2150 A.D.

When Karl came in I handed him my journal and headed for the kitchen to cook up a couple of steaks.

I caught myself wishing for the mealtime conveniences of 2150.

Since I had left Neda I had tuned in to her every fifteen or twenty minutes to give her another mental shot of loving acceptance and confidence. It seemed to be working well.

Over di

About eight that evening Karl and I went, typewriter in hand, down to Neda's apartment. She welcomed us with a little shyness but talked rather easily with Karl about the typing requirements of our research. I let him do almost all the talking, and when we left, almost an hour later, I was congratulating myself on my progress with Neda. However, Karl brought me back to reality.

"Really, Jon," he said when we were back in our apartment, "you weren't kidding when you said she was homely."

"You weren't very impressed," I commented.

Karl laughed and said, "I was impressed all right! Come on, Jon. She's probably a very nice person, but did you look at her? My God, she's a walking disaster area!"

"Hmm," I responded. "You really think it's that bad, huh?"

Karl shook his head. "You know, it seems to me that if you were going to buy her groceries and provide her with an apartment, you could have at least provided her with some decent clothes, too."

"Yeah, I know, Karl," I agreed, "they're pretty bad. I wanted to fix her up with something better, but I don't know anything about women's clothes. I thought one of your girlfriends could help you pick out some nice things for you to give her."

"You want me to do this?" Karl asked with a startled expression.

"Of course," I explained, "the more positive male attention we can give her, the sooner we'll be able to change her self-concept from one of self-loathing to one of self-confidence."

"But-but, Jon," Karl sputtered, "you can't give her a new face and figure, so it certainly isn't fair to kid her along."

"I'm not kidding her," I answered. "She's a valuable and worthwhile person no matter how she looks, and I'm going to let her know that at least you and I think so."

"Yeah, but what about other people?" Karl objected. "How are you going to help her adjust to the fact that everyone else will continue to view her as her old homely self? That's got to keep her self-concept a shambles for as long as she lives."

"I think she can become physically attractive," I said. "After all, she wouldn't look so scrawny with another twenty pounds on her!"

"Fifty would be more like it!" Karl replied "Why, she must be five feet eight but she looks like she might weigh 90 pounds if we got her good and wet. Even if she put on enough weight to curve her out, how are you going to hide that nose of hers?"

"Hmm," I pondered, "you're right about her nose. But I'm sure a little plastic surgery would fix that up. We can afford it, can't we?"

Karl gave me a startled look, and said, "Boy, you've really gone overboard! Sure, I guess we can afford it, Jon, but do you know what you're talking about? Do you have any idea how much this little project of yours is going to cost? Well, let me tell you... it's going to cost a pile!"

"I couldn't find a better use for it, Karl," I said. "Besides, if I'm successful I won't need any money three months from now."

"But if you're not successful," Karl grunted, "you'll have sure cleaned out your account."

I laughed at Karl's gloomy expression. "Cheer up," I said. "If micro man can earn a million selfishly I'm sure that with the aid of my Macro powers I can earn a million unselfishly."

"What other projects have you got in mind?" Karl asked a bit sarcastically.

"I don't know for sure," I said. "Maybe I'd better see how this one comes out before I start another one."

"That's a damned sound idea," Karl said with relief.

We talked for a while more about 2150; then I said that I was eager to get back to C.I. and ask some more questions, especially about how I could work this miracle I had embarked upon', and retired early.

CHAPTER 12: The Fifty-Foot Leap

I awakened to the gentle pressure of warm lips on mine and the sounds of our soul notes begi

As we lay quietly, still happily entwined, I thought once again of how different my sexual experiences with Carol had been from those of my micro past. Before Carol and my Macro immersions, I had always felt either guilty or fearful, or simply unfulfilled by my sexual experiences. I wondered if anyone had ever attained Macro immersion before the Macro society.

"It was very rare," Carol answered my thought, "and most of them took place between twin souls."

"Since twin souls rarely incarnate together," I said, "that goes a long way toward explaining the sexual frustrations of micro man."

"Sexual relationships which do not attain Macro immersion are only of fleeting satisfaction," Carol explained.

"Wait a minute," I said. "That means that the vast majority of sexual relationships, prior to the Macro society, have not been fulfilling."

"That's right," Carol nodded. "They usually left the participants with a strong underlying desire to start over again, since their true longing was unfulfilled."

"Then you're saying that any sexual relationship between you and me that does not reach Macro immersion would be unfulfilling."

"That's right," Carol replied. "Now you can appreciate how unselfish the other girls of our Alpha were being when they agreed to have a sexual relationship with you if you so desired."

"They knew," I said, "that their soul notes were too dissimilar from mine to attain Macro immersion, yet to help me learn this they were willing to experience an unsatisfying union."

"However," Carol added, "to the extent that you give unselfishly of yourself to another it ca

I shook my head. "That explains it... that's why micro man experiences so much guilt, anxiety, and frustration associated with sex," I said. "He almost always uses sex for his own selfish purposes, so the result is bound to be something less than complete fulfillment."

"That's right," Carol responded, "and even the micro view that sex is sanctified if it is used only for the purpose of creating children is false, because micro man views his children as possessions, thus, uses them for selfish purposes."

"Not the least of which must be micro man's hope for immortality through his children," I reasoned.

"Yes." Carol smiled. "Man, for centuries, pursued what he called immortality-that celestial heaven where his eternity of days would be spent floating from cloud to cloud with a harp in his hand and a blissful smile on his face. He just had not yet evolved far enough along the m-M continuum to remember his past lives, and if man can't remember his past lives he can't be expected to understand the true concept of immortality. It would be like expecting a person who has been blind since birth to understand the color yellow.

"Many of your religions compounded this problem," she continued. "Any religion that denies the human soul its immortal past is going to have difficulty teaching an immortal future. "