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.I thinkthat's an advance, actually.Page 268 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlTo be turned inside out just by a single moment of touch shows how abnormallyI had lived, and for how long.Now it is better.May I tell you how? What Ihave just said is actually prologue."Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html"Tell me."I wish we were- in bed and it was dark.I could talk more freely."We are sitting up and it is light, Gladia, but I am listening.""Yes.--On Solaria, Elijah, there was no sex to speak of.You know that.""Yes, I do.""I experienced none, in any real sense.On a few occasions I only a few-myhusband approached me out of duty.I won't even describe how that was, but youwill believe me when I tell you that, looking back on it, it was worse thannone."I believe you.""But I knew about sex.I read about it.I discussed it with other womensometimes, all of whom pretended it was a hateful duty that Solarians mustundergo.If they had children to the limit of their quota, they, always saidthey were delighted they would never have to deal with sex again.""Did you believe them?""Of course I did.I had never heard anything else and the few non-Solarianaccounts I read were denounced as false distortions.I believed that, too.Myhusband found some books 1-had, called them pornography, and had themdestroyed.Then, too, you know, people can make themselves believe anything.Ithink Solarian women believed what they said and really did despise sex.Theycertainly sounded sincere enough and it made me feel there was somethingterribly wrong with me because I had a kind of curiosity about it and oddfeelings I could not understand.""You did not, at that time, use robots for relief in any way?"Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html"No, it didn't occur to me.Or any inanimate object.There were occasionalwhispers of such things, but with such, horror or pretended horror-that Iwould never dream of doing anything like that.Of course, Ihad dreams and sometimes something that, as I look back on it, must have beenincipient orgasms, would wake me.I never understood them, of course, or daredtalk of it.I was bitterly ashamed of it, in fact.Worse, I was frightened of the pleasure they brought me.And then, of course,I came to Aurora.""You told me of that.Sex with Aurorans was unsatisfactory"Yes.It made me think that Solarians were right after all.Sex was not likemy dreams at all.It was not until Jander that I understood.It is not sexthat they have on Aurora; it -is, it is-choreography.Every step of it isdictated by fashion, from the method of approach to the moment of departure.There is nothing unexpected, nothing spontaneous.On Solaria, since there wasPage 269 ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlso little sex, nothing was given or taken.And on Aurora, sex was so stylized that, in the end, nothing was given or takeneither.Do you understand?""I'm not sure, Gladia, never having experienced sex with an Auroran woman or,for that matter, never having been an Auroran man.But it's not necessary toexplain.I have a dim notion of what you mean.""You're terribly embarrassed, aren't you?""Not to the point of being unable to listen.""But then I met Jander and learned to use him.He was not an Auroran man.Hisonly aim, his only possible aim, was to please me.He gave and I took and, forthe first time, I experienced sex as it should be experienced.Do youunderstand that? Can you imagine what it must be like suddenly to know thatyou are not mad, or distorted, or perverted, or even simply wrong-but to knowthat you are a woman and have a satisfying sex partner?""I think I can imagine that.""And then, after so short a time, to have it all taken away from me.Ithought-I thought-that that was the end.I was doomed.I was never again,through centuries of life, to have a good sexual relationship again.Not to have had it to start with-and then never to have had it at all-was badenough.But to get it against all expectation and to have it, then' suddenlyto lose it and go back to nothing-that was unbearable.-YouGenerated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.htmlsee how important, therefore, last night was.""But why me, Gladia? Why not someone else?""No, Elijah, it had to be you
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