Phaze Doubt

Alyc’s private chamber was pleasant enough. She had a body-cleaning alcove, a video screen, and a foam bed. “Clean up and lie down,” she told him. “I’ll watch the show.”

Lysander stepped into the alcove, while Alyc lay on her bed and watched the screen. There was some kind of entertainment program on, resounding with people slipping and falling, getting whacked on their posteriors, and loudly protesting indignities. Alyc laughed, evidently enjoying it. He would have to study her reactions, so as to key in the normal human pattern. There was much his training had not properly prepared him for.

He had assumed that the cleaning alcove would employ sonics, but this seemed not to. Instead there were handles whose purpose was opaque. This, too, had been omitted from his training: the details of variations of human hygienic devices. He hesitated just to turn the handles, lest he misuse the equipment.

“Excuse me,” he said. “I don’t wish to interrupt your entertainment, but I am unfamiliar with this mechanism.”

“They don’t have showers on Planet Grenadier?” she asked, surprised.

“They have sonic cleaners. Do you mean you clean with water?”

“Sure.” she said, bouncing off the bed. “Why not? It’s recycled. You turn on the water here—“ She reached past him to work a handle. Water blasted down from the ceiling, startling him. It was hot, but not unpleasantly so. “And soap here.” She worked another handle, and got a handful of foam. “Then you just spread it on and rinse it off, like this.” She smeared the foam on his chest.

“But you are also getting wet!” he protested.

“Well, I need to get clean too. Do you mind?”

“Of course not. It is your chamber. But—“

“You can soap me, then.” She guided his hand to the foam spout, and he got a handful of the frothy stuff.

He smeared it on her shoulders and back and breasts, and she covered him similarly, while the water descended on them both. She reached around him to massage his back, in the process pressing in close and slippery. His hands slid down to the same buttocks he had contemplated before. They had been visually intriguing; now they were tactilely intriguing.

“Is it permissible to reconsider?” he inquired.

“It’s too late to skip the shower!” she cried, laughing.

“About indulging in copulatory activity. It occurs to me that this occasion might after all be suitable.”

“I thought it might,” she murmured, satisfied. Then she reached up and hauled in his head for a wet and steamy kiss.

Belatedly he realized that this had been her intent throughout. She was an expressive, open woman, and she liked full interaction. She had known the human condition better than he; not only was their sexual encounter feasible, it was quite positive. His reservations about the human form faded away; this was a human body, and this activity was natural for it.

Finally, both clean and sated, they emerged to lie on her bed and watch the show. He followed her cues, and began laughing when she did. Soon enough his mind followed, and he found himself genuinely enjoying it.

In due course they slept. But he woke in the night, discovering that she was stroking his body. There was a certain art to it, and before long it occurred to him that another episode of sexual interaction might be appropriate. So it turned out to be.

In the morning she woke him again, kissing him and rubbing her body against his suggestively. She was evidently interested in yet another copulatory encounter. “About this time, most men begin to get tired of me,” she said. “Are you tired?”

“Not yet,” he said. He regarded this as excellent experience.

Later in the day she showed him how actually to play the game. “There are these consoles,” she explained, approaching one. “We stand on opposite sides, and it has a grid. Or it used to, before the mergence. Now sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn’t.”

“The rules have changed?”

“Not exactly. I mean, the grids shift a little each year, and sometimes the numbers are down the side, and new games get added and old ones subtracted, but that’s routine. But now it’s really different. Maybe I can show you.”

Perplexed, he stood opposite her. Before him was a screen, on which was a diagram.

PRIMARY GRID

1. PHYSICAL  2. MENTAL  3. CHANCE   4.  ART

A. NAKED     B. TOOL    C. MACHINE  D. ANIMAL

“Ah, I believe I follow,” he said. Actually, he had been trained in this type of grid, and knew it well, but he preferred to let her have the pleasure of showing him. It might even turn out that she would have some pleasant surprises for him, as she had during the night. It would take a phenomenal effort to convince himself that she was an unappealing creature, physically, now that he had indulged in the human copulatory ritual. She did seem to feel that there was something special about this game. “One person selects a number, and the other a letter, and where the two intersect defines the nature of the game to be played. Or am I mistaken?”