John Scalzi - Old Man's War

"Get out," Jesse said.

"No, it's true," I said. "It's the barbs that stimulate the female to ovulate. Look it up. Anyway, no barbs down there. I think you'd've noticed if there were."

"That doesn't prove anything," Jesse said, and suddenly sent her back part back, and her forward part forward, to lie directly on top of me. She grinned salaciously. "It could be that we just haven't been doing it hard enough to make them pop out."

"I'm sensing a challenge," I said.

"I'm sensing something, too," she said, and wiggled.

"What are you thinking about?" Jesse asked me, later.

"I'm thinking about Kathy," I said, "and how often we'd lie around like we're doing now."

"You mean, on the carpet," Jesse said, smiling.

I bopped her gently on the head. "Not that part. Just lying around after sex, talking and enjoying each other's company. We were doing this the first time we talked about enlisting."

"Why did you bring it up?" Jesse said.

"I didn't," I said. "Kathy did. It was on my sixtieth birthday, and I was depressed about getting older. So she suggested that we sign up when the time came. I was a little surprised. We'd always been antimilitary. We protested the Subcontinential War, you know, when it wasn't exactly popular to do that."

"Lots of people protested that war," Jesse said.

"Yeah, but we really protested. Became a little bit of a joke about it in town, actually."

"So how did she rationalize signing up with the Colonial Army?"

"She said she wasn't against war or the military in a general sense, just that war and our military. She said that people have the right to defend themselves and that it was probably a nasty universe out there. And she said that beyond those noble reasons, we'd be young again to boot."

"But you wouldn't be able to enlist together," Jesse said. "Unless you were the same age."

"She was a year younger than me," I said. "And I did mention that to her—I said that if I joined the army, I'd be officially dead, we wouldn't be married anymore and who knows if we'd ever see each other again."

"What did she say?"

"She said these were technicalities. She'd find me again and drag me to the altar like she had before. And she would have, you know. She could be a bear about these things."

Jesse propped herself up on her elbow and looked at me. "I'm sorry she's not here with you, John."

I smiled. "It's all right," I said. "I just miss my wife from time to time, that's all."

"I understand," Jesse said. "I miss my husband, too."

I glanced over to her. "I thought he left you for a younger woman and then got food poisoning."

"He did and he did, and he deserved to vomit his guts out," Jesse said. "I don't miss the man, really. But I miss having a husband . It's nice to have someone you know you're supposed to be with. It's nice to be married."

"It's nice to be married," I agreed.

Jesse snuggled up to me and draped an arm over my chest. "Of course, this is nice, too. It's been a while since I've done this."

"Lie on a floor?"

It was her turn to bop me. "No. Well, yes, actually. But more specifically, lie around after sex. Or have sex, for that matter. You don't want to know how long it's been since I've had it."

"Sure I do."

"Bastard. Eight years."

"No wonder you jumped me the minute you saw me," I said.

"You got that right," Jesse said. "You happened to be very conveniently located."

"Location is everything, that's what my mother always told me."

"You had a strange mother," Jesse said. "Yo, bitch, what time is it?"

"What?" I said.

"I'm talking to the voice in my head," she said.

"Nice name you have for it," I said.

"What did you name yours?"

"Asshole."

Jesse nodded. "Sounds about right. Well, the bitch tells me it's just after 1600. We have two hours until dinner. You know what that means?"

"I don't know. I think four times is my limit, even when I'm young and superimproved."

"Calm yourself. It means we have just enough time for a nap."

"Should I grab a blanket?"

"Don't be silly. Just because I had sex on the carpet doesn't mean I want to sleep on it. You've got an extra bunk. I'm going to use it."

"So I'm going to have to nap alone?"

"I'll make it up to you," Jesse said. "Remind me when I wake up."

I did. She did.

"God damn it," Thomas said as he sat down at the table, carrying a tray so piled with food that it was a miracle he could even lift it. "Aren't we all just too good-looking for words."

He was right. The Old Farts had cleaned up amazingly well. Thomas and Harry and Alan could all have been male models; of the four of us, I was definitely the ugly duckling, and I looked—well, I looked good . As for the women, Jesse was stunning, Susan was even more so, and Maggie frankly looked like a goddess. It actually hurt to look at her.

It hurt to look at all of us. In that good, dizzying sort of way. We all spent a few minutes just staring at each other. And it wasn't just us. As I scanned through the room, I couldn't find a single ugly human in it. It was pleasingly disturbing.

"It's impossible," Harry said, suddenly, to me. I looked over at him. "I looked around, too," he said. "There's no way in hell all the people in this room all looked as good as they do now when they were originally this age."

"Speak for yourself, Harry," Thomas said. "If anything, I do believe I am a shade less attractive than in my salad days."

"You're the same color as a salad these days," Harry said. "And even if we excuse Doubtful Thomas over here—"

"I'm going to cry all the way to a mirror," Thomas said.

"—it's well nigh impossible that everyone is in the same basket. I guarantee you I did not look this good when I was twenty. I was fat. I had massive acne. I was already balding."

"Stop it," Susan said. "I'm getting aroused."

"And I'm trying to eat," said Thomas.

"I can laugh about it now, because I look like this, " Harry said, running his hand down his body, as if to present this year's model. "But the new me has very little to do with the old me, I'll tell you that."

"You sound as if it bothers you," Alan said.

"It does, a little," Harry admitted. "I mean, I'll take it. But when someone gives me a gift horse, I look it in the mouth. Why are we so good-looking?"

"Good genes," Alan said.

"Sure," Harry said. "But whose? Ours? Or something that they spliced out of a lab somewhere?"

"We're just all in excellent shape now," Jesse said. "I was telling John that this body is in far better shape than my real one ever was."

Maggie suddenly spoke up. "I say that, too," she said. "I say 'my real body' when I mean 'my old body.' It's as if this body isn't real to me yet."

"It's real enough, sister," Susan said. "You still have to pee with it. I know."

"This from the woman who criticized me for oversharing," Thomas said.

"My point, because I did have one," Jesse said, "is that while they were toning up our bodies, they took some time to tone up the rest of us as well."

"Agreed," Harry said. "But that's not telling us why they did it."

"It's so we bond," Maggie said.

Everyone stared. "Well, look who's coming out of her shell."

"Bite me, Susan." Maggie said. Susan grinned. "Look, it's basic human psychology that we're inclined to like people who we find attractive. Moreover, everyone in this room, even us, are basically strangers to each other, and have few if any ties to bring us together in a short time. Making us all look good to each other is a way to promote bonding, or will be, once we start training."

"I don't see how it's going to help the army if we're all too busy ogling each other to fight," Thomas said.