Robert Heinlein - A Stranger in a Strange Land

"You are married. You just don't know it yet. After tonight there will never again be any doubt in your mind about it." Duke again looked faraway, happily pensive. "Ben, I was married before� and for a short time it was pretty nice and then it was steady hell on wheels. This time I like it, all the time. Shucks, I love it! And look, Ben, I don't mean just that it's fun to be shacked up with a bunch of bouncy babes. I love them - all my brothers, both sexes. Take Patty - and you will! - Patty mothers all of us� and I don't think anybody, man or woman, gets over needing that, even if they think they've outgrown it. Patty� well, Patty is just swell! She reminds me of Jubal� and that old bastard had better get down here and get the word! My point is that it is not just that Patty is female. Oh, I'm not running down tail-"

"Who is running down tail?" The voice, a rich contralto, came from behind them.

Duke swung around. "Not me, you limber Levantine whore! Come here, babe, and kiss your brother Ben."

"Never charged for it in my life," the woman denied as she glided toward them. "Started giving it away before anybody told me." She kissed Ben carefully and thoroughly. "Thou art God, brother."

"Thou art God. Share water."

"Never thirst. And don't ever pay any mind to what Duke says - from the way he behaves he must have been a bottle baby." She leaned over Duke and kissed him even more lingeringly while he patted her ample fundament. Ben noted that she was short, plump, brunette almost to swarthiness, and had a mane of heavy blue-black hair almost to her waist "Duke, did you see anything of a Ladies' Home Journal when you got up?" She reached past his shoulder, took his fork and started eating his scrambled eggs. "Mmm� good. You didn't cook these, Duke."

"Ben did. What in the world would I want with a Ladies' Home Journal?"

"Ben, stir up a couple of dozen more exactly the same way and I'll scramble 'em in relays. There was an article in it I wanted to show Patty, dear."

"Okay," agreed Ben and got up to do it.

"Don't you two get any ideas about redecorating this dump or I'm moving out. And leave some of those eggs for me! You think us men can do our work on mush?"

"Tut, tut, Dukie darling. Water divided is water multiplied. As I was saying, Ben, Duke's complaints never mean anything - as long as he has enough women for two men and enough food for three, he's a perfect little lamb." She shoved one forkful into Duke's mouth, went on eating the rest herself. "So quit making faces, brother; I'm about to cook you a second breakfast. Or will this be your third?"

"Not even the first, yet. You ate it. Ruth, I was telling Ben how you and Sam pole-vaulted from Third to Ninth. I think he's uneasy about whether he belongs in the Sharing-Water tonight."

She pursued the last bite on Duke's plate, then moved over and started preparations to cook. "Duke, you run along and I'll send you out something other than mush. Take your coffee cup and skedaddle. Ben, I was worried, too, when my time came - but don't you be worried, dear, because Michael does not make mistakes. You belong here or you wouldn't be here. You're going to stay?"

"Uh, I can't. Ready for the first installment?"

"Pour them in. Then you'll be back. And someday you'll stay. Duke is correct - Sam and I pole-vaulted� and it was almost too fast for a middle-aged, prim and proper housewife."

"Middle-aged?"

"Ben, one of the bonuses about the discipline is that as it straightens out your soul, your body straightens out, too. That's a matter in which the Christian Scientists are precisely right. Notice any medicine bottles in any of the bathrooms?"

"Uh, no."

"There aren't any. How many people have kissed you?"

"Several, at least."

"As a priestess I kiss a lot more than 'several,' believe me. But there's never so much as a sniffle in the Nest. I used to be the sort of whiny woman who is never quite well and given to 'female complaints.'" She smiled. "Now I'm more female than ever but I'm twenty pounds lighter and years younger and have nothing to complain about - I like being female. As Duke flattered me, 'a Levantine whore' and unquestionably much more limber than I was - I always sit in the lotus position when I'm teaching a class, whereas it used to be all I could do just to squat down and straighten up again� hot flashes and dizziness.

"But it did happen fast," Ruth went on. "Sam was a professor of Oriental languages at the University here - the city U., that is. Sam started coming to the Temple because it was a way, the only way, to learn the Martian language. Strictly professional motivation, he wasn't interested in it as a church. And I went along to keep an eye on him� I had heard rumors and I was a jealous wife, even more possessive than the average.

"So we worked up to the Third Circle, Sam learning the language rapidly, of course, and myself grimly hanging on and studying hard because I didn't want to let him out of my sight. Then boom! the miracle happened. We suddenly began to think in it, just a little� and Michael felt it and had us stay after service, a Third Circle service, one night and Michael and Gillian gave us water. Afterwards, I knew that I was all the things I had despised in other women and I knew that I should despise my husband for letting me do it and hate him for what he had done himself. All this in English, with the wont parts in Hebrew. So I wept all day and moaned and made myself a stinking nuisance to Sam� and couldn't wait to get back to share more water and grow closer again that night.

"After that things were steadily easier but not easy, as we were pushed through all the inner circles just as rapidly as we could take it; Michael knew that we needed help and wanted to get us into the safety and peace of the Nest. So when it came time for our Sharing-Water, I was still unable to discipline myself without constant help. I knew that I wanted to be received into the Nest - once you start, there's no turning back - but I wasn't sure I could merge myself with seven other people. I was scared silly; on the way over I almost begged Sam to turn around and go home."

She stopped talking and looked up, unsmiling but beatific, a plump angle with a big stirring spoon in one hand. "Then we walked into the Innermost Temple and a spotlight hit me and our robes were whisked away� and they were all in the pool and calling out to us in Martian to come, come and share the water of life - and I stumbled into that pool and submerged and I haven't come up since!

"Nor ever want to. Don't fret, Ben, you'll learn the language and acquire the discipline and you'll have loving help from all of us every step of the way. You stop worrying and jump in that pool tonight; I'll have my arms out to catch you. All of us will have our arms out, welcoming you home. Now take this plate in to Duke and tell him I said he was a pig but a charming one. And take this one in for yourself - oh, of course you can eat that much! - give me a kiss and run along; Ruthie has work to do."

Ben delivered the kiss and the message and the plate, then found that he did have some appetite left� but nevertheless did not concentrate on food as he found Jill stretched out, apparently asleep, on one of the wide, soft couches. He sat down opposite her, enjoying the sweet sight of her and thinking that Dawn and Jill were even more alike than he had realized the night before.

He looked up from a bite and saw that her eyes were open and she was smiling at him. "Thou art God, darling - and that smells good."

"And you look good. But I didn't mean to wake you." He got up and sat by her, put a bite in her mouth. "My own cooking, with Ruth's help."

"I know. And good, too. Duke told me to stay out of the kitchen because Ruthie was giving you a good-for-your-soul lecture. You didn't wake me; I was just lazing until you came out. I haven't been asleep all night."