Going down on the elevator, Eddy stands close enough to Betti to sniff hungrily at her
appetizing odors. She has a warm, fruity scent with a musky kick behind it, sort of like a
mammalian meat-strawberry. She has not immersed herself in Stop-Scent in the usual
Plasticwoman attempt to eradicate her normal bodily secretions. Instead, Betti actually
allows herself to sweat a bit, then mixes it with this strawberry Witches` Potion. The
effect is that of a 100 megaton firecracker in the crowded elevator. If Eddy were in any
condition to notice the other males in the elevator cage with them, he would see that they
are pearled with beads of dew on their slick brows. Damp crowns of thorns. And they don`t
even know what they`re sweating about. Their nostrils wrinkle. They fidget. They squirm.
Betti conceals a tiny secret smile, and tosses her cotton candy head.
But Eddy knows what he`s sweating about. Standing with his feet in the square that
separates him from the rest of the passengers in the elevator, careful to abide by the
Social Stability Code and not to touch anyone, he observes as Betti does her stuff. He
conceives of a disquieting desire to taste her to see if she tastes like strawberries too.
His head swims with imaginings, all of them against the law, every one a felonious breach
of the Social Contract.
Betti is singing softly under her breath.
Strawberry Fields Forever.
It figures.
"Say, uh, Betti ..."
"Mm, yes?"
Eddy fumbles and mumbles. He`s terrible at this, having had no practice at all. The other
passengers are trying to ignore him. "Ah, I wanted to ask you, that is, I`d like ...
what I`m trying to?" (wounded with the flaring spear of strawberry)
Betti beams at him. "We`ll go to my place first. Then we`ll decide what to do
tonight," she whispers.
The other passengers quickly lose interest in Eddy. They`re all struggling, trying to get
themselves in hand and they`re not exactly sure why. Eddy`s Adams-apple is doing a fast
vibratile buck `n wing. He runs a finger around the inside of his shirt collar. "Your
place?"
"Mmm hmmm," Betti hums.
The elevator sighs to a stop and the man with the plastic cricket urges them out of the
cage. They walk together, but apart. They are careful not to touch. The coincage at the
exit waits to be fed, a birdie with a yellow bill, waiting for the afternoon worm. They
nourish it and go out to the Slideway. Together: Betti and her bullseyes, Eddy and his
Situation. The Stimbooth Arcade is crowded with the usual afterwork flood of bodies
waiting for a piece of chicken. Eddy senses the approach of an Urge and feints toward the
Men`s but Betti heads him off.
"Luuuuuuhh-verrr, I only live a few minutes away from here. Can you wait?"
(Wait?) That`s what she said, all right. Eddy wonders what`s in store for him and is
overwhelmed by the immediacy of strawberries. Betti pays both their fares and precedes him
onto the Slideway. They travel northwest in the slow lane. Eddy looks at her pleadingly,
so pleadingly. She takes pity on his plight and they change lanes to the extreme left.
Eddy`s shirtfront is plastered to his chest by the slipstream and his sash ends wag behind
him like a doggy`s happy, hairy tail. He counts his buttons for something to keep his mind
occupied.
Somewhere in the suburbs, Betti indicates an exit. Eddy hasn`t a clue where they are. He
has been thinking of buttons and chickenheart and Betti and strawberries. When he
surfaces, it`s almost too late to make the exit. They do a fast lane change and step off
the belt of the Slideway, feeding creds to the exit gate. It delivers them to the top of a
staircase leading down into a posh residential apartment tunnel.
The tunnel is cool and dim and nearly deserted. Betti nudges Eddy`s thigh with her
knuckles. Eddy has trouble believing he didn`t imagine it. If he didn`t, Betti is a dirty
girl. Very dirty. But she smiles at him and that`s nice. Dirty girl.
"Betti..." Sweating chicken schmaltz.
"Mm?"
He hasn`t imagined it. She does it again. Squads of Erocops come barreling into his
brain, zappers zapping, stunners stunning, maidens milking... He trembles. She moves a
little ahead of him, leading him onward to doom, or something like it. The curve of her
hips is just visible through the pink shimmer of her lightskirt. Where are they, the
Erocops? Where`s the Punishment Jolt?
Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Eddy watches the undulations of Betti`s butt and sweats.
Screw chickenheart--no, forget screwing chickenheart. Forget chicken.
The tunnel is flat, a two dimensional hole in the fabric of Eddy`s future. A square, pale
green door. Up ahead, a body is approaching from tomorrow. It`s an old man wearing a
stained coverall and several days` ratty growth of straggling beard. A plastipaper sack
protrudes from a convenient pocket. Synthohol. Repulsive. Vile. Closer to them, he waves.
(What?)
"Say, Betti," the man calls out. He appears to recognize her.
Betti stops, beaming pinkly at the derelict. "Yes?"
The man meanders over, taking swigs. He notes Eddy with a rheumy eye and dismisses him.
He whispers, "Ya busy?"
"At the moment, yes I am," says Betti kindly. "But I can see you
later."
The bum heaves a sigh. "I getcha." He hiccups and shambles off into the past,
down the tunnel. Betti smiles fondly after him.
"Who`s that?" Eddy inquires, bristling. He suspects that possibly Betti has
been distributing her strawberries to the multitude like some trayful of loaves and
fishes. He doesn`t want her to be that dirty! Even evil has its proper limits.
"Just a friend," Betti says succinctly. She is not telling. A woman must
preserve her mystery above all things, especially a dirty woman.
"It`s nothing, Lover," she soothes Eddy. "Just a neighbor."
Eddy lets himself be reassured. He decides to Hell with questions and becomes so
emboldened with the prospect of new and colorful adventures in Sin that he grazes Betti`s
butt with a brazen fingertip. Betti sighs deeply and wiggles.
The tunnel is bisected by another tunnel. They turn down the left-hand path and enter
upon a corridor of apartment doors. The corridor walls are painted pale buff and the doors
are brown and numbered in brushed brass. Tasteful understatement. Betti stops at 147-29
and instructs the door to open.
The apartment foyer is a model of decorum. Fawn-colored plastic upholstery hides the
nudity of the walls and blends with a tufted bench and a small, round table bearing in its
exact center a brown bowl of white plastic chrysanthemums and gilded cattails. There is a
round mirror with a gilt frame on the wall above the table. Eddy is a little disappointed.
It looks so regulation. He was thinking more in terms of obscenity--some iniquitous Den,
suitable in decor to unimaginable obscene rites and sexual horror. He stares sourly at the
white plastic flowers and begins to suspect that he has let his imagination run away with
him. Betti is not a She-Demon at all, but a slightly naughty Senior Fileclerk. She will
lead him into her living room and feed him infusions of ersatz tea and they will conclude
an interlude of Talk and laservision with a joint exertion in her Stimbooth.
(Oh, well.)
She opens the marblewhite door, and Eddy sees the interior of her apartment. He files the
sight for later digestion. The walls are upholstered in button-tufted cerise velvet. There
are whole regiments of objects d`art. Including one, directly opposite the door, which is
a man-sized, strange and wonderful, lifelike, supercolossal, spotlighted, warm and
pulsating, genuine COCK.
Six feet high and rising.
Oh, Stability.
Betti says primly, "Come right in."
What does she mean by that? Eddy thinks he knows. So much for the regulations.
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