Read Online The World Inside by Robert Silverberg - Free Book Online Page B

touch his. A torrent of fiery hair across his face. Her hand at his loins, wandering, grasping. Fingertips playfully rimming him. “Love me?” she sings. “Love me not? Love me? Love me not?”
    â€œYou medieval witch.”
    â€œYou look so pretty when you sleep, Dill. The long hair. The sweet skin. Like a girl, even. You bring out the sappho in me.”
    â€œDo I?” He laughs and crams his genitals out of sight between his lean thighs. Clamps his legs. “Then do me!” He gouges his palms against his chest, trying to push up ersatz breasts. “Come on,” he says hoarsely. “Here’s your chance. Get on board. Flick that tongue.”
    â€œSilly. Stop that!”
    â€œI think I’d be very pretty as a girl.”
    â€œYour hips are all wrong,” she says, and pulls his locked feet apart. Up pops penis, half-erect. She whangs it with the backs of two fingertips, gently. Further stiffening. But there will be no sex between them now. He rarely indulges at this time of day, with a performance coming up. And in any case the mood is wrong, too skittish, too brittle. She vaults off the sleeping platform and deflates it with a kick of the pedal while he is still on it. An airy whooshing. That sort of mood; presexual, childish. He watches her waltz to the cleanser. What a fine butt she has, he thinks. So pale. So full. The splendid deep cleft. The elegant dimples. He creeps toward her and stoops to nip a hinder cheek, carefully, not wanting to leave a blemish. They share the cleanser. The baby begins to yowl. Dillon glances over his shoulder. “God bless, god bless, god bless!” he sings, beginning basso, ending falsetto. What a good life, he thinks. How neat existence can be. Electra, pulling on her clothes, says, “Can I get you some fumes?” A transparent band over her breasts. Rosy nipples like little blind eyes. He is pleased that she has stopped nursing; biology is tremendously moving, yes, but the dribbles of bluish-white milk over everything annoyed him. Doubtless a failing to eradicate. Why be so fastidious? Electra enjoyed nursing. She still lets the little suck, saying it’s for the child’s pleasure, but there can hardly be much kick in a dry tit, so Dillon knows the locus of the joy in that particular transaction. He hunts for his clothing.
    â€œWill you paint today?” he asks.
    â€œTonight. While you’re performing.”
    â€œYou haven’t worked much lately.”
    â€œI haven’t felt the strings pulling.”
    It is her special idiom. To practice her art she must feel rooted to the earth. Strings rising from the planet’s core, entering her body, snaking into her slot, slipping through the openings of her nipples. And then tugging. As the world turns, the imagery is wrenched from her blazing distended body. Or so she says; Dillon never questions the claims of a fellow artist, especially when she is his wife. He admires her accomplishments. It would have been madness to marry another cosmos-grouper, although when he was eleven he had just such a thing in mind. To share his destinies with the comet-harp girl. He’d be a widower now if he had. Down the chute, down the chute! What a flippy filther that one had been. And had wrecked a perfectly wonderful incantator, too, Peregrun Connelly. Could have been me. Could have been me. Marry outside your art, boys; avoid unblessworthy invidiousness.
    â€œNo fumar?”
Electra asks. She has been studying ancient languages lately.
“Porque?”
    â€œWorking tonight. It spills the galactic juices if I indulge this early.”
    â€œMind if I?”
    â€œSuit yourself.”
    She takes a fume, nipping the cap neatly with a daggered fore-fingernail. Quickly her face flushes, her eyes dilate. A lovable quality about her: she is such an easy turnon. She puffs vapors at the baby, who chortles, while the maintenance slot’s field buzzes in a solemn attempt