Child of Fortune

by Norman Spinrad

  “No doubt! For I surmised all along that your desire was to play Circe to my Pan!”

  “Au contraire,” I proclaimed, “for while I may lay claim to the tantric puissance to turn a man such as yourself into a swine, reversing the procedure is clearly an act of prestidigitation beyond the scope of any woman’s art!”

  So saying, I thumbed on my ring of Touch, and, out of sight of the laughing crowd, thrust my hand deep into the crack of his buttocks. What happened next seemed to owe as much to the quickness of his thespic instincts as to the sudden kundalinic shock which must have taken him completely by surprise, for he screwed up his face into an outrageous caricature of swinish rut, sank to his knees grunting and making to plant slobbering kisses at my feet, leaving his derriere high in the air with my hand planted therein for all the world to see.

  Having achieved this apex, or rather nadir, of obscene comedy, there was nothing for it but to maintain this grotesque figure for a long moment, while the audience, which by the time of this climax had reached some several score, roared and groaned, and began to toss coins.

  Upon being showered with the first few droplets of what became a substantial rain of ruegelt, as if by prearranged choreography, we disengaged from our ribald tableau, glanced back and forth at each other, and, holding hands, assumed bowing postures until coin no longer rained upon us and the impromptu audience dispersed.

  “Allow me to make a somewhat more formal introduction,” he said, as he aided me in scooping up the booty. “Guy Vlad Boca, servidor de usted.”

  Vraiment, in his outré manner, he had served me well, for there were some three score pieces of ruegelt by my immediate rude estimation. A few weeks of the same success at various venues and we might gain sufficient ruegelt to quit Edoku for other planets of our respective choosing.

  “I somehow sense that you are no Edojin…?” I asked hopefully.

  “Moi?” he said with a little laugh. “Far from it, I am a simple Child of Fortune like yourself.”

  “Bon!” I declared, for this was precisely as I wished. “May I suggest we dine together at our mutual expense, for together we have certainly garnered enough funds to escape from the vileness of fressen, and together I believe we have affairs of mutual profit to discuss.”

  “I would be delighted to dine with you and I am sure I would find our discourse amusing at the very least,” Guy said somewhat superciliously, or so it seemed. “May I in turn suggest the Crystal Palace, an emporium whose cuisine I have…ah, heard, is of high repute?”

  “Porqué no?” I agreed, for I had no counterproposal to make.

  “And whom shall I have the honor of dining with?” Guy asked.

  “I am Moussa Shasta—” I paused, hefting the weight of the ruegelt I had just earned by my own wits, if at the cost of my unremunerative dignity. “I am Sunshine Shasta Leonardo, Gypsy Joker and ruespieler extraordinaire,” I told him. For had I not at long last also earned the right to style myself thusly?

  12

  Guy conducted me via Rapide to a narrow range of small mountains whose crestline formed a sharp divide between a sunrise savannah stocked with all manner of gene-crafted ungulates and a steamy swampland glowing in a perpetual sunset and done up in thick woodland not unreminiscent of the Bittersweet Jungle of Glade. The mountains themselves were entirely two-faced: rugged rock walls confronting sunset, gentle wooded slopes greeting the dawn.

  The Crystal Palace was situated squarely athwart the divide, so that with a slight twist of the neck one might traverse in an augenblick the temporal distance between sunrise and sunset without being troubled by the quotidian daylight hours between, and it truly was a palace of crystal. Not only were walls and ceiling of a perfect colorless transparency, the very tables and chaises were of the same clear substance, and the floor was a mirror reflecting the sky. Even the cushions on our chaises were of some soft transparent substance, indeed the very plates, chopsticks, and even serviettes were transparent.

  The esthetic effect of all this transparency, far from being one of colorless asceticism, was precisely the reverse: walls, ceiling, floors, furniture, tableware, the very air within the salon itself, seemed magically conjured out of the very fires of sunrise and sunset themselves, a venue of gorgeous oranges, mauves and purples, in which the only decor was the essences of the colors themselves.

  As for the cuisine, which I gracefully allowed Guy to order up, we dined on a feast of some twenty tiny dishes presented in the rijsttafel mode, though in place of the traditional pot of steamed rice as the ground for the multiplicity of cuisinary miniatures, we were served a great mound of thin and highly saffroned pasta gently fried almost to the point of crispness in some pungent oil. With this repast, we drank a powerful clear wine, like an aromatic sake, which seemed to be laced with mildly psychotropic herbs.

  Reposing there in a palace of romantic light liberally sprinkled with richly clad Edojin, daintily picking at artfully prepared dishes representing a good dozen different cuisinary modes, sipping at a wine which warmed my body with a fine sensual glow, I felt several light-years removed from the quotidian vie ordinaire I had so long endured on Edoku. Once more I had returned to the pampered haut monde which I had enjoyed as a favored daughter of the elite of Nouvelle Orlean, as a haut turista on Edoku itself who had airily gone through two months’ worth of funds in the same number of weeks. While my time as a Gypsy Joker and lover of the great Pater Pan still shone in memory’s afterglow, here I felt that I had returned to my proper station. And it was a grace from which I was determined not to fall again.

  And Guy Vlad Boca, so it seemed to me, was the chip of credit, as it were, whereby such a style of life might be indefinitely sustained, if only I could bend his services to my purpose.

  In the service of which, I therefore kept my ring of Touch activated, and continually contrived to chance to brush my hand against various portions of his anatomy as we ate, drank, and spoke—touching his hand or arm to emphasize points of my discourse, patting his thigh in innocent friendly appreciation, snuggling close to him, and in general exercising the usual seductive feminine wiles, greatly augmented by my secret electronic power.

  Nor, if truth be told, was I myself entirely immune to the erotic aura which I spun around our intimate tête-à-tête, for certainement he was a handsome enough fellow, with a languid and loose-limbed air that bespoke an attractively sensual spirit, he had proven himself quick and clever enough, and the rosy atmospheric glow of the Crystal Palace, not to say that of the toxicants in the wine, suffused my own body with a pleasantly lustful warmth.

  “I sense that our fortunes were intended by destiny to pleasantly intertwine, Guy,” I told him, leaning quite close and regarding him coyly over the lip of my wineglass while smoothing his leg with my hand.

  “Indeed,” he said, his eyes warmed by a smoky sunset glow, “I would have little objection to some pleasant intertwining once our gustatory appetites have been properly sated.”

  “All in its own good time,” I promised. “But I have in mind an enterprise even more intimate than a passage d’amour, indeed one which would spice the same with the piquancy of a deeper sharing, much as the psychotropics in this wine enhance its toxicating pleasures…”

  “Mmmmm…?” he purred dreamily.

  “Our very presence here bespeaks our combined ability to profit together at the ruespieler’s trade, nē…”

  “Ruespieler? Moi?” he said with a certain lack of focus, for my hand had slid further inward along his thigh.

  “You have never been a ruespieler?” I said in some surprise. “I would have thought…”

  He beamed at me and moved his face closer to mine. “I have never told a tale in my life,” he said. “Though I own to a quick wit verbal…”

  “Well then fear not, and leave matters of repertoire to me,” I assured him somewhat hyperbolically. “In fact what I have in mind requires no learning in the ruespieler’s art.”

  “What I have in mind requires no verbal s
kill at all,” he cooed, clasping his hand upon mine as it held my glass. I withdrew my other hand from his thigh, the better to focus his flagging intellect on my words. He pursed his lips in a moue of minor pique.

  “Be serious, Guy!” I chided him. “Attend! What I propose is that you and I repeat what we have to our profit so recently performed until we have secured enough funds to purchase electrocoma passage to some other world, and in the meantime to purchase pleasures such as this which Edoku affords. Within a month, we should be on our way.”

  “Hmmm…” he said. “Would not such an entertainment soon jade the Edojin, whose fickleness is all too legendary?”

  “We need not perform in the same venue twice,” I told him. “Moreover, while continuing to play the same bantering duet, we might contrive to vary our japes from time to time for variety’s sake.” I replaced my stroking hand upon his thigh, moved it even closer to the kundalinic quick of him, and gazed romantically into his eyes. “Well what do you say, Guy? Partners and lovers in the grand adventure of the Yellow Brick Road to our mutual pleasure and enrichment…?”

  “Wandering troubadours of erotic comedy together?” he mused somewhat superciliously. “Guy Vlad Boca, Child of Fortune and ruespieler extraordinaire, with his lady by his side…?”

  “Vraiment! What do you think?”

  “Je ne sais pas…” he said in a bantering tone. “It might be drôle…I can see some possibilities for amusement…”

  “Merde!” I exclaimed. “Drôle? Amusement? I offer you a partnership of love and profit and that is the best you have to say for yourself?”

  Guy leaned even closer and leered at me slyly. “Guy Vlad Boca has never been one to pursue an enterprise for mere pecuniary gain,” he said loftily. “As for love, such might convince me to agree, though it would take some art. At the very least, a demonstration thereof is in order, nē…”

  I tugged briefly and none too gently at the handle of his manhood as if to yank him thereby out of his supercilious mood and watched his eyes go wide and his full lips tremble. “If it is a demonstration you require,” I said forcefully, staring deep into his eyes, “I shall provide one that will leave you shaking like jelly and panting to serve my yoni…”

  “Indeed?” he replied throatily. “In point of fact, that end, at any rate, you have achieved already…”

  In some haste, we guzzled down the last of our wine, and settled up the tab, which, alas, consumed most of the ruegelt we had earned together. But this minor catastrophe barely impinged upon my mood, for certainement there would be no lack of funds once I had worked my tantric puissance on Guy and won him to our enterprise.

  The choice of cuisinary venue having been Guy’s, the choice of boudoir was left to me, both to serve the balance of reciprocation, and for the reason that Guy, by now consumed by priapic lust, seemed entirely unequipped to give that nicety or any other serious and judicious consideration. Lacking sufficient funds to rent a chamber in a hotel, and not wishing to perform our nuptials in the nearest secluded woodland or garden, I conducted us via Rapide to the garden atop the butte, where, what now seemed like half a lifetime’s karma ago, Pater Pan had conducted me for our first passage d’amour.

  Upon emerging from the lift tube which carried us from the base of the waterfall to the shallow bowl of gardens sunk into the cliff top, a not unpleasant feeling of sweet tristesse for that lover in this venue at that temporal nexus spiced my anticipation of what was to come, as hand in hand with Guy I beheld the little rolling green hills and dells, the crystal pools and burbling brooks, the blooming stands of trees planted along the hilltops as hedges of seclusion. I inhaled the warm perfumed breezes, bounced gaily in the low gravity gradient, removed my shoes and luxuriated in the strange furlike feel of the lawn beneath my bare feet, as I led Guy to a dell by a pool, not unlike the one in which I had first shared love with Pater.

  At length, when we reposed on the velvety lawn beneath the cerulean sky, I looked inquiringly at Guy, seeking his approval of the wu of the venue I had chosen.

  Guy slowly ran his gaze about the flowering trees on the hillcrest above us, the clear pool on whose shore we lay, the forest rimming the horizon, then regarded me as if sizing up my relation to this bucolic paradise.

  “Well?” I finally demanded.

  “Quaint,” he said in that supercilious tone with which I was becoming quite familiar. “In fact, all in all, rather charming.” Then, seeing that consternation upon my face which had been his jocular intent to evoke all along, he broke into good-natured, albeit raucous, laughter.

  “What a beast you are, Guy Vlad Boca!” I exclaimed in much the same spirit. “How in need you are of proper taming!”

  So saying, I rolled over upon him, clasping my lips to his, and running my hands, both natural and electronically augmented, freely over the most intimate parts of his body.

  How unlike the response of Pater Pan in this very venue upon a similar occasion Guy’s was, indeed how unlike the response of any male within my experience! Far from returning my challenge to the pouvoir of his manhood with attempts at overmastery of his own, far from entering into a loverly contest of erotic wills aimed at contesting my mastery of him through pleasure with his own skill at the evoking of same, he immediately gave himself over to unbridled and entirely unconstrained enjoyment of my ministrations. He embraced me tenderly but with little force, he rained little soft kisses on the nape of my neck as I seized his lingam, he moaned and sighed, he fairly purred as I enveloped his body, his head rolling back and forth, eyes half closed, as he flowed softly beneath me like the waves of a tropical sea.

  Strange to tell, this entirely frank self-absorption in his own pleasure, far from vexing me with its openly languid passivity, inflamed my lust to a fever pitch in some arcane manner. When we broke our embrace to disrobe, it was I who stripped off my tunic in graceless haste, and he who slowly and teasingly shed his clothing as if for my delectation, smiling slyly at me all the while.

  When our nude bodies came together, vraiment, he assumed the superior position and thrust his manly lingam home with a rhythm that left nothing to be desired in terms of vigor, but there was nothing of the rutting animal or egoistic cocksman about it.

  Instead, as I spurred him on with my Touch deep in the root of him, he gave himself over to a slow and smoky ecstasy, as if experiencing my pleasure as his own, and somehow turning back his own wanton enjoyment of my preternatural powers upon myself, so that the more I perceived his thoughtless and mindless appreciation of the moment-to-moment pleasure, the more I became inflamed with the lust to drive him to ever more wild heights of abandon.

  Our passage d’amour went on and on in this vein for an endless, or at any rate measureless, time, and though we essayed tantric figures of some variety, the inner figure never changed. Vraiment, though I had had lovers of greater artistry and certainement of more sheer tantric power, never had I experienced such a total egoless surrender to ecstasy at my touch as that of Guy Vlad Boca, and never had a man therefore made me feel more potent as a mistress of the tantric arts. Mayhap this is what spurs a man on to feats of tantric heroism in the arms of a woman; je ne sais pas. Suffice it to say that when at length, verdad at what seemed like tantalizingly languid leisure, we eased seamlessly into one single mutual cusp, I felt entirely content, indeed overweeningly pleased with what I had wrought.

  Guy, for his part, lay on his back with his hands clasped behind his head, his full lips parted in a sensuous smile of pleasure, his breath deep and slow, and his eyes shut to the world for a long while before he summoned up the composure to speak.

  “Now that,” he finally said, “was amusing.”

  “Amusing!” I shrieked. “Is that all anything is to you, Guy, amusing?”

  Guy propped himself up against the slope of the dell and softened my anger with a little laugh. “Au contraire,” he said. “It takes a great deal to truly amuse me. If you knew me better, you would know to what lengths I am willing to go to be amused, an
d that I have in fact paid you the highest compliment of which I am capable.”

  “Well, then,” I said, somewhat mollified, “have I sufficiently amused you to convince you that my proposition that we ruespiel together as partners and lovers until we have accumulated sufficient funds to leave Edoku offers enough hope of further amusement for you to consent to give it a try?”

  Guy laughed. He regarded me with the strangest unreadable expression. “Oh verdad!” he said. “I can think of no one else I would rather have as a traveling companion. However…I must confess that thusfar I have been traveling with you under somewhat false pretenses.”

  “False pretenses?”

  “Hai! I fear I have thusfar withheld complete revelation of the full grandeur of my being.”

  At this modest confession, I was quite literally rendered speechless.

  Guy, naturellement, suffered no such aphasia. “All we have told each other is our status as Children of Fortune and our names,” he said. “Let us now therefore exchange the tales thereof and I promise you all will be gloriously revealed to your delight. Please begin, Sunshine, for I would not wish your name tale to come as a great anticlimax.”

  So bemused was I at all this mystery that I scarcely reacted to the implied insult in my haste to get to the bottom of it, which is to say I did as he asked, relating the tales of my maternom and paternom without of course mentioning the Touch, and telling the tale of my nom de rue, Sunshine, and my career as a Gypsy Joker, without needlessly overemphasizing the degree and depth of my intimacy with Pater Pan.

  “Drôle,” Guy said when I had finished. “A true Child of Fortune of the spirit!” He rose to his feet and tied the arms of his black velvet blouson about his neck so as to accoutre himself with a swirling cloak, more for thespic effect than out of any modest impulse to clothe his nakedness.

  “I am Guy Vlad Boca,” he declaimed grandly, “and while I too am a true Child of Fortune of the spirit, I hardly need reduce myself to begging in the streets in order to travel from planet to planet as insensate cargo in electrocoma, danke, nor need anyone upon whom I choose to bestow my favor.