Did the fact that the litter remained upset Gladia—and would it make her less self-controlled in her response? If so, it had better remain—but Baley did not really hope for much, for he could see no signs of Gladia being disturbed over the mess or even of her being aware of it.

Gladia’s eyes had fallen to her lap again and her face seemed to sink lower and to become a touch harsh, as though she were reaching into a past she would much rather obliterate.

She said, “You caught a glimpse of my life on Solaria. It was not a happy one, but I knew no other. It was not until I experienced a touch of happiness that I suddenly knew exactly to what an extent—and how intensively—my earlier life was not happy. The first hint came through you, Elijah.”

“Through me?” Baley was caught by surprise.

“Yes, Elijah. Our last meeting on Solaria—I hope you remember it, Elijah—taught me something. I touched you! I removed my glove, one that was similar to the glove I am wearing now, and I touched your cheek. The contact did not last long. I don’t know what it meant to you—no, don’t tell me, it’s not important—but it meant a great deal to me.”

She looked up, meeting his eyes defiantly. “It meant everything to me. It changed my life. Remember, Elijah, that until then, after my few years of childhood, I had never touched a man—or any human being, actually—except for my husband. And I touched my husband very rarely. I had viewed men on trimensic, of course, and in the process I had become entirely familiar with every physical aspect of males, every part of them. I had nothing to learn, in that respect.

“But I had no reason to think that one man felt much different from another. I knew what my husband’s skin felt like, what his hands felt like when he could bring himself to touch me, what—everything. I had no reason to think that anything would be different with any man. There was no pleasure in contact, with my husband, but why should there be? Is there particular pleasure in the contact of my fingers with this table, except to the extent that I might appreciate its physical smoothness?

“Contact with my husband was part of an occasional ritual that he went through because it was expected of him and, as a good Solarian, he therefore carried it through by the calendar and clock and for the length of time and in the manner prescribed by good breeding. Except that, in another sense, it wasn’t good breeding, for although this periodic contact was for the precise purpose of sexual intercourse, my husband had not applied for a child and was not interested, I believe, in producing one. And I was too much in awe of him to apply for one on my own initiative, as would have been my right.

“As I look back on it, I can see that the sexual experience was perfunctory and mechanical. I never had an orgasm. Not once. That such a thing existed I gathered from some of my reading, but the descriptions merely puzzled me and—since they were to be found only in imported books—Solarian books never dealt with sex—I could not trust them. I thought they were merely exotic metaphors.

“Nor could I experiment—successfully, at least—with autoeroticism. Masturbation is, I think, the common word. At least, I have heard, that word used on Aurora. On Solaria, of course, no aspect of sex is ever discussed, nor is any sex related word used in polite society.—Nor is there any other kind of society on Solaria.

“From something I occasionally read, I had an idea of how one might go about masturbating and, on a number of occasions, I made a halfhearted attempt to do what was described. I could not carry it through. The taboo against touching human flesh made even my own seem forbidden and unpleasant to me. I could brush my hand against my side, cross one leg over another, feel the pressure of thigh against thigh, but these were casual touches, unregarded. To make the process of touch an instrument of deliberate pleasure was different. Every fiber of me knew it shouldn’t be done arid, because I knew that, the pleasure wouldn’t come.

“And it never occurred to me, never once, that there might be pleasure in touching under other circumstances. Why should it occur to me? How could it occur to me?

“Until I touched you that time. Why I did, I don’t know. I felt a gush of affection for you, because you had saved me from being a murderess. And besides, you were not altogether forbidden. You were not a Solarian. You were not — forgive me — altogether a man. You were a creature of Earth, You were human in appearance, but you were short-lived and infection prone, something to be dismissed as semihuman at best.

“So because you had saved me and were not really a man, I could touch you. And what’s more, you looked at me not with the hostility and repugnance of my husband but with the carefully schooled indifference of someone viewing me on trimensic. You were right there, palpable, and your eyes were warm and concerned. You actually trembled when my hand approached your cheek. I saw that.

“Why it was, I don’t know. The touch was so fugitive and there was no way in which the physical sensation was different from what it would have been if I had touched my husband or any other man—or, perhaps—even any woman. But there was more to it than the physical sensation. You were there, you welcomed it, you showed me every sign of what I accepted as—affection. And when our skins—my hand, your cheek made contact, it was as though I had touched gentle fire that made its way up my hand and arm instantaneously and set me all in flame.

“I don’t know how long it lasted—it couldn’t be for more than a moment or two—but for me time stood still. Something happened to me that had never happened to me before and, looking back on it long afterward, when I had learned about it, I realized that I had very nearly experienced an orgasm.

“I tried not to show it—”

(Baley, not daring to look at her, shook his head.)

“Well, then, I didn’t show it. I said, ‘Thank you, Elijah.’ I said it for what you had done for me in connection with my husband’s death. But I said it much more for lighting my life and showing me, without even knowing it, what there was in life; for opening a door; for revealing a path; for pointing out a horizon. The physical act was nothing in itself. Just a touch. But it was the beginning of everything.”

Her voice had faded out and, for a moment, she said nothing, remembering.

Then one finger lifted. “No. Don’t say anything. I’m not done yet.

“I had had imaginings before, very vague uncertain things. A man and I, doing what my husband and I did, but somehow different—I didn’t even know different in what way—and feeling something different—something I could not even imagine when imagining with all my might. I might conceivably have gone through my whole life trying to imagine the unimaginable and I might have died as I suppose women on Solaria—and men, too—often do, never knowing, even after three or four centuries. Never knowing. Having children, but never knowing.

“But one touch of your cheek, Elijah, and I knew. Isn’t that amazing? You taught me what I might imagine. Not the mechanics of it, not the dull, reluctant approach of bodies, but something that I could never have conceived as having anything to do with it. The took on a face, the sparkle in an eye, the feeling of—gentleness—kindness—something I can’t even describe—acceptance—a lowering of the terrible barrier between individuals. Love, I suppose—a convenient word to encompass all of that and more.

“I felt love for you, Elijah, because I thought you could feel love for me. I don’t say you loved me, but it seemed to me you could. I never had that and, although in ancient literature they talked of it, I didn’t know what they meant any more than when men in those same books talked about ‘honor’ and killed each other for its sake. I accepted the word, but never made out its meaning. I still haven’t. And so it was with ‘love’ until I touched you.