That really wore me out," I jabbered. "I think I should catch
up on that sleep now."
"Can I trust you to be alone?"
"I don't want to kill myself. At least not today."
"I really hope not," he replied.
*******
Chapter 10
*Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin; so 'tis to thee;
But where the greater malady is fix'd
The lesser is scarce felt.*
KING LEAR
I slept poorly that night and kept to myself the following
morning. In the afternoon, thick black thunderheads roiled up from
the west and, though we were used to Klinkian storms, this incoming
blow looked like a mean one.
Standing outside my door, I saw people hurrying about, battening
down, covering up equipment. I thought I should shutter my windows,
but my mood was much too low.
I was thinking about Alan. The tumult of the storm became like
an echo of my own confusion. Alan was in love with a transformee!
Had he lost his reason? Transformees weren't women. How could a
normal man be attracted to one? Or was Drew simply less of a man
than I had given him credit for?
Anyway, I knew what I was. Alone. I thought back upon Rupert
Breen and missed him so much that the pain was like a knife through
my body. Rupert had been indomitable. He had never allowed his
loneliness to wear him down like mine did. When would I be myself
again, inwardly at least? Where was my vanished inner strength, my
lost self-sufficiency? When would duty and service again be enough -
- enough to fill my empty days with satisfaction and meaning?
Overhead, the sky had darkened to slate, a slate upon which, I
imagined, I could draw my innermost thoughts. But what I found
myself chalking down was a portrait of Alan.
That appalled me. Why could I not drive Alan Drew from my mind?
Was it because I had tied the wreck of my life to his solid rock and
now I was afraid to be cast adrift again?
Lightning flared behind the treetops, and the thunder roared
like the voice of an angry forest giant. The boles near the camp
shook violently, and the harsh wind swept the storm's first stinging
droplets against my cheeks like chips of ice. As the downpour grew
ever more intense and the lighting began firing like heavy artillery,
I simply stood there, becoming soaked to the skin.
Suddenly I saw someone running my way. He was big, broad-
shouldered, with a powerful stride. I didn't recognize him at first
in his rainwear. But, as the man jogged closer, he raised the broad
brim of his rain-plashed hat and I knew him for Alan. Private Drew,
that is. He looked askance my way.
"Major! What's wrong? You should go inside!"
I didn't move, didn't reply. Alan waited but a few seconds
before he took my arm and dragged me indoors, not exactly against my
will, but without any help from me.
"Aren't you well?" he asked anxiously.
"I was just thinking," I replied, as if to mollify not a living
man, but a phantom in a dream.
He barred the door against the wind, then turned to face me.
"You're soaking wet, sir. You should put on something dry."
"Don't you mean, 'ma'am?'" I quipped forlornly.
He looked at me carefully. "I'll call you ma'am if you'd
prefer, Major."
I shrugged. Words of address seemed unimportant just then.
"You were watching me?"
"Everyone saw you still standing outside after the storm blew
in."
The whole hut was now shuddering under the wind. Alan went
about, covering my windows while I just stood there. The lightning
was casting blue flashes through every crack while the thunder pealed
and the rain beat on the roof like drumming fists.
"Stay until it stops storming," I suggested, turning on the
battery-powered lamp.
Alan took off his hat, but had not lost his worried look.
"I'm all right," I assured him. "I've always enjoyed storms.
It's been too long since I've taken the time to watch one roll in."
"That's fine, Major, but you could get a chill."
"Did you come over to be my doctor?"
"If you'd like. But first we have to get you out of those wet
clothes."
"Sure," I said indifferently.
He went to my trunk where he found my bathrobe and a towel. I
started taking my uniform off in front of him. Why shouldn't I? He
was a medical man, and I was his patient.
When I was totally nude, I accepted the towel from his hand,
drying my face and hair with it. Then I held back my arms to let him
slip the absorbent robe over my shoulders. Listlessly, I tied a knot
in the sash, while Alan started removing his wet-weather gear.
It occurred to me that I was being a poor host and so took a
rations tin down from the shelf. Company on a stormy day was, after
all, a good reason to splurge a bit.
"A biscuit?" I asked.
"Thank you, sir," he said.
"Someday we're going to have fresh bread," I remarked as I
opened the can and did the service, "if we can only find something to
grind into flour."
"I can't wait!" he responded.
I handed him half of the biscuit and then poured some red-berry
juice into a couple of aluminum mugs. "Sebastian brought it over
this morning," I remarked casually.
He accepted the cup, saying, "I've been wondering whether this
stuff ferments."
I shrugged. "It depends upon what sort of microbes Klink has.
The things we don't know about this world would fill a library."
"Finding everything out is going to keep life interesting."
I tasted the first crumbs of my biscuit-half. "We might not
like everything we discover," I warned, though I really meant nothing
in particular.
"We have to know as much as we can, especially about what's
dangerous or unpleasant."
"Lots of things are dangerous and unpleasant," I whispered.
"Most things, in fact."
"What's that, sir?"
I eased myself back against the desk and raised my cup in toast.
"To progress, to survival -- and danger."
Alan likewise lifted his mug and took a sip from it. "It's very
good, Major."
"My name is Rupert, you know. I'd like you to start calling me
by it, at least when we're alone."
He returned a thoughtful frown. "I'd rather not."
I felt surprised and hurt.
"I mean, you don't look like a Rupert," he explained hastily.
"I feel more comfortable with Major, begging the major's pardon."
"Whether I look like it or not, Rupert's my name."
"What's your middle name, sir?"
"Eberhart. I never use it."
"I can see why."
I scowled; nobody likes to have his name made fun of. But I
understood his sentiment. "Maybe that's why Mark calls himself Mary,
and Micah, Ruth, and . . . ."
"I suppose it is," Alan agreed noncommittally.
Just then, in shifting my position, my robe inadvertently
parted, baring one of my legs from the toe nearly to the hip. The
sight of it instantly registered in Alan's expression, though he
deftly corrected it. I smiled secretly, as if at a private joke, and
carried on as if I hadn't noticed his reaction.
"You're in an unusual mood, Major," he observed. "Did you sleep
last night?"
I shook my head. "I woke about five. How are things going with
you?"
"What things?"
"The pursuit of your unattainable love, for one thing."
He smiled ambiguously, but demurred to answer.
"It's not fair that you're keeping me in the dark," I said with
a toss of my head. "At least tell me what she looks like. She --
she must be beautiful."
"If I described her you might guess who she is."
"That's the point."
"I might be embarrassed if you knew."
"Maybe I'd have an idea for helping you to win her. I know all
my officers very well."
"And noncoms," Alan put in.
"She's a sergeant?"
"I didn't say that."
"I just don't understand why you're being so mysterious. If
you're ashamed of having fallen in love with a man, maybe you
shouldn't pursue it." There was just a bit of acid in my challenge.
"She used to be a man," he began defensively, but then shrugged
resignedly. "Maybe she still is, down deep. I don't understand any
of this, Major, and I especially don't understand how I can feel the
way that I do. But I can't help it."
"Maybe you're just lonely," I postulated.
He looked at me as if I were a code that he could almost, if not
quite, decipher.
"She's -- she's very attractive, like you say," he resumed. "I
especially like her hair and her eyes, but it's much more than that.
There's this incredible magnetism about her."
I nodded, waiting for more.
"When she was a man she always seemed kind of distant, cold.
But I respected her -- him. She -- he -- was always the sort of man
who put the good of the Group before himself."
"If I were you, Private," I advised him, somewhat
superciliously, "I wouldn't waste my time with a cold woman."
He shook his head. "She's not really cold. I should have
realized that shyness in a man often comes across as aloofness."
Shyness? A clue at last! I tried to think of any officer whom
I might consider shy, at least as a woman. Second Lieutenant
Kaopoulis, maybe.
"I think it's her shyness that really made my heart go out to
her --" Alan went on. "Underneath it all, I think that she's
surprisingly innocent and easily-injured. When a man sees
vulnerability in a woman, well, he just naturally wants to protect
her, to keep her from ever being hurt again."
"Do you think you could do that for her?"
"Nobody can be another person's suit of armor, Major, but I'd
certainly try my best."
I was struggling to keep my voice steady, but hated this
conversation. "She's a lucky -- person --" I ventured, "to have a
man like you interested in her, even if she doesn't know it yet."
"You don't think that she'd despise me -- for coming across as
overprotective and smothering, I mean?"
"The right kind of protectiveness isn't patronizing."
"What's the right kind?"
"Everybody has to fight his own battles, Alan. It's insulting
if not to trust a person to stand on his or her own two feet. But
everyone needs someone, somewhere, to retreat to for reinforcements.
Nobody can go it alone all the time."
For some reason, Alan chose that moment to step closer. Now it
was my turn to feel uneasy. I had the impulse to cover up my leg,
but didn't want to draw attention to the fact that I had been --
what? -- teasing him?
"I've wanted to tell her what I feel for weeks," he said with a
strange intensity, "but I've been worried that if I spoke too soon,
it would probably destroy any chance that I have."
"Chance for what?" I asked with a slight quiver. "Do you really
want to jump into bed with her that badly?"
"No -- I just want to hold her, to tell her honestly what I
feel, to share my time with her, and for her to understand why I want
to share it. What happens after that, we'll see."
The more powerful the interest he expressed in his mystery
woman, the more depressed I became. I fought hard to maintain my
composure.
"Maybe what you need is a John Alden," I suggested.
"Are you volunteering, sir?"
"Possibly," I nodded with feigned benignity, but my thoughts
were treacherous. If I could only find out who Alan was fixated
upon, I might be able to keep him and her apart. But what a selfish
thing to be plotting! What sort of a person was I? But I knew what
sort. The sort who was fighting against a return to loneliness, and
fighting with all the desperation of a drowning man.
"I don't know now," he smiled. "John Alden was a washout as a
go-between."
True, legend said that Alden had stolen Priscilla from Miles
Standish, the man whose troth he had agreed to plead. Love did not
conquer all necessarily, but it often did conquer honor. "John and
Priscilla got mixed up in the male-female thing," I explained
blandly.
"That couldn't happen here, I guess."
"Of course not!" I exclaimed. What was he suggesting? That I
could fall in love with a transformee?
"Is there something wrong, Major?"
"It's nothing. It's just that, well, I've lost a lot of friends
once they got romantically-obsessed. If that happened with us, I'd
regret it. Besides, that girl of yours probably has some bad
qualities that you're overlooking. I worry about you. If things go
sour down the line, you won't be able to put it behind you. This is
a very small town."
"You may be right. There's one bad thing about her that I've
found out already."
"What's that?" I asked hopefully.
"She doesn't have sense enough to come in out of the rain."
I grunted disparagingly. "She sounds like some kind of airhead
--" I started to say before the words sank in. Then I stared up at
him, astonished, and for a moment our linked gazes communicated
volumes.
What he saw in my eyes must have told him that it wouldn't be a
mistake to put his arms around his C.O. and crush his lips against
hers as if she were the heroine on the cover of an old romantic
novel.
And if so, the man had read me like a book. . . .
#
We didn't jump into bed. That stuff is for kids. Just admitting
that we loved one another was, all by itself, like crossing a
mountain range. I still couldn't believe what had happened. What
did it all mean? That I was a person that some man could love? Was I
actually in love myself -- and with a man? What was wrong with me?
Had I turned gay -- or was I something else, something too impossible
to contemplate?
Whatever I was, whatever I might become, I wanted to be careful.
What would people think? Soldiers would never follow an officer whom
they held in contempt. Also, I wanted to be especially careful about
making a mistake, one that could change my life radically and force
me into circumstances which I never had had to consider before.
How reality had changed in just a single hour! I had been
worrying myself sick over some nameless rival, and that rival had
never actually existed! I could have strangled Alan for putting me
through that kind of ordeal, but instead of recriminating we kissed
desperately, clung to each other as if this moment would be our last.
We didn't say a lot, except things like, "We shouldn't be doing
this," or "This is crazy," and "What will people say?" but we were
actually singing sonnets, non-vocally at least.
Later, sitting together upon my bed as if it were a love seat,
we finally came up for air long enough to discuss practicalities.
And there were many of these to consider. How would the
troopers react to a major, the C.O. in fact, taking a private for a
suitor? For a lover? Alan's status might be raised a little, but he
also ran the risk of drawing resentment, envy, and being mistaken for
an ambitious Lothario. For my own part, I expected to be looked down
upon for granting "my favors" to one beneath "my station." But,
hell, everyone was beneath my station. That's what you got when you
operated in a pyramidal hierarchy.
"We can't give you a promotion," I said, thinking out-loud. "It
would send exactly the wrong message. It's the old story of a good-
looking subordinate sleeping his or her way to the top. I could
resign my commission, though," I suggested.
He shook his head emphatically. "I want to give you the world.
I don't want to take anything away."
"Living is a trade-off," I sighed. "Anyway, no matter what we
do, could you see me ever resuming command around here again?"
"I don't see why not."
I thought that his feelings were blinding him. "Even if I stop
falling into suicidal depressions," I explained carefully, "there's
no telling when we'll get another bout of Madness. Periodic insanity
is not any recommendation for command."
"It'll probably never happen again," he averred, though without
much conviction.
"All I know is that Klink's secret masters seem to win every
trick."
"Some of Klink's tricks are better than others," he whispered,
as he again drew me close.
#
After that, life was hell.
I had myself absolutely convinced that everyone already knew
that I was in love with Alan Drew. I went about the camp not with my
former confidence, but like a thief who senses the security patrols
closing in.
Despite my anxiety, no one seemed to treat me differently, not
even Sebastian, who had proven herself so astute in the past. But I
was different somehow, inwardly, and that made all the difference.
What a self-unaware babe-in-the-woods I had been! I had been
falling in love with Alan for weeks, and all the while had been
trying to call it something else.
I should have been in bliss now that a gulf had closed between
my mind and my emotions, but another gulf had seemed to yawn open.
Was I ashamed of my feelings? Would my apparent weakness cause
people to lose respect for me, would it diminish their regard for
Alan? Did it matter? I momentarily imagined myself as the camp
trollop, scorned by some, sniggered at by others -- and decided that
I didn't like that particular fantasy one bit.
#
Alan and I swam the next day at my suggestion, figuring that
because we had gotten away with it once, we might do so again.
Another swim meant another wet shirt, of course and so I went back to
my hut to change, Alan escorting me.
As I took a dry tunic from my footlocker, my companion remarked:
"You'd look sexy in that shirt."
"Oh?" I responded, not sure whether I liked being considered
"sexy" by a man.
"I mean if you did it right," he clarified. "Just wear the
shirt. Make a tunic of it, like a lot of the women are doing."
Not taking him seriously, I slipped on the shirt. "Oh, sure!
You want me to go around like Halder, or Marduke?"
"Why not? You've got prettier legs than either of them."
"You've got to be kidding! Those two are gorgeous."
"You're gorgeous, too."
The compliment made my face warm, as if a sunlamp was shining
into it. "Go on! A shirttail looks awful over these dumpy drawers.
And don't expect me to walk around bare-bottomed."
"No problem. Haven't you been watching the girls lately?"
"That's more your department," I quipped.
"They've rediscovered the venerable loincloth. Let me show you
how to make one."
"I don't know about this," I hedged.
"You weren't so squeamish back on Helene, Major."
I lifted my chin defensively. "There we were only facing
planet-busters and orbiting cannons."
Alan laughed, but wasn't to be denied. For the next quarter
hour, I became his clothes dummy. To make a loincloth, he
demonstrated, one needed a strong cord, like a bootstring, for
instance. This he girdled around my waist. Subsequently, he ran one
of my large handkerchiefs between my legs, pinning it fore and aft.
(Alan suggested that sewing it to the girdle would be better.) Then,
with a little folding and tucking, I suddenly found myself wearing a
very serviceable bikini bottom.
I regarded the result with misgivings. "Fun is fun, Alan, but
I'm no sex-sim girl --"
"I always think of you as a sex-sim girl," he smirked.
The liberties the private was allowing himself were mind-
boggling, but I had a bad case of the Drews. To pin his shoulders to
the wall on this or any other excuse would be to hurt our
relationship. Besides, I knew a few things about the psychology of
men, both in love and out, and so let him have his fun.
He looped a second bootstring around my middle, tying it into a
slipknot belt which emphasized the narrowness of my waist, in effect
creating a very short dress. Finally, he adjusted the tie,
remarking, "Most women are wearing it like this, with the knot just a
little forward on the right. Our C.O. has to represent the height of
fashion."
"The beginning of Klinkian haut culture?" I remarked with a
twitchy smile.
"I guess so. Anyway, you look fine."
"I feel like a chorus girl."
"Maybe you missed you calling."
"Hey --!"
"Let's go outside, Major," he suggested, taking me by the arm.
"I want everyone to know how beautiful my girl is."
"Oh no you don't! Nobody's going to see me like this!"
"Come on, Commander. Ames will die of envy."
"Let her die anyway she wants to! I've got my pride --"
In reply, the dirty dog scooped me up, threw me over his
shoulder cave man-like, then carried me to the door, which he
proceeded to unbar.
"You idiot! This is assaulting an officer! I'll have you doing
ten thousand push-ups! You'll be digging latrines for the rest of
your life --! I'll --"
He put me down with a raucous laugh, then pasted a quick, hard
kiss to my gasping mouth. I glared at him furiously, but my nonplus
only incited him to greater mirth.
"Ease up, Major. I was only joking."
I calmed myself with an act of supreme will. He was such a
clown -- but, then, I had always known that. It was part of what
attracted me to him, I think.
"I just wish you'd stop calling me major," I said wistfully.
*******
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