Redworld, page 11
And then there was the pink-skinned Nana, unique among the girls because she wore a girdle. Her attempts to bring her exuberant flesh under control were quite hopeless. Her immense bosom was encased in an especially constructed brassiere. Her columnar thighs adjoined massive hips that curved inward to a surprisingly narrow waist. Her rotund belly erupted unconquered over the top of her girdle. Making love to her in any traditional fashion would involve mechanical difficulties. That may have accounted for her popularity. We traded smiles.
And then there was Felia, the redhead. She was sitting in the chair next to Kertor. As we looked at each other, she slowly crossed her legs. As though to neutralize and counterbalance Nana’s war with girdle and brassiere, Felia wore only a tunic. No slip. No brassiere. No underwear. Not even shoes. Pretending a sudden interest in a wagon rumbling down the street, she stood up and took a couple of steps toward the window. The declivity in her buttocks was clearly visible. She walked beautifully. Probably every barefoot woman does. She turned, came back to the table, and stretched her arms up briefly, exposing red ringlets in her armpits. She sat down and hung an arm over the back of her chair.
Now it must not be supposed that I was evaluating the possibilities with a studied, calculating, and impersonal eye. Actually, I was red as a toto and my breath was coming in jerks.
“Hi.” It was the new girl, standing by Felia. She grinned at me.
I looked at her, startled, then worked up a feeble return smile. She wore a neatly tailored blouse and skirt. She wore no make-up and made no effort to look sexy or provocative. Her black hair was done up in long braids that circled the back of her head. I had seen girls in the collegia with the same hair style. The newcomer had class. And now I pegged her. She was indeed enrolled at the collegia and worked there part-time. Oh well … to each his own.
I noted for the first time a medley of scents. They had been there all along, of course. Including a couple of specific perfumes. A woman could probably have named them, but I couldn’t. Something that smelled like zie blossoms. And a clean, austere hint of soap. Plus a dominant, overlying blend of female body odors. Not at all unpleasant. In fact, rather seductive.
“My boy,” said Kertor impatiently, “whenever you are through examining the merchandise ….”
“Oh. Sorry.…”
“Then let us begin.” He twisted a little in his chair and faced the girls. “Anybody want to open at fifty solati?”
Myria put her hand on her hip, shifted her pelvis a little, and looked at me languidly. “Fifty,” she said.
“We got fifty. Seventy-five?” asked Kertor.
The girl from the collegia studied me quietly. Her mouth opened a little, and she ran her tongue around her lips. “Seventy-five,” she said.
I was being auctioned, like a stud borch. “Who gets the fee?” My calmness amazed me.
“The Kertor Employment Agency,” said the captain imperturbably. “I have seventy-five. One hundred, girls?”
“Two hundred solati,” said Nana quietly. We looked at each other, and she passed her hand delicately over her stomach.
“Four hundred,” said Myria.
Nearly three times my weekly salary. They were all crazy. And so was I, for being here, and listening to this.
Off to one side, toward the back, a door closed. I turned and looked up casually.
A figure stood motionless at the head of the stairs, on the landing. She was back-lit by the colored-glass window at the rear. Those stunning black curls fell down around her cheeks, and she rested her right hand lightly, gracefully, on the stair rail. The eyes seemed slightly widened in the semi-light. Mouth softened. Lips parted a little.
Had she known, ahead of time? Is that why she was there? Waiting? Knowing?
Siris, she was beautiful.
Josi, do you know what is going on down here? Do you know that I am in the process of losing my virginity? That when I stumble out of here, I’ll be a man?
I exchanged one full glance with Squire Vys. Then we both looked away. I turned from the jaq table and started slowly toward the stairs. One of the girls said something. I didn’t catch it. I think one of them gasped. And then the silence was total.
From the corner of my eye I sensed something interesting. From the food counter Boogi was watching me intently. He picked up his sky-knife and started forward. Someone moved with him, and I half-noted a restraining hand on his arm.
I lost them from my peripheral vision and went on. Well, Boogi, maybe you will, and maybe you won’t. Perhaps the cold froom point of that thing will indeed come crashing into the back of my head. But I won’t feel a thing. Instant death. So be it.
With slow precision I started up the stairs. One by one. Here and there a squeak under the stair carpet. And still no whistling blade. Had Boogi called it off?
By the time I was halfway up I could see Josi’s eyes. They were watching me, calmly, curiously. She was dressed in her usual style, pink short sleeve blouse, with some sort of ruffles. Long black skirt, made of some light material. There was a belt with a jeweled buckle.
I reached the landing, took her gloved hand, and raised it to my lips. It was all automatic. I’m not sure I knew what was going on. None of this was really real. I was an actor in a bit part. But look! Her face was changing. The transformation was a blend of strange things. Her eyes opened and closed. Her mouth widened, then shut again.
I lowered her hand, but held on to it. Through the glove I could feel her fingers, soft, yielding.
Her lips opened again. She was trying to say something. I think it was, “yes.” But no sound emerged.
A final expression was crystallizing around her eyes and cheeks. Shades and windows were sliding up, drapes and curtains were pulled aside, air and light were whirling around her head. I got the weird impression that faraway voices were calling out to her, “Yes! Yes! Yes!”
Like me, she too was now an actress, with a part to play.
I released her fingers, and I touched her on the shoulder. She just looked at me quietly. I cupped my palm and caressed the curve of her shoulder. The thin fabric of her blouse molded itself under my hand. I felt straps, probably to her slip and brassiere. My hand moved down to the bare flesh of her arm. It was cool, smooth. She took one long breath, and let it out slowly. I thought I might begin to tremble, but I didn’t. I took her other arm, and under my gentle pivoting pressure, she turned. I put my arm around her waist, and we walked back to her door.
With preternatural auditory perception, I noted that the only sound in the house was Kertor’s muffled voice. He seemed to be talking to one of the girls. “Get this envelope over to Coronel Dite right away.”
17
Josi’s Room
I CLOSED THE DOOR behind us and pushed the sliding bolt into its socket. I turned, and we faced each other. My hearts were pounding so hard my eardrums seemed to bounce. “Josi,” I said thickly—(I hardly recognized my own voice)—“I … I …” I swallowed and stopped talking. I put my hands on her hips and brought her in close to me. She came willingly. She sighed, put her arms around my neck, tilted her head a little to one side, and closed her eyes. And so I kissed her, timidly, tentatively. Her lips were soft, warm, receptive. They opened, and her tongue flicked inside my mouth.
Our mouths broke apart and my lips moved across her cheek, down her neck, her throat. I held her firmly around the waist with one hand, while I explored with the other. I brought my hand down over her breasts, and felt her nipples harden through brassiere, slip, and blouse.
I stood back a little and began fumbling with the catches on her blouse. I was clumsy and it was taking me forever. She began to help me. She pulled her blouse off over her head and let it fall to the floor. Simultaneously she kicked off her slippers. Already I was working on the two buttons on her skirt. These were big, and I had better luck. The skirt floated down about her legs, and she stepped out of it, like a winger crawling out of its chrysalis. She stood there in her slip a moment, then in a weird magical motion put her arms on opposite sides of her body and pulled the slip over her head. I turned around and unhooked the back of her brassiere. Her breasts floated free. I knelt and pulled down her underwear. Gorgeous. Not that I was a connoisseur. On the way back up I let my lips linger on her belly, and for a moment I took her left nipple in my mouth. And then I held all of her against my body again. But something was not quite right. Flesh ought to answer flesh. I realized then that I was still fully dressed. I pulled my tunic out of my breeches, unbuttoned it, and tossed it away. She waited. Then I knelt over and pulled off my shoes. Then I dealt summarily with my breeches and smallclothes. Everything just seemed to disappear. And now we were back together, mouth to mouth, tongues darting. We clung to each other. Her hands were all over me. They came to my crotch. First one hand, then the other. It … I …
Oh Siris.
The fountain flooded. It was sweet … it was terrible … Some in her hands, some on her stomach. Some dripping down her legs. And some on me.
I sagged mentally. I didn’t know what to say.
Josi reached down, picked up her underwear, and began to daub at both of us.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. Was it all over? Before it had begun?
She simply smiled at me. I’m not sure exactly what happened next. Did she motion with her head? Perhaps just a slight hint in the direction of the bed? I picked her up and carried her over. Moments later she pulled a pillow under her buttocks, spread her legs, and we began again. Sometimes we moved in harmony; sometimes each went his own way. She sighed and moaned. Her face and chest were beaded with perspiration. Suddenly she began to heave. She grabbed me. I felt her fingernails. “Now!” she gasped. “Now … now!”
As though she had pressed some magic button on my body, I rode to the finish with her. And it was over.
For a time I continued to lie on her. My open lips were pressed into the side of her throat. We breathed in long gasps, as though we had just finished the d-douzaine dash. I raised up a little and looked down at her half-closed eyes. She looked up, and we smiled at each other.
I rolled off and lay at her side.
“Let’s take a little nap,” she whispered. She pulled the pillow from underneath her and replaced it under her head. From somewhere at the foot of the bed she found a light pink blanket and pulled it up over us. Then she turned over, with her back to me.
I looked at that lovely head in wonder. I studied the outline of her shoulders and waist and hips. Those marvelous hips. And then the incredible embracing legs. I wanted to touch her, to run my hand along the profile of her body. But I didn’t.
Holy Siris! It had happened. This thing had finally happened. And I still didn’t understand exactly how.
I lay on my back and stared at the ceiling. I yawned. “Let’s take a little nap.” That was the only thing she had said to me during the whole time. No, that wasn’t quite all. “Now … now … now!” I began to reconstruct the whole thing, from start to finish. The stairs. The door. Inside. I smiled. I felt my eyes begin to close. Drifting.
I WAS AWAKENED by distant irrelevant laughter. Josi was still asleep, with her back still turned to me. The little blanket had retreated to her hips. I lifted up on an elbow and studied her a moment. She was breathing quietly and rhythmically. Yet there was something odd about it, as though tiny motors were whirring inside her chest. I held my hand over her nostrils and sensed, rather than felt, a very faint exhalation. Hardly any flow at all. Curious.
I looked for her hands. One was tucked under her pillow. The other rested on a fold of the blanket. It was still gloved. Why, Josi?
What time was it? No tick in sight anywhere. Judging from the light coming in through the windows, it was early afternoon. I sat up slowly and carefully, and I listened. Whatever had awakened me had faded into the impalpable distance. Now there was only silence, an elemental contrived deadness, built of insulation and sound absorbers. Tapestries, hanging on the walls; even one on the door. Thick wall-to-wall carpeting. Overhead, acoustical tiles. This room was her hideaway. Cinqueday night bedlam in the Main Room below was probably muffled to a faint moan by the time it penetrated here. More sound came from the avelas in the tall myc tree outside her window than from downstairs. The Tower never entered here. Nor did much else.
I sat up on the edge of the bed and looked about the room. Funny, I hadn’t really noticed much when I first came in, so long ago.
Against one wall stood a lyrichord, and next to that a desk, with compartments and ledgers. On top of the desk, a flexible-neck oxien lamp. On the wall nearby hung a framed portrait. Now this was a very remarkable picture. In black and pink. I could tell right away that it had not been painted. No brush strokes, no pigments. It had all the minute detail of an engraving or lithograph; yet it was clearly neither. It showed a man, smiling, arms locked across his chest. He was a big man, with enormous shoulders and a great barrel chest. The clothes were odd, like nothing ever worn around here. But the very strangest thing was this: one of the hands (resting on the folded arm) had only five fingers. A finger had not been amputated; that hand had been born with five fingers. It was incomprehensible.
Shaking my head in wonder, I let my eyes wander on to the far wall. And that too was a shock. The marvel was not that the wall curved outward into the room. That was readily explained: this second-floor room adjoined the Tower. I was looking at a part of the Tower shell. No, the remarkable thing was a door, squarely in the center of the wall, and opening into the Tower itself. And the door was very slightly ajar.
Siris!
My widening eyes passed on. She had her own adjoining bathroom. I could see hints of toilet, lavatory, tub, and shower curtain. And so on back to the wall on her side of the bed. That wall was lined with shelves and slots, and everything was loaded with books and scrolls and manuscripts.
I got up slowly and quietly and tiptoed over to the bookshelves.
I picked up a book at random. There was a title on the spine and another on the front cover, but I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t even recognize the letters. Up to this moment I had thought there were only four languages. I guess I was wrong. There was a stiff paper marker in the book, and I let the book fall open at the marker. The book paper was strange. I couldn’t make out any individual fibers. Certainly it had not been manufactured at Magna. And the printing! The characters were tiny but as clear-cut as jewelry. I had never seen printing so exquisite. And then there were the illustrations and line drawings. All seemed to involve the human body. In fact, the female body, but with jarring deformities, including two lung lobes (with an unrecognizable mechanism in one lobe) and but one heart. Otherwise the book was rather like a technical manual on how to operate and maintain a very delicate piece of machinery. And this particular female body had a face, clustered with ringlets of black hair. The woman looked very much like Josi.
I swallowed hard and took a close look at the page marker. On it was the face of a young man. Oddly familiar … It was, in fact, my own face. The detail was incredibly good. Our very best miniaturists would not be able to make a rendition so nearly perfect. Why, Josi? Had she had this little portrait made before I came to work at Magna, that first day? Is that how she recognized me? Is that why she stared? And as if that were not mystery enough, there were other enigmas on her page marker.
The sheet carried some sort of diagram. And look at this! Above my picture, my name, Pol Randol! And next to mine, Gil’s name, marked “deceased.” And behind our names, Father’s name, Del Randol; and Mother’s, Heili Rork. And beyond them, their parents, and then more names.
As I stood there, stunned, bewildered, my eye fell on another piece of paper. This lay loosely on the bookcase, and I recognized the engraved border and symbols of the Paper Guild. It was a receipt for one douzaine-cubed solati, entrance free for Pol Randol.
This room and this woman were now far beyond astonishment.
She had got me into the paper mill. Why? What was it to her whether the Randols lived or died?
She had been waiting on her porch, that first morning, to see what she had bought.
She had planned this afternoon’s auction. And she had known what would happen after she came out on her landing and looked down into my face.
I looked over at Josi. She was still asleep. Just what did it all mean? I’d have to ask her. But would she answer?
The bed creaked. I put the book back and whirled around guiltily. Josi was lying there smiling at me. At first she pulled the blanket up over her chest. Then she must have realized that modesty was irrelevant, and she let it drop around her waist. Her breasts lung firmly pendant. They were beautiful.
I stood there, naked, facing her. “I was looking at your books.
She said lazily, “Some good, some bad.” Her eyes were going up and down my body in little pauses and starts.
“And your lyrichord,” I said.
“Do you play?”
“I used to, just a little. We had a lyrichord, too, but we had to get rid of it.”
“We?”
“I live with my mother.”
She was watching my body, which was slowly activating before her very eyes. She cleared her throat. “Does she feed you? Do you get enough to eat?”
I smiled and walked back to her side of the bed. “I get plenty to eat.”
“You look awfully skinny.”
It was not the time to start clearing up mysteries.
“That’s muscle.” I took her hand, put it on my stomach, and flexed the muscles of my gut. She looked up in mild surprise. “I see what you mean.”
Her hand moved downward. I bent over her slowly. She sighed and lay back. But then she whispered, “Look, you lie over here, on your back.”
I lay beside her. She got up on her hands and knees and straddled me, with her breasts hanging over my chest. Her flushed face looked down at mine; her mouth was open slightly. I knew what to do next. With my right hand I reached down, fumbled a moment, then the connection was made. Still sitting, she settled back and began a measured rhythmic motion. I moved my hands slowly over her body, touching, caressing. I cupped her breasts in my palms. I brushed her taut nipples with my knuckles.
