The Garments of Caean

‘I’m not an expert, but I don’t find it difficult. One can master the basic vocabulary quite easily in a few days, with the help of light hypnosis. But after a while one longs for the sound of one’s native tongue. Are you sure there’s no place for me in your work?’

‘Well, we shall have to see about that.’ She accepted a refill of her goblet. ‘I’m not quite sure exactly what’s going on around here yet.’

A good deal of the yellow beverage was imbibed in the ensuing hours. The Ziodeans began genuinely to enjoy themselves. The Caeanic were uninhibited hosts, and it was impossible not to be caught up in the festive mood. When full darkness came a magnificent fireworks display was set off to go blooming over the whole of Inxa. Then there was more drinking, dancing and general conviviality – a garden party to which it seemed the whole city had access.

Estru succeeded in keeping company with the girl in the sailing-ship hair-do. Towards midnight they slipped away.

She took him to an apartment some distance off, then left him alone while she went into an adjoining room. He hummed to himself, gazing absently through a window.

Softly she called to him from the other room.

He stepped tentatively into a spacious boudoir. The girl, having changed her dress, stood at the other end.

She still sported the sailing-ship, but the polonaise had been discarded in favour of a quite different affair. He did not really notice her corsage; his attention went to the skirt. Cinched tightly at the waist, it flared out into a full dome-like shape. Smiling, she came towards him, and as she moved he saw that the skirt really consisted of numbers of leaves which seemed capable of free movement.

On coming to the apartment Estru had not felt particularly aroused. But when she walked towards him those leaves lilted and swung in curvy motions which, inexplicably, evoked an irresistible sexual desire in him.

He realized suddenly that there was even more to the garments of Caean than he and Amara had known about. The Caeanic tailors had analysed the basic vocabulary of form, line and movement that spelled out sexual allure. The skirt was fashioned according to this vocabulary. It was a sartorial aphrodisiac. His instincts reacted of their own accord, and there was absolutely nothing he could do about it.

Not that there was anything he wanted to do about it, except to go along with what was happening. But what was he supposed to do? he wondered. How did they go about it? The worst thing he could do would be to undress himself – or try to undress the girl.

She came up to him and tugged him towards the bed. As she sank down on the coverlet she lifted her legs on to it and her skirt belled, apparently supported by hoops. Beneath it he caught a glimpse that sent his blood pounding. Under the skirt were – petticoats, endless indicated, waved, ruched, rose-pink petticoats. Like the skirt itself, they utilized the full fury of erotic sartorial knowledge, and Estru’s senses went exploding in heady images of flowers opening in an infinite series one into the other, leading to a hot, intense, delirious centre.

She was looking deliciously wanton. The petticoats rustled and curled like the combers of an aroused ocean as he joined her on the bed, and she began to teach him the Caeanic ways of love.

Realto Mast’s evening ended on a slightly less felicitous note. He was caught off guard, having drunk more than was his habit of late. His intemperance sprang from the fact that he knew Peder was shortly going to desert him – would probably abandon him that very night, in fact – and that since his survival rating without him was slim, he was zealously eager to find a place aboard the Callan. After much importuning, and much imbibing, he had eventually extracted from Amara Corl a grudging promise that she would interview him on board ship the following day.

Caean was definitely not the place for Mast. He could never be happy here. It depressed him unspeakably that he seemed unable to exert any influence over anyone. When he had heard that a Ziodean ship had landed on Verrage he had decided to risk the consequences and attempt to get back among this own kind. Now the thought that he might soon be free of this crazy society intoxicated him and he even began to enjoy himself.