Meli called them, “The Happy Couples” with no sarcasm at all. Except for their implicit sensuality, they reminded her of Birch and herself. She shared that with no one—not even Birch—but she found herself less disturbed by the couples with every visit.
Sometimes she and Birch would paint word pictures of the Buddhist monks and bhikkus going about their ardent tasks—the blessed Holy Men, depicting the beauties of their Faith with absolute delight. Meli could almost see them, working among the statues and frescoes, scurrying along the corridors, climbing the steep stone paths from the gorge below. Much like their archaeological team, she thought, but with one important difference.
“Do you ever wonder,” she asked one morning as they stepped out of Cave Two at the summons of the breakfast bell, “what it would be like to create something instead of merely handling creation after the fact?”
They stood in the slanting rays of morning, gazing down into the shadowy, inviting reaches of the river gorge. “I do,” said Birch. “I do wonder.”
That was the morning of the day Clay and Cari arrived. A surprise. A pleasant surprise, all in all, but one that raised in Meli Asbury-Bocamp the specter of her previous ambivalence. Clay had brought Sonia with him.
She was nice, as Cari had said, if a little vague. She giggled a lot. Clay introduced her around, taking special care to bring her face to face with Birch. Meli felt something insidious and alien coil around her heart.
“I feel like a crumb-cake not telling you we were coming over,” Cari told her, drawing her aside to the stone fireplace of the camp’s main lodge. It was a real fireplace, but contained no real fire. A Hughes Friction Coil produced the heat; the flames were holographic. “We wangled the assignment a month after you left. We just missed you so much, we couldn’t stand it.”
“We missed you, too,” Meli said, watching Sonia and Clay and Birch chat with a couple of their new camp friends.
“Are you sure?” Cari laughed. “That wasn’t very convincing.”
Meli gave her friend her full attention then—somewhat guiltily. “I’m sorry, Cari. Of course I’m sure.”
The other woman put a hand on her arm. “I hope you don’t mind Clay snatching Birch like that. He’s missed him a lot. Besides, I think he has his own agenda where Birch is concerned. He’s convinced your husband is…”
“Is what?”
“Well, too shy for his own good. About sex, I mean. It may be fairly easy for a woman to do without relief—well, some women—” She laughed at herself. (Deprecatingly or proudly, Meli couldn’t tell.) “—But for a man, well, it’s nearly impossible without endor-therapy and I know very few men who’ll take that over marriage and relief.”
Meli understood. “He’s trying to set Birch up with Sonia.” She said it ex-pressionlessly enough to be proud of herself.
“Unless, of course, he’s done for himself. Oh! Now, that came out wrong, didn’t it?” She shook her head. “I meant to say, unless Birch has found a local squeeze.” She lowered her voice on the last word, glancing at Sonia. “I’d hate her to hear me call her that. After all, she is going to be the mother of my children.”
Meli was almost certain the odd tightening in her belly was her uterus contracting. “So you’ve decided to go ahead and have kids?”
Cari nodded, beaming. “I’m so excited. Sonia’s going on the fertility program in about two months. That’ll give Clay a chance to find some interim relief. She’ll be staying in Nagpur until she delivers. So, congratulate me, already!”
Meli smiled. “Congratulations.”
“Now, show me these caves of yours. I’ve seen holos, but that’s hardly the same as the real article. I can’t wait to get to work on them myself.”
“Sure,” Meli said. “Maybe the guys would like to join us.”
They did; Sonia didn’t. Clay and Birch saw her to her off-dig quarters, then returned to catch up to their wives, who’d gone ahead. It was an off day, the temple paths were empty of diggers and academics, and Clay and Birch met no one on their way up the canyon wall. Cave One was also empty; Meli and Cari were nowhere in sight.
“We’ll catch the girls eventually,” Clay said, “when they stop to talk shop. Why don’t you introduce me to Cave One?”
Birch agreed, turning on the display lights for the inner chamber as they entered.
“Wow!” Clay’s eyes swept the spacious cave, flitting from glory to painted glory.
“This one was a residence,” Birch told him. “It’s thought to have been commissioned by Emperor Harisena himself. The colors were pretty faded when the first teams started work on them. As a matter of fact, the first cleaning solvents they used took away as much pigment as they did filth.”
Clay nodded. “Organics, yeah. But the restoration is amazing. I’d no idea it had progressed this far. Voluptuous. Absolutely voluptuous. The colors, the styles—” His eyes stopped their journeying on the image of a bronzeskinned, half-naked princess. Her dark eyes gleamed, her elegant fingers beckoned to her equally beauteous male companion. Her breasts, easily the size of melons, were draped with stringed pearls, the luminous white contrasting with the bronzed mounds and their dark, rosette aureoles.
“Beautiful,” said Clay. “Reminds me of Sonia. Lucky the man who drew that restoration.” He winked at Birch. “Wasn’t you, was it?”
Birch scuffed at the floor, realizing how much he’d come to dislike The Wink. “I did, actually. I did her hair.”
“Poor boy. All that body work and you end up a hair stylist.”
“Yeah.”
“Still no relief in sight, huh?”
“What?”
“Of the sexual variety, I mean. You still don’t have a squeeze, do you?” It was an accusation.
“Isn’t ‘squeeze’ a sexist term?”
“Sonia thinks it’s cute.”
Birch looked at the princess—at her hair. “You like Sonia, don’t you?”
Clay snorted. “Of course I like Sonia. It’s not a prerequisite for our arrangement, but I do like her. Why?”
“Doesn’t the idea of sharing her with… someone else make you uncomfortable?”
“Why should it? I don’t own her, Birch. She’s an employee, not a slave. Besides, that would be jealousy, wouldn’t it? Jealousy is irrational and destructive. I mean—of course, Sonia’s exclusive to me, but that’s just a health consideration, not an emotional one. And I’d be more than happy to share her with you.” He gave Birch a disconcertingly appraising look. “You’re doing for yourself, aren’t you? Not that it’s anything to be ashamed of, but it’s hardly satisfying in the long run and so unnecessary.”
Birch’s insides were shrugging and quivering like living gelatin. “You know, Clay, this is really none of your business.”
“I’m your best friend, Birch. I’m only trying to help.”
“Help? By meddling in my most personal life?”
Clay put a hand on his shoulder. “Look, Birch. Every man feels the need to relieve himself. It’s perfectly natural. But it’s one of those things you have to handle the right way or certain essential relationships start to unravel like last winter’s afghan. And when those essential relationships unravel, society isn’t too far behind.”
Birch cringed. Next, Clay would give a speech about the sins of Victorianism, Free Love and the Oppression of Women—cultural evils solved for a good part of their global society by the trend toward Equilibrium, but still extant in pockets of ignorance. Birch had no desire to hear how his sexual aberrations—real or imagined—were going to invoke their specters.
“Let’s find the girls,” he said, and left the cave.
“This is my favorite cave,” Meli said. She waved a hand at the collection of statues illuminated by the soft glow of display lamps. “This is the Hariti-Panchika Shrine. In Hindu lore Hariti was an ogress who—”