John Barth - Giles Goat-Boy

He took a drink from the flask, wiped his sooty face with the back of his hand, and returned the liquor to me. Then with a great belch he resumed his anecdote:

"You can imagine what a time we had training that little habit out of the dogs! If Stacey hadn't helped us taper 'em off — like narcotics in the Psych Clinic, you know? — the sons-of-bitches would've serviced every trustee's wife that took a tour of the Plant!" He shook his head in good-natured despair. "Then we had to taper Stacey off; 'Can't stand to hear the poor things whimper,' she used to say. No wonder the bitches don't like her!"

At last the lift-door opened, and I was moved with Stoker and two or three guards into the elevator — the first I'd seen. Other guards, I observed, had lifted the still-unconscious Croaker onto a large wheeled table, which now they rolled away; a second of the same kind was drawn up to the sidecar wherein G. Herrold lay.

"They shouldn't hate her, though," I said thoughtfully, referring to the watchdog-bitches. For obvious reasons, the story of Anastasia and the dogs did not affect me as it might an ordinary human. "Don't they understand she was only helping their mates?"

Stoker positively hugged me. At the same moment the lift began to rise. "She was! She was, George! Oh, wait till Sear meets you! We must tell Lucky Rexford's wife and all the others not to be so unreasonable: Stacey's only trying to help their poor husbands!"

"Your wife is very sweet that way," I said firmly. "Very generous."

"Oh my, yes!" Stoker roared. "Generous she is!"

I knew I was being baited, but the strong liquor, perhaps, made me not care. "I wonder if you really appreciate her," I insisted. "You think she does things for flunkèd reasons — at least you pretend to think so. But she doesn't. She didn't want Croaker to service her this evening; she was counting on you to rescue her in time. And you would have, if you'd seen how she trembled; she's not big enough for him! Yet she was willing to let it happen, to keep us out of danger…"

"Sheep!" Stoker's face now was red and scowling — the first time I'd ever seen him grinless — and his voice was rough. "She's a sheep, and Spielman's another! ' Baa, baa, take me to the slaughterhouse!' With their great silly lamb's eyes! 'Do what you want to us, we won't bite.' Made to be persecuted! Why don't they fight ?"

The elevator stopped; its door opened noiselessly onto a narrow passageway. Stoker glared at me; the others stood expressionless. I was as much roused as shaken by the outburst, and having abandoned Max, now rose to his defense.

"Max has his faults, Mr. Stoker, but he's no coward."

"He's a sheep!" The voice echoed down the corridor. No one moved to leave the elevator. "A Moishian sheep! 'Please cut my throat, sir!' "

"No. He's a great goatherd and a great scientist. And the best advisor any hero ever had."

Stoker glowered still, but his temper seemed regained. "I notice you don't take his advice, though. Mustn't confuse the sheep with the goats, eh?" His laugh now was easier — and still we lingered in the lift! "Advice or no advice, we bucks need our bit of nanny now and then, don't we!"

"You're not part goat too, are you, sir? You don't look like a goat."

"See here, George — " He stepped with me just into the hall and pointed to a closed door at its blind left end. "My wife's bedroom is right at the end there. She's waiting for you. Run along, now."

Much as the notion stirred me, I shook my head. "That's not why I stayed here. Besides, she's angry with me for some reason."

"Go on! That's because you said you didn't love her any more than you loved the other girls! Very tactless remark for a Grand Tutor! No, no, don't apologize — " I had only been going to protest. "I know you didn't mean to hurt the girl's feelings. But she's sensitive, you know? Among us human people, when a chap bites a girl in the belly he's supposed to follow through. Go down there now and tell her you're sorry, and give her an extra-good service to make up. That's what she's waiting for."

I smiled. "You don't understand…"

"I do! It's you that doesn't understand. The girl's in heat, for pity's sake!"

I considered his face seriously to guess whether he was joking. Human females, as I understood, had no particular rutting-season, and of course no tails to wag in the rousing manner of an amorous doe; I frankly hadn't realized there might be other signs and sessions, as unmistakable in studentdom as was a fine-flushed vulva in our herd between the autumnal and vernal equinoxes. The notion that Anastasia was in heat threw considerable light upon the psychology of her behavior, I had to admit, however obscure its morality remained. Nay, more, it seemed to me to render pointless both Stoker's change of willful concupiscence on her part and Anastasia's pleas of self-sacrifice with charitable intent, neither of which had impressed me as quite adequate to the case. I knew myself a kid in the tangled thicket of human morals; doubtless there were complications of which I was unaware; nevertheless I'd have very much liked to ask Max just then why the phenomenon of rutting (by its nature indiscriminate) was regarded as a neutral fact, even a merit, in the stockbarns, and a likely cause of flunkage in the campus proper. Granted even that eugenical considerations (or social ones, whereof I was but dimly aware) took moral form in studentdom, so that for some intricate reason it was undesirable for a woman to bear children by any sire except her husband: on what ground did the Founder object to "coveting thy classmate's wife" if one took the contraceptive precautions I had read of? Or to mating with desirable members of a different species (as Max with the goats and Anastasia with the watchdogs), or with partners of one's own sex, in any of which cases reproduction was precluded? I supposed there was more to the matter — my dream of Mary V. Appenzeller came to mind, with a flash of its mysterious, unreasonable shame — but what the More was, I could by no means see.

In any case, Stoker had said earlier that Anastasia never went into heat. Recalling this, I understood he was baiting me again, and resolved to give as good as I had got.

"Isn't a husband supposed to service his own wife?" I asked politely. "You claim you're not a gelding; are you impotent, the way Brickett Ranunculus was at the end?"

His face, always high-colored, darkened by a number of shades; his eyes turned fierce. "Impotent? Impotent?" I really thought he might assault me, and so clenched my stick to parry. But again his anger turned to heated mirth. "Oh my! Do you know who I am ? Do you know where you are ? Oh, my sakes!" He snatched up my arm and drew me back into the lift. " Impotent !" He pushed another button and burst into merry laughter. Moreover, as the lift began to rise he farted loudly, perhaps by way of preliminary demonstration of his potency. I helped myself to another sip of liquor and grinned, pleased to have got such a rise out of him, but I was ready enough to quit that compartment when the door reopened.

The room we now stepped into (our stone-faced companions remaining for some reason in the elevator) was low-ceilinged, brilliantly lit, and quiet. The walls were smooth and gleaming white, undecorated but for one large photograph of a smiling, handsome young man not familiar to me. The floor was laid with heavy carpeting. A dozen or more men, clean-shaved and sootless, stood intent before great dialed and buttoned consoles, upon which flickered sundry-colored lights; their uniforms, I noted, were immaculate and truly uniform, unlike the motley of the guards downstairs. One wall was a grating of heavy steel mesh, through which I saw a second room quite like ours, the only noticeable difference being in the cut and color of the attendants' garb: rhododendron-green on our side, rust-red on theirs. Other than a muffled click of switches and the whirr of tape-spools from a row of glass-front cabinets, the place was still. So much so, and so absorbed the dial-watchers, I was hushed upon entering — but Stoker belched as it were defiantly. And in vain, for no one so much as glanced his way.