Unicorn Point

The numbers appeared: 21.

“And are you sure she’s thirty?”

YES.

He sighed. “Well, I’m hung for it.” He looked at her again.  “Damn, you sure don’t look it! Are you sure I can’t talk you into my kind of exercise instead?”

Deerie, highly flattered and intrigued, was tempted.

“Well-“

“Oh, thank you, you lovely creature!” he exclaimed. He was obviously sincere; he was getting an erection.  Suddenly Agape suffered a shock of suspicion. The first man had desisted immediately, while this one was intent on seduction. His every word was calculated flattery! Was this Tan’s actor?

She couldn’t gamble that he was not. She realized that the fact that Deerie knew him meant nothing; Tan could have chosen him partly for that reason. And Agape had almost been deceived—if that was the case.

“Too fast!” she said. “I really don’t know him that well.  I’d better hold him off a while, just to be sure.” Because Agape realized that a direct negation might not take, at this point; Deerie’s panels were glowing, and among them LUST was gaining brightness. With a man, that one would be the first to glow, while with a woman it might be the last, but it could be very strong in its time, as Agape herself knew. She was not human, but she had emulated a human female for some time, studying the nuances, and when she had learned about sex she had discovered its compulsive component. How she wanted to be with Bane right now! But she was about to lose the fall, unless Handy really was an innocent friend.  That seemed decreasingly likely.

Deerie was hesitating, her new thoughts at variance with her growing emotion. Agape jumped in to buttress her side.  “He lost the bet! He’s just trying to get out of running. He really doesn’t care about me; he probably thinks I’m ancient, but he’d rather put up with me than wear himself out on the track.”

That got through. The actress was highly conscious of the age differential, which didn’t matter for incidental contacts but loomed larger in sexual matters. She did not wish to be foolish. “Hold on there,” she said. “I didn’t say I would.  You lost the bet, remember! I don’t think I should let you off so easy.”

Handy’s erection was now at full mast. “Oh, Deerie, don’t tease me like this! You can see I’m not lying. I really do want you!” He glanced down at himself, as if confirming it.  “Every man wants every woman!” Agape retorted. In deed, she knew that Citizen Tan wanted her, though that was more for the purpose of humiliating her than from actual desire.

“Every man does,” Deerie said, speaking the thought.  “That is, a man doesn’t have to like or respect a woman, he just wants sex wherever he can find it.” Well said! Agape was getting along well with Deerie, or maybe it was the other way around.

“But I tike and respect you!” Handy protested.

“Sure you do, joker,” another woman said, noting the display. “That’s what you said to Jezebel last week, but then you cut her dead.”

What a break! Handy had a past, and now that was interfering with his present ploy. Tan’s ploy! How was he going to explain this?

He tried. “Jezebel was a cow compared to Deerie here. Deerie’s the one I really want.”

“My best friend—a cow?” the woman demanded. “Listen, jerk, I’ve got three quarters of a mind to take that rod of yours and bend it in half!”

“Like to see you try!” a muffled man’s voice came from somewhere. It seemed that the neighboring serfs were catching on to the sport.

“I had better get out of here before it gets embarrassing,” Agape said.

At this point, Deerie was glad to agree. She had been nattered and intrigued by Handy’s advance, and not at all dismayed by his erection, but she did not want to be a laughingstock. She made a quiet retreat, while Handy was occupied with the other woman.

Agape was relieved. She had survived the first advance.  Now she just had to stay clear for the remainder of the period, and this fall would be hers. She couldn’t leave the Commons, but she could get involved in something else, so that Handy would have trouble approaching her.

“Let’s see, what do I usually do after I exercise?” she asked.

“I go to the pool and exercise some more,” Deerie answered herself.

Soon they were swimming. Her location was hardly unknown; it seemed that every woman in the Commons had heard about her episode with Handy the moment it happened.  “Good going, girl!” one woman called as she swam by.  “They think all they have to do is get it up, and any woman near will leap on!” And, surprisingly, even a few men were chuckling. They liked a good joke as well as the women did, so long as it was on someone else.