He, She and It (30 page)

“Shira, I can feel that you’re tense,” he said very softly.

“I’m not tremendously sophisticated or experienced. Even if you were human, I’d be nervous. To lie down with a man always feels risky.”

“But I can’t give you a disease or make you pregnant. I would never hurt you.” Lightly, gently he stroked her back.

“You’re strong enough to do so inadvertently, the way a person can hurt a baby or a bird.”

“I control my movements far more exactly than any human does. I’m machined and programmed to demanding specifications. I would never hurt you, I could never hurt you. Believe that.”

She smiled against his shoulder. “That would make you different indeed from any man I’ve known.”

“Then know me, Shira. Let me know you. It’s all we can do together. We can’t get married or have children or run off together. All I can bring you are brain and body during the times I am not required elsewhere in acts of what I’m told is necessary violence.” He tugged gently at the fine cloth of her nightgown. “Can we take this off?”

The nightgown went flying across the room and settled with a little sigh of its own on the floorboards. Moonshine lit the room faintly. His hands drifted over her lightly, lightly in wide and then narrowing circles, on her back, her breasts, her belly. He touched her as if he had all the time in the world. Of course he did not experience bodily fatigue; his desire was not based in any physical pressure; he did not sleep. He caressed her as if he could do so all night, and probably he could. She still felt watchful, wary, but her flesh woke independently of her brain, stretched, came to life, brushed into electrical response. Her back arched to his palm, her breast slipped forward into his hand. He obviously liked to be touched, to be caressed, but she did not sense that any particular part seemed more sensitive than any other, although she was too shy to touch his genitals yet. Her breath came quickly, but his did not. Yet he concentrated on her with a total intensity that in itself was absolutely exciting. It was not passion as she had known it in men: it was a passionately intense attention, sharpened by extraordinary skill in the use of his hands and mouth. Raw silk, she thought, warm in the sun. Sinuous as a cat, as the wind. She writhed against him.

Time resumed when his hand slipped between her thighs. She realized she had not had a conscious thought in … She had been outside time. And she was the one who had moved his hand downward. She had been kissing him, writhing against him, her mind doused like the havdalah candle that was put out in sweet sacramental wine, the candle braided as their bodies were intertwined. Who would have expected him to be so … graceful, precise, catlike in bed? Never had she lost self-consciousness like that with Josh, never, not with the lover she had tried after him or with anyone at all since Gadi.

He touched her, and then he parted her thighs and went down on her. She had always felt a little self-conscious that way. Josh had been clumsy, and she had felt shy, as if she were asking for more than she ought to. Gadi had learned from the stimmies, but they had used it for excitement only. For a moment she felt her old awkwardness, and then she thought she need not be embarrassed with him. He did not grow fatigued. He would simply continue until stopped. She gave herself over to the sensations of being lapped until the urgency and the sense of tipping over grew so strong she was coming.

“I never came that way before,” she said honestly, when she had hold of herself again. “Can you feel pleasure?”

“I experience a small discharge of my fluids from friction. It
has no function other than to mimic what human males produce. The pleasure is entirely in my brain.”

She smiled. “Do I rub your temples, then?”

“I can come by any kind of friction. I am not programmed to require penetration.”

“But would you like to do it that way?”

“I wouldn’t hurt you?”

“Let’s try it.”

He positioned himself on her with extreme care, keeping his weight on his arms. She wondered if he had done this before. He seemed less practiced. She was still wet, and he slid in without difficulty. She was pleased to feel that he had been made a reasonable size. She had feared a giant penis on him, and was relieved Avram had not been carried away. It would be nice to make love with him in ordinary light, she thought, as she was now extremely curious about his body.

He moved very slowly at first, until she found herself driving up at him. He probed more quickly. She forgot to think. Her nails were digging in his back. Her pelvis was drumming against him. She had never made love quite this way. She had never been as excited except with Gadi, and then she had been too young to thrust hard. She could hear herself making noises, soft growls and groans. A path opened in her, a path into her womb. She did not worry she was taking too long, she did not even think until the last moment that she could not possibly be coming again, but she could, she was, she did.

She lay beside him in the roil of messed-up covers and pulled-loose sheets. She kept touching his cheek, his forearms, his buttocks. He felt to her at once like a person and a large fine toy. She could not believe what she had just experienced. Since Gadi, her sexual response had been measured at best, defective, sputtering. She had considered herself rather cold. Gadi had been the exception, and that was so long ago, her sexuality so incandescently diffuse, she felt she could have come with Gadi simply by touching thumbs or kissing.

“Oh,” she said suddenly, jolted. “I fell asleep for a moment.”

“I wondered if that was sleep.” He stroked the hair back from her face. “I should go to the lab. In the morning tell Malkah I’ve cleared the Base and we must reprogram. All other work must cease until we’ve created new labyrinths. Now Malkah is free to build and ride and play in the Base again.”

After he had left her, she wanted to think about everything that had happened, but the long day, the tension she had been carrying wound through her guts, the soft gummy feeling of her
body after two orgasms, all sucked her down into sleep heavy as a sinking sofa. What have I done? she thought, waiting for alarm to hit, but then she was floating in darkness, disembodied.

TWENTY-ONE

One Door Opens and One Door Closes

I waited in my chair in the darkness of the courtyard. The moon shone feebly, waxing just over the cornice. I was sure that Yod would leave Shira soon and return to the lab. He was tactful and nervous enough not to need to advertise the satisfaction of the desire he had worn so plainly and painfully for the last month.

I had the two kittens tucked into the bodice of my gown, where they slept, occasionally wiggling into wakefulness to nudge for the mother they had lost, pricking me with their needle claws and muttering back to sleep. Shira and Yod were most considerate, not turning on a light, silent as serpents. No one credits the degree of my insomnia. Two nights ago for the first time I neglected—no, I decided not to take the prescribed drugs. I was afraid that in a drug-induced torpor I would roll over on the kittens, so tiny and delicately made, and hurt them. I was weary of the thick wool of drugged sleep. My normal sleep is brief but real.

Dozing, I had heard Shira and the house speaking. My hearing is still excellent. I checked my terminal and saw she was in the Base. I wondered why she had entered at night, so I asked the house. The house told me all I needed to know. I found myself rising to the ceiling like a gravity dancer. Sudden energy came singing through my body. Sleep? Who needs it? Yod doesn’t, and I require little. I had done nothing but sleep and sulk for days and days and nights and nights, and lately played cat mother and practiced ascetic disciplines and an occasional trance state. Now Yod had cleared the Base again, and I was free to reenter my work, my life.

When the house told me that Yod might come, I waited. I
saw him pass upstairs. The light did not go on. At last. I stole downstairs.

The night was halfway to dawn when he came softly down. He moves with his own kind of grace, that of perfect function. He saw me in the dark and stopped cold. I imagined I saw confusion on his face. I could guess he was wondering if my feelings would be hurt. He is good at reading human feelings from small kinetic changes, but he is poor at guessing them beforehand. He has trouble figuring out what will please and what will offend or hurt us.

I motioned him to keep silent and led him into my office, shutting the door before I turned on the light. I need good light to see anything. “You were successful?” I realized at once that question was ambiguous, and I started to grin. “Your patrol of the Base was successful?”

“The raiders were not pirates. They were from Yakamura-Stichen. Shira recognized both when I showed her their faces.” He filled me in, standing at attention. Many things about Yod amuse me. For one thing, he can stand perfectly still for hours, not twitching or shifting as any person would. He has a tendency to assume a position and stay in it, whether standing, sitting or lying down. I wondered if we should have built in a few twitches or nervous gestures for versimilitude. Then I began to realize what he had just told me. Not pirates. One of the world’s largest and most aggressive multis.

“You said Shira knew the razors. Who were they?”

He answered, and I found myself shrieking “No!” I made myself calm. I did not want to wake Shira; I did not want to frighten Yod. He had begun circling as if looking for someone else to attack. “Zee. My student. Did you have to kill her?” I could see her plainly, silky fine hair flopping in her eyes, a full rich tea brown, the eyes lighter. Walnut and maple.

“Malkah, she tried to kill you. She would have tried again.”

Zee was an eager young woman, desperate to please. She was overly attached to her mother. Then when she was twenty-five, her mother fell in love with a young man who had come here to study the fish meekro with Gila. “She quit suddenly last year—”

“Two years.” Yod corrected me. “I accessed her records.”

“That long? Zee went to Y-S. She must have taken the codes with her.”

“Under mnemosine hypnotism, she could recall the programming.”

“I used to make tisanes for her. She suffered from migraines.
Why would she want to hurt me? … So it was never information pirates. It was Y-S attacking us. That’s far more dangerous.”

“Because they’re more powerful?”

“And it’s a change of tactics for the multis. We’re so vulnerable. Our survival is at stake. They don’t want us to endure free any longer.”

“Freedom is a concept I’m not sure I comprehend,” Yod said. “Perhaps because I’ve never been free.”

“Well, our work is cut out for us. There’s no sleeping this week. I suppose you might as well let Avram enjoy the rest of the night. I’ll plug in at seven and expect you two to be ready.… Actually I’ll come over. We need to work out a master strategy before we begin.”

Yod had switched from perfect stillness to his hyperactive mode in which he wants to be attacking. I could feel his desire to please me. He reminded me of a powerful handsome horse who has given himself to a person to ride and befriend. His eyes caught the light, shining green. “I’m ready now.”

“But I’m not. I need several hours’ work before we can do anything useful together.”

“You’re no longer afraid of the Base.”

“You saved my life twice over, Yod.” I went and hugged him.

He embraced me back. “Do you want intimate contact? I can feel you are very excited.”

“Mentally, my dear, only mentally. That’s done between us.” He had, of course, read my body language accurately, because when I felt him, resilient, strong, with a kind of dry warmth all his own, I did desire him anew. For a moment I didn’t see why I should have relinquished him; what foolishness, what waste. Had I not helped create him as he was, in all his marvelous complexity and true ability? Why should I give him over to Shira, who will never really appreciate him as I do? I felt myself more deserving, more competent as a lover for him, and I wanted him back. Feelings I crushed as I would a flower in which I found a slug chewing the petals. “Listen to me, Yod, listen carefully. You’re not to tell Shira about us, not ever.”

“But why? Are you ashamed?”

“Of you? Never. Shira would be shocked. Very shocked. She’s more conventional than I am, Yod, especially at this time of her life. She would think it’s indecent for you to have been involved with me at all and especially to then become involved with her. Take my word.”

“Your word.” He shook his head. “I don’t understand, but I know you do.”

“Right. And don’t be too obvious around Avram. I don’t know how he’s going to react.”

“I assume he’ll disapprove, as he did about us.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Like many older men who are not attracted to older women, Avram assumes we are asexual. He was shocked—as Shira would be, remember. But Avram finds Shira attractive. What that little goody thrown into the pot will produce is anybody’s bad guess.” I waved my hand at him. “Go home. I have serious dreaming to do. Systems dreaming.”

“Malkah, you’ve stopped telling me about Joseph Golem. I enjoyed finding that story in the Base at night, when everyone else sleeps.”