His friend fidgeted, then grudgingly came out with it.
‘She entered this contest, and she did really well, but she didn’t actually win. So she got the consolation prize: a date with you.’
‘Consolation prize!’ Hal exclaimed, outraged. ‘Me?’
‘It’s not how it sounds. When she learned who you are, she was all for it. Eager, even. She—’
‘Forget it!’
‘But she’s such a great girl! She’ll be so disappointed if she can’t be with you. You’ll like her, I swear!’
‘Absolutely not. Get out of here.’
His friend sighed. He walked to a cloaked woman standing nearby.
‘I’m sorry, honey. He won’t go for it. No date.’
‘Darn!’ Veil said. She threw off her cloak and stalked away, naked. Hal stared after her, noting her hourglass figure and glorious tresses.
‘Just what was this contest?’
‘It was for the world’s most perfectly developed body,’ his friend said.
‘But she didn’t win. The judge’s niece won. So Veil was runner-up.’
‘I changed my mind,’ Hal said. ‘I’ll date her.’
But it was too late. The rejected woman was gone. Hal had lost his perfect date.
“Served him right,” Veil said, laughing. Then she paused, considering. “It’s really not that funny, but I did laugh. You must understand me on some level.”
“Well, woman like stories about arrogant men who lose out,” Micro said.
“We do indeed. Maybe you’ll do.”
“Because I told a story?” he asked incredulously.
Chance had finished nursing and gone back to sleep. She set him carefully back in the crib. It was time to fathom the rest of this man, so she could make her decision.
“Kiss me.”
“Uh—” She stood, leaned down toward him as he sat on the couch, and kissed him solidly on the mouth. He was clearly startled, but his lips firmed up; he did know how to kiss.
“How much sex would you require of me, for that year?”
“None! I mean, not if you didn’t want to.” She removed her farthingale skirt and sat on his lap, surprising him again.
She could feel his penis stiffening against her bottom.
“None?”
“It’s supposed to be mutual. Sure I want you, but if you don’t want me, then it’s no good.”
“How quaint.” She turned into him so that her breasts touched him, and kissed him again.
“But I am required to desire you, in effect.”
He was breathing hard. “You sure do turn me on. But I think you’re playing with me. Maybe you should let me go and choose the man you want.”
“Maybe I should,” she agreed.
“Why are you holding back?”
“Because I don’t trust this.”
Of course he knew she was playing with him.
“How do you mean?”
“Why should someone abduct you and your baby, put you here for men to compete for, and send word to me about my ideal woman? It smells like a trap.”
Her jaw dropped. She got off him and climbed back into her farthingale.
“It certainly does. You’re not the dullest bulb on that chandelier, either.”
“Middle range,” he agreed with a wan smile. “So maybe we should avoid the trap by not getting together, much as I hate letting you go.”
“No, I prefer to spring the trap and find out what this is all about.” She faced the TV. “I hereby choose this man to be my slavemaster for the year.”
“I’m not sure this is smart,” Micro said.
“You have chosen,” the TV announcer said. “Now for your honeymoon in Eden.” Veil was about to say something else, but there was a hiss of gas, and everything changed.
Part 3: Honeymoon
Chapter 15—Eden
Prior looked around. He was standing in a lush garden replete with flowers, berries, fruits, and nuts. Before him stood Veil, head still hidden in a blob of darkness but otherwise quite naked, holding her baby.
That remained a point of difficulty. He had never dreamed that his ideal woman, if she existed at all, would be a mother. That meant that some other man had had at her first, and there had been enough of a relationship to produce a child. Was that man still around? She acted as if she were free, but it was a question that needed an answer.
“The Garden of Eden,” Veil remarked. “It seems we are honeymooning as Adam and Eve.”
The TV set had spoken of Eden. Obviously this was it. They must have had to clear out the Tower to make room for the next week’s Maiden, who would be similarly put on display to attract contestants. He hadn’t realized that there would be an interim setting.
“I guess so. So we can get to know each other privately.”
“With our privates showing,” she agreed. She looked around.
“Well, I chose you, so now it’s time to deliver. Let me find a place to put Chance down, and I’m yours.”
“I told you, I don’t believe in slavery.”
But his penis thickened, desiring its lodging. He had intended to change to the Spire, but the immediate transition to the interview in the tower had prevented that. He still had Normal on, the nondescript standard model, while the Spire remained in his colon. That gave him considerably less control. Oubliette had told him to touch the Maiden with the Spire, to make her desire him; he hadn’t been able to do that, but had lucked out when she chose him anyway. But if she was really his ideal woman, he didn’t want to alienate her by making her a fucking object before she was interested.
“Are you sure?” she asked, glancing meaningfully at his lifting member.
“I wish I had a fig leaf!”
She laughed, and her breasts quivered in a way that hastened his erection.
“Let me see if I have this straight: your spirit is trying to be decent, but your flesh is rampant.”
“That’s it,” he agreed. He looked around. “Maybe there are some fig leafs, or the equivalent, that we can use to make skirts.” But he saw none.
“There are two ways to handle this,” Veil said. “Discharge your member, or ignore it.”
“I can’t ignore it.”
His way-too-obvious erection was an acute embarrassment, but it refused to subside.
“Then let’s discharge it.” She considered briefly. “I am not entirely ignorant of the ways of men, obviously.”
She glanced at her baby, who was now sleeping in a bed of leaves she had fashioned while talking. “A penis may be discharged by penetration or manipulation. Penetrable orifices are vagina, mouth, and anus.”
“Uh, no. I said not unless you want it.”
“Manipulation it is,” she said. She dropped to her knees before him, took his penis in her hand, and squeezed it. Before he knew it, his seed was jetting in an arc through the air, spurt by spurt. She had made it respond in a way he never had, knowing exactly where and how to press.
“You’ve done this before,” he said, amazed.
She shrugged as she returned to her feet.
“So it seems. Next time it rises, I will abate it another way, if you prefer. The choice is yours.”
“Uh, thanks,” he said, embarrassed. “But I will say that I appreciate your courtesy in not pressing the issue despite your right to do so.” His feelings were mixed. He was glad that she hadn’t freaked out at sight of his involuntary erection, sorry that she hadn’t wanted sex, glad that she had found a way to alleviate the condition, sorry that he had wasted his sperm on the ground, and glad that he had deviously pleased her. She was, it was turning out, some woman.
“I guess we’d better look around,” he said. “Find a way out of here, maybe.”