Stranger in a Strange Land

“Ben, you know how Mike is about clothes. He just doesn’t understand them. Or didn’t. I had to teach him everything. He couldn’t see any point to them as protection, until he grokked—to his great surprise—that we aren’t as invulnerable as he is. Modesty—that sort of ‘modesty’; he’s so modest in its true sense that it hurts—body-modesty isn’t a Martian concept, it couldn’t be. And only lately has Mike grokked clothes as ornaments, after we started experimenting with various ways to costume our acts.

“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!”