Players at the Game of People by John Brunner Read Free Book Online Page A

she was still gazing at him in disbelief as though she

had never before met a man prepared to concentrate on pleasuring instead

of simply using her, he rose to his feet with both arms around her, as

casually as though she weighed nothing, and dumped her into bed. The

lights dimmed automatically as he joined her a moment later, having

discarded his clothes in a few swift movements, and thereafter for half

an hour he concentrated on exploiting her capacity for orgasm. It was

extensive. She was purring when she went to sleep.

As soon as she had dropped off he stole out of bed again and sat for a

while in the chair he had left, pondering his ideal course of action.

It took only a short while to reach his decision. Then he made the

requisite arrangements.

After that he should have felt the warm satisfaction of a job well

done. To a limited extent he did, but it was all the same a trifle

disappointing. He would have preferred a more demanding assignment --

perhaps one which would have lasted days, or better yet weeks, rather

than one which promised to be complete in at most forty-eight hours. It

was frankly boring to have become so good at his work. And what was he to

look forward to as a reward? Half a dozen possibilities flickered through

his mind, but he dismissed almost all of them at once. One did linger,

but because it was overambitious and must involve great suffering he

hesitated to settle on it: who'd want to win World War III?

Well, maybe he would reach a decision when the time came. Several of

his very best memories stemmed from a spur-of-the-moment choice.

Having made sure that the room would be in the correct conformation for

the morning, he sat and waited, sleep not being essential for him in

this mode.

When he woke her, placing a glass of orange juice beside the bed with

a deliberately loud noise, she saw him first as she opened her eyes and

stretched, and gave a sleepy smile. Then she registered the rest of what

was in view.

Two seconds . . . three . . . her face crumpled and she was weeping and

diving for shelter under the coverlet.

" Now what the hell's wrong with you?" he barked, pulling it aside.

She curled into a fetal ball, striving to shut the world out with her

palms. But she had to choose between eyes and ears and preferred eyes,

so he was able to reach her without shouting.

Also she was moaning, and the moaning made a confused kind of sense.

"When will they stop? Won't they ever stop? Oh, God !"

"What?" And when, having waited long enough, he had had no answer,

he forced her to sit up and pulled her hands away from her face.

"Are you feeling hung over or something?" he demanded, not because he

didn't know the answer to that one. "Here, drink this! It's fresh!"

The urge to resist departed from her. Dull-faced, slow-moving as a

marionette, she accepted the glass and cradled it in both hands, trying

not to look anywhere except straight at it. She said after sipping it,

"It just goes on and on. I never thought it would last so long. It's

driving me insane."

"What?" he said again.

"The flashes!"

"Sounds as though you could do with coffee and a proper breakfast,"

he said, straightening and turning away. "If you mean an acid flash,

you're not having one right now."

She jerked her head full upright and stared to her left, across the

field-sized expanse of the waterbed. The sun beamed down on sparkling

white coralline sand beyond the window; the air was full of the hushing

of gentle waves.

"It can't be real!" she breathed. "It can't be!"

"Have it your way," he sighed. "I'm putting sugar in your coffee whether

you take it or not. No milk."

"I don't usually -- " She bit the words off. "Thank you," she amended

meekly, as though she had been taking stock of herself and realized that

some quickly assimilable energy was advisable. But her eyes were fixed,

like a hypnotized chicken's, on cloudless blue sky and foaming combers.

The spell did not break until he