This Perfect Day

"Yes, right away." The woman beckoned to Chip. He got up from the chair.

They left the office. In the doorway Chip turned. "Thank you," he said.

King looked at him from behind his littered desk—only looked, with no smile, no glimmer of friendship. "Thank Uni," he said.

Less than a minute after he got back to his room Bob called. "I just got a report from Medicenter Main," he said. "Your treatments have been slightly out of line but from now on they're going to be exactly right."

"Good," Chip said.

"This confusion and tiredness you've been feeling will gradually pass away during the next week or so, and then you'll be your old self."

"I hope so."

"You will. Listen, do you want me to squeeze you in tomorrow, Li, or shall we just let it go till next Tuesday?"

"Next Tuesday's all right."

"Fine," Bob said. He grinned. "You know what?" he said. "You look better already."

"I feel a little better," Chip said.

Chapter 3

He felt a little better every day, a little more awake and alert, a little more sure that sickness was what he had had and health was what he was growing toward. By Friday—three days after the examination—he felt the way he usually felt on the day before a treatment. But his last treatment was only a week behind him; three weeks and more lay ahead, spacious and unexplored, before the next one. The slowdown had worked; Bob had been fooled and the treatment reduced. And the next one, on the basis of the examination, would be reduced even further. What wonders of feeling would he be feeling in five, in six weeks' time?

That Friday night, a few minutes after the last chime, Snow-flake came into his room. "Don't mind me," she said, taking off her coveralls. "I'm just putting a note in your mouthpiece."

She got into bed with him and helped him off with his pajamas. Her body to his hands and lips was smooth, pliant, and more arousing than Peace SK's or anyone else's; and his own, as she stroked and kissed and licked it, was more shudderingly reactive than ever before, more strainingly in want. He eased himself into her—deeply, snugly in—and would have driven them both to immediate orgasm, but she slowed him, stopped him, made him draw out and come in again, putting herself into one strange but effective position and then another. For twenty minutes or more they worked and contrived together, keeping as noiseless as they could because of the members beyond the wall and on the floor below.

When they were done and apart she said, "Well?"

"Well it was top speed, of course," he said, "but frankly, from what you said, I expected even more."

"Patience, brother," she said. "You're still an invalid. The time will come when you'll look back on this as the night we shook hands." He laughed. "Shh."

He held her and kissed her. "What does it say?" he asked. "The note in my mouthpiece."

"Sunday night at eleven, the same place as last time."

"But no bandage."

"No bandage," she said.

He would see them all, Lilac and all the others. "I've been wondering when the next meeting would be," he said. "I hear you whooshed through step two like a rocket."

"Stumbled through it, you mean. I wouldn't have made it at all if not for—" Did she know who King really was? Was it all right to speak of it? "If not for what?"

"If not for King and Lilac," he said. "They came here the night before and prepped me."

"Well of course," she said. "None of us would have made it if not for the capsules and all."

"I wonder where they get them."

"I think one of them works in a medicenter."

"Mm, that would explain it," he said. She didn't know. Or she knew but didn't know that he knew. Suddenly he was annoyed by the need for carefulness that had come between them.

She sat up. "Listen," she said, "it pains me to say this, but don't forget to carry on as usual with your girlfriend. Tomorrow night, I mean."

"She's got someone new," he said. "You're my girlfriend."

"No I'm not," she said. "Not on Saturday nights anyway. Our advisers would wonder why we took someone from a different house. I've got a nice normal Bob down the hall from me, and you find a nice normal Yin or Mary. But if you give her more than a little quick one I'll break your neck."

"Tomorrow night I won't even be able to give her that."

"That's all right," she said, "you're still supposed to be recovering." She looked sternly at him. "Really," she said, "you have to remember not to get too passionate, except with me. And to keep a contented smile in place between the first chime and the last. And to work hard at your assignment but not too hard. It's just as tricky to stay undertreated as it is to get that way." She lay back down beside him and drew his arm around her. "Hate," she said, "I'd give anything for a smoke now."

"Is it really so enjoyable?"

"Mm-hmm. Especially at times like this." 'I'll have to try it."