Mack Reynolds - Equality - In the Year 2000

He eyed her in surprise. “You did?”

“Uh huh,” she said around a mouthful of ham. “Just to see what it was like. With a girl friend at school. I didn’t like it, though. I like men.”

“So I noticed,” he said.

“What was swinging all about?” she asked.

“Swingers? Oh, well, toward the end of the sixties or so, a lot of sexual restraints were lifting. Quite a few people, especially the younger ones, were experimenting. Sometimes whole groups would get together and with complete abandon have any type of sex they could think of.”

“Single people or married couples?”

“Both. Sometimes they’d have little clubs, sort of, that would consist of two, three or four, or even more married couples who would meet weekly and have a sexual binge. Everyone who participated was expected to, uh, put out for anyone who wanted him or her. The others could stand around and watch or, if aroused, join in.”

“Were you ever at one of these parties?”

“To tell the truth, no. It never appealed to me.”

“It doesn’t appeal to me, either. I think sex is a very personal thing between two people. Speaking as an anthropologist, offhand I can’t think of any society where group sex seemed to develop.” She considered it for a moment, before adding, “Unless you count some of the orgiastic religious mysteries of, say, the early Greeks. And they were invariably performed while under some hallucinogen such as the amanita muscaria sacred mushrooms. How do you account for it in your time?”

He cocked his head slightly. “I suppose it was just one more aspect of the revolt that was going on, especially among the young. One group or another was protesting just about every aspect of our society. I suppose the swingers were protesting the restraints that had been put on sex for so long. Then, of course, there was wife-swapping.”

She looked at him.

He cleared his throat. “Two or more couples would get together periodically and exchange wives for the night, or for a weekend, or whatever.”

“Then why bother to get married at all?”

“Darned if I know. There were a lot of books and magazine articles by sociologists and others digging into the phenomenon. Some were pro and some were con. But I didn’t read anything that made sense to me particularly. At the time, as you know, I was preparing to be married myself, and would have been horrified by the idea of swapping my wife with someone else.” He grinned ruefully. “However, you know, in spite of the fact that I was the son of the Wild Wests—or possibly because of it—1 was slightly on the prudish side when it came to such things.”

They had finished their breakfast.

She asked nonchalantly, “Would you like to go back to bed for just a little, before we return to the university?”

They didn’t get back to the Julian West University City until past lunch. They had stopped on the way at a motel which boasted an automated restaurant. Julian hadn’t noted any lessening in the food quality, which is something he could hardly have said about the food in roadside restaurants of his own era.

He kept thinking of these days as other than his own time, which, in a way, was ridiculous. But a third of a century had passed, of which he had no memories whatsoever.

As they rode up in the elevator Edith murmured, “Father will be furious with me.”

Then it hit him. A guest of the Leetes, so greatly in the debt of the doctor and his wife, he had taken the first opportunity to bed their daughter. He closed his eyes in pain. What kind of a bastard was he?

“I… I suppose there’s no excuse,” he said. “I hate to deliberately lie to the Academician and your mother. After all, we were gone all night, and they aren’t stupid.”

She frowned at him. “What is there to lie about?”

He stared back at her. “You said he would be furious at our sleeping together.”

“That’s not what I said at all. I said he would be furious.”

He was even more confused. “What will he be furious about?”

“That I took so long to see that you—”

“You mean your parents won’t care ?”

“Why in the world should they? You’re in your mid-thirties, I’m in my mid-twenties, and we like each other. Isn’t it expected that we have sexual appetites? At present, I have no man I’ve been seeing regularly—or irregularly, for that matter. And, of course, you have met so few outside our family that you haven’t had much opportunity. In fact, have you met any young women at all?”

“One or two, on my way in or out of the building.”

“Well, were any of them attractive?”

He thought about the girl of whom he had asked directions to the Cub Bar. “I suppose so.”

“You could have asked one of them,” she said. “They would have undoubtedly been fascinated to sleep with Julian West. Why didn’t you?”

He said sourly, “Because I didn’t want a bust on the nose.”

“Why in the world would she want to put her breasts on your nose?”

“Never mind,” he told her. “You’re not completely up on the idiom of my day.”

They had reached their floor. Julian left Edith at the door to the Leete apartment.

He said, “I think I’ll go on back to my own place and pick up a few notes I made before you told me about using the data banks. Unless you have something on, I’ll be over shortly.”

“Fine, darling.” She offered her lips for a quick kiss, and he took immediate advantage of the opportunity before taking off.

He hadn’t the vaguest idea of where he stood with her. Had they just had a one-night stand, or was she willing to go into what she called a semi-permanent relationship? He hoped it was the latter. She had mentioned that at present she had no young man. Her parting kiss and the casual endearment might be a good sign.

He entered and headed directly to his study. At the threshold, he stopped dead. Even at a distance, it was obvious to him that the room had been searched. He was immaculate so far as keeping his things in order. Even before he crossed to the desk, he knew very well that his notes had been gone through; they simply were not in the order in which he had left them.

He stared down at the desk for long moments.

Possibly the doctor, or even his wife, had found some reason to come over and, in curiosity, had looked through the notes he had made while studying. It didn’t seem very likely but, on the other hand, he knew practically no one else. In the past month, the doctor had introduced him to a few cut-and-dried types connected with the “Julian West Project,” other doctors or academicians of one sort or another, but he could not imagine that any one of them would have entered his apartment and gone through his things.

He went into the other rooms. Nothing seemed to have been disturbed. For that matter, the few things he had brought with him from the past were those that he carried in his pockets. He hadn’t even gotten around, as yet, to securing a few items in the way of art objects and handicrafts to personalize his quarters, although both Edith and Martha had promised to help him to that end.

It was simply a mystery.

He shrugged it off, found the notes he had wanted to ask the Leetes about, and left for their apartment.

In spite of the fact Edie had assured him that the doctor would in no way object to Julian sleeping with his daughter, he was still embarrassed about facing him. He knew he was probably being foolish. If the girl had received instruction from a sex tutor at the age of fourteen and on, and had had a whole series of affairs since then… But still…

He stood before the identity screen of the Leete apartment and the door swung open. He entered the living room, stepping into what seemed an intense conversation between the academician and his daughter.