"I want to," she said, "because that's what You want…"
"Then stop beating around the bush. What is it you can't tell me?"
She looked at me, stricken. "I love You, George!"
I sat up. Her eyes brimmed over again.
"I don't understand it any more than You do; we hardly know each other…"
"What do you mean, love?" I demanded, much unsettled. She asked me shamefacèdly what I had meant when I'd said I loved her. "I don't know!" I cried. "The words just came out. I don't even know what it means!" She began to weep. I apologized for hurting her feelings again — but, flunk it all, I was alarmed, dismayed, I could not myself have said why; titillated of course, and flattered, certainly flattered — but equally appalled, oddly frightened, and for some reason cross. "In the herd, it means being in heat. For anybody. Everybody."
She whipped her head from side to side.
"Don't you really mean you're just convinced I'm the Grand Tutor?" I asked gruffly. "You loved Bray, too…"
"No!" It was true she had once believed in Harold Bray's Grand-Tutorship as well as mine, she said indignantly, and that now she believed in me exclusively, whether I did or not; but she had never loved Bray, only honored and obeyed him, and her love for me had nothing to do with her acknowledgment of my Tutorhood. In fact, the two sentiments were at cross-purposes: "I want to do what You tell me to, much as I hate the idea of other men," she said, "because You're the Grand Tutor, and what You say must be right. But the reason why I hate the idea is that I love You, George!" She looked at me straight, and took a breath. "I want You to make love to me!"
I strode about the Treatment Room, greatly excited.
"You told me to assert myself," she said.
"I know! I know!"
"I want to do what we did in the Living Room!" she cried. "You shouldn't just say 'I know, I know'!"
"I understand, Anastasia. The trouble is — "
"You think I'm a — floozy!" she exclaimed.
"No, no, no." I could not myself say why her profession of love, so gratifying to my vanity and destructive of my composure, did not also infuse me with desire.
"Service me!" Covered with shame and desperation she took the position she'd once assumed in the Powerhouse. "Don't make me beg You!"
"Please, you don't understand." Nervously I stroked her cleft with the tips of my fingers. But roused as I was, at last, by the dainties thereabouts and her pretty sounds when I touched them, my mind grew clearer. I nuzzled her in the way of the friendly goats; but I would not mount her, I declared, love or no love, until she'd carried out my new directive. She kissed my mouth.
"Can't I start with You?"
Though her heat was real, taking the initiative was plainly an effort for her, and her attempts to provoke my ardor rather cooled than fired it.
"I do want to know you carnally too," I said, "but not until you've serviced your husband and Bray, at least…"
"I don't want them." On her knees upon the cushion now, she would assert herself further, draw my face into her bosom, offer her navel to my nose — all which I craved, detumescent as I was. Speaking with difficulty into her lower abdomen, I declared that that was exactly why we would not mate until she'd fulfilled her Assignment and made good the pledge that freed me.
"But even then you shouldn't love me the way you mean," I added. "If by some chance I turn out to be a Grand Tutor, I doubt if I ought to have a particular mistress, especially someone else's wife. And if I'm not — I won't be here to love." The idea disclosed itself to me in an instant, fullblown; I took my gold beard from her darling dark and addressed her gravely: "I left Main Detention for two reasons, Anastasia: to correct the mistakes I made last spring, and to flunk WESCAC. That's why I'm here — to Overcome My Infirmity and See Through My Ladyship. In a little while I'm going to find Harold Bray and go down to the Belly with him, without any mask on, and if WESCAC doesn't EAT me first, I'm going to destroy it."
She had started to protest; then she listened, her face stricken as when she'd said she loved me. At the end she drew her uniform together and kissed me chastely on the brow.
"Excuse me for acting so crazy, George," she said. "You see how hard it is for me to be aggressive." She sat down and smoothed her skirt. "If You get EATen, I'll get EATen too. I'm going with You."
"No."
She smiled firmly. "Yes I am. If I can't be Your sweetheart, I'll pass and be Your first protégée. You promised me that."
At once now I was inflamed with desire, by her return to demureness more than by her words, which were troubling enough. Now she didn't press it on me, the idea that I was loved stirred me to the bowels with warm amazement. To keep her from WESCAC's Belly was one thing; could I keep her from my heart as well? What in Founder's name was this thing from Sub-Departments of Sentimental Literature, this love? I was baffled, and felt now towards myself the same queer strangership I'd felt towards Anastasia, and erst towards Max: a loveless, gingerly, wrinkle-nosed curiosity.
"Is there something else You need to do with me for Your Assignment-task?" she asked determinedly. "Or shall I go home and service Maurice right now?" Her mind was made up, I saw, and my backbone tickled. My voice would not come; I shook my head. Her eyes shone with a kind of passionate reservation; she was mine, they said, in all particulars save one: I could not will her out of love.
"What else is there to learn about me, then?" she asked herself brightly, for my benefit. "You know my history, and how I feel about things. I know what!" She jumped up and rummaged through a filing-cabinet. "I can show You my medical records and my psychological profile! My academic transcript's on file in Tower Hall, of course; I'll send for a photocopy. Let me think…"
"Anastasia — " My voice was thick. She turned from the file.
"It's not — I don't want just information." She ignored my emotion and pretended to consider deeply. "Let's see, then: See Through Your Ladyship." She snapped her fingers. "The fluoroscope!"
I waved my hand, but she turned switches and stepped behind the ground-glass screen. Within the supple shadows of her flesh I saw dark bones and dusky organs.
"I'm not anything to love," I found myself saying. "I don't even know what I am…"
"This is my duodenum," she said crisply, as if lecturing, and pointed with a finger-bone. "These are my right and left kidneys here, and down here somewhere You may be able to see my ovaries. Come closer if You can't."
"Stop, Anastasia."
"I want You to see everything, George. It's all Yours." She turned sideways; despite my odd anguish I gazed fascinated at her innards. "I'm asserting myself," she reminded me. "Hold on: I'll use a light the way Heddy used to; You can see right through to it. Is that flunkèd enough?" There was no sarcasm in her tone, only lovingest resolve.
"Please, Anastasia!"
She applied to herself despite my murmurs an illuminated Lucite rod.
"Do you want to work it? Kennard likes to…"
"I'm not Kennard!" I cried. I took her hand and put an end to the illumination. "I'm not anybody!"