“To satisfy their sexual needs.”

“And they give money for this satisfaction, Leo? Money which they have obtained by performing other services?”

“Yes.”

“Why not perform the services directly in return for sexual satisfaction?”

I explained briefly the role of money as a medium of exchange, and its advantages over barter. Vornan smiled. He said, “It is an interesting system. I will discuss it at great length when I get home. But why must money be paid in exchange for sexual pleasure? That seems unfair. The girls one hires here get money, and they get sexual pleasure too, so they are being paid twice.”

“They don’t get sexual pleasure,” I said. “Just money.”

“But they engage in the sexual act. And so they receive a benefit from the men who come here.”

“No, Vornan. They just let themselves be used. There’s no transaction of pleasure. They make themselves available to anyone, you see, and somehow that cancels out any physical pleasure in what they do.”

“But surely pleasure comes when one body is joined to another, regardless of motive!”

“That isn’t so. Not among us. You have to understand—”

I stopped. His expression was one of disbelief. Worse, of shock. At that moment Vornan seemed more authentically a man of another time than ever before. He was genuinely jarred by this revelation of our sexual ethos; his faзade of mild amusement dropped away, and I saw the real Vornan-19, stunned and repelled by our barbarity. Lost in confusion, I could not begin to extricate myself by tracing the evolution of our way of life. Instead I suggested blurredly that we begin our tour of the building.

Vornan agreed. We moved forward across a vast internal plaza of yielding purple tile. Before us stretched a shining blank wall broken only by reception cubicles. I had been briefed on what was expected of us. Vornan entered one cubicle; I took a seat in the cubicle to the left of his.

A small output screen lit up the moment I crossed the threshold. It said, Please reply to all questions in a clear, loud voice. A pause. If you have read and understood this instruction, indicate your understanding with the word yes.

“Yes,” I said. Suddenly I wondered if Vornan were capable of comprehending written instructions. He spoke English fluently, but he did not necessarily have any knowledge of the written language. I thought of going to his aid; but the brothel computer was saying something to me, and I kept my eyes on the screen.

It was quizzing me about my sexual preferences. Female?

“Yes.”

Under thirty?

“Yes.” After some thought.

Preferred color of hair?

I hesitated. “Red,” I said, just for the sake of variety.

Preferred physical type: Choose one by pressing button beneath the screen.

The screen showed me three feminine contours: fashionably thin and boyish, middle-of-the-road girl-next-door curvaceousness, and hypermammiferous steroid-enhanced ultra-voluptuousness. My hand wandered across the buttons. It was a temptation to go for the fleshiest, but reminding myself that I was seeking variety, I opted for the boyish figure, which in outline reminded me of Aster Mikkelsen’s.

Now the computer began to grill me about the sort of lovemaking I wished to enjoy. It informed me crisply that there were extra charges for specific enumerated deviant acts. It listed the additional fee for each, and I noted in a certain chilly fascination that sodomy was five times as expensive as fellatio, and that supervised sadism was considerably costlier than masochism. But I passed up the whips and boots, and also chose to do without the use of the nongenital orifices. Let other men take their pleasure in navel or ear, I thought. I am a conservative in such matters.

The next sequence to pass across the screen was choice of positions, since I had opted for regulation congress. Something like a scene out of the Kama Sutra came in view: twenty-odd male and female stick figures, coupling in extravagantly imaginative ways. I have seen the temples of Konarak and Khajurao, those monuments to bygone Hindu exuberance and fertility, covered over with virile men and fullbreasted women, Krishna and Radha in all the combinations and permutations man and woman have ever devised. The cluttered screen had something of the same feverish intensity, although I admit the streamlined stick figures lacked the voluptй, the three-dimensional fleshiness of those shining stone images under the Indian sun. I brooded over the extensive choice and selected one that struck my fancy.

Lastly came the most delicate matter of all: the computer wished to know my name and ID number.

Some say that that regulation was tacked on by vindictive legislative prudes, fighting a desperate rearguard battle to scuttle the entire program of legalized prostitution. The reasoning was that no one would use the place in the knowledge that his identity was being recorded on the master computer’s memory film, perhaps to be spewed forth later as part of a potentially destructive dossier. The officials in charge of the enterprise, doing their best to cope with this troublesome requirement, announced vociferously that all data would remain forever confidential; yet I suppose there are some who fear to enter the house of automated assignations simply because they must register their presence. Well, what had I to fear? My academic tenure is interruptible only for reasons of moral turpitude, and there can be nothing turpid about making use of a government-operated facility such as this. I gave my name and identifying number. Briefly I wondered how Vornan, who lacked an identifying number, would make out; evidently the computer had been forewarned of his presence, though, for he was passed through to the next stage of our processing without difficulty.

A slot opened in the base of the computer output. It contained a privacy mask, I was told, which I was to slip over my head. I withdrew the mask, distended it, and pulled it into place. The thermoplastic compound fit itself to my features as though it were a second skin, and I wondered how anything so snug could be concealing; but I caught sight of myself in the momentarily blank face of the screen, and the reflection was not that of any face I would have recognized. Mysteriously, the mask had rendered me anonymous.

The screen now told me to step forward as the door opened. I obeyed. The front of my cubicle lifted; I passed through to a helical ramp leading to some upper level of the huge building. I caught sight of other men ascending on ramps to my left and right; like spirits going to salvation they rose, borne upward by silent glidewalks, their faces hidden, their bodies tensed. From above streamed the cool radiance of a gigantic light tank, bathing us all in brilliance. A figure waved to me from an adjoining ramp. Unmistakably it was Vornan; masked though he was, I detected him by the slimness of his figure, the jauntiness of his stance, and by a certain aura of strangeness that seemed to enfold him even with his features hidden. He soared past me and disappeared, swallowed up by the pearly radiance above. A moment later I was in that zone of radiance too, and swiftly and easily I passed through another portal that admitted me to a cubicle not much larger than the one in which the computer had interviewed me.

Another screen occupied the left-hand wall. To the far side was a washstand and a molecular cleanser; the center of the cubicle was occupied by a chaste double bed, freshly made. The entire environment was grotesquely antiseptic. If this is legalized prostitution, I thought, I prefer streetwalkers… if there are any. I stood beside the bed, eyeing the screen. I was alone in the room. Had the mighty machine faltered? Where was my paramour?

But they were not finished scrutinizing me. The screen glowed and words streamed across it: Please remove your clothing for medical examination.