She wore nothing except her ID disc-star, lipstick, eye shadow, and a great green grasshopper painted on her body. It was standing up on its back legs, and her black-painted nipples formed the centers of the black staring eyes. Sometimes, when Jeff was making love to his wife, he had the feeling that he was coupled with an insect.
She came to him, and they kissed. "Good morning, Jeff."
"Good morning, Ozma."
She turned and led him into the next room. He reached out to pat her egg-shaped buttock, then withdrew his hand. The slightest encouragement would inflame her. She would want to make love on the carpet in front of the unseeing witnesses in the cylinders. He thought that it was childish to do this, but she was, in some ways, childish. She preferred to call herself childlike. OK. All good artists were childlike. To them every second birthed a new world, each more astonishing and awesome than the previous. However ... was Ozma a good artist?
What did he care? He loved her for herself, whatever that meant.
The other room contained chairs, sofas, tables, a Ping-Pong table, an exercising machine, a pool table, TV wall strips, a door to a bathroom, and a door to the utility room. Ozma turned just outside this door and went up the steps to a hail. On their left was the kitchen. They turned right, went down a short hall, and turned right to the steps. The upstairs held four bedrooms, each with a bathroom. Ozma preceded him into the nearest bedroom, which lit up as they entered.
At one end of the large room, by some shuttered windows, was a king-size bed. At another wall, by a large round window, was a table with a large mirror. Nearby were shelves holding big plastic boxes containing brushes, combs, and cosmetics. Each box bore the name of its owner.
Along one wall was a series of doors with name-plaques. Jeff inserted a point of his ID star into a hole in the door bearing his name and Ozma's. It slid open, and a light came on, revealing shelves holding their personal-property clothing. From a shelf at eye level, he picked out a crumpled ball of cloth, turned, placed a section between his thumb and first finger, and snapped the ball. It unrolled with a crack of electrical sparks from its hem and became a long, smooth Kelly-green robe. He put it on and tied a belt around his waist. From another shelf he took two socks and a pair of shoes. After putting these on, he sealed the tops of the shoes with a firm pressure of fingers.
Ozma straightened up from her inspection of the bedclothes.
"Clean and done according to specifications," she said.
"Monday's always been good about house duties. We're luckier than some I know. I only hope Monday doesn't move to another house."
She spoke a codeword. A wall sprang into light and life, a three-dimensional view of a jungle composed of gigantic grass blades. Presently, some blades bent, and a thing with bulging black insect eyes looked at the two humans. Its antennae quivered. A hind leg raised and rubbed against a protruding vein. Grasshopper stridulations rang through the room.
"For God's sake," Jeff said. "Tone it down."
"It soothes me to sleep," she said. "Not that I feel like sleeping just now."
"I'd like to wait until we've had a good rest. It's always better then."
"Oh, I don't know," Ozma said. "Why don't we give it a scientific test? Do it before sleep and after and then compare notes?"
"That's the difference between forty and twenty-five. Believe me, I know."
She laughed and said, "We're not a December-April match, darling."
She lay down on the bed, her arms and legs spread out.
"The Castle Ecstatic is undefended, and its drawbridge is down. Charge on in, Sir Galahad, with your trusty lance."
"I'm afraid I might fall into the moat," he said, grinning.
"You bastard! Are you trying to make me mad again? Charge on in, faint-hearted knight, or I'll slam the portcullis down on you!"
"You've been watching reruns of The Knights of the Round Table," he said.
"They turn me on, all those violent men on their big horses and maidens ravished by three-headed ogres. All those spears thrusting. Come on, Jeff! Play along with me!"
"I seek the Holy Grail," he said as he eased down. "However, it's more like the Holy Gruel."
"Can I help it if I overlubricate? You keep this up, and I'll paint you brown and flush you down the toilet. Don't spoil it for me, Jeff. I have to fantasize."
He thought, Whatever happened to good old unimaginative sex? But he said, "I've just taken a vow of silence. Think of me as the mad monk of Sherwood Forest."
"Don't stop talking. You know I love it when you talk dirty." Fifteen minutes later, she said, "Did you apply for a permit?"
"No," he said, breathing hard. "I forgot."
She rolled over to face him. "You said you wanted a child."
"Yes. Only ... you know I had so much trouble with Arid. I wonder if I really want another child."
Ozma stroked his cheek gently. "Your daughter's a wonderful woman. What trouble?"
"Lots after her mother died. She got neurotic, too depen dent. And she's very jealous of you, though she has no reason to be."
"I don't think so," Ozma said. "Anyway ... trouble? What trouble? Have you been holding out on me?"
"We'll talk about it during breakfast," she said. "Unless you'd like to talk about it now. You know, I thought for sure that you wanted a child. I had some misgivings myself. I am an artist, and I should give my all to my art, excluding of course what I gladly give to you. But a child? I wasn't sure. Then-"
"We've been through that," he said. He mimicked her low husky hint-of-gravel-grinding voice. "'Every woman is an artist in that she can produce a masterpiece, her child. However, not all women are good artists. But I am, I am. Painting is not enough.'"
She hit his arm with a tiny fist. "You make me sound so pompous."
"Not at all." He kissed her. "Good night. We'll talk later."
"That's what I said. But ... you'll apply today?"
"I promise."
Though they could have sent in their application via TV strip, they had a much better chance of acceptance if he used his connections as an organic (a euphemism for policeperson, who represented the force of the "organic" government). He would talk face to face with a superior official of the Reproduction Bureau for whom he had done some favors, and the application would not go through regular channels. Even so, it would be a subyear before the Bureau's decision came through. Jeff knew that they would be accepted. Meanwhile, he could change his mind and cancel the application.
Ozma would be angry if he did, which meant that he was going to have to think of a good excuse. However, many events could happen before the day of wrath.
Ozma went to sleep quickly. He lay for a while, eyes closed but seeing Arid's face. The immer council had already rejected his request to initiate Ozma. He had expected that, but he had thought that Ariel would be accepted. The daughter of immers, she was very intelligent and adaptable, highly qualifled to become an immer. Except ... she had shown some psychic instability in certain matters. For that reason, the immer council might reject her. He could not deny that the council had to be very cautious. But he was hurt.
Sometimes, he wished that Gilbert Ching Immerman had not discovered the elixir or chemical compound or whatever it was that slowed down aging. He also wished that, since the elixir had been discovered many obcenturies ago, Immerman had made the discovery public. But Immerman, after some agonizing, had decided that the elixir would not be good for humankind as a whole.