"Well, wouldn't you?"
"Uh-"
I thought about it. "I guess so."
"Of course," she said. "As soon as you're sure it's safe, the first thing you do is explore the most unknown thing in your environment." She added, "But there was something else going on here too. I didn't want to be caught by any more surprises. You see, I'd heard stories about people flunking out during training-"
"I didn't know it was possible to flunk out of the corps," I interrupted.
"It isn't possible. But it happens. What they do is, they put you in `maintenance.' It means they transfer you into some old body that they're not currently using, or have no plans to use, or no need for, and let you stay there. Your job is to maintain it. Right? It puts you out of the way.
"Anyway, we were in that part of our training where we were starting to lose some of our fellows, and they never told us why, so I couldn't help but wonder. I'd had a little run-in with a captain during my training and she'd threatened to send me to a leper colony-or something equally unpleasant. Maybe she'd made good her threat, I didn't know. This could very well be my body for the next umpty-leven years. I'd already made one mistake with it. I didn't want to make any more. I figured I'd better find out exactly who I was-or who I was wearing, that is. You know, Jim, the English language is really inadequate for this kind of discussion."
"You're doing okay," I said. "Go on."
"Well-it was like being a kid again. You know how when you reach a certain age, a certain point in life, you start getting really curious about your body and what it can do. Some of it is sexual, some of it isn't. You explore all your nooks and crannies. You find out what you feel like. You see what parts of you are smooth and what parts are hairy. You touch the places that are sensitive to find out just how sensitive you are. You do a lot of masturbating for a while. You have to do it. It's part of the job of moving in and getting comfortable and finding out how the body works.
"We'd had that in the training-we'd had to trade bodies and then explore ourselves from the inside. You can't imagine how silly it looks to see a room full of naked men sitting on the floor and playing with themselves, examining their hands, their fingers, their toes, their etceteras. But it's part of the job of developing your sensitivities.
"This was the first time I'd ever really been a female, so I went through the steps as completely and thoroughly as if I had a manual in front of me. I knew I was being really tested now, so I explored that body as if I were going to spend the rest of my life in it. I found out everything I could about what it meant to be a female. I suppose someone who'd grown up in a female body would think most of what I discovered was terribly naive, but I was excited. I felt like I was discovering a new continent. I guess, in a way, I was.
"Of course, I did all that stuff that you see in the movies. I pinched my nipples, I stroked my breasts, I rubbed the insides of my thighs-do you know the inside of a woman's thighs are extraordinarily sensitive? Most men don't. That's why they're such uninspiring lovers. There's a lot you can learn if you just listen to the body.
"It was a remarkable afternoon for me, Jim. My whole sexual identity was destroyed-and rebuilt. You see, always before I'd been a guest at a woman's body, a visitor. Now, I was the ... host. Hostess! I gave myself permission to do everything I'd always been curious about, but too polite to ask. It was like being given a wonderful, delicious toy to play with.
"I spent the whole afternoon playing with myself, Jim. I had a great time. It was terrific. I found out later that almost all men do that the first time they're turned loose in a female body. They can't resist their own curiosity. The women tend to be a little bit shyer their first time in male equipment. You figure it out. But it was an incredible experience, Jim. Do you know that female bodies don't experience orgasm like male bodies? A female orgasm comes in waves-wave after delicious wave that sweep up inside of you. It was incredible. I fell in love with myself five times over." Her face was glowing, her eyes were shining. Even the retelling of the experience had aroused her.
I felt momentarily embarrassed at her-his?-revelations. It wasn't just the information-it was the candor with which he shared it. It was too intimate. I was embarrassed because I was aroused-and fascinated. I wanted to hear every bit of his story. Her story.
"Do you know what they did to me?" she asked.
"What?"
"They left me in that body for three weeks."
"In the forest?"
"In the forest," she said.
FORTY
"THERE WAS an old navy weather station nearby," Tanjy continued. "The Telepathy Corps used it as a retreat. Robots ran everything now, so the human quarters were completely available. It was the perfect place for this kind of exercise. We were on an island somewhere, completely isolated. There were three male bodies and four female bodies besides the one I was wearing. They greeted me as I came up the path.
"They must have been able to recognize that I was a new operator. Before I could even say hi, they led me inside into the main lounge. One wall was painted white and was covered with big black lettering-the ground rules for the retreat. They were very simple. The first one was you couldn't tell who you were. You couldn't tell your name or anything from your past experience. You had to make up a new name for yourself that didn't have any gender attached to it-I used my initials.
"You couldn't say anything that might reveal any past identity you might have held. No personal histories were allowed. Also, you couldn't speculate on the purpose of this assignment, and you couldn't ask other people how long they had been here, or any other question the answer to which would break any of the agreements.
"The point is, you couldn't go around explaining, `This isn't my real body, you know. I'm not really like this.' That's hiding out. That's pretending it isn't really happening to you. You had to be a person in the body you were wearing-nothing else. The only identity you could have was the one you created in this situation-whatever you made up in the here and now. I tell you, it was a very crazy time. I knew I wasn't really a girl, at least not inside-but I had no way of knowing I was a boy either, except by my own say-so. I didn't know what I was for a while. And neither did anyone else, I think. I gave off a lot of conflicting signals; come-hither mixed with bug-off, please-help-me, and I'mall-right-Jack. They were real patient with me though-or else they knew what I was going through.
"Eventually, what I found out was that I had an incredible investment in my sexual identity-and I had to give it up. Not the identity, the investment. I had to stop being a visitor in the body and start being the owner. I had to be a girl, as completely as if it were the only thing in the world I knew."
Abruptly, she shivered. "I still get cold chills thinking about it. It was an adventure. And the others-they were so ... supportive. Because they knew. They were going through it too. I think at least one of the other women had been a man before. I'm pretty sure-because of the way she spoke, the way she taught me how to be a woman, she was almost clinical-and by the way she made love. Oh, yes-there was a lot of lovemaking. A lot." She laughed and added, "There wasn't much else to do on the island. So we played combinations. The first time a man entered me I wept. I still don't know why. It was very intense. He was extraordinarily gentle."
She fell silent, remembering.
I was at a loss for words. I picked up my drink and held it in my hands. I looked at Tanjy, I looked at my glass again. I felt embarrassed-and I felt privileged. I'd never heard a telepath speak so candidly about his or her experiences before. And I felt even a little envious.
She looked up at me with those large Chinese eyes and smiled. The expression on her face was mysterious-as if she were looking at me from far, far away. It gave me a weird feeling of transparency-as if she were reading my mind. As if there were no secrets I could keep from her. I could feel myself stiffening. I wanted to be known-and I was scared of it too.