This Perfect Day

After a few months, though, everyone calmed down, and accustomed to the new pleasure, gave it its proper Saturday-night place in the week's pattern.

One Saturday evening when Chip was fourteen, he bicycled with a group of his friends to a fine white beach a few kilometers north of AFR71680. There they swam—jumped and pushed and splashed in waves made pink-foamed by the foundering sun—and built a fire on the sand and sat around it on blankets and ate their cakes and cokes and crisp sweet pieces of a bashed-open coconut. A boy played songs on a recorder, not very well, and then, the fire crumbling to embers, the group separated into five couples, each on its own blanket.

The girl Chip was with was Anna VF, and after their orgasm—the best one Chip had ever had, or so it seemed—he was filled with a feeling of tenderness toward her, and wished there were something he could give her as a conveyor of it, like the beautiful shell that Karl GG had given Yin AP, or Li OS's recorder-song, softly cooing now for whichever girl he was lying with. Chip had nothing for Anna, no shell, no song; nothing at all, except, maybe, his thoughts. "Would you like something interesting to think about?" he asked, lying on his back with his arm about her. "Mm," she said, and squirmed closer against his side. Her head was on his shoulder, her arm across his chest. He kissed her forehead. "Think of all the different classifications there are—" he said. "Mm?"

"And try to decide which one you would pick if you had to pick one."

"To pick one?" she said. "That's right."

"What do you mean?"

"To pick one. To have. To be in. Which classification would you like best? Doctor, engineer, adviser..." She propped her head up on her hand and squinted at him. "What do you mean?" she said. He gave a little sigh and said, "We're going to be classified, right?"

"Right."

"Suppose we weren't going to be. Suppose we had to classify ourselves."

"That's silly," she said, finger-drawing on his chest. "It's interesting to think about."

"Let's fuck again," she said.

"Wait a minute," he said. "Just think about all the different classifications. Suppose it were up to us to—"

"I don't want to," she said, stopping drawing. "That's silly. And sick. We get classified; there's nothing to think about. Uni knows what we're—"

"Oh, fight Uni," Chip said. "Just pretend for a minute that we're living in—" Anna flipped away from him and lay on her stomach, stiff and unmoving, the back of her head to him. "I'm sorry," he said.

"I'm sorry," she said. "For you. You're sick."

"No I'm not," he said. She was silent.

He sat up and looked despairingly at her rigid back. "It just slipped out," he said. "I'm sorry." She stayed silent. "It's just a word, Anna," he said. "You're sick," she said. "Oh, hate," he said. "You see what I mean?"

"Anna," he said, "look. Forget it. Forget the whole thing, all right? Just forget it." He tickled between her thighs, but she locked them, barring his hand.

"Ah, Anna," he said. "Ah, come on. I said I was sorry, didn't I? Come on, let's fuck again. I'll suck you first if you want."

After a while she relaxed her thighs and let him tickle her. Then she turned over and sat up and looked at him. "Are you sick, Li?" she asked. "No," he said, and managed to laugh. "Of course I'm not," he said.

"I never heard of such a thing," she said. "'Classify ourselves.' How could we do it? How could we possibly know enough?"

"It's just something I think about once in a while," he said. "Not very often. In fact, hardly ever."

"It's such a—a funny idea," she said. "It sounds—I don't know—pre-U."

"I won't think about it any more," he said, and raised his right hand, the bracelet slipping back. "Love of Family," he said. "Come on, lie down and I'll suck you."

She lay back on the blanket, looking worried.

The next morning at five of ten Mary CZ called Chip and asked him to come see her. "When?" he asked. "Now," she said.

"All right," he said. "I'll be right down." His mother said, "What does she want to see you on a Sunday for?"

"I don't know," Chip said. But he knew. Anna VF had called her adviser.

He rode the escalators down, down, down, wondering how much Anna had told, and what he should say; and wanting suddenly to cry and tell Mary that he was sick and selfish and a liar. The members on the upgoing escalators were relaxed, smiling, content, in harmony with the cheerful music of the speakers; no one but he was guilty and unhappy. He nodded.

She looked at the screen, and looked at Chip again, ruefully. "Didn't it ever dawn on you," she said, "that 'deciding' and 'picking' are manifestations of selfishness? Acts of selfishness?"

"I thought, maybe," Chip said, looking at the edge of the desktop, rubbing a fingertip along it. "Oh, Li," Mary said. "What am I here for? What are advisers here for? To help us, isn't that so?" He nodded.