The Sex Sphere (18 page)

He said good-bye to Vernice and rode the rest of the way home without any trouble. He was learning to control his excitement over the sphere. This was a terrible responsibility he’d been given, and he’d have to handle it like a man.

***

The apartment was a pigsty, an empty pigsty. Joe’s Dad usually went straight to the noncoms’ bar when he got off duty. He was a guard at the Army jail these days. Joe checked the fridge…nothing but milk and his father’s beer…then went to his room.

Joe’s room was the one nice spot in the apartment. He had a good stereo from the PX, travel posters on the wall, a couple of plants, and his model rockets. The furniture was GI, but at least it was neat.

His heart pounding, Joe rolled the science-fictional sphere onto his bed. The woman waved her hands in greeting, then began staring this way and that, taking it all in. She could only see half the room from the side she was on, and Joe was about to turn the ball so she could see the rest. But then she…turned it herself.

It was strange to watch this happen. One of the woman’s hands came closer and closer to the ball’s surface, and the image of her fingers covered almost everything. The fingers seemed to hold and turn the ball, universe and all. The fingers let go, the hand drew back and the woman was on the other side of the ball. Joe could see the back of her head.

He leaned over the ball and looked down at her from above. Her black hair flowed halfway down her back. She had a lovely behind. Fully humanoid. Amazing. How had she turned the ball? Joe could almost grasp it. She wasn’t inside the ball any more than Joe was. The ball was just the region where their two spaces touched. They could see each other through it as through a lens. If he could move the lens, then so could the woman. This was really incredible; this was the greatest scientific discovery of all time.

The woman could see Joe’s bookcase from where she was now, and it seemed to be of particular interest to her. She raised an arm and pointed. The arm-image curved halfway around the ball.

Still leery of actually touching the SF sphere, Joe went and got a book and brought it over…a tattered copy of Heinlein’s
Starman Jones
. The woman held up what seemed to be a camera, and he riffled through the pages for her. Her machines would be able to learn English and translate for her.

Excited by this idea, Joe showed her all his science-fiction books and then…of course!…the dictionary. At the end of an hour he was feeling hungry and weak from excitement. The boobs on those chicks!

Right now they were busy setting up something that looked like a TV set. Probably the translator. Joe took the opportunity to go into the kitchen for some milk.

When he came back the women had the TV screen working. Funny how they were all naked. Funny how there were no men in that other world either. It was almost too good to be true. Suddenly some English words appeared on the little TV screen…English, but with some peculiar misprints.

HELLO. MY NAME IS BABS. VHAT IS YOUR NAME?

Hands shaking, Joe fumbled out a pen and one of his little blue school notebooks.

HELLO, BABS, he printed. MY NAME IS JOE. WHERE ARE YOU FROM?

I AM IN A ZPACETIME CONTINUUM PARALLEL TO YOURS. VHE ARE COMMUNICATING ZROUGH A HIGHER-DIMENSIONAL TUNNEL. I AM ZO GLAD YOU ARE ZERE. ONLY A MAN LIKE YOU CAN HELP US.

WHAT DO YOU NEED?

ALL OF ZA MEN IN OUR VHORLD HAVE BEEN KILLED BY ZA RULL. VHE NEED YOUR ZEED, CHOE. VHOULD YOU EVER CONZIDER MATING VIZ ME?

Babs reached out and pressed two fingers against the ball’s surface. Then she…picked up the surface and moved it around. The images in the ball swept and curved. Now he saw the top of her head, now the cheeks of her ass and now…oh now…now she set the ball down and stood right over it. Joe could see clear up to her crotch, plain as day. In his innocence, he’d never realized that women have their pussies quite so far down between their legs.

Just then the apartment door slammed. His father!

“Joe?” the drink-blurred voice called. “Are you here?”

“Yeah, Dad.” Joe put his handkerchief over the ball.

“What a day,” continued his father. “What a bitch of a day. The Heidelberg police arrested that guy Bitter who set off the A-bomb day before yesterday. And
we
have to put him up in our jail.”

The voice trailed into a mumble. The fridge door opened and a beer-can popped. Light footsteps approached. “What are you doing in here?”

Bing Bone was a slight man, a bantamweight gypsy with a metallic voice. He was an alcoholic, a lifer retread sergeant, a lonely man who had never forgiven his wife for escaping into suicide. His eyes looked flat behind his flesh-colored GI glasses. Flat but observant.

“What’s all the books for? And what’s that under the hankie? You’re not smoking pot, are you?”

Joe snorted contemptuously. “Sure, Dad, that’s all kids these days do. I’m loaded on smack. And meanwhile I’m writing up a report on science-fiction for my literature class.”

“So what’s with the snot-rag, already?”

Before Joe could stop him, his father had flipped off the hankie. There was Babs—her face, thank goodness—and another woman, a tired-looking woman with reddish hair.

Bing grunted like a man punched in the heart. “That’s her,” he croaked. “That’s your no-good traitor mother who left me all alone.”

The tired-looking woman pushed Babs aside and stared intently out at Joe’s father. A mocking smile played over her lips.

“You’re crazy,” Joe said, shaking his father’s shoulder. “This has nothing to do with you.”

Bing grabbed his son and stared at him. “Was it your Aunt Rose taught you the black art? But where’d you get the crystal ball?”

“This is
science
,” Joe protested. “This isn’t gypsy mumbo-jumbo. That’s a parallel universe in there.”

“It’s
not
,” shouted Bing. “That’s your mother, safe in heaven and sneering at me.”

The tired-looking woman made as if to spit at Bing.

“I’LL GET YOU ARLENE!” shouted Bing, suddenly maddened with rage. He snatched up the ball and threw it against the wall. The wall seemed momentarily to bulge out at them, and then the little sphere was gone.

“I busted it,” said Bing with satisfaction. “I busted your crystal ball. Smashed it to bits.”

Joe wasn’t so sure. To him it had looked as if the concrete-block wall had…made way for the ball and let it through. What was on the other side? He groaned inwardly. Vernice’s room.

“Where’d you get that thing?” demanded Bing.

“I bought it from a Turk,” Joe lied. “At the fair. It’s too bad you’re so drunk and crazy you thought you saw Mom in it.”

“Look here…” began Joe’s father. But then he let his anger go. “Ah, forget it. I wanna see the news. Come watch with me; I might be on.”

A major American terrorist was apprehended by German authorities today
, said the Army news announcer.
Professor Alwin Bitter, a theoretical physicist visiting the University of Heidelberg, was arrested at his apartment early this morning. Bitter did not resist. He has been implicated in connection with the nuclear bombing of a museum in Rome this Saturday. He was known to his fellow terrorists as the Anarchist Archimedes. This afternoon, the German security police handed him over to US custody. Bitter is now awaiting questioning in the Patrick Henry…

“Look, Joe,” cried Bing. “That’s me in the background there!” But Joe was gone. Joe was in the apartment next door.

“Come on, Vernice, hand it over.”

“Ah don’t know whut you’re after, Joey. Pushin’ into a girl’s room this-a-way.” She strutted over to her dresser and gave her colorless hair a few licks with a hairbrush. “Supposin’ ah diyud have your little picture-ball…what would you give me for it?”

“I’ll break your neck, you stupid twerp!”

Vernice studied him briefly, and then began to shout. “Mah-meee! Joey’s in here pickin, on me!”

“Don’t you be fightin’ with Vernice, Joe. Ron Junior’s not here,” called Cora Blevins from the kitchen. Ron Senior, her husband, was the MP who shared brig duty with Bing Bone. This week Ron Senior had night-shift and Bing had day.

“I won’t hurt her, ma’am,” shouted Joe. Vernice sat down on her desk, ready for protracted negotiations.

“You shouldn’t ought to be lookin’ at dirty pictures, Joey,” she remarked primly. “Where’d you git that thing anyway? Downtown to the Sex Shop?”

Joe felt like tearing out his hair. Make that Vernice’s hair. Here he’d found some kind of window into another universe, and this brat thought it was a machine for showing dirty pictures. Just because the women were naked. The women. Naked.
He’d seen everything when Babs stood over the ball
.

“Give it to me, Vernice, and I’ll take you to
Grease
tonight. Just you and me. I’ll take you, and afterwards I’ll buy you a hotdog at the stand where all your friends can see. You can tell them I’m your boyfriend.”

“Really?” Vernice’s voice rose to an excited squeak. “Willya kiss me goodnight?”

“Give me that ball and don’t push your luck or I’ll break…”

“Here!” She took it out from under her pillow. “Take your dumb dirty pictures. I found ’em on mah bed. Were you in here lookin’ at them with Ron Junior?”

“Just keep quiet about it, Vernice. Please. I’ll meet you at the movie theater at 7:30.”

“No. Y’all meet me
here
. Ah want Becky James to see us walkin’ over theyure together.”

“All right. On the steps downstairs. 7:15. Don’t tell your mother; she’ll think I’ve lost my marbles.”

“Baah-Baaaah, Joey-Joe.”

***

Vernice watched Joe rush off with his little picture-ball of machines and naked women. Boy-stuff. She hadn’t told him that she’d found a whole
bunch
of the little balls on her bed. One was just for her. The others had drifted off.

She eased her bedroom door closed and got her ball back out of her desk drawer. A rough-featured man stared out at her adoringly. He said his name was Kenny Babs. He looked a little like Joe, but he had a mysterious European accent.

“You’re my vhoman, Wernice,” said Kenny. “Let me zhow you our love.”

The little scene inside the ball clouded, then cleared. Vernice could recognize herself, all grown up and wearing a bride’s dress. It was so
pretty
. The two of them were at a romantic candle-lit restaurant. Kenny came around the table and kissed her.

She held the ball up to her mouth, trying to feel his image. Firm, good-smelling lips pressed against her. Her head swam. It was just like she’d always dreamed it would be.

***

Joe couldn’t stop himself any longer. He locked himself in the bathroom and let down his pants.

“Yes,” mouthed Babs, smiling and licking her lips. “Giff me your zeed, dollink.” She cupped her hands under her breasts and pointed the stiff nipples out at Joe. Then slowly, slowly, she slid the ball down between her legs.

Oooooh. Joe rubbed the warm beauty of the little ball against the tip of his cock. He’d thought Babs looked too innocent for this, but it seemed like she knew the score. How could his sperm ever travel through the solidity of this hyperspace window, though?

Babs held the ball out in front of her body now, breasts swaying, tongue licking, hips churning. Her fingers were pressed to the ball’s surface. Pressed to the surface and…through. The ball grew projections, became Babs’s hand with the red fingernails, caressing Joe so skillfully, so knowingly, so nastily.

Even as the blood rose to his head, Joe wondered how this was possible. It was all too good to be true. Babs had to have been lying to him all along. This peep-show hand-job SF sphere was no window in the dimensions. This was an alien blob, a creature of some kind, possibly dangerous; he should…

Babs’s long forefinger reached down to tickle Joe’s balls. Connected thought became impossible. Oh Babs, oh Babs...

***

The glow of satisfaction at seeing himself on TV wholly eclipsed Bing’s rage at his dead wife. When the news was over he went to the kitchen and popped open another Stroh’s. Or tried to. The pull-ring tore off and he had to look for a church key.
Can do
, Bing thought expansively,
no problem for a TV personality such as myself
. Just then he noticed something stuck to his thumb.

A bright little speck of crystal, probably from that ball Joe’d had. Just then the kid came running back into the apartment.

“Hey Joe! You missed me on TV.”

“Sorry, Dad. Tell me in a minute. I’ve got…I’ve got to go to the john.”

Bing shrugged and focused back on his thumb. Was it a glass splinter stuck in there or what? Suddenly the bright bit expanded like a balloon. Bing found himself holding a copy of his dead wife Arlene’s head.

He tried to drop it, but it was stuck to his thumb, stuck like some horrible giant wart. Bing hesitated between rage and horror. But then the head began to talk.

“I’m zo glad to be free of you, you crummy little gyp. And you can’t do a zing about it.”

“Shut up, Arlene.” He gave the head a slap with his free left hand.

“You zink I feel zat?
You
can’t hurt me.”

Panting a little, Bing gave the head a harder blow, this time with his fist. Another. Another. How many times he’d dreamed of this, dreamed of a chance to get back at Arlene! Real or not, this was a gift from God! The head felt good and solid…he could feel his knuckles crunching bone. His whole body began to tingle with excitement.

“You little vhorm,” taunted the head. “You’re no man at all.”

Bing fumbled open the kitchen drawer and found a paring knife. “You’re gonna get it, Arlene. Now you’re really gonna get what’s coming to you.” Just then he heard the toilet flush. Hide!

“Joe, I’m gonna take a nap,” Bing called. And then he took Arlene into his bedroom and locked the door.

***

Next door, Cora Blevins was standing over her stove, watching some potatoes boil. She took another sip of wine. The heavy steam and heat reminded her of summer in Killeville, Virginia. A dizzy spell hit Cora just then…she was seven months pregnant…and without really meaning to, she sat down on the floor. The burbling of the boiling potatoes was like a hot river around her. She closed her eyes and remembered Sawyer’s Island.