Piers Anthony - Unicorn Point

“Every man does,” Deerie said, speaking the thought. “That is, a man doesn’t have to like or respect a woman, he just wants sex wherever he can find it.” Well said! Agape was getting along well with Deerie, or maybe it was the other way around.

“But I tike and respect you!” Handy protested.

“Sure you do, joker,” another woman said, noting the display. “That’s what you said to Jezebel last week, but then you cut her dead.”

What a break! Handy had a past, and now that was interfering with his present ploy. Tan’s ploy! How was he going to explain this?

He tried. “Jezebel was a cow compared to Deerie here. Deerie’s the one I really want.”

“My best friend—a cow?” the woman demanded. “Listen, jerk, I’ve got three quarters of a mind to take that rod of yours and bend it in half!”

“Like to see you try!” a muffled man’s voice came from somewhere. It seemed that the neighboring serfs were catching on to the sport.

“I had better get out of here before it gets embarrassing,” Agape said.

At this point, Deerie was glad to agree. She had been nattered and intrigued by Handy’s advance, and not at all dismayed by his erection, but she did not want to be a laughingstock. She made a quiet retreat, while Handy was occupied with the other woman.

Agape was relieved. She had survived the first advance. Now she just had to stay clear for the remainder of the period, and this fall would be hers. She couldn’t leave the Commons, but she could get involved in something else, so that Handy would have trouble approaching her.

“Let’s see, what do I usually do after I exercise?” she asked.

“I go to the pool and exercise some more,” Deerie answered herself.

Soon they were swimming. Her location was hardly unknown; it seemed that every woman in the Commons had heard about her episode with Handy the moment it happened. “Good going, girl!” one woman called as she swam by. “They think all they have to do is get it up, and any woman near will leap on!” And, surprisingly, even a few men were chuckling. They liked a good joke as well as the women did, so long as it was on someone else.

Thus it was that the time passed, and Deerie escaped her seduction. Agape had won the first fall! But now it was the second period, and the onus was on her. The Game Computer confirmed that Handy was the one she had to seek. Her actress had to seduce Tan’s actor, or lose the fall. This was the part she hated most. But she had to do it. She nerved herself, then began working on Deerie, who was sunning herself on the tanning beach. ‘ ‘I guess I wasn’t too nice to him. Maybe I should give him his settlement after all.”

Deerie, as it turned out, was amenable. She had been turned off the liaison because of the developing embarrassment, not because she disliked the notion. She got ‘up and went in search of Handy.

He was glumly having a drink. Intoxicants were forbidden to serfs, but the convention remained: a person was allowed to decrease inhibitions after imbibing. She sat down beside him. “Handy, I’m sorry,” she said.

“I shouldn’t have made it awkward for you this morning.” He looked at her. Agape could guess his thoughts. Citizen Tan wanted to curse her, but he was aware that because he had lost the first fall, he would need to win both remaining falls. If he won the second by driving her forever away, he would have no chance to seduce her in the third period. So he had to do it carefully, in such a way as to set up for his next turn. Meanwhile the actor. Handy, unaware of this back ground, should be quite ready to accommodate her. “These things happen,” he said. “I still think you’re a great-looking woman.”

Deerie was pleased. She of course did not know what lay behind this day’s contact. “Well, you did lose the bet, and I didn’t make you run. So if you want to work out your penalty the way you suggested—“ Now it seemed that Tan and Handy had a conflict. Citizen Tan had no intention of having sex, but serf Handy was obviously interested. He was starting another erection. He set aside his finished drink and went quickly to a couch, where he could sit without his condition showing as clearly. Agape wondered how this kind of game proceeded when the sex occurred in the first period. Didn’t that put the female at a disadvantage for the second period, because the male was spent? But she realized that this would be the least of problems; the Game Computer would simply arrange for a sexual restorative to be given, and the man’s interest would be at its normal level. It would also be possible to adapt a new set of actors.

“No, I don’t care to be embarrassed again,” Handy was saying. “You got me all excited before, and then you left me standing in a crowd with my tower on display! Everyone knew I’d been stood up and not laid down. I’m afraid you are only setting me up to do it again.”

“Oh, no. Handy, no!” Deerie protested, following him to the couch. “That was an accident! Once the other people came in, I had to go, because I didn’t like it that public. But we can go to a privacy booth right now and do it. I promise I’ll make it up to you!”

She was doing very well! Handy’s erection was growing; he really did want her. But Citizen Tan needed to break this up. “I’ll tell you what: let it go for now, and if you’re still interested in three hours, then I’ll know you mean it. Then I’ll do it.”

Nice ploy! In three hours it would be Tan’s onus again. “I don’t think I can wait,” Agape said. “He’s got me all excited.”

Indeed he had. Deerie was now fully committed to the encounter, and hardly needed Agape’s encouraging thoughts. “I can’t wait!” she said. She was standing beside the couch; she straightened her back and inhaled.

Handy’s face was a study, as he warred with the opposing voice in his mind. His body definitely wanted consummation, but the voice was telling him he wasn’t interested. Now was the time to strike. “I know he wants me,” Agape said. “But he is fearful of another scene like that of this morning. So I won’t wait; I will just climb up on him and do it!” Would this work?

It did. Deerie obeyed the thought without question. She practically threw herself on Handy, bearing him back lengthwise on the couch and coming down on top of him. Her mouth sought his for a hungry kiss as her groin rubbed against his.

But her lips found only mush in his. His erection was softening. He had been abruptly turned off! What had happened? “What’s the matter, honey?” Deerie asked, as upset as Agape, though perhaps for different reason. “Here we are all set to do it, and you’re leaving!”

“I remembered something,” he mumbled.

“My age!” she said, chargrined.

“No, not that! You’re a great woman! But I heard some where that your employer, he—”

“Citizen Tosme? All I do is massage his feet!”

“And more, when he asks.”

“Well, of course. But that’s universal; serfs are at the disposal of their Citizens. It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“But what I heard—you may not know this—is that be cause of this. Citizen Tosme has reserved you for himself. Anyone else who uses you will be gelded.”

“What?” Deerie was appalled. “That can’t be true! I’ve had numerous—”

“Within the last month?”

“Well, no, actually, I’ve been busy with my exercise schedule. But—”

“And no one has approached you,” he concluded. “Now we know why. I was foolish to—I mean, I just got carried away, and—“ Deerie was completely flustered, and Agape could not get through to her at all. The charge was surely a lie, that Handy would conveniently discover in three hours, but meanwhile he had the planet’s best excuse to avoid contact. Deerie her self was all too much afraid it was true; Citizens did that sort of thing when they chose. They did not like to share their sex objects with serfs. Tan had come up with a masterpiece of dissemblance that gave him the complete advantage for the moment.