"You see," she said, "I no longer fear contact. I'm no longer at the stage where all I can do is brush your cheek for an instant."
"That may be, but this does not affect you, Gladia, does it, as, that bare touch did then?"
She nodded. "No, it doesn't affect me that way, but I like it anyway. I think that's an advance, actually. To be turned inside out just by a single moment of touch shows how abnormally I had lived, and for how long. Now it is better. May I tell you how? What I have just said is actually prologue."
"Tell me."
"I wish we were - in bed and it was dark. I could talk more freely."
"We are sitting up and it is light, Gladia, but I am listening."
"Yes. - On Solaria, Elijah, there was no sex to speak of. You know that."
"Yes, I do."
"I experienced none, in any real sense. On a few occasions - only a few - my husband approached me out of duty. I won't even describe how that was, but you will believe me when I tell you that, looking back on it, it was worse than none."
"I believe you."
"But I knew about sex. I read about it. I discussed it with other women sometimes, all of whom pretended it was a hateful duty that Solarians must undergo. If they had children to the limit of their quota, they always said they were delighted they would never have to deal with sex again."
"Did you believe them?"
"Of course I did. I had never heard anything else and the few non-Solarian accounts I read were denounced as false distortions. I believed that, too. My husband found some books I had, called them pornography, and had them destroyed. Then, too, you know, people can make themselves believe anything. I think Solarian women believed what they said and really did despise sex. They certainly sounded sincere enough and it made me feel there was something terribly wrong with me because I had a kind of curiosity about it and odd feelings I could not understand."
"You did not, at that time, use robots for relief in any way?"
"No, it didn't occur to me. Or any inanimate object. There were occasional whispers of such things, but with such horror - or pretended horror - that I would never dream of doing anything like that. Of course, I had dreams and sometimes something that, as I look back on it, must have been incipient orgasms would wake me. I never understood them, of course, or dared talk of it. I was bitterly ashamed of it, in fact. Worse, I was frightened of the pleasure they brought me. And then, of course, I came to Aurora."
"You told me of that. Sex with Aurorans was unsatisfactory."
"Yes. It made me think that Solarians were right after all. Sex was not like my dreams at all. It was not until Jander that I understood. It is not sex that they have on Aurora; it - is, it is - choreography. Every step of it is dictated by fashion, from the method of approach to the moment of departure. There is nothing unexpected, nothing spontaneous. On Solaria, since there was so little sex, nothing was given or taken. And on Aurora, sex was so stylized that, in the end, nothing was given or take neither. Do you understand?"
"I'm not sure, Gladia, never having experienced sex with an Auroran woman or, for that matter, never having been an Auroran man. But it's not necessary to explain. I have a dim notion of what you mean."
"You're terribly embarrassed, aren't you?"
"Not to the point of being unable to listen."
"But then I met Jander and learned to use him. He was not an Auroran man. His only aim, his only possible aim, was to please me. He gave and I took and, for the first time, I experienced sex as it should be experienced. Do you understand that? Can you imagine what it must be like suddenly to know that you are not mad, or distorted, or perverted, or even simply wrong - but to know that you are a woman and have a satisfying sex partner?"
"I think I can imagine that."
"And then, after so short a time, to have it all taken away from me. I thought - I thought - that that was the end. I was doomed. I was never again, through centuries of life, to have a good sexual relationship again. Not to have had it to start with - and then never to have had it at all - was bad enough. But to get it against all expectation and to have it, then suddenly to lose it and go back to nothing - that was unbearable. - You see how important, therefore, last night was."
"But why me, Gladia? Why not someone else?"
"No, Elijah, it had to be you. We came and found you, Giskard and I, and you were helpless. Truly helpless. You were not unconscious, but you did not rule your body. You had to be lifted and carried and placed in the car. I was there when you were warned and treated, bathed and dried, helpless throughout. The robots did it all with marvelous efficiency, intent on caring for you and preventing harm from coming to you but totally without actual feeling. I, on the other hand, watched and I felt."
Baley bent his head, gritting his teeth at the thought of his public helplessness. He had luxuriated in it when it had happened, but now he could only feel the disgrace of being observed under such conditions.
She went on. "I wanted to do it all for you. I resented the robots for reserving for themselves the right to be kind to you and to give. And as I thought of myself doing it, I felt a growing sexual excitement, something I hadn't felt since Jander's death. And it occurred to me then that, in my only successful sex, what I had done was to take. Jander gave whatever I wished, but he never took. He was incapable of taking his only, since pleasure lay in pleasing me. And it never occurred to me to give because I was brought up with robots and knew they couldn't take.
"And as I watched, it came to me that I knew only half of sex and I desperately wanted to experience the other half. But then, at the dinner table with me afterward, when you were eating your hot soup, you seemed recovered, you seemed strong. You were strong enough to console me and because I had had that feeling for you, when you were being cared for, I no longer feared your being from Earth and I was willing to move into your embrace. I wanted it. But even as you held me, I felt a sense of loss, for I was taking again and not giving.