He tried to kiss her, but she turned her head away.
“Dammit, Rick, that’s enough fooling. And it’s not funny. Let me go.”
He almost did. Then he remembered Screw Savage’s advice to him and Hoss. “No, never means no with a woman. They say it because they like to play hard to get, but they really want it bad as you do. You gotta ignore what they say and keep chargin’. Go for the gold!”
Rick moved his left arm quickly to turn Gina’s head back toward him, pressed his mouth to hers, and started to give her a French kiss. His right hand felt at the same time for her breast.
It was as though he had pressed a starter button. As his fingers met her left nipple through the resilient material of the suit, her right knee pistoned up between his legs. It hit him squarely in the crotch like a bony hammer.
Rick gasped and curled up into a ball, hanging in midair. He was sure that the blow had burst his testicles and driven them right back inside his body. He vaguely heard Gina speak through his fog of pain.
“You little shit! Nobody does that to me, ever. Apologize.” She had him by the ear, pulling it off his head. “Apologize, right now, or I’ll really hurt you.”
Rick was curled up, forehead close to his knees. He could hardly breathe, and he certainly couldn’t apologize. But if he didn’t she might do the same thing to him again.
“Sorry!” It was more a gasp than a word. “Sorry.”
“I don’t know what made you think I’d be interested in a semiliterate oaf like you, but here’s news: I’m not.”
She let go of his ear, then clapped his helmet back onto his head hard enough to make his ears ring. While he hung dizzy and helpless, she flipped his suit seals into position.
“You can find your own way back, dummy, or you can die trying. I don’t much care which.”
Rick heard the inner door slam shut and the airlock cycling. He tried to lift his head to see if Gina had gone, until a worse worry took over. Nausea swept through him. He felt ready to vomit—inside his suit.
He swallowed hard, closed his eyes, and fought the urge. The spasm slowly faded. By the time it was over his forehead was beaded with cold sweat and the sickness had been replaced by an agonizing throbbing in his belly and groin.
Fifteen minutes passed before he felt strong enough to leave the chamber. Then it was a miserable splay-legged crawl back to the training facilities. He paused before entering.
What had Gina told Turkey Gossage? Surely, the whole horrible episode. Rick was done for. He was going to be kicked out of this place, just as he had been kicked out of school. And where could he go now? Back to join the Pool on Earth?
Might as well get it over with. He couldn’t hang around outside forever, and there was no way he could avoid the rage of Turkey Gossage.
Rick eased his way out of his suit and limped to Turkey’s office. He didn’t see anyone on the way, and he almost changed his mind when he was right at the entrance. But Gossage had already seen him on the threshold and waved him in.
“You took your time.” Gossage nodded to Rick and at once returned his attention to the screen in front of him. “I didn’t think you’d make it before I closed for the day. Help yourself to a meal voucher.”
Rick, tensed and ready for a storm of anger, stared at Gossage open-mouthed. “What did Gina say?”
Turkey really looked at Rick for the first time. “Say? Why, what do you think she said? She said you did well. I know you rammed the wall with the cutter at the end, but Gina said that the test she gave you was harder than anything in the standard course. So you passed. Now, go and eat before I change my mind.”
Rick grabbed the voucher and left before Gossage could ask him anything. But he didn’t feel in the least like eating, and still less like going into the cafeteria where he might have to face Gina. He was sore, exhausted, and bewildered. He started for his cabin, knowing that he needed rest. Then he visualized Cokie Mulligan and the other trainees, watching him limp in and starting with their questions.
He couldn’t stand that, either. Where could he go? The study cubicles were always crowded at this time of day.
The only place he could think of was the gym. It was a bit of a mystery why CM-2 even had a gym, because so far as he knew no one ever went there. But the region had light centrifugal gravity, and there were showers. He could examine and bathe his bruised and tender balls, stretch out on a couch, and not move until it was time to wake up and use his meal voucher for breakfast.
He dragged his way toward the outer circle of the station where the gym was located, thankful that it was a time when few people were about. Safe inside the bath-house, he removed all his clothes and took a warm bath. He examined himself closely. So far as he could tell everything down there was perfectly normal. He didn’t even seem to be swollen, though it felt that way from the inside. Finally he went into the shower, set the water temperature as hot as he could stand, and simply let the stream run over his head and back for a long time.
By the time he dried himself and put on a change of clothing he was feeling human again. He emerged from the shower area and stopped. The gym was no longer deserted. Jigger Tait was running laps, round and round the inside of the big high-gee wheel. He must have been there for a while, because his blue tee-shirt was stained with sweat.
He nodded down at Rick when he caught sight of him and ran around the hoop of the track toward him. “Want to join me?”
Rick shook his head and started toward the exit. But he couldn’t help moving in an awkward bow-legged fashion.
“You all right?” Jigger stepped closer.
“Yeah. I’m all right.”
“You sure don’t look it. That’s a John Wayne walk—like you got a bad case of hemorrhoids, or you just took a dump in your pants. What happened?”
“I just—” Rick paused. He didn’t have a lie in his head. Anyway, Jigger would find out soon enough, along with everybody else. He sighed. “I just did something really dumb.”
And then, when Jigger said not a word, it all came spilling out. It seemed even worse in retelling than in reality. Jigger stood and listened in silence, the sweat cooling on his moon face and steam rising from his damp tee-shirt. It was only after Rick told how he had made his move on Gina, and she had kneed him in the testicles, that Jigger shook his head and said, “Wish I’d been there.”
“You’d have stopped her?”
“No. I’d have broken you in two.” Jigger grabbed Rick by the arm and led him to a pair of rowing machines, the only place where the two of them could sit down facing each other. “How old are you, kid?”
“Sixteen.”
“Thought so. Know how old Gina is?”
“Nineteen?”
“She’s twenty-two. You’re like a baby to her. Hell, you are a baby. Back in school you probably felt like a real big shot—I know I did. I’d had girls, I’d busted teachers, the whole bit. But to Gina a kid from Earth is still in diapers. I’d say each year in space, ’specially in the Belt, is like three on Earth. You were a little kid making a pass at a grown-up.”
“But she didn’t report it to Gossage. And she passed me on the test I took.”
“Sure she did, if you did well on it. Why wouldn’t she? You didn’t really upset her. How’d you feel if a ten-year-old girl came on strong to you? You’d think it was ludicrous. And you were being tested for proficiency, not maturity. Anyway, believe it or not, Gina likes you. If she didn’t she’d have ripped your balls off and stuffed them down your throat. She’d have got away with it, too. What ever made you think for one second that she might be interested in you?”