“Some of them.” I answered, looking away from him. “Having children is out of fashion these days, for the most part. People are too busy to be bothered with children.”
“I see,” he said quietly—and somehow I felt that he did see—and then changed subjects again. “Where are these reals kept and how does one use them?”
“You experience them, not use them!” I snapped, annoyed again by his superior manner. “And I don’t know if you would be capable of experiencing them. Your mind may not be able to make the adjustment.”
“We will soon know,” he said, rising to his feet. “Take me there.”
He stood there tall and strong, already having given his orders, now waiting only to be obeyed. Familiar fury rose in me, but I didn’t let any of it show.
“If that’s what you want,” I said, “that’s what you’ll get.” I finished my wine in a swallow, then led the way without objection to a slidewalk. The idea must have been growing in me for some time, as there was no need to stop and think it out. Unhesitatingly, I chose the slidewalk that would take us to Bend Five.
There was a different greeter at the door of the house, and that made matters considerably easier. I requested private accommodations, handed over a block of Earning Pluses, then followed the guide to the room. By thanking the guide quickly and closing the door in his face, I avoided any extraneous comments about who should sit where. Tammad looked about at the almost bare room and was not impressed.
“The couches are not comfortably wide enough for two,” be observed. “There is little else to be done here.”
“Appearances can be deceiving.” I remarked with a small smile. “Take the couch on the right.”
He stretched out carelessly on the couch, supremely confident that there was nothing there that could touch him or harm him; I lifted the headset of contacts and handed it to him.
“Place that on your head just as I gave it to you.” I directed, picking up the other headset and sitting down with it. As soon as it’s on, close your eyes.”
He glanced at the contacts, still suspecting nothing, then reached up to position them. I quickly separated out two of the contacts from my own headset and placed them to my head.
Although the real sprang immediately into my mind, I could still see Tammad on his couch. I had no intention of submerging myself in a man’s role, and I wanted to see the barbarian’s reactions. He lay on the couch, much too large for it, and frowned.
In my mind, I watched from the anonymity of the giant trees as the big, blonde girl looked around hesitantly in the clearing. I knew myself to be bigger yet, big and male and all-powerful, and I knew that the helpless female soon would be mine. Although I was not fully experiencing the real, the compulsion of it was almost overpowering.
The blonde female turned to go back to the strange thing she had emerged from, and I moved quickly to head her off. She looked around as she hurried, and I was able to put myself directly in her path before she saw me. She stopped abruptly with a scream, covering her mouth with her hand, and looked up into my eyes. She recoiled from what she saw there, cringing back, but I didn’t wait any longer. I threw her immediately to the ground, shoved her over onto her face, then tied her wrists tightly behind her.
Tammad moved slightly on his couch, a deep frown on his face, flexing fists. He would be experiencing the helplessness and terror of a small female subjected to the brutality of a much larger male. He would know the reality of it, and later he would know the shame.
The blonde female screamed and cried out in an unknown tongue, but it made little difference. She was mine now, and I lifted her struggling but negligible weight to my shoulder, then returned to the home-forest. The presence of the great trees comforted me, telling me that I, too, was undefeatable and eternal. I found my way easily to the tree that sheltered me, then climbed to my limb in the usual manner.
My trunk dwelling was a welcome sight, and I put the female in a far corner of it. She had stopped screaming, but looked about herself in great fear. She was very beautiful, and her beauty drove me to hunger for her. I went again to the outer limb to pull up my vine and coil it, then returned to my blonde female. She gasped and quivered at the sight of me, and I knew a moment of curiosity
“From which tree do you come?” I demanded of her. “Are there other such females in your tribe?”
She responded in a low, fear-filled voice, but spoke nothing I could understand. Anger touched me then, and I struck her, taking her by the hair to force her to face me.
“From which tree do you come?” I demanded again. “What of the other females in your tribe?”
She screamed out in the tongue I didn’t know, and I could smell the fear on her. She was worthless to tell me what I wished to know, but she had other worth. I released her hair and turned my attention to her covering, but could not discover the opening of it. Impatiently, I tore it from her, and she lay before me, the swell of her breasts, the turn of her hip, all calling to me and heating my blood.
As from a distance, I heard her unknown words again, but cared nothing for them. Her body was mine to conquer and use, mine to pleasure in, mine to do with as I wished. She tried feebly to resist me, but her resistance was as nothing. I vented my need upon her and forced her to my pleasure.
I gripped the edges of the couch with tightened fingers, watching Tammad. His expression was hopeless and wild, and he writhed as if to escape from some unbearable sensation. I knew what he was feeling and I was glad he felt it, glad that the mighty barbarian had been reduced to a whimpering pleasure toy. I withdrew most of myself from the real and watched Tammad writhe.
When the brutal assault was complete, I removed the contacts from both of us. I had accomplished my aim, and had no intentions of burning either of us out. It’s possible to switch sexes in reals, but it isn’t recommended. It produces an unnatural strain that I’d never understood until right then. I felt drained in some strange, undefined way, and I didn’t like the lingering effects in my mind. I had no normal desire to rape anyone, and the residual urge toward it was very unsettling.
In a number of minutes Tammad opened his eyes, but they weren’t focused. He groaned as if he still felt the pain of his taking within him, and I wondered how it had seemed to him. I’d had sex with men before him, and for me the difference was one of intensity and volition. For him, it was an entirely alien experience, a true virgin rape. What would it do to a man to be taken like a woman?
I was beginning to think about Rathmore Hellman’s displeasure when Tammad sat up and shook himself. He got unsteadily to his feet and shook his head again, as if to clear away the aftereffects of a nightmare, but when I looked up into his eyes, I could see that he wasn’t entirely returned. I didn’t relish the thought of taking him back to my speedster across the slidewalks, so I called for a guide, told him that my friend had taken suddenly ill, and asked for an emergency lift to my parking building.
The operator of the emergency lift helped me get Tammad settled in my speedster, and I flew directly back to my house. The greeter and guide at the real house had stared at us suspiciously as we’d left, but they could hardly ask any questions. They let us leave unmolested, and were probably hoping that nothing would come of the incident.
I rolled my speedster into the hangar, wondering how I was to get the barbarian into my house. Without the help of the lift operator, I never would have gotten the giant into my speedster to begin with. I turned the engine off, and only then noticed the three men standing near the door to my house. Two of them came forward immediately, entered the speedster, and went to the barbarian. I left the speedster to them and went to face the third man, a coldly furious Murdock McKenzie.