“In order to survive,” Lea continued, “we learned that we had to remove from out lives the nonessentials and the divisive concerns of micro man. These included his micro family, economic class, religion, nationality, language, cultural and racial divisions.”
“That’s what I meant by massive regimentation,” I said. “There’s no freedom left!”
“You mean,” Lea answered, “freedom to feel separate from and better than others. Freedom to be selfish and to put your own welfare above that of others. Freedom to compete, to fight, to destroy others. Freedom to pollute by over consuming and overpopulating and by refusing to cooperate.”
She looked at me searchingly for a few seconds, then continued. “You see, Jon, for man to survive on this planet in these bodies he had to learn to cooperate, which meant giving up his micro freedoms. I know you feel our society is too regimented; but live in it for a while and see if our Macro society doesn’t supply freedoms that your micro society could never guarantee. Freedom from fear, disease, hunger, loneliness, crippling frustrations, and self‑hate.”
“If it can do all that, I sure want to see‑how it works!”
We were surrounded by the beauty of a day filled with sunshine, a sparkling blue lake, a cool breeze, and the lovely park replete with shade trees.
“Who does all the work to keep this paradise running?” I asked.
“Servo‑mechanisms,” Lea answered. “What you would call robots do all of our repetitious, boring tasks. However, helping things grow is a joy to many people. We do the work that pleases us, so you’ll find some of us working in the gardens.”
We approached the first of the large residence buildings, and Lea informed me that this was the student Gamma building in which I would be staying.
“I’ll introduce you to your Alpha mate,” Lea said, “then I must leave you to return to my own work. You’ll learn about 2150, then you can decide whether or not you want to make the effort to stay here.”
“Wait a minute,” I said. “You mean I’m actually going to live in an Alpha and share a bedroom with some other. girl?”
“Of course, Jon. If you’re going to learn how to live in our Macro society you’ve got to experience it.”
“Yes, but I thought I’d be living with you,” I objected.
“You can’t live with me until you’ve reached at least seventh level and finished your tenth student triad.”
“My God!” I exclaimed. “That’ll be years from now, Lea!”
Lea laughed and said, “Wait until you meet Carol, your Alpha mate, and I’m sure you’ll soon be happy at the prospect of sharing a bed with her for the next few years.”
“But . . . but,” I sputtered, “you can’t be serious. I love you. I don’t want to bed down with some other woman.”
“Love,” Lea replied,” is determined by the level of one’s awareness. With a micro level of awareness love is a neurotic dependency relationship characterized by jealous possessiveness.”
“Oh, great,” I growled. “The classic rationalization for free love, otherwise known as promiscuity.”
“Contrary to your micro society,” Lea responded, “sex is not a dirty word in 2150. You’ll find we share much more than just an orgasm. And we don’t use another person as a sex object.
“But please, Jon, before you condemn us as moral degenerates, get to know us. Treat us just As fairly and without prejudice as you would a research‑‘hypothesis.
“Now, are you ready to meet your Alpha mate?”
I had been so preoccupied with our conversation that I had been only vaguely aware of entering the building, passing several young, children, swiftly ascending to the seventh floor, and walking down a long, glass‑enclosed’ outer hall. It was lighted both by the outside sunshine and by overhead lighting which seemed to radiate equally from all parts of the ceiling. We had turned down an interior hallway and were now standing before a large blue door. I recalled that all the doorways we passed had been the same electric blue, while the walls were a pleasing shade of green. I remembered that we were on the seventh floor which held the seventh triad student Beta and that green was the seventh level color.
To postpone answering Lea’s question about my readiness to meet my Alpha mate I asked about the blue doors.
“Blue is the eighth‑level color,” Lea answered, “and the seventh level is the door to the eighth level, so, doors on the seventh level are blue. Of course, these are student triad levels, which are entirely different from levels of awareness, but they share the same colors.”
“Do the colors themselves have any special meaning?” Lea smiled her tantalizingly mischievous smile and said, “Carol will be glad to explain it to you.”
I was startled when the door in front of us slid silently open. Lea, sensing my surprise, drew my attention to a button beside the door saying, “Most of us use the Macro power of psycho kinesis (PK) to activate electronic circuits. You’ll have to push the buttons until you develop PK.”
I wanted to think about Lea’s statement but the unusual room before us commanded my attention.
We entered the huge deeply carpeted Alpha common room, thirty feet by ninety feet long. I was impressed by the three‑dimensional murals on the walls depicting outdoor scenes so realistically that I felt I was looking through windows instead of at works of art.
The absence of furniture contributed to this feeling of oneness with the out‑of‑doors, for the only furniture in this gigantic room was a circle of ten large sitting devices at one end of the room. They didn’t look much like chairs, but their purpose was obvious. The fifteen foot ceiling was lit by some concealed source, creating a luminescence closer to that of sunshine than any I have ever experienced. The fact that there was no one in this room reminded me that we had seen no one since we reached the seventh floor.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
“It’s such a lovely day,” Lea answered, “almost everyone is outdoors. We don’t confine learning to the inside of classrooms as your society does.”
A moment later a door at the end of the room opened, and a young girl came running toward us. It was Carol. She was wearing the universal short tunic and, while Lea and I were wearing our stocking‑like boots, her feet were bare.
She placed her right hand on Lea’s face. Lea returned the gesture, and they looked into each other’s eyes for what seemed to be a very long time as I grew increasingly self‑conscious. Then, without speaking, Carol touched my face and began the same smiling, but silent, encounter. I felt as if I was drowning in her magnificent hazel eyes, set in as pretty a face as I have ever seen. Reluctantly I broke our eye contact to become aware of a beautifully formed body cast from a giant mold. Carol was as tall as I, and I’m six feet three!
CHAPTER 4: Alpha Mates
Suddenly Lea was gone and L was alone with Carol. Why did I feel so nervous? I hadn’t felt that way with Lea. What was it about Carol that made me feel like a gawky adolescent on his first date?
I suddenly remembered that, as a telepath, Carol could read my mind. I found myself blushing. In my desperate attempt not to think anything embarrassing, I became inundated with thoughts about Carol’s magnificent body which her pink well‑fitted tunic did little to hide.
“You’re discovering,” said Carol, “that it’s impossible not to think of something by trying not to think of it. In fact, the more you try not to think of my body, the more you think of it.”
My voice seemed to be strangled as I croaked out, “I . . . uh, I’m sorry.”
“You certainly needn’t be. It would be sad, indeed, if you didn’t appreciate the beauty of our bodies!” With these words Carol tugged the top of her tunic, which caused it to fall to the floor, leaving her wondrously naked.
“Carol!” I gasped.
“Please, Jon, go ahead and look at my body,” she said‑as if I could have looked at anything else!
“I know it’s difficult and embarrassing for you. Your being a Virgo‑the virg
in of the Zodiac‑only multiplies your 20th‑century sex guilts, so we might as well deal with them right now if you’re going to live comfortably in a 22nd‑century Alpha. Let’s see, bathing together should be the perfect beginning for a Virgo.”
“You believe in astrology, then?” I jumped at a safe topic to diminish my self‑consciousness.
“Only as an influence, Jon‑not as a determinant. Now, about that bath.” She took my hand and we entered the most spacious bedroom I’ve ever seen.
The room was thirty feet square. In one corner was a huge nine‑foot‑square pad about a foot high, while in the opposite corner was a sunken pool ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. A couple of soft oval cushions in the center of the room faced a three‑foot‑square video screen. Carol led me to the sunken pool and, releasing my hand, made a shallow dive into the water.
My evolved adventurous self won a quick victory which led me swiftly out of my tunic and into the water after her. I found the water very warm and clear. The floor slanted down until at the far end of the pool, which I went to immediately, it was about eight feet deep. Carol was apparently using her PK power, because a clear plastic partition, slid out of the wall and completely surrounded our pool‑bath.
“There,” she said, turning to me. “Now we can splash to our heart’s content. Let’s wash each other!”
With these words Carol surprised me with another PK demonstration as the floor beneath us began to slowly rise until we were standing in water that barely covered our knees.
I felt very naked.
A wall panel slid open revealing two retractable hoses, one dispensing sparkling, slippery cleansing bubbles, the other clear water. Carol invited me to stretch out on a cushion that extended out from the shallow end of the pool. There she began spraying me with one hand while slowly lathering my body with the other.
She covered every square inch of my body with the utmost care. Once again, I tried not to think or feel sexually and ended up with one hell of an erection.
As her hands slid over me I listened to her softly telling me of the joys of sharing a bath with your Alpha mate. She admired my shoulders and my firm abdominal muscles. When she came to my penis she made a number of casual remarks about its esthetically pleasing composition and its remarkable tumescence. This last was too much for me, and I broke my long silence.
“For God’s sake, Carol, help me,” I pleaded: “I don’t want to be sexually aroused.”
“Why not?” Carol promptly asked.
“Because,” I replied lamely, “it makes me feel like a child who can’t control himself. Besides, I don’t want to be unfaithful to Lea.”
“If you’re worried about Lea, she’s at ninth level,” Carol said in her deep soothing voice, as if this should immediately put my mind to rest. “I mean,” she continued, “that Lea is so adequate that she has no neurotic need to possess any part of you and so she could not be offended or jealous, no matter what you do.”
“But, I don’t‑“
Carol interrupted, “Lea asked me to help you in every way I could and that specifically included dealing with your sexual neurosis.”
“I’m not neurotic!” I defended vehemently. “I am perfectly normal.”
“Maybe, by 1976 standards,” Carol replied calmly, “but it’s not normal in a 22nd century Alpha to feel inadequate or in conflict with yourself over a perfectly normal, healthy enjoyment of out beautiful bodies.”
“Well,” I replied righteously, “in 1976 I didn’t take baths with girls I had only just met five minutes ago.”
While we were talking, Carol had finished washing me, then used the other hose to rinse. Now she handed the hose to me and, raising her arms above her head, began to turn slowly and seductively about. I took a deep breath and gingerly began to apply the sparkling bubbles while I held the hose with both hands.
Carol smiled impishly. “That’s not how I washed you, Jon. Are you really afraid that you’ll lose control if you touch me?”
“Oh, hell!” I exploded and began to feverishly rub the bubbles over her satin smooth skin.
“Hardly hell,” Carol answered with a laugh. “It feels to me more like what the 20th century might have called heaven!”
She was right. I recognized my guilt‑ridden judgmental self shaking its frightened finger at me. It was so limited, so one‑sided, like a white‑line figure drawn on a blackboard. I erased it and began to enjoy a truly heavenly experience. I covered her with bubbles, then, with both hands, lovingly explored every delightful curve and valley. I was in no hurry and would have stayed in that bath all day if Carol had not, after some time, caused the floor to descend, taking us back down into the water. After a few moments of splashing, and playful wrestling, Carol led me out of the pool. Activating another circuit, she removed the plastic shield and emptied the pool, refilling it with fresh water. Streams of warm air quickly dried our bodies. Taking my hand, she ran and flopped across the huge pad in the corner.
For the next hour I abandoned myself to the joy of a romping physical emental union with Carol.
By the end of that hour I had learned that sexual intercourse, when it is emental intercourse as well, can open two people to a oneness that I had never before thought possible.
As we lay in each other’s arms I told Carol about my guilt and fear concerning pregnancy. I told her that I had not been able to freely enjoy a sexual relationship since my high school days. As I talked about my guilt concerning Valerie, I relived the most unpleasant experience of my teen years when my father had angrily denounced me‑ for my “animal selfishness:” It was then that Carol told me that no female in the Macro society could ever have a child without special emental preparation. Even then it required permission from the Deltar.
I didn’t understand her technical explanation of how the female reproductive cycle had been modified so that no female experienced menstruation unless she was going to bear children. However, I knew it would have been welcomed by most 20th‑century women‑and men!
We talked about the Macro society policy of permitting only their finest members (physically, ementally, and spiritually) to produce children. They restricted births so that the student population was approximately 10 percent of the total population. When I realized how few women would ever have an opportunity to bear children, I was shocked.
“Carol,” I asked, “do you honestly feel it’s fair to deny nine out of ten people the right to become parents?”
“Fair?” Carol questioned, then laughed. “For a moment I forgot you’re from the 1970s, Jon. Creating and giving birth to a child was the most physically destructive ordeal that woman put herself through. It’s no longer necessary. The incredible conceit of couples thinking the world needed little copies of themselves was just a sad symptom of micro man’s limited perspective.
“I studied the history of micro man,” Carol continued. “For thousands of years anyone could have children, and they were treated as possessions. By the 20th century, in your country, they could no longer be put to work at an early age, so the micro family began ignoring them. The drug cults and youth revolts of your time were partially the result of micro man’s compulsion to create far more offspring than he/she was at all prepared to guide into effective adulthood.”
“And your solution,” I said, “is to parentally disenfranchise ninety percent of your population.”
“Oh, Jon,” Carol, said shaking her head and giving me a wry smile. “You don’t understand. Anyone can have a child if they prepare themselves for this purpose. It may take a few lifetimes for some, but we’re not imprisoned in one lifetime as micro societies thought they were. Micro man’s motto was ‘you only live once, so eat, drink, and pollute, for tomorrow you may die.’ And, of course, his frantic selfishness not only destroyed him but almost destroyed our whole planet.”
I had to admit that by 1976 we had seriously polluted most of our lakes and rivers and were affecting the oceans as well.
I wondered how bad
it had gotten between my “time” and Carol’s.
Obviously perceiving my thought, she paused for a moment, her eyes saddened as if remembering something very unpleasant. Then she continued, “You polluted your oceans, your air, and your land until almost all animal and fish life was gone. Then you caused geophysical imbalances in the earth which produced-earthquakes, and tidal waves so destructive that when you look at a map of our world today you will not recognize it.”,
“Well,” I said lightly, not really comprehending. the magnitude of the disaster, “I guess that solved our overpopulation problem. How many people are alive in the world of, 2150?”
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