“That is a foolish question. Who else would it be?”
“One keeps on hoping, Wan.” There was a pause, then Tiny Jim suddenly cackled, “Have I told you the one about the priest, the rabbi and the dervish who ran out of food on the planet made of pork?”
“I think you have, Tiny Jim, and anyway I don’t want to hear any jokes now.”
The invisible loudspeaker clicked and buzzed for a moment, and then the Dead Man said, “Same old thing, Wan? You want to talk about sex again?”
The boy kept his countenance impassive, but that familiar tingle inside his lower abdomen responded. “We might as well, Tiny Jim.”
“You’re a raunchy stud for your age, Wan,” the Dead Man offered; and then, “Tell you about the time I almost got busted for a sex offense? It was hot as hell. I was going home on the late train to Roselle Park, and this girl came in, sat across the aisle from me, put her feet up, and began to fan herself with her skirt.
Well, what would you do? I looked, you know. And she kept on doing it, and I kept looking, and finally around Highlands she complained to the conductor and he threw me off the train. Do you know what the funny thing was?”
Wan was rapt. “No, Tiny Jim,” he breathed.
“The funny thing was I’d missed my regular train. I had time to kill in the city, so I went to a porn flick. Two hours of, my God, every combination you could think of. The only way I could’ve seen more was with a proctoscope, so why was I slouching out over the aisle to peek at her little white panties? But you know what was funnier than that?”
“No, Tiny Jim.”
“She was right! I was staring, all right. I’d just been watching acres of crotches and boobs, but I couldn’t take my eyes off hers! That wasn’t the funniest thing, though. Do you want me to tell you the funniest thing of all?”
“Yes, please, Tiny Jim. I do.”
“Why, she got off the train with me! And took me to her home, boy, and we just made out over and over, all night long. Never did catch her name. What do you say to that, Wan?”
“I say, is that true, Tiny Jim?”
Pause. “Aw. No. You take all the fun out of things.”
Wan said severely, “I don’t want a made-up story, Tiny Jim. I want to learn facts.” Wan was angry, and thought of turning the Dead Man off to punish him, but was not sure whom he would be punishing. “I wish you would be nice, Tiny Jim,” he coaxed.
“Well-“ The bodiless mind clicked and whispered to itself for a moment, sorting through its conversational gambits. Then it said, “Do you want to know why mallard drakes rape their mates?”
“No!”
“I think you really do, though, Wan. It’s interesting. You can’t understand primate behavior unless you comprehend the whole spectrum of reproductive strategies. Even strange ones. Even the Acanthocephalan worms. They practice rape, too, and do you know what Moniliformis dubius does? They not only rape their females, they even rape competing males. With like plaster of Paris! So the poor Other Worm can’t get it up!”
“I don’t want to hear all this, Tiny Jim.”
“But it’s funny, Wan! That must be why they call him ‘dubius’!” The Dead Man was chuckling mechanically, a- heh! A-heh!
“Stop it, Tiny Jim!” But Wan was not just angry any more. He was hooked. It was his favorite subject, as Tiny Jim’s willingness to talk about it, at length and in variety, was what made him Wan’s favorite among the Dead Men. Wan unwrapped a food packet and, munching, said, “What I really want to hear is how to make out, Tiny Jim, please?”
If the Dead Man had had a face it would have shown the strain of trying to keep from laughing, but he said kindly, “‘Kay, sonny. I know you keep hoping. Let’s see, did I tell you to watch their eyes?”
“Yes, Tiny Jim. You said if their pupils dilate it means they are sexually aroused.”
“Right. And I mentioned the existence of the sexually dimorphic structures in the brain?”
“I don’t think I know what that means, exactly.”
“Well, I don’t, either, but it’s anatomically so. They’re different, Wan, inside and out.”
“Please, Tiny Jim, keep telling me about the differences!” The Dead Man did, and Wan listened absorbedly. There was always time to go to the ship, and Tiny Jim was unusually coherent. All of the Dead Men had their own special subjects that they zeroed in to talk about, as though each had been frozen with one big thought in his mind. But even on the favored topics you could not always expect them to make sense. Wan pushed the mobile unit that they used to catch him-when it was working-out of the way and sprawled on the floor, chin in hands, while the Dead Man chattered and reminisced and explained courtship, and gifting, and making your move.
It was fascinating, even though he had heard it before. He listened until the Dead Man slowed down, hesitated, and stopped. Then the boy said, to confirm a theory:
“Teach me, Tiny Jim. I read a book in which a male and a female copulated. He hit her on the head and copulated her while she was unconscious. That appears to me an efficient way to ‘love’, Tiny Jim, but in other stories it takes much longer. Why is this?”
“That was not love, sonny. That was what I was telling you about. Rape. Rape is a bad idea for people, even if it works for mallard ducks.”
Wan nodded and urged him on: “Why, Tiny Jim?”
Pause. “I will demonstrate it for you mathematically, Wan,” the Dead Man said at last. “Attractive sex objects may be defined as female, no more than five years younger than you are, no more than fifteen years older. These figures are normalized to your present age, and are also only approximate. Attractive sex objects may further be
