Ira Levin: This Perfect Day

In 146 Chip and his family, along with most of the members in their building, were transferred to AFR71680. The building they were housed in was a brand-new one, with green carpet instead of gray in the hallways, larger TV screens, and furniture that was upholstered though nonadjustable.

There was much to get used to in ’71680. The climate was somewhat warmer, and the coveralls lighter in weight and color; the monorail was old and slow and had frequent breakdowns; and the totalcakes were wrapped in greenish foil and tasted salty and not quite right.

Chip’s and his family’s new adviser was Mary CZ14L8584. She was a year older than Chip’s mother, though she looked a few years younger.

Once Chip had grown accustomed to life in ’71680—school, at least, was no different—he resumed his pastime of “thinking wanting.” He saw now that there were considerable differences between classifications, and began to wonder which one Uni would give him when the time came. Uni, with its two levels of cold steel blocks, its empty echoing hardnesses … He wished Papa Jan had taken him down to the bottom level, where members were. It would be pleasanter to think of being classified by Uni and some members instead of by Uni alone; if he were to be given a classification he didn’t like, and members were involved, maybe it would be possible to explain to them…

Papa Jan called twice a year; he claimed more, he said, but that was all he was granted. He looked older, smiled tiredly. A section of USA60607 was being rebuilt and he was in charge. Chip would have liked to tell him that he was trying to want something, but he couldn’t with the others standing in front of the screen with him. Once, when a call was nearly over, he said, “I’m trying,” and Papa Jan smiled like his old self and said, “That’s the boy!”

When the call was over, Chip’s father said, “What are you trying?”

“Nothing,” Chip said.

“You must have meant something,” his father said.

Chip shrugged.

Mary CZ asked him too, the next time Chip saw her. “What did you mean when you told your grandfather you were trying?” she said.

“Nothing,” Chip said.

“Li,” Mary said, and looked at him reproachfully. “You said you were trying. Trying what?”

“Trying not to miss him,” he said. “When he was transferred to Usa I told him I would miss him, and he said I should try not to, that members were all the same and anyway he would call whenever he could.”

“Oh,” Mary said, and went on looking at Chip, now uncertainly. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” she asked.

Chip shrugged.

“And do you miss him?”

“Just a little,” Chip said. “I’m trying not to.”

Sex began, and that was even better to think about than wanting something. Though he’d been taught that orgasms were extremely pleasurable, he had had no idea whatsoever of the all-but-unbearable deliciousness of the gathering sensations, the ecstasy of the coming, and the drained and boneless satisfaction of the moments afterward. Nobody had had any idea, none of his classmates; they talked about nothing else and would gladly have devoted themselves to nothing else as well. Chip could hardly think about mathematics and electronics and astronomy, let alone the differences between classifications.

After a few months, though, everyone calmed down, and accustomed to the new pleasure, gave it its proper Saturday-night place in the week’s pattern.

One Saturday evening when Chip was fourteen, he bicycled with a group of his friends to a fine white beach a few kilometers north of AFR71680. There they swam—jumped and pushed and splashed in waves made pink-foamed by the foundering sun—and built a fire on the sand and sat around it on blankets and ate their cakes and cokes and crisp sweet pieces of a bashed-open coconut. A boy played songs on a recorder, not very well, and then, the fire crumbling to embers, the group separated into five couples, each on its own blanket.

The girl Chip was with was Anna VF, and after their orgasm—the best one Chip had ever had, or so it seemed—he was filled with a feeling of tenderness toward her, and wished there were something he could give her as a conveyor of it, like the beautiful shell that Karl GG had given Yin AP, or Li OS’s recorder-song, softly cooing now for whichever girl he was lying with. Chip had nothing for Anna, no shell, no song; nothing at all, except, maybe, his thoughts.

“Would you like something interesting to think about?” he asked, lying on his back with his arm about her.

“Mm,” she said, and squirmed closer against his side. Her head was on his shoulder, her arm across his chest.

He kissed her forehead. “Think of all the different classifications there are—” he said.

“Mm?”

“And try to decide which one you would pick if you had to pick one.”

“To pick one?” she said.

“That’s right.”

“What do you mean?”

“To pick one. To have. To be in. Which classification would you like best? Doctor, engineer, adviser…”

She propped her head up on her hand and squinted at him. “What do you mean?” she said.

He gave a little sigh and said, “We’re going to be classified, right?”

“Right.”

“Suppose we weren’t going to be. Suppose we had to classify ourselves.”

“That’s silly,” she said, finger-drawing on his chest.

“It’s interesting to think about.”

“Let’s fuck again,” she said.

“Wait a minute,” he said. “Just think about all the different classifications. Suppose it were up to us to—”

“I don’t want to,” she said, stopping drawing. “That’s silly. And sick. We get classified; there’s nothing to think about. Uni knows what we’re—”

“Oh, fight Uni,” Chip said. “Just pretend for a minute that we’re living in—”

Anna flipped away from him and lay on her stomach, stiff and unmoving, the back of her head to him.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “For you. You’re sick.”

“No I’m not,” he said.

She was silent.

He sat up and looked despairingly at her rigid back. “It just slipped out,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

She stayed silent.

“It’s just a word, Anna,” he said.

“You’re sick,” she said.

“Oh, hate,” he said.

“You see what I mean?”

“Anna,” he said, “look. Forget it. Forget the whole thing, all right? Just forget it.” He tickled between her thighs, but she locked them, barring his hand.

“Ah, Anna,” he said. “Ah, come on. I said I was sorry, didn’t I? Come on, let’s fuck again. I’ll suck you first if you want.”

After a while she relaxed her thighs and let him tickle her.

Then she turned over and sat up and looked at him. “Are you sick, Li?” she asked.

“No,” he said, and managed to laugh. “Of course I’m not,” he said.

“I never heard of such a thing,” she said. “‘Classify ourselves.’ How could we do it? How could we possibly know enough?”

“It’s just something I think about once in a while,” he said. “Not very often. In fact, hardly ever.”

“It’s such a—a funny idea,” she said. “It sounds—I don’t know—pre-U.”

“I won’t think about it any more,” he said, and raised his right hand, the bracelet slipping back. “Love of Family,” he said. “Come on, lie down and I’ll suck you.”

She lay back on the blanket, looking worried.

The next morning at five of ten Mary CZ called Chip and asked him to come see her.

“When?” he asked.

“Now,” she said.