Macroscope

“Merely your way of publishing for posterity,” he said. “I knew male and female weren’t that different.”

Surprised, she nodded again, and Ivo felt her diaphragm tighten. Still he stood there, unable to initiate this high-minded inspection, averting his eyes uncomfortably. His hand, so dark in contrast to her pale flesh, felt dead, encysted in plastic, immovable and incredibly clumsy.

“Ivo,” she said, “It’s my life, my self. I am afraid — I admit it, I a

“I’m afraid I would like it,” he blurted. There was something more fundamental than vanity involved. Ivo grasped that now, but it did not help him. He did not imagine security in handling, and he doubted Groton did, for all his explanations. Women, more than men, were made for such caresses. Publishing a book made sense; this—

“Where are you afraid to touch me?” Afra demanded, nervous and impatient. “The UN won’t hold off forever.” She grabbed at his hand again and lifted it in both of hers forcing his fingers to uncurl. “Here?” She plastered his right palm against her left breast.

He had been wrong about the insensitivity of that extremity. Hot/cold shocks ran up his arm and exploded in his consciousness, making him dizzy. React? How could he help it!

“Here?” she demanded again, and rubbed his fingers against the firm lower crease of her left buttock… Ivo snatched his hand away. His entire body was shaking. He felt ridiculous, yet excited.

“Praise God for naïveté,” Afra remarked, not unkindly. “I’m not making passes at you, Ivo. I just have to prove to you that I mean it. There can’t be any prudery for this. Now go ahead, please. There isn’t much time.”

She had accomplished her purpose. After the intimacy of the contacts she had forced upon him, hesitancy was ridiculous. He started at her head, ru

“Bite it, taste it,” she said quietly.

He brushed his lips to her ear. He knew her and loved her — guiltily.

He closed his eyes and ran his hands down one arm and then the other, feeling the smooth outlines of bone and flesh and sinew and skin, while she stood submissively. It was like a dream — more than a dream, for she was fair in every part and in every physical respect. The tonus of her moderate musculature was good; the curves and planes were without tactile blemish. Her fingers were slender and finely molded; the hollows around her collarbones perfectly sculptured. Only in her armpits was there roughness: the stubble of hair shaved clean a few days before, growing back already. This reminder that she was not an animated statue shook him again; he was handling her.

Her breasts were heavy but not as large as they had seemed by eye, nor did the nipples project so much — until he touched them. Internal texture of the breast was not consistent; pressure showed up the clumped masses of the mammary glands beneath. Men, he thought, had been so fascinated with this distinguishing mark of the female that they had identified the species through it: mammalian. Yet the feature typical of it — not the species, he remembered now, the class — the most typical feature was hair. The mammals were hairy-bodied. Even whales had some pubic hair…

Eyes still closed, he brought his errant mind back to business. To the sides the breasts faded into lightly covered ribs, that in turn dropped off into a much wider space above the hips than he had suspected. Her back was almost flat, mounded by the shoulder blades on either side, ridged by the backbone down the center. The ribs angled up in front to disappear somewhere near the solar plexus.

Her buttocks as his hands experienced them were astonishingly generous, the soft flesh overlapping onto hip and thigh. In front, the stomach and abdomen were rounded, projecting more than he expected, and the hips were so wide he had to open his eyes to verify his location.

Afra’s eyes were closed; she was not watching him or reacting to his increasingly personal explorations in any overt way. He did not know whether that pleased him or disturbed him.

Her hips and buttocks were normal, considering the sex and general health of the subject. He had been judging by his own anatomy, and his slowly traveling hands had magnified her dimensions unrealistically. He closed his eyes again, kneeled and continued.

He touched her pubic hair and passed over it lightly, finding no more reason to probe within it than he had to feel the insides of her ears, nose or mouth. Her legs were braced somewhat apart; he ran his hands down the insides of her thighs, up again and around to the projections of the glutei maximi behind. Then down over the large muscles of the legs, under greater tension than those of the arms or rear, and to the knees, far more esthetic than his own.

The calves were tighter yet, and as he squeezed them he could feel their shifting as trace corrections of balance were made. The ankles were narrow, the tendons flexing through them and over the tops of the feet. Her arches were good, the toes small but strong. As he traversed this final portion of her, one great toe flexed upward, a parting salute — and abruptly his diminishing embarrassment re-surged.

He had indeed been handling a live woman.

“Do you know me now?” she inquired, eyes open.

Do I know a goddess? “Yes,” he said, uncertain whether it was truth or untruth.

Dazed, Ivo returned to his place and watched Groton go over her in much the same fashion. He felt like a voyeur and suppressed it; he felt a crude jealousy and suppressed that. Afra belonged to neither man, and this experience meant nothing, except in whatever intangible way she chose to take it.

Then Beatryx reviewed her, and this embarrassed him once more. For a man to handle a woman — that was provocative but in the natural course. For a woman to handle a woman—

He was still reacting foolishly. He would have to learn to divorce his instincts from current necessities, as the others had. Perhaps the time would come when he could clap his hand upon Afra’s cleft without…

He was glad no one was watching him, for he was sure he was reddening brilliantly.

Afra’s inspection was over. She, still naked, glanced inquiringly at Beatryx. Was the other woman going to undertake a similar ordeal?

Beatryx looked calmly at her husband.

Groton smiled. “With all due respect for these proceedings,” he said, “I believe I will know my wife in whatever guise she may manifest herself. Trust her to me.”

Beatryx returned the smile. “I should hope so, dear.”

Ivo was glad Beatryx had not undertaken similar handling. He imagined himself passing his hands over her body as he had for Afra, and recoiled. She was older, and she was married, and this did seem to make a difference. A married woman should not be touched by other men.

He tried to turn it off, but his mind proceeded against his will, fascinated by the morbid. He saw his fingers touch the flesh of the older woman, finding it flabby and rough in comparison, unattractive. How was a woman of that age to compete with such as Afra? Age, intelligence, appearance — as washerwoman to a princess. The exploration of Afra was the guilt of forbidden fruit; of Beatryx, merely aversion.

Yet this was a dire wrong to Beatryx, even in fancy, for he knew already that she had qualities of compassion and courage that Afra lacked. He was judging by sex appeal — his own possibly juvenile standards, too — and that negated the evidence of experience and intellect.