After Utopia

particularly up on the perversions.”

She said, “Do you want me to slip out of this nightgown?”

“Yes.”

She slipped out of the nightgown and he grabbed her again and she grabbed him again.

He said, apologetically, “Listen, I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to hold it very long the first time. I… well, like you said, it’s been a long time.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she said cheerfully. “I expected as much.”

Only moments later, she sighed and said, “Was that nice?”

“Nice isn’t exactly the word.”

“Oh, I told you I wasn’t particularly up on your idiom. What would the word be?”

“It’s not a matter of idiom,” he told her weakly. “Once again, as you said, it’s been a century, roughly.”

“Yes, of course,” she murmured. “You know, I’ve always particularly liked sex. Ever since I was fourteen and my sex instructor taught me the standard positions, I… ”

“The who?” he said.

“My sex instructor,” she said, and then, “Oh, let me see. They probably didn’t teach practical sex in your time, did they? I’ve read quite a few of the old novels. Everybody had to learn by themselves and rely on their instincts… like animals.”

“Wait a minute, now,” Tracy said. “You mean that you have teachers who teach you sex when you get to be fourteen years old?”

“Oh, I was quite mature at fourteen,” Betty said earnestly. “Father said he thought it quite all right for me to begin instruction. So I had my hymen surgically removed and—”

“Wait a minute now,” Tracy said again. “You mean that your father okayed having, well, you having sexual intercourse with a… a sex instructor, at the age of fourteen?”

She said, her voice very reasonable, “Yes, of course. I had already been menstruating for well over a year, and I was beginning to think more and more about it and wanting to have sex, so he decided that I’d better go ahead.”

“Sex instructor,” Tracy said in amazement. He tried to make a joke. “At least that’s one thing that’s not automated in this age. Now, there’s a job I might like to have.”

She seemed a bit surprised. “Well, why not then? When you’ve acclimated yourself a bit more and are completely physically recovered—it’s rather hard work—why not apply to the Sexual Education Department of the Medical Guild? There’s always a shortage of instructors. It’s not so bad with the women instructors, since a woman can handle a half dozen or more students concurrently, but most men are hard put to work with more than three girls at a time, particularly if they have a permanent or semipermanent relationship going on otherwise.”

He wasn’t sure he was getting all of this, or, at least, getting it correctly.

He said, “Look here. What kind of people apply for this kind of job?”

“Why, like any other job. Those who like the work. Those who are dedicated to it.”

“Wouldn’t anybody like that kind of work?” He was being sarcastic. However, he was also beginning to recover from his first and startling orgasm and becoming conscious of the curves of her body as she snuggled up to him.

She said, “Of course not. It’s considered to be quite an unselfish contribution to society and is a highly honored field. What could be more necessary than the sexual education of youth? But it’s a terrible drain on one. Can you imagine a girl volunteering and being mauled over, time and time again, by callow boys in their teens? And, for the first few weeks, and often months, they usually ejaculate prematurely and the poor instructor almost invariably is left dangling, aroused but unsatisfied. Oh, believe me, the sex instructor’s job is no great treat.”

He said cautiously, “I suppose that would apply to the women instructors… but the men, with all the teeny- boppers?”

“The what?”

“The young girls. Like you, when you were fourteen or so.”

She was surprised at what he had said. “Goodness, what man in his right mind would want to bother with an inexperienced child when he could spent his nights with an experienced woman? By the way, darling, you’re already growing firm again. This time… ”

Chapter Six

In the morning, when Betty and Tracy issued forth onto the terrace the two men were already there.

Betty had donned a pair of very brief shorts and wore nothing else, not even shoes. She looked sleepily satisfied, like a kitten that’s just been into the cream. She had shown Tracy how to go about ordering from the Tangier distribution center. It seemed that deliveries were made through some sort of vacuum chute and arrived practically immediately, deposited in the delivery box.

Previously either the academician or Edmonds had brought clothing to Tracy. Now he was in a sport shirt and kilts, very suited to the climate. On his feet were a comfortable pair of sandals that didn’t look as though they were of leather, though the material resembled it. They were obviously brand new but had no need to be broken in. Tracy wondered if they threw them away at the end of the day to be recycled.

At the appearance of the newcomers both of the men looked up, Stein somewhat startled. He said hurriedly,

“You haven’t been overdoing, have you Tracy Cogswell?”

Tracy thought inwardly, “Jesus Christ, here I’ve just spent the whole night with his daughter and the only thing he thinks of is my health.”

He said, “I’m fine.”

Betty said, “Oh, father, stop worrying about him. He’s as strong as a horse. I’ll go get breakfast.”

There was a slightly amused look on Jo Edmonds’ easy-going face. He said to Betty. “Learn any new techniques?”

“No,” she said flippantly over her shoulder. “Not yet, at least.”

With a rather ridiculous twinge of jealousy, Tracy realized that Betty’s bed was probably not an unknown to Jo Edmonds. He sat at the table and for a moment stared out over the straits.

He said, “You know, it occurs to me that I haven’t seen a ship since I arrived. In my day there was hardly a time when you couldn’t see at least a dozen in the straits at any given time. But it would seem to me that with all the increased production you’d have shipping all over the place.”

The academician shook his head and smiled. “No. As a matter of fact, we don’t have cargo ships any more. Oh, we’ve got pleasure ships, yachts, even windjammers, and luxury cruise ships for those who like travel on the sea, but no more cargo ships, and we have comparatively little transport across the oceans.”

As usual, Tracy was staring at him. He said, “That simply does’t make sense.”

“Yes it does. You see, in your day most shipping was of bulk objects such as oil and coal and quite a bit of wheat and other cereals. But with nuclear fusion, very little of the fossil fuels are utilized anymore. And most cereals are raised near where they are consumed.”

“But you have to have some intercontinental trade!” Tracy protested.

“Yes, certainly,” the other said. “But we don’t use ships, which were terribly inefficient. Suppose, for instance that a factory in your day in Switzerland wished to send some of its product to, say, Kansas City. It would put the product on a train and send it to a port on the Atlantic coast, where it would be unloaded and put on a ship. The ship would sail to New York and the product would be unloaded and placed on a train, or in trucks, and hauled to Kansas.”

“So how do you do it now?”

“With hover cargo craft. It is loaded at the factory in what you used to call Switzerland and proceeds to the Atlantic and takes to the water. It crosses the ocean and emerges onto the land and goes on out to the middle west and unloads at its destination. All automated, of course.”

“Of course,” Tracy said. He shook his head and changed subjects. “One thing I’ve got to do is learn the everyday way of doing things. The way things are now, if I left this house I’d probably starve to death.”