(Boss?) The thought was gentle and soft.

(Yes, dearest?)

(Boss, I always knew you were young underneath, behind all those horrid liver spots—knew it when I was alive, I mean...and wished dreadfully that you weren't old and sick in your body. It hurt me so, to see you hurt. Sometimes I went home and cried. Especially when it made you cross and you would say something you didn't mean and then be sorry. I wanted you to get well....nd knew you couldn't. I was one of the first to sign up-Joe and I both—as soon as word reached us through the Rare Blood Club. Couldn't do it sooner or you might have found out—and forbidden me to.)

(Eunice, Eunice!)

(Don't you believe me?)

(Yes, darling, yes... but you're making us cry.)

(So blow your nose, Boss, and stop it. Because everything turned out all right. Look, you wanted to hear about my little bastard—will that take your mind off troubles we no longer have?)

(Uh... only if you want to, Eunice. My love. My only love.)

(I made it plain that I wanted to tell you, didn't I? I'll tell all—and that'll take a long time—if you want to hear. If you won't be shocked. Say ‘Please,' Boss—because the details of my sex life ought to help you in handling your own sex life. Our sex life, that is. Or did you mean that stuff you were shoveling at Dr. Garcia about not being ‘actively female'?)

(Uh... I don't know, Eunice, I haven't been a woman long enough to know what I want. Shucks, darling, instead of thinking like a girl I'm still ogling girls. That little redheaded nurse, for example.)

(So I noticed.)

(Was that sarcasm? Or jealousy?)

(What? I do not intend to be sarcastic, Boss dear; I don't want us ever to be nasty with each other. And jealousy is just a word in the dictionary to me. I simply meant that, when Winnie was making up our face and you were sneaking a peek down the neck of her smock every time she leaned over, I was staring as hard as you were. No bra. Cute ones, aren't they? Winnie is female and knows it. If you were male in your body as well as in your head, I wouldn't trust her as far as I could throw a bed.)

(I thought you said you weren't jealous?)

(I'm not. I merely meant that Winnie would trip you and beat you to the floor. But I was not criticizing her. I've nothing against girls. A girl can be quite a blast.)

Johann was slow in answering. (Eunice, uh, were you implying that you have—used to have—relations with other, uh—)

(Oh, Boss, don't be so early-twentieth-century; we've turned the corner on the twenty-first. Tell it bang. Do you mean ‘Am I a Lez?' Homosexual?)

(No, not at all! Well, perhaps I did mean that in a way. At least I wanted you to clear up what you meant. As it didn't seem possible. You were married and—or was your marriage just a cover-up? I suppose—)

(Quit supposing, dear. Bang. I was not homosexual and neither is Joe. Joe is a tomcat always ready to yowl, and wonderful at it. Except when he's painting; then he forgets everything else. But ‘homosexual' isn't a word that bothers anyone my age, either the word or the fact. And why not, with the Government practically subsidizing it with propaganda about too many babies that starts in kindergarten? If I had taken the Bilitis pledge, I would never have had that phony ‘rheumatic fever.' But, while girls are cuddly and I've never had any inhibitions about them, I was—always—fartoo interested in boys to live on Gay Street But which team are you on, Boss? One minute you're telling me how you drool over Winnie, the next minute you seem upset that I drooled, too. So what are you going to do with us, dear?' Left-handed? Right-handed? Both hands? Or no hands at all? I guess I could stand anything but the last. Do I have a vote?)

(Why, of course you do.)

(I wonder, Boss. You sputtered when I suggested that you could thank Doc Hedrick in bed... and sparked some more at the notion of going to bed with a girl. Sure you're not planning on sewing it up?)

(Oh, Eunice, don't talk silly! Beloved, happy as I am that we are together, that ‘Generation Gap' is still there. My fault this time, as I have a lifelong habit of being careful in what I say to a woman, even one I am in bed with—)

(You're certainly in bed with me!)

(I certainly am. And I'm finding it ever harder to be flatly truthful with you—'tell it bang' as you say—than it is to adjust to being female. But before Dr. Hedrick brought up the matter I saw the implications—and complica­tions—and consequences—of being female... and young and rich.)

(‘Rich.' I hadn't thought about that one.)

(Eunice beloved, we're going to have to think about it. Of course we're going to be ‘actively female'—)

(Hooray!)

(Quiet, dear. If we were poor, the simplest thing would be to ask your Joe to take us back. If he would have us. But we aren't poor; we're embarrassingly rich—and a fortune is harder to get rid of than it is to accumulate. Believe me. When I was about seventy-five, I tried to unload my wealth while I was still living so that it would not go to my granddaughters. But to give away money without wasting most of it in. the process is as difficult as getting the genie back into the bottle. So I gave up and simply arranged my will to keep most of it out of the hands of my alleged descendants.)

(‘Alleged'?)

(Alleged. Eunice, my first wife was a sweet girl, much like yourself, I think. But the poor dear died in childbirth—bearing my one son, also dead for many years now. Agnes had made me promise to marry again and I did, almost at once. One daughter from that marriage and her mother divorced me before the child was a year old. I married a third time—again one daughter, again a divorce.

I never knew my daughters well and outlived both of them and their mothers. But—Eunice, you're a rare—blood yourself; do you know how blood types are inherited?)

(Not really.)

(Thought you might. Being mathematically inclined, the first time I laid eyes on an inheritance chart for blood types I understood it as well as I understand the multiplication tables. Having lost my first wife to childbirth, with both my second and third wives I made certain that donors were at hand before they went into delivery rooms. Second wife was type A, third was type B—years later I learned that both my putative daughters were type 0.)

(I think I missed something, Boss.)

(Eunice, it is impossible for a type-AB father to sire type-O children. Now wait—I did not hold it against my daughters; it was none of their doing. I would have loved Evelyn and Roberta—tried to, wanted to—but their mothers kept me away from them and turned them against me. Neither girl had any use for me... until it turned out that I was going to dispose of a lot of money someday—and then the switch from honest dislike to phony ‘affection' was nauseating. I feel no obligation to my granddaughters since in fact they are not my granddaughters. Well? What do you think?)

(Uh—Boss, I don't see any need to comment.)

(So? Who was it not five minutes ago was saying that we ought to be absolutely frank with each other?)

(Well…I don't disagree with your conclusion, Boss, just with how you reached it. I don't see that heredity should enter into it. Seems to me you are resenting something that happened a long time ago—and that's not good. Not good for you, Boss.)

(Child, you don't know what you're talking about)

(Maybe not)

(No ‘maybes' about it. A baby is a baby. Babies are to love and take care of and that's what this whole bloody mess is about, else none of it makes sense. Eunice, I told you that my first wife was something like you. Agnes was my Annabel Lee and we loved with a love that was more than a love and I had her for only a year—then she died giving me my son. Then I loved him just as much. When he was killed something died inside me... and I made a foolish fourth marriage hoping to bring it alive again by having another son. But I was lucky that time—no children and it merely cost me a chunk of money to get shut of it.)