11 I’m falling through endless waves of red dust, never quite hitting the bottom of wherever it is I’m falling, and never quite finding balance… Suddenly there it is, the ground hurtling toward me at a speed that seems impossible to be real. Thud. I wake up, head pounding and confused, the room spinning. Where am I? In space, on the shuttle, what, and why is it so dark? I slow my breathing and stare straight ahead, trying to stay calm, ride out my disorientation and wait until my eyes can adjust to the dark. Uhhhh. There is a moan next to me. Jesus did I kill someone? Uhhhhhhhmmm. I look over at the shape moving around under the covers and realize its Shalla and we’re in our room and there is no great mystery here. There was the dancing, the steaks, the Tsingtao and the SynthKhat, lots of SynthKhat, and now here we are, hung over and strung out, having barely slept a wink. Uhhhhh. Shalla rolls over and her bare legs emerge from the sheets. They are the color of oozy butterscotch and slightly glowing in the still dark room. I start to stroke her calves and then the pits behind her knees. She rolls away, but doesn’t get very far. I grab her ankle and pull her toward me. I kiss her inner thigh, softly at first, but then more forcefully, working up toward O R P H A N S 36 her panties. She bends one leg and then the other, shifting and twisting, toward me, away from me. The sheets bunch-up around her waist as I keep driving forward, both fingers on the pantie’s waistband. Pulling them now, tugging, Shalla inching away from them as they begin to slide down her legs, over her thighs, past her knees, down to her ankles and then on the floor. I ease her right leg over one of my shoulders and then her left over the other as Shalla grinds the back of her head into her pillow. “Oh.” What was that, because it was not Shalla. I lift my head, but there are no other sounds. Did I really hear something ? I start to bring my head back down when Shalla hits me in the shoulder. As I look up she points to the door where Joey is standing, silently and impassively, and not moving, nothing. “Weird,” Joey says. “Hey, we’re uh…,” I say stumbling, unclear what lie will suffice in a situation like this. But I don’t have to respond, because Joey silently walks away toward the front of the apartment. As I roll onto my back, shaking my head and trying to suppress a smile, I hear him say, “No E.C., nothing educational , I have school today.” Neither Shalla nor I say anything immediately, not sure what the right thing could possibly be. “Well, I guess we don’t have to be paranoid anymore about whether Joey might walk in on us some time,” I finally say. Shalla’s look of horror melts into a smile. “Which isn’t going to help you get any,” she says rolling over and curling up next to me. “Really,” I say, “because I always assumed that Joey [23.20.220.59] Project MUSE (2024-03-19 08:08 GMT) B E N TA N Z E R 37 walking in on us while I was performing oral sex on you would be this tremendous turn-on. Please don’t tell me I’ve been wrong this whole time?” Shalla looks amused for a moment, but then quickly turns sad. “So how long are you going to be gone?” Shalla asks. “They say it’s like four months in real time,” I say. “Why is it so long?” Shalla says. “I don’t know,” I reply, “but think how long that would have taken me before they started using nuclear energy to power the space shuttles. It would have been like twentyfour months.” “That’s very nice for you,” Shalla says, “but I’m going to be living here with that clone the whole time; it’s messedup .” “You know, the public relations people say we are not allowed to refer to them as clones,” I say. “They’re purposely identified as Terraxes because that tests much better with the public. The research does show though, that Terraxes both reduce isolation and minimize the stress for the partner left behind...