I wiped my face. ‘I think I’ve got the idea.’
But I pushed him then, a couple of times, quickly, and he fell back. He was flushed with fury. For a moment, I thought we’d be wrestling. We’d have enjoyed that. But before he could react, I’d dropped my hands and was laughing, so the argument was whether he’d lose his temper or not.
He managed not to, distracting himself by opening a cabinet within which there was a monitor. He switched it on and flicked to a channel showing the orgy room. I spotted Alicia dancing alone, naked. She looked freer than I had seen her before.
‘Want this on? Or would you prefer to slip into someone comfortable — when I’ve finished with you?’
‘Neither.’
‘Nor me,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s ever new for people like us. It takes a lot to turn us on — if anything does at all.’
‘What else is there? Why have we done this?’
‘But there is something left. You don’t know?’
‘Not unless you go to the trouble of telling me,’ I said.
‘Murder. It is the deepest, loveliest thing. You haven’t tried it yet?’ I shook my head. ‘One must experience everything once, don’t you think?’
I said, ‘No one’s ever hit me like that.’
‘Shame.’
‘Why did you do it?’
He touched my neck, chest and stomach. ‘I considered that body for myself, but wanted something a bit wider and more chunky. I’m surprised it hung around there for so long. Still, they did have an excellent choice of new facilities. It would have looked good on me. It doesn’t look bad on you. How does it feel?’
I moved my limbs a bit. ‘Fine — until you attacked me.’
‘How long have you had it?’
‘Not even three months.’
‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’
‘I’ll survive,’ I said. ‘I’m just a little annoyed. Thanks for the concern.’
‘It was your body I was thinking of, rather than you. Hey, what d’you think of my body?’ Without waiting for a reply, he removed his shirt. ‘Sometimes, all you want is to be able to look in the mirror without disgust.’ I nodded approvingly, but, obviously, not approvingly enough. ‘What about this?’ he said. He was showing me his penis, even slapping it against his leg with obscene pride. ‘It just goes on and on.’
‘Incomparable.’
‘That’s what they all say. How are my buns?’
‘Jesus. With those you could be your own hotdog.’
‘I’ve been in this body for three years. You get used to bodies, and the person you become in them. As with jeans, Newbodies are better the more they’re worn in. You forget you’re in them.’ He pulled at his stomach. ‘Look at that: I’m increasing here, but I don’t want to be perfect. I figured out that perfection makes people crazy, or feel inferior.’
‘Whereas’, I said, ‘it’s one’s weaknesses that people want to know?’
‘Maybe,’ he said. ‘No one ever gets rid of those. I think I’ll do another ten years — or even longer, if things go well — in this facility before moving on to something fitter.’ He filled his glass once more and held it out. ‘To us — pioneers of the new frontier!’
‘We have a secret in common,’ I said, ‘you and me. Do you get to discuss it much with others?’
‘They do talk about it, “the newies”. But I want to live, not chatter. I love being a funky dirty young man. I love pouting my sexy lips and being outstanding at tennis. My serve could knock your face off! You should have seen me before. I’ve got the photographs somewhere. What’s the point of being rich if you’re lopsided and have a harelip? It was a joke, a mistake that I came out alive like that! This is the real me!’
‘What I miss,’ I said, ‘is giving people the pleasure of knowing about me.’
He was unstoppable. ‘Soon everyone’ll be talking ’bout this. There’ll be a new class, an elite, a superclass of superbodies. Then there’ll be shops where you go to buy the body you want. I’ll open one myself with real bodies rather than mannequins in the window. Bingo! Who d’you want to be today!’
I said, ‘If the idea of death itself is dying, all the meanings, the values of Western civilisation since the Greeks, have changed. We seem to have replaced ethics with aesthetics.’
‘Bring on the new meanings! You’re a conservative, then.’
‘I didn’t think so. I guess I don’t know what or who I am. It’s always uplifting, though, to meet a hedonist — someone relieved of the tiring standards which hold the rest of us back from the eternal party.’
‘You still think I’m just a playboy, do you? Look at those books!’ He pointed at a shelf. ‘I’m taking those in! Euripides, Goethe, Nietzsche. I’m dealing with the deepest imponderables. You know what happened to me? I was seventy-five years old. My wife leaves me — not for some virile fucker, but to become a Buddhist. She prefers old fat stomach to me! Some other cultures go for different body shapes, you know.’ He went on, ‘Mostly, my children don’t bother with me. They’re too busy with drugs! My friends are dead. I can buy women, but they don’t desire me. I didn’t just work all my life, I fought and scrambled and dug into the rock surface of the world with my fuckin’ fingernails! I lost it all and I was dying and I was depressed. You think I wanted to check out in that state?’
‘It sounds hard to say it, but that’s a life, I guess. It’s the failures, the hopeless digressions, the mistakes, the waste, which add up to a lived life.’
If he’d been in a pub, he’d have spat on the floor. ‘You’re only an intellectual,’ he said. ‘I deserved a better final curtain. I bought one! I can tell you, I’m doing some other pretty worthwhile things. Let’s hear from you now. What are you doing with your new time?’
‘Me? I’m only a menial at the Centre.’
He made a face. ‘You’re going to keep doing that?’
‘I’m definitely not doing anything worthwhile. In fact, I can’t tell you what a relief it is to have had a career rather than having to make one. Now, I’m going to enjoy my six months.’
‘You’re really going back into your slack old body suit?’
‘This is an experiment. I wanted to find out what this would be like. But I’m still afraid of anything too … unnatural.’
He had been pacing about. Now he sat down opposite me. His tone was more than businesslike; he was firm, but not quite threatening, though it seemed he could become so.
He said, ‘You can sell that one, then.’
‘Sell what?’
‘That body.’
‘Sell it?’
‘Yeah, to me. I’ll pay you well. You will make a substantial profit which you and your family can live on for the rest of your God-given life.’
‘What about my old body?’
‘I’ll get that back for you. No problem. An old body sack is about as valuable as a used condom.’ He was looking at me passionately. ‘It’s a good deal. What do you say?’
‘I’m puzzled. You’ve got the money. Go and buy one. I went to a place, a kind of small hospital. I’m sure you did the same.’
‘I did. You think those places are easy to find? It’s not that simple any more.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You were either well connected or lucky,’ he said. He was drumming his fingers. ‘Things have changed already.’
‘In what way?’ He didn’t want to say. ‘To put it objectively,’ I went on, ‘if people want bodies so badly, they could eliminate someone. Unlike you, I’m not recommending it, only suggesting what seems obvious. This isn’t the only desirable body around.’