I told you I was an old-fashioned girl.
I caressed his dry, velvety-skinned organ until it stirred in my hand, then ran my fingernails lightly down his sides to wake him up; I did the same-though very lightly-to the insides of his arms.
He opened his eyes and smiled starrily at me.
It's very pleasant to follow Davy's hairline around his neck with your tongue or nuzzle all the hollows of his long-muscled, swimmer's body: inside the elbows, the forearms, the place where the back tapers inward under the ribs, the backs of the knees. A naked man is a cross, the juncture elaborated vulnerable and delicate flesh like the blossom on a banana tree, that place that's given me so much pleasure.
I nudged him gently and he shivered a little, bringing his legs together and spreading his arms flat; with my forefinger I made a transient white line on his neck. Little Davy was half-filled by now, which is a sign that Davy wants to be knelt over. I obliged, sitting across his thighs, and bending over him without touching his body, kissed him again and again on the mouth, the neck, the face, the shoulders. He is very, very exciting. He's very beautiful, my classic mesomorphic monster-pet. Putting one arm under his shoulders to lift him up, I rubbed my nipples over his mouth, first one and then the other, which is nice for us both, and as he held on to my upper arms and let his head fall back, I pulled him to me, kneading his back muscles, kneading his buttocks, sliding down to the mattress with him. Little Davy is entirely filled out now.
So lovely: Davy with his head thrown to one side, eyes closed, his strong fingers clenching and unclenching. He began to arch his back, as his sleepiness made him a little too quick for me, so I pressed Small Davy between thumb and forefinger just enough to slow him down and then-when I felt like it-playfully started to mount him, rubbing the tip of him, nipping him a little on the neck.
His breathing in my ear, fingers convulsively closing on mine.
I played with him a little more, tantalizing him, then swallowed him whole like a watermelon seed-so fine inside! with Davy moaning, his tongue inside my mouth, his blue gaze shattered, his whole body uncontrollably arched, all his sensation concentrated in the place where I held him.
I don't do this often, but that time I made him come by slipping a finger up his anus: convulsions, fires, crying in no words as the sensation was pulled out of him. If I had let him take more time, I would have climaxed with him, but he's stiff for quite a while after he comes and I prefer that; I like the after-tremors and the after-hardness, slipperier and more pliable than before; Davy has an eerie malleability at those times. I grasped him internally, I pressed down on him, enjoying in the one act his muscular throat, the hair under his arms, his knees, the strength of his back and buttocks, his beautiful face, the fine skin on the inside of his thighs. Kneaded and bruised him, hiccoughing inside with all my architecture: little buried rod, swollen lips and grabby sphincter, the flexing half-moon under the pubic bone. And everything else in the vicinity, no doubt. I'd had him. Davy was mine. Sprawled blissfully over him-I was discharged down to my fingertips but still quietly throbbing-it had really been a good one. His body so warm and wet under me and inside me.
XII
And looked up to see-
XIII
– the three J's- XIV "Good Lord! Is that all?" said Janet to Joanna.
XV
Something pierces the sweetest solitude.
I got up, tickled him with the edge of my claw, joined them at the door. Closing it. "Stay, Davy." This is one of the key words that the house "understands"; the central computer will transmit a pattern of signals to the implants in his brain and he will stretch out obediently on his mattress; when I say to the main computer "Sleep," Davy will sleep. You have already seen what else happens. He's a lovely limb of the house. The original germ-plasm was chimpanzee, I think, but none of the behavior is organically controlled any more. True, he does have his minimal actions which he pursues without me-he eats, eliminates, sleeps, and climbs in and out of his exercise box-but even these are caused by a standing computer pattern. And I take precedence, of course. It is theoretically possible that Davy has (tucked away in some nook of his cerebrum) consciousness of a kind that may never even touch his active life-is Davy a poet in his own peculiar way?-but I prefer to believe not. His consciousness-such as it is and I am willing to grant it for the sake of argument-is nothing but the permanent possibility of sensation, a mere intellectual abstraction, a nothing, a picturesque collocation of words. It is experientially quite empty, and above all, it is nothing that need concern you and me. Davy's soul lies somewhere else; it's an outside soul. Davy's soul is Davy's beauty; and Beauty is always empty, always on the outside. Isn't it?
"Leucotomized," I said (to the J's). "Lobotomized. Kidnapped in childhood. Do you believe me?"
They did.
"Don't," I said. Jeannine doesn't understand what we're talking about; Joanna does and is appalled; Janet is thinking. I shooed them into the main room and told them who he was.
Alas! those who were shocked at my making love that way to a man are now shocked at my making love to a machine; you can't win.
"Well?" said the Swedish Miss.
"Well," said I, "this is what we want. We want bases on your worlds; we want raw materials if you've got them. We want places to recuperate and places to hide an army; we want places to store our machines. Above all, we want places to move from-bases that the other side doesn't know about. Janet is obviously acting as an unofficial ambassador, so I can talk to her, that's fine. You two might object that you are persons of no standing, but whom do you expect me to ask, your governments? Also, we need someone who can show us the local ropes. You'll do fine for me. You are the authorities, as far as I'm concerned.
"Well?
"Is it yes or no?
"Do we do business?"
PART NINE
I
This is the Book of Joanna.
II
I was driving on a four-lane highway in North America with an acquaintance and his nine-year-old son.
"Beat 'im! Beat 'im!" cried the little boy excitedly as I passed another car in order to change lanes. I stayed in the right-hand lane for a while, admiring the buttercups by the side of the road, and then, in order to change lanes back, fell behind another car.
"Pass 'im! Pass 'im!" cried the distressed child, and then in anxious tears, "Why didn't you beat 'im?"
"There, there, old sport," said his indulgent Daddy, "Joanna drives like a lady.
When you're grown up you'll have a car of your own and you can pass everybody on the road." He turned to me and complained: "Joanna, you just don't drive aggressively enough."
In training.
III
There's the burden of knowledge. There's the burden of compassion. There's seeing all too clearly what's in their eyes as they seize your hands, crying cheerily, "You don't really mind my saying that, do you? I knew you didn't!"