'But, Ben, while Mike was always willing to do what I told him to, whether he grokked it or not, you can't imagine how many million little things there are to being a human being. We take twenty or thirty years to learn them; Mike had to learn them almost overnight. There are gaps, even now. He does things not knowing that isn't how a human does them. We all teach him - Dawn and I especially. All but Patty, who is sure that anything that Michael does must be perfect. But he's still grokking the nature of clothes. He's groks mostly that they're a wrongness that keeps people apart - and get in the way of letting love cause them to grow closer. Lately he's come to realize that part of the time you want and need, such a barrier - with outsiders. But for a long time Mike wore clothes only because I told him to and when I told him he must.
'And I missed a gap.'
'We were down in Baja California; it was just at the time we met - or remet, actually - Dawn. Mike and I checked in at night at one of those big fancy beach hotels and he was so anxious to grok the ocean, get wet all over, that he let me sleep the next morning and went down by himself for his first encounter with the ocean. And I didn't realize that Mike didn't know about swim suits. Oh, he may have seen them? but he didn't know what they were for or had some mixed-up idea. He certainly didn't know that you were supposed to wear them in the water - the idea was almost sacrilege. And you know Jubal's rigid rules about keeping his pool clean - I'm sure it's never seen a suit. I do remember one night a lot of people got tossed in with all their clothes on, but it was when Jubal was going to have it drained right away anyhow.
'Poor Mike! He got down to the beach and threw off his robe and headed for the water? looking like a Greek god and just as unaware of local conventions - and then the riot Started and I came awake fast and grabbed some clothes myself and got down there just in time to keep him out of jail? and fetched him back to the room and he spent the rest of the day in a trance.'
Jill got a momentary faraway look. 'And he needs me now, too, so I must run along. Kiss me good-night, Ben; I'll see you in the morning.'
'You'll be gone all night?'
'Probably. It's a fairly big transition class and, truthfully, Mike has just been keeping them busy the past half hour and more while we visited. But that's all right.' She stood up, pulled him gently to his feet and went into his arms.
Presently she broke from the kiss but not from his arms and murmured, 'Ben darling, you've been taking lessons. Whew!'
'Me? I've been utterly faithful to you - in my own way.'
'In the same way I've been to you? the nicest way. I wasn't complaining? I just think Dorcas has been helping you to practice kissing.'
'Some, maybe. Nosy.'
'Uh huh, I'm always nosy. The class can wait while you kiss me once more. I'll try to be Dorcas.'
'You be yourself.'
'I would be, anyway. Self. But Mike says that Dorcas kisses more thoroughly - 'groks a kiss more' - than anyone.'
'Quit chattering.'
She did, for a while, then sighed. 'Transition class, here I come - glowing like a lightning bug. Take good care of him, Dawn.'
'I will.'
'And better kiss him right away and see what I mean!'
'I intend to.'
''Bye, darlings! Ben, you be a good boy and do what Dawn tells You.' She left, not hurrying - but running.
Dawn stood up, flowed up against him, put up her arms.
Jubal cocked an eyebrow. 'And now I suppose you are going to tell me that at that point, you went chicken.'
'Uh, not exactly. A near miss, call it. To tell the truth I didn't have too much to say about it. I, uh, 'cooperated with the inevitable.''
Jubal nodded. 'No other possible course. You were trapped and couldn't run. Whereupon the best a man can do is try for a negotiated peace.' He added, 'But I'm sorry that the civilized habits of my household caused the boy to fall afoul the law of the jungles of Baja California.'
'I don't think he's a boy any longer, Jubal.'
XXXII
BEN CAXTON HAD AWAKENED not knowing where he was nor what time it was. It was dark around him, perfectly quiet, he was lying on something soft. Not a bed - where was he?
The night came back in a rush. The last he clearly remembered he had been lying on the soft floor of the Innermost Temple, talking quietly and intimately with Dawn. She had taken him there, they had immersed, shared water, grown closer - frantically he reached around him in the dark, found nothing.
'Dawn!'
Light swelled softly to a gentle dimness. 'Here, Ben.'
'Oh! I thought you had gone!'
'I didn't intend to wake you.' She was wearing - to his sudden and intense disappointment - her robe of office. 'I must go start the Sunrisers' Outer Service. Gillian isn't back yet. As you know, it was a fairly big class.'
Her words brought back to him things she had told him last night things which, at the time, had upset him despite her gentle and quite logical explanations? and she had soothed his upset until he found himself agreeing with her. He still was not quite straight in his mind he didn't grok it all - but, yes, Jill was probably still busy with her rites as high priestess - a task, or perhaps a happy duty, that Dawn had offered to take for her. Ben felt a twinge that he really should have been sorry that Jill had refused, had insisted that Dawn get much needed rest.
But he did not feel sorry. 'Dawn? do you have to leave?' He scrambled to his feet, put his arms around her.
'I must go, Ben dear? dear Ben.' She melted up against him.
'Right now? In such a rush?'
'There is never,' she said softly, 'that much hurry.' Suddenly the robe no longer kept them apart. He was too bemused to wonder what had become of it.
He woke up a second time, found that the 'little nest' he was in lighted softly when he stood up. He stretched, discovered that he felt wonderful, then looked around the room for his shorts. They were not in sight and no way for them to be out of sight. He tried to recall where he had left them? and had no recollection of ever having taken them off. But he certainly had not worn them into the water. Probably beside the pool in the Innermost Temple - he made a mental note to stop back there and pick them up, then went out and found a bathroom.
Some minutes later, shaved, showered, and refreshed, he did remember to look into the Innermost Temple, failed to find his shorts and decided that somebody, Patty maybe, had noticed them and put them near the outer door where apparently everybody kept what they needed for street wear? said to hell with it and grinned at himself for having made such a jittery old-maid issue last night out of wearing them or not. He needed them, here in the Nest, the way he needed a second head.
Come to think of it, he didn't have the slightest trace of a head - a hangover head - although he recalled that he had had more than several drinks with Dawn. Hadn't got drunk, as he recalled, but certainly more than he ordinarily allowed himself - he couldn't sop up the stuff the way Jubal did without paying for it.
Dawn didn't seem to be affected by liquor at all - which was probably why he had gone over his usual quota. Dawn? what a gal, what a gal! She hadn't even seemed annoyed when, in a moment of emotional confusion, he had called her Jill - she had seemed pleased.
He found no one in the big room and wondered what time it was? Not that he gave a damn, except that his stomach told him that it was long past breakfast time. He went into the kitchen to see what he could scrounge.
A man in there looked up as he came in. 'Ben!'
'Well! Hi, Duke!'
Duke gave him a bear hug and slapped him on the back. 'Ben, you're a sight for sore eyes! Gosh, it's good to
