and most repulsive things she had ever done in her life, but it all seemed changed now. Why?
She had some of the littler boys and girls trapped in a closet with her, and she was doing things to them. It hadn't originally been her idea; other generations of older bullies had started Obey Cadre long before she came on the scene, but she was the best at it. She controlled them all, bent them to her forming will with exquisite precision. Sometimes she liked to whip them with her belt, listen to them squeal, but that wasn't all.
She made them disrobe and lie on the floor. She grinned asshe took down her warm, quilted trousers and laid them carefully to one side. Had she been a Caucasian, she would have had the silken beginnings of pubic hair by now, but she was Chinese and it had yet to begin. Her covering would always remain sparse.
She squatted over little An-qing, chuckling as evilly as she could manage, trying to make the play-acting part of it as real as possible. He stared, horrified, for a moment, and then squeezed his eyes shut, as if able to anticipate what was about to happen to him. She began to urinate in his face and he spluttered, trying to turn away from the thin, hot stream.
She giggled at him. Yes, this was more like it! Maybe I can pee up his nose, she thought. She took her penis in hand, trying to direct it a little higher and . . .
The world froze suddenly, becoming crystalline and still, the very atoms pausing in the courses. She and the boy became a tableau, two inanimate beings connected by a bright stream of urine that had glittered in the dim light, still shone of its own accord.
Her penis?
Had she been able to, Li-jiangwould have screamed and, screaming, have carried the terror to the Jana who lay in her vast, roving future.
What was going on here? Something alien had entered into her dying dreams. The visions of what had been were somehow altered, as if some strange change were being thrust upon her. She felt resentment at the fact that these last fleeting moments of consciousness were being spoiled, then remorse at this perception of the way she had been. How did I suddenly turn into a boy? she wondered and . . .
Li-jiang was thirteen. This memory was the one that she cherished the most, the thing she recalled when she wanted to feel warm and wonderful, to feel the things that had put her life on so special a course.
She stood above the high plateau, sequestered among the jagged peaks that had once known only the wanderings of barbaric tribes and mad, mountaineering Englishmen, the mountains that were now filled with bold, sad Chinese. Shewas out on a school expedition, left alone in the summery hills above Lhasa and its temples. It was a test, to see if she were made of the stern stuff that the Enclave required. She would be coming of age soon, she knew with a shudder of disgust, and the Eugenics Council would want to know if she had anything worth passing on to the generations of unborn. The stars lay above her in glorious polar array, millions of them, it seemed, all nameless and wonderful, sparkling like diamonds in a field of black felt. She watched them and they made her feel good. They seemed untouchable, remote, far from the defiling things of mankind that made the world such a hard thing to bear.
Her eyes followed the patterns that they made as her mind carried her toward gentle sleep. The patterns made pictures in the sky, she knew, but she hadn't learned them yet, in fact, didn't really want to. It was enough that the stars were there for her on nights like these.
She followed the lines, tracing out constellations of her own devising against the night, growing muzzy and vague as tiredness overcame her. Her vision focused on a big, bright V shape in the sky. It seemed like a restful shape, but hard and angular. They drifted away to another place nearby. Li-jiang gasped and came fully awake with a start. Why . . . What was that one? It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen! It was a little grouping of bright jewels off to one side of the V, a cluster of tiny stars that seemed to be embedded in a dim, fiery haze. I wonder what it's really called? she wondered. When I get home I'll have to find out. It held her enraptured for half the night. She wanted to stay up longer and watch the little asterism fade, but sleepiness overwhelmed her at last, carrying her off into a dreamless land where nothing could ever intrude. Her last waking thought was, I'll really have to find out what they call it ...
Li-jiang was fifteen and going to be with a man, truly, for the first time in her life. She was terrified and disgusted with herself for doing it, yet pathetically anxious to please him. He was Deng-yuan, a boy from the Astronomy Club, tall and very handsome, with pale skin, the blackest of hair, and the nicest,deepest eyes she had ever seen. He was always kind and spoke to her as if to an equal, though he was two years older and a world of experience wiser. She knew he was trying to be gentle with her, but it still hurt. He stroked at her for the longest time, breathing quietly on the side of her face, waiting for her to be ready, but somehow she never was. He kissed her from time to time and whispered sweet delicatenesses into her ear. He licked into it and let his hot breath flow after the moisture, thinking to excite her in a traditional manner.
This is supposed to be nice, she thought. What's wrong with me?
Suddenly he was on top of her, pulling aside clothing, inside of her, heaving massively away, his breath rasping thickly over her face, his huge maleness tearing away at her delicate insides. She caught her breath and started the scream that she remembered would send him leaping off her in horror, would send him fleeing into the night, never to see her again, but it never happened. Suddenly, the young man was enveloped in an angelic halo of supernatural beauty. He was a gorgeous man, something she had always appreciated. She felt her insides melt with unknown passion, become fluid for him, and she felt him relax into her, spending his effort with a small, delightful cry of pleasure. His orgasm swept her away and she began too, a pulse of delight reaching out to tingle in her fingertips and bring a flush of heat to her cheeks.
It was a wonderful experience, the first of many that she longed to enjoy. . . .
