“We may find out, in due course. We each have special abilities and traits. It seems the Amoeba is essentially mindless, but senses what it needs and goes after it. That may not be what we think. Our prior fifth member was Bem, an alien blob. But there’s a more immediate aspect. You have not eaten anything here?”
“I have not,” Wetzel agreed.
“There is a sickness that comes the first time a person eats on the trail. We have all suffered it. It occurs once, then not again. First you vomit, then you get the implacable chills that it seems only close personal contact can ward off. Your best bet is to eat very little, wait for the siege, then let the girls bundle with you under a blanket.”
“Both women?”
“Two are warmer than one. It seems to be not merely physical.”
This could be awkward. “Vanja told me to leave Veee alone, sexually. I intend to do that. I should not be put artificially close to her. It is difficult for me to resist sexual temptation.”
“I appreciate your caution. But when you are sick, you will not be sexually inclined.”
“She said that you and Veee may marry.”
“Yes, we hope to. But here on the trail it is open territory, sexually. We are not possessive of each other. If you and Veee wish to indulge you can, as long as the desire is mutual. I do so with both women, sometimes simultaneously.” He smiled. “That can be quite an experience.”
“Vanja said Veee would feel guilty, and thus be hurt. I do not wish to do that.”
“That is purely up to the two of you. Vanja is very much her own woman, and Veee is getting there.”
“I have normally had sex with any woman who wanted it, and in my proximity all do, except for virgins. I fear Veee would also. It is better simply to keep us apart. I do not want to be a divisive influence in this group.”
“This is an understanding you must come to with Veee. It is not my prerogative to tell either of you what to do in this respect. If there is an emergency we need to handle, such as a charging monster, then I will expect all of you to heed what I say. But that is the extent of it.”
The man was unusually tolerant, and his mind echoed his words. Still, Wetzel intended to stay clear. “Maybe it is time for me to eat something local, and handle my ensuing illness. Then we can consider what other limits exist.”
“Good idea,” Tod agreed.
Wetzel paused to pick a single blue berry. “Will this do?”
“Yes. But don’t eat it yet. Wait until the girls can help you.”
Wetzel was bemused, but decided to play it through. These were nice people, open and honest, and he liked them already. He might have been selected to fill a specific role the Amoeba required, friendship no object, but the prospect of associating with them appealed.
“One other thing,” Tod said. “The words you picked up, beetle juice. Were they capitalized?”
“I believe they were,” Wetzel said, surprised.
“That suggests that my conjecture about a squished bug was wrong. There is another interpretation. Betelgeuse.”
“A giant red star?” Wetzel asked, picking it up from the man’s mind.
“Beetle Juice capitalized is a nickname in my culture for the star. In my language, which may not be what we are using here, the two phrasings sound similar.”
“But that is far away from here.”
“The Amoeba extends everywhere, and neither time nor distance is any barrier to it. The next village down the trail could be in the vicinity of Betelgeuse.”
“That being the case, why wasn’t Betelgeuse put into my mind, instead of Beetle Juice?”
“I don’t know. There must be a reason. It can be complicated to figure out the simple mind of the Amoeba.”
“So it seems,” Wetzel agreed, smiling. He was gaining respect for Tod; the man had a competent way of thinking.
They returned to the group. “Wetzel will eat a berry,” Tod said.
“We’ll get the wash basin,” Vanja said.
“And the blanket,” Veee added.
“I’m not cold,” Wetzel protested.
They merely smiled. “Eat your berry,” Tod said.
Wetzel ate it. It was delicious.
“Meanwhile, you can get to know Veee,” Tod said. He and Wizard departed.
Veee stepped close. “There is something about you.”
“It is my sexual appeal,” Wetzel said. “It is my nature to be attracted to virgins, while experienced women are attracted to me. While I am unable to truly love any non-virgins, I can enjoy sex with them. However, I think it best if you and I do not indulge in that manner.”
“Why not?” Her interest was intensifying.
Wetzel glanced at Vanja, but she was silent. Even her mind was guarded. She had said her say and was leaving it to him.
“It is my understanding that you prefer to be true to Tod, whom you will marry. In my culture, married women are not normally encouraged to indulge sexually elsewhere. It happens, but is frowned on.”
“This is true for me too,” Veee said. “Yet I am tempted.” Indeed she was; her mind was churning.
“You might be tempted to eat a tasty berry, too,” he said. “But would not if you knew it was poisonous.”
“You are poisonous?”
“A sexual relationship with me could poison your association with Tod.”
“I do not blame him for having sex with Vanja. He would not blame me for having it with you.” This was true, but her feelings were seriously mixed.
“Not because of him,” Wetzel said carefully. “Because of you. You would hate to yield to the illicit temptation of the moment.”
“You’re reading my mind!”
“I am,” he agreed.
“You know you could take me this instant.”
“Please, your burgeoning passion incites my own. It is like a fire spreading. Get away from me.” His erection was showing within the shorts.
She did not move. “I know I should. I know I’ll condemn myself tomorrow. But right now I can’t help myself. I want you.”
“And I want you. But we must not. I would feel as guilty as you.”
She reached for him. “Then stop me, because I can’t stop myself.”
Vanja remained impassive. She would not intervene.
That gave him an inspiration. “There is a turn-off my people use to prevent rape. I will teach it to you.”
“This isn’t rape.”
“Yes it is. Of both of us. We don’t want to have sex, but are being overwhelmed by the immediate passion.”
Veee nodded, seeing it. “Hurry.”
“It is a thought, a mind set. It is like a—a very bad smell. You must think of sex as utterly disgusting, abhorrent, repulsive.”
“But it’s not.” But there was a hint of something in her memory. Before she had taken the trail.
He pounced on it. “Think of a man you don’t like forcing sex on you. Of rape. You hate the notion, but he doesn’t care about that. He means to have it despite your aversion.”
Her memory expanded. She had had sex like that. “Ugh.”
“That’s it. Magnify that feeling.”
She did. She was fighting the man mentally, not physically, because she didn’t dare. That made it worse. The thought of his hard member penetrating her made her sick.
“Yes,” Wetzel said. “With my telepathy I pick up that thought, and it turns me off.” He pulled down the shorts to reveal his member gone limp.
“I’ll be damned,” Vanja murmured appreciatively.
Then Wetzel suddenly vomited. It was messy, splattering himself and the ground before him.
“The sickness!” Veee said. “Drink water, wash it out.” She held up a jug.
Wetzel gulped water, then immediately puked it out again. He heaved until he was dry. He was glad he had eaten only one berry!
Vanja brought a damp cloth and wiped him off. “Take off your shorts,” she said.
The women helped him get out of the shorts, an
d completed his cleanup. Then they took him to a small tent they had and made him lie down on a blanket. “But I’m not cold,” he protested.
Then he shivered. It was as though a chill winter wind had caught him naked, only the wind was from inside him.
The women stripped and joined him on the blanket, pressing tightly against him from either side. They drew the blanket over them all. Their bodies were warm, and that was an immense comfort. Tod was right: he felt no sexual inclination. All he wanted was to somehow escape the coldness. He realized that it wasn’t actually physical; it was psychic, and it could be abated only by living energy transfused from other bodies. They were providing that, and he was grateful. It came from their minds as much as from their bodies, buoying him immeasurably.
He wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but knew he was recovering. The women remained bound to him, sharing their heat. “I think I am better now,” he said.
“We’ll know when you’re better,” Vanja said.
He was curious. “How?”
She reached down to tweak his limp penis. “When this signals us.”
He had to laugh. They were both nude and pressing everything against him, and he felt all of it, yet he had no ambition for sex. It was a novel experience.
Before long, however, his member did stir. Then they let go of him. Veee brought another pair of shorts and he put them on. He remained physically weak. “Thank you for warning me, so that I ate only a token amount. Thank you for taking care of me. I don’t know how I would have handled it alone.”
“We understand,” Vanja said. “We have been there.”
“I was sick for what seemed like hours,” Veee said. “Tod saved me.”
“That was when the two of you bonded,” Wetzel said.
“I suppose it was. I liked him from then on.”
Vanja put away the blanket. “I will leave the two of you to it.” She walked away, her clothing forming around her.
“The way you showed me to turn off sex,” Veee said. “I wish I had known it earlier in life.”
“It works only with telepaths. They have to read your mind. But keep it handy.”
“The only one I can use it against is you.”
“And you should. That way we won’t do anything we will regret.” He glanced at her, realizing that she remained nude. “Use it now. And put on your clothing.”
“Oh.” She summoned the turn-off mood, and dressed. “I suppose if I ever do encounter another telepathic male, it could be useful. But how will I know he’s reading my mind?”
Wetzel explained how to pick up on the feather touch, and drilled her on it, until she could tell the moment he snooped. She was an apt learner, quite intelligent.
“But I can’t actually stop him from reading my mind,” she said. “So if he wanted to know something I wanted to keep secret, I would be helpless.”
And Wetzel knew he would have to share the secret of his storm cellar with her and the others. Because they might indeed encounter telepathy, and have to preserve private information. That might even be the reason he had been summoned. “There is a way. But it may be awkward to set up.”
She was interested. But there was a problem, as he had feared. The storm shelter had to be tied to something she wanted no one else to know, and she would have to let him know. “I think I’d rather have the rape,” she said candidly.
“Then you don’t have to make the shelter,” he said. “It’s just our guess that there will be other telepaths.”
“I think I do have to make it. But let me mull it a while. There’s something I would like to know about you, if you are willing to tell me.”
“Virgins,” he said.
She shook her head. “I keep forgetting that you can read my mind! Yes. I think you said you are attracted to them. Are they similarly attracted to you?”
“No. They know I will destroy their virginity, changing them forever, and are wary. Whereas experienced women have less sexual reticence and are attracted to my animal magnetism. So I am forever pursuing the only women who don’t want me, while being pursued by the ones I can’t love. This is quite apart from merit; I know there are many worthy women who could make me happy, if only I didn’t have this thing about virginity. It’s not logical, it’s magical, a geis, a foolish obligation of honor without much honor in it.”
“That is your tragedy.”
“It is what really motivated me to take the trail. The hope that somewhere I can find that oxymoron, a perpetually virginal sexual partner. A woman I can love, marry, and make a family with. I fear it’s impossible, but that’s my dream.”
“We will help you find her.”
“A pregnant virgin is a contradiction in terms. Her body has to know she has had sexual experience, and her mind and emotion will know it too.”
“Are there levels of virginity? I mean, you have not had sex with me, so aren’t I a virgin to you in that respect?”
Wetzel hadn’t considered that before. “I suppose there are. My first experience with a woman is more interesting than my second, so there may be some magic there, as it were. You are indeed more appealing to me than you would be after sex.” He thought of Weava, a significant exception, but preferred not to go into that.
“Is it your mind or hers that counts most?”
“Hers. I read the virginity in her mind, or the relative novelty if she is not a virgin, and react to that.”
“So we can be better friends if we do not have sex.”
“Yes, actually.” Then he found himself telling her about Weava after all, because he knew from her mind that she would understand and sympathize, and he needed that.
She did. “I like that woman,” Veee said. “You should have married her.”
“She wouldn’t let me. She wanted what was best for me, and felt unworthy.”
“Unworthy! She is the most worthy person I have heard about.”
“Oh, yes,” he said, and the emotion welled up and overcame him. He found himself in Veee’s embrace, being comforted. And realized that if Weava was the most worthy person, Veee might be the next most worthy. Vanja had recognized her as the best possible friend. Vanja was right.
“Weava made her storm shelter,” Veee said. “I must be guided by her.”
Wetzel was surprised; he had not seen that coming in her thoughts. She had evidently made a sudden decision. “As you wish. I will have to see your secret, but I promise not to reveal it elsewhere. You will have to trust me on this.”
“I do,” she said. That was another thing he liked about her she trusted others because she was trustworthy herself. “I will show you my secret. Read my mind.”
Her mind flashed back to her early life. He became an invisible observer.
There was a group of children on the playground. Seeing no boys, Veee took the initiative. “Let’s play hide and guess,” she said.
The other girls merely looked at her, or beyond her. Realizing that something was amiss, she turned.
There was a boy standing behind her. She had not seen him approach. She had just committed a serious social blunder, taking the initiative when a boy was present. It was accidental, but appalling. “Oh!” she cried, and ran away in shame.
As it happened, the boy did not tell on her, and neither did the other girls. But they all knew. She became a de facto pariah, no one’s friend. She could not bear to be with them any more, and busied herself doing other things.
Not long thereafter her family moved to another village. This put her into a new group that did not know her history. She was able to relate to the children and bury the memory. She was careful never to commit such a blunder again. The episode was lost in the welter of other childish experiences. But it remained her deepest private shame.
Wetzel did not comment in the merit of her case, though it would not have been anything shameful or even remarkable in his own culture where girls and boys had other concerns. The shame was real to her, and that was what counted. He showed her how to frame th
e guilty memory, encapsulating it, so that it was no longer part of her conscious thoughts. He showed her how she could mentally latch on to other memories, haul them into that capsule, and thus bury them too. A passing telepath might freely read her mind, but would not be aware of the storm shelter. It was so secret that even its existence was secret. That made it truly effective.
“Thank you,” Veee said. “You have given me three gifts: detection of the feather touch, repulsion of sex by a telepathic male, and the storm shelter. I can offer you nothing in return, unless—”
“No!” he said. “No sex. You are giving me something invaluable in return: your friendship and understanding.”
“I will try to find your permanent virgin,” she said. “That will be a better return gift.”
He let it go. Veee did not realize how much he already valued her support. Perhaps in time she would.
She passed him along to the last member of their team, Wizard. He was an old man, white bearded, with a conical cap, slight of stature but phenomenal of magic ability. Wetzel had not actually seen it in action, but the others had. Wizard’s thoughts were too complicated to read readily. “Yes, I really do do magic,” he said. “Here is a sample of the least energy-consuming variety, illusion.”
A giant two-footed creature appeared, stomping toward them with a baleful glare. Wetzel was alarmed; it looked as if the thing could bash them both into oblivion with one swoop of its hairy muscular arm. Then it dissolved into the shape of a small bird, which flew away.
“Completely unreal,” Wizard said. “But useful in the event of an attack by an ignorant warrior. Such a bluff might abate the threat right there.”
“Bluff? Suppose the soldier catches on, and ignores it?”
Wizard smiled. “Illusion can be deadly. Do you see that tree?”
“A solid one,” Wetzel agreed. “But a tree is readily avoided.”
“Observe.” The tree vanished. In its place was a pleasantly winding forest path.
Wetzel appreciated the trap. “The soldier could walk right into that tree, not seeing it. But still, that might not hurt him. It might just make him mad.”
“Observe.” Now a maiden appeared with a shape much like Vanja’s. She looked toward them and her mouth opened in a silent scream. She ran, her dress catching on a snag and tearing off to reveal her flashing buttocks.
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