Mack Reynolds - Equality - In the Year 2000

“Certainly.”

“He picks a woman from among the volunteers and she teaches him how to—Listen, what kind of people would volunteer for that kind of work?”

“It’s a great honor. Anyone who isn’t so tied down to a permanent relationship, or whatever, and who likes sex especially well, will volunteer. They are usually at least twenty-five years of age and seldom over thirty-five. Everybody realizes how important sex education is, so the tutors are highly regarded. Some of them stay in the field for years but others drop out after a time. The Sexual Education Committee of a vicinity tries to select the most attractive-looking of the men and women who volunteer, so that the first sexual experiences of the young people will be as beautiful as possible.”

He slumped back on the couch. “What a way to work out the problem.” He looked at her again. “How many of these semi-permanent affairs have you had since you were fourteen?”

She shook her head as though surprised. “I don’t know. I’m past twenty-five now. You don’t remember how many women you’ve slept with, do you?”

“I suppose not. But in my day, we thought girls were different.”

“Well, we’re not.”

Even as he stated it, the question sounded rather foolish, but out it came. “How do you strike up these semi-permanent affairs?”

She looked at him as though he wasn’t being very bright. “Why, you meet somebody at a party, at a dance, possibly in a bar or some sports event, and if you’re attracted to each other, you give it a try. If you like each other, you stay together as long as you wish.”

“But you don’t get married?”

“A few do. Usually those who still have religious beliefs. But there is no civil connotation to the relationship. And no divorce is necessary. Either is free to walk out at will.”

“Suppose they have children?”

“Children are no longer dependent upon their parents. The children can go with one or the other, decide to spend six months with each, or go to a children’s home and live there—whatever they wish.”

“You mean the poor kids are put in institutions?”

“Jule, Jule… These institutions, as you call them, are all operated by people who love children the most and have been selected from the most suitable applicants—”

“By the computers, undoubtedly.” He couldn’t keep a sharp tone from his voice.

“Certainly. It’s in their Aptitude Quotient. Some children prefer to apply for foster parents, and there are always more of those available than there are children to go around. People who love children but aren’t capable of having them, for whatever reasons. Surely it was pretty much the same in your time.”

“We had orphans and people to adopt them,” he said sourly. “But some foster homes were in the racket for what they could get out of it. The State would put a kid in a foster home and pay the adults so much a month for their support.”

“That doesn’t apply any longer, since the child in this case has the same income as any adult.”

Suddenly her eyes widened and she sat up straight. “Jule, you haven’t had any sexual release since you’ve been revived, have you?”

He snorted. “Where in the hell would I get it?”

“Why, you poor man!” She leaned toward him and touched him in such a manner that he couldn’t have been more surprised if she had suddenly sprouted a halo. “Why didn’t you ask me?”

Then he had her in his arms. His mouth sought hers, and her lips were as soft as he had always known they would be.

He said, finally, “It never occurred to me. You said you’d had a teenage crush on me, but then when I told you I loved you, you said a permanent relationship between us was impractical.”

“What has that got to do with enjoying ourselves in bed when we wish? You’re very attractive to me, and you’ve already let me know you find me attractive—enough to have wanted to marry me. Now, come along. My bedroom is in here.”

“At this time of day?” Though why he should protest he couldn’t say.

She looked at him mockingly. “What’s wrong with this time of day?”

They made love several times, and then, still nude, went into the kitchen and ate steaks washed down with dark, strong beer, which reminded him of the bock beers of Munich. Hand in hand, they returned to the bed, refreshed. The act of love was perfect with her. He had never bedded a more open woman. She was willing to try anything, and had quite a few tricks of her own that were new to him.

By the time they were completely satiated, it was dark, and she suggested that they spend the night and return to the university city in the morning.

“Don’t you think you had better phone your people?”

“Sure, I’ll do that right now.”

By the time she returned to slip into bed next to him, he was dead asleep.

His dream about his first sexual experience was undoubtedly sparked by his lovemaking with Edith and by the discussion they’d had beforehand comparing the new sexual mores with the old.

Following a world cruise, which had turned out to be only a halfway-around-the-world cruise, after his revulsion to what he had seen in India, Julian had joined his uncle at his Catskill Mountains estate. For the first time in his life, he was enrolled at a public school: Kingston High School.

It was his own whim. His Uncle Albert had remonstrated mildly, pointing out that competent tutors were available at this stage of Julian’s education if he wasn’t interested in one of the better prep schools, but Julian had stuck to his guns. He was probably motivated by the desire to meet more people in his own age group, as there were few in his social class in the vicinity of Woodstock, the Catskill artist colony near which his uncle lived. So far as a prep school was concerned, he had been boarded out too many years of his life by his parents to desire that.

From the first, it was quite gratifying. He was a bit disconcerting for many of his teachers. He spoke better French than the French teacher, who had, admittedly never been to France, and German as well as the German instructor, which wasn’t saying much. In geography, Julian had been to most of the countries studied, and in English literature the teacher was somewhat taken back to find that, among others, Julian knew Hemingway and Somerset Maugham quite well. In drama, he was well acquainted, personally, with Noel Coward, Orson Welles, John Gielgud, Lawrence Olivier, and a number of the more prominent cinema stars—all had often hosted, and been hosted by, the Wild Wests in their heyday.

But it was not his academic career that was his real forte so far as his contemporaries were concerned. He owned the largest Mercedes-Benz this side of Germany, and it was a sports model. It had formerly belonged to his father, who had raced it, and although it would be years before Julian came into his inheritance, his uncle had turned the vehicle over to him. In a school where those of his classmates who were fortunate enough to have a car at all drove jalopies, Julian was king.

Nor did his unlimited pocket money exactly turn him into a leper. Julian usually picked up the tab. Above that, his uncles liquor cabinet was always available to him, and if his friends threw a party and wanted whiskey, gin, or whatever, Julian could always bring a couple of bottles.

Yes, Julian had become the rage of Kingston High School.

And particularly with the girls, who knew a good thing when they saw one. If there was a single girl in the school who would not have given her all to make Julian West her steady, she wasn’t evident.

Of these, Peggy Ten Eyck, daughter of a Kingston small shop proprietor, was among the most lush. Blonde and blue-eyed in the Dutch tradition, mature figure, beautiful legs, an instinctively good dresser, Peggy had cut her own swath through the male students before Julian’s arrival. But one look at that Mercedes-Benz and all the other boys were left in the dust.