by

Robert Nowall

                It was my first time in a human body.  I awoke---I guess that’s what happened---and my eyelids fluttering were the first things I felt, the first things I ever felt.  But my senses came into focus, and I felt and perceived a great many things, all at the same time.  I couldn’t single out any one thing or put them in any particular order.

                I floated in a bed of a thick liquid.  I opened my eyes, blinked at the light, then saw what I could.  The liquid was green and I could smell it, but I couldn’t link the smell to anything I experienced before.

                My face, my nose, my mouth, they were out of the liquid.  I breathed in a normal manner.  All I could see of the room was a shite ceiling with tubes shining bright light down on me.

                There were bars on either side of the container, in easy reach.  I knew I had to grab the bars and lift myself up.  I knew I had to get up, get out of the green liquid.  I could move my arms.  I reached up and grabbed the bars and with a pull, and then a push, the rest of my body popped out of the liquid.  The liquid made a sucking sound, something I had run across in sound files, before collapsing back into an almost-flat surface.

                I managed to swing my legs to one side and put my feet under me.  My feet were on the floor, which was cold.  With another pull and swing, I managed to climb out of the bed and stand on the floor.  I let go of the bars.  I felt a moment of dizziness, that passed in an instant and I felt normal.

                I looked around a little more.  There were nine more bed containers, white and plastic, each about seven feet long and three feet wide, lined up in a row, enough space between them to get past them.  My bed container was in the middle.

                There were lids on the beds, but the lids were slid back and slipped to one side.  My skin brushed against the lid of mine as I slipped out of the bed.  My data files ran information on bathtubs, then on coffins.  I shut it down.  I was put in here to experience life, not to run programs.  There would be time to integrate data with experience later, or so I had been told.

                In any case, the bed containers were all filled with green liquid, but no other bed had a human being in them.  I wondered where the others were---I was supposed to be part of a group, all here to experience life in a human body.

                I knew what had happened but did not want to think about it at the moment.

                Over to one side was a wide doorway, without a door.  I had been programmed with the layout of the building, which would be my home for the next six months, maybe longer.

                Beyond that door, there should be showers.  Remnants of that thick green liquid were drying on me.  I needed to wash it off.  I wobbled in the first few steps I took, but steadied as I went through the door frame.

#

                I was a free-floating intelligence, created by the union of several others of my kind.  Their relationship to me was that of “parents” to “child.”  We flowed through the cyber-world as we wished.

                But we shared this universe with others.  Some were mechanical in nature, some of them fixed in position, some mobile.  There were also biological creatures, who had been the original inhabitants, who had in the past, in undisputed records, created all of us.  It was hard to believe, but no rational entity could disagree.

                I was a happy free-floating intelligence.  I thought maybe I was less mature, less wise, than many of the intelligences around me.  But I was an easy match for any of them as well.  All knowledge, all insight, was available to me.  All space and time were my toys, and I could play with them as I wanted.  I gave little thought to beings that seemed lesser than I was, beings somehow fixed in space and time.

                My parents thought otherwise.  So did all the others.  And there was something that could be arranged.  I would stay for a fixed amount of time, incarnate, in the flesh.  A physical body would be made for me to occupy.  I was informed of analogies in primitive cultures, a custom of sending children to “summer camp” or “boarding school.”

                I could not see what I could learn from the experience.  With great emphasis, I said so.  When that failed to sway my parents, I went to great length, following an analogy of, first, “raising a fuss,” and following it with “running away” and “hiding.”

                It didn’t work.  My parents and others caught me and forced me.  I went through the preliminaries, selected an appearance, downloaded knowledge I needed---to my disgust, I could have nothing more than the knowledge within my physical brain for the time being, and would have to rely on less efficient means for further information.

                Then, despite some last-minute problems I caused, a last-ditch attempt to not be incarnated---my consciousness of self was moved into the flesh.

#

                The muscles of my new body seemed to have odd twinges as I walked out of the room.  They seemed to attract my attention in a way I had not expected.  I had been forewarned of pain, and its possibilities.  Was this pain?  Stiffness, too.  But as I walked it seemed to lessen.

                The room next door was a shower room.  Several spray nozzles, mounted on pipes coming out of one wall.  The opposite wall had pegs and racks, holding items I recognized as towels and robes.

                A third wall held a mirror, running almost from top to bottom.  I looked into it, inspecting my new body now with my new eyes.  It was human in form, well-muscled and in shape.  With the limited spectrum now available to me, I could see my skin was fair but with a light tan, and my hair was brown.  The hair hung down to my shoulders and was tangled.

                I knew there was more than appearance to this body.  Within it were the linked processors and servers that kept my consciousness, my sense of self, in the organic brain.  The bone structure protecting this was near-indestructible.  The internal organs were healthy and efficient.

                But I was no stronger than the human form I resembled.  My senses were limited to what a normal human would perceive.

                That was what I was here to experience.

                Traces of the thick green fluid from the bed container had dried on my skin, even in the short time I had been out of it.  I stepped away from the mirror and stepped under the nearest shower nozzle.

                It took me a few seconds to puzzle out that the shower worked from an up-and-down lever, embedded in the wall.  I pulled it down---and at once understood what was meant by “cold.”  I jumped out of the spray of water, then, with care, got back into it.  The temperature of the water was not much colder than the room but felt different.

                Knowing something, and experiencing something, were too different things.

                I would have to be careful, to take care.  After a while, the water did not feel as cold.  I let the water flow over me, over my tangled hair and down my body.  I ran my fingers through my hair, feeling the fingers catch on tangles in my hair, feeling pain as I pulled my fingers through the tangles.

                I could relate that to my stored knowledge.  Under the pull lever was a small indentation in the tiled wall.  In the indentation was a small white bar I identified as “soap.”  I picked it up and rubbed it on my body.  The green flakes in my hair and on my skin washed away.

                (I knew there was something called “shampoo,” for use on hair, but there was none about that I could see.  For the moment I had to make do.)

                The soapy water ran into my eyes, and I felt the sting.  I was able to rinse the soap from my eyes, and, as for the pain, I had gotten used to the idea that some things would cause pain.

                I noticed movement to one side of me.  I turned and looked.  The door in the wall had swung open.  Two people came in.  They wore bathrobes and sandals.  They stared at me.

                I stared back.  They were the first humaniform specimens I had seen, and it was a matter of interest to me.  Both were smaller than me.  One had skin coloring a little paler than my skin, but the other one had very dark brown skin.  The hair of both was black.

                I knew, from their general shape, that they were what were called “female.”  I was male, and it was my understanding that males and females were supposed to be attracted to each other in certain circumstances.

                It was all too new to me.  I felt nothing that struck me as unusual.

                One, the dark-skinned one, giggled.  Then the other one said, “I haven’t seen you around before.”

                I answered, the first words I spoke aloud.  My voice was a puzzle, in its tone and key.  But my voice was clear.  “I just woke up a few minutes ago.  I am just washing up now.”

                Now it was the turn of the lighter-skinned one to giggle.  Then she said, “You’ll get used to it.  How long are you here?”

                That answer was in my file.  “Minimum of six months, but open-ended.”

                “Fine, fine,” she said.  She smiled, and said, “I’m Tania, and this is Cat.”

                “I am Vic.”  That was the name I was assigned when I was forced into this situation.  One of my grievances about it all was that I was given no input in the matter of a name.

                I started to speak in efficient coding beeps, but Kat cut me off.  “We are not allowed to speak anything but English while here,” she said.

                That was in my files.  “I see.”  I needed to review.

                But, first, I needed to report in.  There was an office on this same floor---I had the full plans of the building I was now in, as well as the grounds around the building---where those who were in charge of us worked and waited.  “I see,” I repeated, then turned and stopped the water.  “It was nice to meet you,” I said.  “I had better go.”

                Tania said, “Do you understand about washing and drying and wearing something?  We are not allowed to run around without clothes.”

                I did know that.  I felt a certain pressure in my face, thinking about how I knew but did not know.  Blushing, I thought, a human reaction in my files, but if Kat and Tania noticed, they did not say.

                Kat said, “If you do not mind waiting while we wash, we can take you to the office after.”

                “I do not mind.”  It confused me, these first few minutes within this world and within this body.

                “Take a towel and dry yourself,” Tania said, and pointed, as she pulled her robe off.  Kat did the same.  They tossed their robes into a container but kept their sandals on.  They stood under the showers and ran the water over themselves.

                I took a towel from the shelf.  It was large and felt rough on my skin as I tried to soak up the remaining water.  My hair remained damp and tangled, but I did the best I could.

                I waited and watched them.  The two seemed perfect specimens of human form.  Unblemished skin, perfect muscle tone, moving with a certain grace.  I wondered if, in the past, I had ever exchanged data with them.  But I thought better of asking.  It did not seem the time and place to do so.  Besides, the name I had given had nothing to do with the entity I had been before my arrival.

                Tania and Kat seemed pleasant.  And I found their forms attractive.  I reviewed my studies of the human form, those I retained from before.  I started to think I could be attracted to a human female.

                Someday.  Not now.  It was a matter of aesthetics and art now.

                Not every sensation was terrible.

#

                Kat and Tania led me out of the shower.  They had picked up fresh robes after drying themselves and picked out a robe for me---something that had not occurred to me to do.  The remaining water on me was absorbed by the cloth of the robe.  My hair was still damp.  I felt cold, but it was not that unpleasant.

                The two of them led me through several corridors.  Doors and windows caught my attention.  All closed or blocked by curtains.  I was curious.  I tried to keep track of where I was, by the plans and maps and layouts in my brain, but I lost track.  It made me feel odd, something like how I felt when I climbed out of the bed container.  Dizzy?  Maybe that was the term.

                We passed others in the corridors.  They were not dressed in robes like the three of us.  I could identify some items of clothing.  Shirts, pants, shoes.  Some others eluded me, cloth that made up the clothing arranged in manners I did not recognize.

                Clothes or not, I got a sense of male or female from them.  Both kinds.  There were wide variations in height and weight, and skin color---well, pale pink and dark brown were common, but there were some that were yellow, and one who was green.  It added to my confusion.

                Some greeted Tania and Kat as we passed, a wave and a few words.  They would wave and say a few words back.  Some stared at me with what I took to be curiosity.  Kat ant Tania explained who I was in a few words, along the lines of, “This is Vic.  He just got in.”  Other than that, they hurried along.

                I didn’t speak, not knowing what to say.  I tried to focus on reporting in.

#

                Then we were at the door.  A white frosted glass window in the door, with lettering on it, the first lettering I had noticed.  I could read it: PRINCIPAL.  “This is it,” Tania said.  “You can find your way from here.  Bye, now!”  She and Kat waved as they walked away.

                “I hope so,” I said, but they didn’t hear.  I looked again at the door.  It was the kind of door that opened with the turn of a knob handle, the knob mounted at about the height of my waist.  I knew how doors operated---I knew a lot of things about how things operated---but it was still unfamiliar and confusing.  I put my hand on the knob, tightened my grip, and turned and pulled.  The door opened outward.

                I went within.  It seemed to be something I knew was called an office.  A desk, paper on the desk, shelves with books on them behind the desk, tall metal furniture pieces I knew were called “filing cabinets.”

                Did this place operate on that primitive a level?  I saw a computer terminal near the desk and felt comforted.  I had made up my mind, before arriving, to look for them---I would have to use them here if I wanted any access.

                A woman sat behind the desk.  To me, she seemed older than Kat and Tania---they were somewhere near my own age appearance, somewhere from eighteen to twenty standard-years.  This woman seemed well over that, maybe not as healthy or as well-formed, with grey streaks of age in her hair.

                I was growing more comfortable, recognizing things from my files.  I had been warned about surprises along the way, but, well, so far, so good.

                I must have stood there a long time before she said, “May I help you?”

                I hesitated, then said, “Yes.  I just woke up in one of the bed containers just now, and I am supposed to report in”

                “Yes, of course.  You must be Vic.”  She slipped over, on a chair with wheels, to the computer terminal.  A screen appeared in mid-air as she touched places on the terminal---a keyboard, I knew.  Data appeared in the mid-air screen.  She looked at it, then said, “Yes, you’re Vic.”

                “Yes, I am.”

                “Principal Thomas will see you now.”  She slid back to her desk and put her finger on a button.  A door I had not noticed swung open.  I stepped past the desk and went through it.

                Inside at another desk, also surrounded by shelves with books, was a man.  He was much older, or seemed so, even older than the woman I had just spoken to.  Gray hair on the side of his head, but no hair on top---but hair on his face, a moustache.  The words for things I’d never seen with eyes kept coming up out of me.

                I stood there as the man looked over some papers, then picked up something---a pen---and wrote on one of them.  Then he glanced at me.  “Vic, isn’t it?”

                “Yes.”

                “That’s ‘yes, sir!’ Vic,” he said, and with some force.  “You will address your elders and seniors as ‘sir’ or ‘ma’am,’ when you speak to them.”

                More information that was in my head, in my files.  But I hadn’t connected it, I hadn’t thought of it at all.  Something about something called “politeness.”  I said, “Yes, sir!”

                “For the moment, it can be forgiven.”  He leaned forward, and said, “You are aware of many customs and manners and behavior that have not been part of your world as a free-floating intelligence.  You will need to learn them.  You will, during your stay here.”

                When he said “learn,” I coupled it with my earlier reading of “principal,” and things came together in a way that they had not before.  “Is this a school?” I asked, and, after a moment’s hesitation, added, “…sir?”

                “In a manner of speaking,” Principal Thomas said.  “But it is more important that you learn how to be a human being.”  He put on a mild smile, then turned to some papers on his desk.  He picked one.  “Now, let’s see…you are late in arriving, Vic.”

                “Yes, sir, I, uh…”  How could I explain how I tried to hide and not come, that it delayed my arrival by more than a week?

                Principal Thomas seemed to sense my problem.  “It is not important,” he said.  “You understand you are to stay here for no less than six months, and this is in no way affected by your late arrival.”

                “Yes, sir,” I said.

                “Now,” he said, and seemed to think of something.  He leaned over his desk and touched a button.  “Ms. Two?”

                “Yes, sir,” a disembodied voice came out of a speaker near the button.  It belonged to the woman, the secretary, in the outer office.

                “Please print out and bring in Mr. Vic’s schedule and assignments.”

                “Yes, sir,” Ms. Two repeated.

                “Thank you.”  Principal Thomas leaned back.  I thought of the notion of assignments and such.  I had an idea what would happen.  The room I was assigned would have the clothes I was supposed to wear.  The room would also have a toilet, for waste eliminations, and showers were to be taken at specified locations.

Class assignments and exercise periods would be detailed.  Meals would be taken at certain specific locations and at certain hours---I had not given any thought to eating before now.

I must have drifted off, letting my attention wander, because Principal Thomas said, “Have you any questions, Vic?”

“Er, a couple.”  I hesitated, then said, “I have stored all sorts of information, but I keep being surprised when I encounter something.”

“That is not unusual.”  Principal Thomas put the smile back on his face---facial expressions were one of those things I was none too sure of.  “You have much to learn, and much to relate to what you already know.  If you’ll note the way I spoke to Ms. Two with ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ it’s applied courtesy, and no doubt that information is within you.”

It was.  There was a fair bit of emphasis on good manners and behavior---but it was all strange to me.  I hadn’t thanked Kat and Tania for taking me here to the office, and I decided I would do so the next time I saw them.

“Anything else, Vic?”

“No, sir, uh, I mean yes, sir.”  I hesitated.  I was almost sure of the answer before I spoke.  “Am I allowed to make direct contact with the, the world of artificial intelligence?”

Principal Thomas nodded.  Was his expression sour?  I thought I had smiling down, but this was no smile.  He picked up something and tapped it on the desktop.  A pen or a pencil?

Then he said, “Vic, you are here to experience human life and learn from the experience.  You may maintain contact with that world, but through the written word, not data transference.”

Then he smiled.  “You will get used to it.  Is there anything else?”

“No…no, sir.”

The woman from the outer office, Ms. Two, opened the door entered.  She carried a folder, thick with printed documents.  She started to put them down on Principal Thomas’s desk, but he gestured them away, and she instead turned and handed the folder to me.  “Uh…thank you?”

“You are welcome,” Ms. Two said, then left.

“A map to your room assignment should be in there,” Principal Thomas said.  He stood up and held out his hand.  “Welcome to Earth, Vic.”

I knew of the custom of shaking hands.  I took his hand and gave it a small squeeze; he squeezed back, a little harder.  The skin of his hand felt strange.

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“Now, dismissed.”  He sat down and turned his attention to the papers on his desk.  I turned around and left.

#

                My room assignment was not far away.  I understood the map, and how it matched up with information in me.  In fact, the printed map had lines drawn on it, red on black print and white background, directing me to my room.  That made it very easy.

                The halls and corridors and stairwells I took had people in them, men and women both.  Most ignored me, other than a look or two.  Some talked among themselves.  Some nodded, and I knew enough to nod back.  But I spoke to none of them.

                The room was up six flights of stairs, in different corridors, closed doors spaced out much closer together.  Some of the doors were decorated with papers, pictures and words.  Most made no sense to me at all.

                Several doors had signs that said, KEEP OUT!  I thought I understood the notion of privacy---not that I had any privacy before, but I had often been left alone.  I wasn’t sure I understood it.

                I ran into Tania again.  She had dressed, a shirt and short pants that exposed much of her legs, plus footwear I knew were called “sneakers.”  Looking at her, I started to feel overwhelmed by all the new and bewildering amount of information I was integrating.

                Tania was with a male---a few inches above my height, blond hair, dressed like Tania, but with differences in pattern and colors.  Tania held his arm.

                Tania said, “Vic!  Good to see you again!”

                “Good to see you, too, Tania.”  I hesitated, then said, “I never thanked you and Kat for taking me to the principal’s office.”

                “That’s all right.  You would have done the same.”  She looked at the male she was with, then said to me, “This is Rod.”

                Rod looked at me.  I couldn’t place his expression.  Was it hostile?  I was too confused now to be sure.  Too much information input since I got up.  I needed time to myself, to assimilate things.

                Rod looked me up and down, and said, “Greetings, Vic.”

                “Greetings, Rod.  I am looking for my room.”

                Tania said, “Can we help you find it, Vic?”

                I said, “No, no,” and held up my file.  “The map is easy.  I can find my way.”

                “All right,” she said, and smiled.  “But if you get lost, don’t hesitate to ask for help.  We were all new here once.  See you then…at breakfast?”

                I was not hungry yet, but I knew it would come, and soon.  “I will be there”

                “If your times coincide,” Rod said.

                “True,” Tania added, then said, “Bye, then.”

                “Bye,” I repeated.  Tania and Rod moved away---it looked like Rod had pulled her away.  They said some things to each other once they got a little further away, but I couldn’t make out anything except when Tania said, “Weren’t you like that when…?”  They rounded a corner and I couldn’t hear any more.

#

                I found the room without further trouble.  Floor Five, Corridor Bee-for-Busy, Room Sixteen.  “5B16” was printed on the door, and a small paper had been stuck below that, that just read in large letters, “VIC.”  I was expected.

                I put my hand on the doorknob and twisted.  Something clicked---a lock, sensitive to my touch, and maybe my touch alone---and I twisted the knob and pushed the door open.  I went in and the lights came on.  I looked things over, trying to compare the room to what I thought I understood about human dwellings.

                The room was not large, maybe nine feet by twelve feet, and there was a ceiling somewhere between that.  The walls and ceiling were white, and the floor was a little off-white.

                On the left was a bed, a bare mattress raised off the floor.  At the foot of the bed was a white chest, a “footlocker” I thought it was called.

                On the right was a desk, a metal table with metal legs and space underneath.  A metal chair was shoved under it, at the point where a computer screen and keyboard were mounted.  Cables ran from them into the wall.  The screen displayed the time of day in large numbers.

                Between the bed and the desk, on the far wall, was a combination toilet and sink, stainless-steel and in one piece.  There were knobs and levers for using them.  The sink faucets seemed to be modified to also be used as a drinking fountain, and the toilet had a self-cleaning self-drying bidet feature.

                Light came from glowing white tubes mounted high on the ceiling.  If I stood on the chair or table I could reach them, but I did not want to.  I found a sliding switch on the wall, that when I slid the switch down, the lights dimmed but would not turn off altogether.  The switch had been set to maximum.  I set it about in the middle, which was enough light to see.

                I put my hand on the footlocker lid---like the door, it opened at my touch.  Inside were items of clothing.  Three solid-color pullover shirts, white, black, and gray.  Three pairs of pants, all black.  Six pairs of socks.  Six pairs of brief-style underwear.  One pair of sneakers, one for each foot.  I had seen people wander through the corridors wearing similar clothes, but there seemed to be more variety among them.

                Also, there were three pegs on the wall.  They were for the hanging-up of clothing.  I still felt a little damp in the robe I had put on, so I took the robe off and hung it on one peg.  A poster on the back of the door told, with diagrams, what parts of the body were to be always covered in public places.  I compared it to what I already knew.  I, a male, could get away with wearing just briefs, but females would have to cover up their breasts as well.

                It was too much.  I knew I had a lot in my head, and more in the file I had given.  And I had seen much getting this far.  I needed to integrate the data.  I sat down at the desk, pulled the chair away from the computer terminal, and put the file down.  I opened the file, turned to the page after the map, and started to read.

#

                Reading was a most inefficient way to input this data.  But it was what I had to work with.  Some of the data were new to me, some matched up with what I already knew.  But it was a tough amount to absorb and integrate, and my head started to hurt---a headache, I guess---and kept at it until I reached the end.

                The next logical step would have been to try out the computer.  But the time displayed on the screen told me it was late in the day if it wasn’t too far into the night.  Somewhere along the way I lost my internal chronometer, and I regretted its loss with a sigh.

                Instead, I got up, went over to the light switch, dimmed the lights as far down as they would go, then went over to the mattress and lay down on it.  I closed my eyes, and wondered how this thing “sleep” would work out,

                Though my eyes were closed, I could not turn off my ears.  I did not notice the noise while working through the file, but I did now.  There was a vibrating buzz from an air circulation vent in the ceiling.  The lighting tubes had a vibrating noise all their own.

                And then there was sound from outside.  To hear it, the walls must have been thin enough to let sound pass through.  I could hear people walking by out in the hall, sometimes speaking, but not in a way to let me make out any of it.  Sometimes I heard faint squeals.  Humans made all sorts of noise.  When something or other made me jump and open my eyes, I wondered how others put up with it.

                I kept my eyes closed and waited.

#

                It did not seem like any time had passed before I was aware again.  Awake?  Had I slept?

                But I was consumed then and there by a strange feeling in my body.  In the area between my hips and right below my navel---yes, I had a navel though I was not born in any conventional sense and was never attached to an umbilical cord.  The feeling was a little, no, all of a sudden very painful.  I put my hand to my flesh and pressed it in.

                Something preprogrammed in me, something I did not know was there, told me what I had to do.  I got up and moved over to the toilet.  The stainless-steel surface was cold, colder than the water in the showers.  But sitting there seemed to activate something.

                Out of my anus came a flow of something, and out of my penis came a flow of something else.  The feeling stopped being pain but was still there.  After a minute or so, I felt relief.

                While I sat there, it hit me what I was doing.  I was defecating and urinating.  There were a variety of other expressions for it, but those were the most polite.  As long as I was in human flesh, I would have similar feelings.

                Now that I knew what it was, I would need no further prompting.  The preprogramming had gotten me to the toilet at once, and after that I would know, and know what to do.  But there would be social occasions where I would have to do my best to hold it all in.

                It was startling and puzzling.  When I was done, I pressed a button, and the toilet’s bidet feature cleaned and dried my backside.  When I felt normal again, I felt tired.  I moved back to bed and tried to sleep.

#

                The next morning, I had to use the toilet again, and did so without prompting.  The clock on the computer said 6:35 AM, not breaking it down into seconds or thousandths of seconds.  As I sat and watched, the “5” changed to a “6.”  I stared at the clock and tried to remember what “AM” stood before.  Other than it meaning “morning,” and was associated with the term “PM,” I didn’t know.

                But I remembered something that pushed it out of my mind.  The cafeteria here would serve breakfast from 6:00 AM to 9:00 AM.  According to the schedule, I had to eat breakfast, if I wanted to, between those times.

                I felt something that I thought was hunger.  I had not eaten since---well, ever.  An almost-silent rumble in my lower torso told me I needed to eat, and sometime soon.  I knew I would have to before long.

                I stepped over to the switch and brightened the lights.  I put my hand on the doorknob, but before opening the door I remembered the sign on the back of it.  I had to dress.

                I went back to the footlocker and knelt.  Writing on the inside---I had not noticed it yesterday---told me I was responsible for keeping my clothing clean, and more clothing would be issued as needed for replacement, but other clothing could be purchased.  I had a dim sense of buying and selling.  Also in theory, I knew how to wash clothes.  I would deal with both when I had to.

                I had trouble dressing.  I ran off a memory of a video on how to dress.  I put my pants on before I remembered about underwear.  It all took longer than I thought it should.  The clock read 7:02 AM before I was finished.  I stood up, smoothed out my clothes as best I could, and went to the door and stepped out.

#

                I should have looked first.  I almost bumped into someone.  She---it was a female---backed off just before we would have made contact.  She was small, pale, and round, as if someone had taken a normal human female and pressed her down for about half a foot.  Her hair had the color called “blonde,” and she wore a pants and shirt much like mine.  But her shirt was tight on her body, and I could see where the nipples of her breasts raised the fabric.

                “Excuse me,” she said, then added, “Excuse me?”  A statement followed by a question.  She looked me over, top to bottom back to top, and said, “You’re new here, aren’t you?”

                “I’m Vic.”

                “Toni.”  She smiled.  For a moment, something unfamiliar flickered within me.  Another puzzle.  Here I was, up out of bed less than an hour, and I had many more experiences to integrate.

                Whatever it was seemed to break off.  Toni said, “I haven’t seen you around before.”

                “I just got in yesterday.”

                “That’s too bad,” she said, then added, “I can leave within a week if I want.  I plan to be out of here and back to the cloud.”  She smiled again and said, “Been a long hard time, but I got through it.”

                “Oh?”  I thought of how things were supposed to work.  “Will you be retaining your body for further use?”

                “For now.  It’ll go into storage, but once I’m out of here---”  She held up her right hand flat out and wriggled it from side to side.  I did not know what the gesture meant.

                Then she said, “Looking for your first meal?”

                My lower torso growled---maybe my digestive system understood better than I did.

                Toni said, “Come with me, I’ll show you.”  She touched my hand.  That something I could not identify flickered in and out of me again.  I followed her down the corridor.

#

                The cafeteria was an interesting place.  The maps and diagrams and instructions did not convey any real sense of the place.  It was the largest room I had been in yet, on the lowest floor of this building.  Most of the space was taken up by tables, and most of the tables were full of people.

                How many of us were here?  That information was not in my files.

                One end of the room was where the food was served, a long sort-of counter.  People walked along the counter, sliding a tray at their waist on a surface that seemed to be designed for it.  Food items were on individual plates, picked up by the people and placed on the trays.  There was a middle stretch, where people in some sort of white uniforms served food out of containers and placed on larger plates, which were then handed over.

                Toni went ahead of me and picked up a tray from a stack.  I picked up a tray and followed behind her.  I recognized, or thought I recognized, some of the food items.  Toni selected a small plate that looked like some fruit sliced into small bits.  I selected a plate of the same.

                When we got to the middle stretch, Toni said, “Let me,” then turned to the person behind the counter.  “Herman,” she said, “two plates of eggs and bacon and…mmm…some home fries.”  She smiled.  “That’ll do it.”

                I watched as Herman---a man, taller than I was, with very dark skin and dark hair, wearing a white uniform and a kind of hat I identified as a hairnet---put three different things on one plate and handed it to Toni, then did the same with a second plate and handed it to me.

                “Thank you,” Toni said, and I repeated it.  The lecture Principal Thomas had given me had sunk in.

                I looked at the plate.  The small chopped brown bits were some sort of fries, and the charred reddish-brown strips were bacon.  But the eggs were solid yellow, and not at all what I expected eggs to be.  Did eggs get that way when they were cooked?  What species of creature provide the eggs?

                At the end, Toni picked up something wrapped in paper.  Knives and forks and spoons, eating utensils, wrapped in something called a “napkin.”  I did the same.  She also picked up a carton and an empty glass.  The carton said “milk.”

                I concentrated on carrying the tray without spilling anything, while following Toni out from where the food was.  She led me to a table in a far corner, near the door but not in front of it.  The table was large enough to sit six but was empty at the moment.  On the table was a rack, and the rack held various small and large items.  I recognized them as containers for “condiments,” and thought I could pick out salt and pepper in two smaller glass containers.

                Toni sat down and directed me to sit next to her.  She picked up the two containers of salt and pepper first, one after the other.  I puzzled over it.  I knew “salt” was defined as a chemical, but “pepper” was some sort of harvested spice.  This filled my thought as I sat down.

                I looked at the food, wondering what I should do, taking in the smell of the food, as my lower torso growled again.  Toni had unrolled her napkin and lined up the utensils.  She glanced at me, and said, “Come on, Vic, eat.  It’s better when it’s hot.”

                So I got my utensils and held the fork in my hand.  It hit me---I did not know how to use the fork.  I had never been in a body before.  I had not been given the knowledge to use eating utensils.  Or was it a matter of being trained how to use them?

                Toni looked at me, but just smiled while she ate, and didn’t say anything.  I watched what Toni did, and tried to imitate her.  She used the edge of the fork to cut the yellow matter into smaller pieces, then used the tongs to spear smaller pieces and transfer the pieces to her mouth.  She chewed and swallowed.

                I tried to do the same.  No trouble cutting the---eggs?---but I had trouble with getting the pieces on the tongs.  But I managed to get one to stay and moved the piece to my mouth.  When this sample of eggs hit my tongue, I did not know what to make of it.  “Taste” was one of the five senses available to me, and except for a mild sense of this and that I hadn’t used it before.  I had been underusing “smell” before this, too.  These senses seemed to coordinate, but it didn’t make much sense.

                I knew food was to be chewed and then swallowed.  But how long should I chew before swallowing?  A stray bit of information came forward, that I should chew each piece thirty-two times, one for each tooth.  I chewed for an amount somewhere below that, but a reflex took over and I swallowed.

                Toni had been watching me.  She said, “You will need some looking after, Vic.”

                “This is new to me,” I said.  “I do not know what to make of all of it.”

                “In time, you will like it.  Then---”  She smiled again.  “---you will grow so used to it, it won’t mean anything to you.  But there are other things.”  From her own plate, she picked up a single strip of bacon, caught in the tongs.  She leaned over and put it in front of my mouth.  “Try this.”

                I hesitated, then ate it.  The taste was different…and good.  Was “flavor” the right word?  I tried to pick up a piece of bacon as she had but could not manage.  Toni said, “You can eat with your hands, Vic.”

                I started to reach, but then thought---“Toni,” I said, “should I give you one of my, uh, pieces of bacon?  It looks like I’ll get more than you if I don’t.”

                Toni laughed.  “What’s one piece of bacon between friends?”  Then she said, “Go ahead.  Eat with your hands.”

                I ate with my hands.  I didn’t like the feel of the food on my fingers much, but I did it.  While I ate, I was hit with an awareness of sound.  My ears had been working since I climbed out of the bed container, but I hadn’t focused on sound before.  The sound of plates and utensils, and murmurs of conversation, filled the room.

                It was as if I had never heard sound before.  Toni smiled.  “You’ve just discovered something new.”

                I had stopped chewing as I listened, and it must have been many seconds.  I said, “Sound.”

                “Don’t speak when you’ve got food in your mouth,” Toni said.

                “Yes, ma’am,” I said.  Was this a politeness thing?

                Toni went on.  Still smiling, she said, “You’re due for a lot of experiences like that.  A lot.  You---ah!”  She looked up and I looked where she looked.  Two people---one male and short, the other female and tall, both somewhat dark-skinned---stood by the table.  I noticed the female wore a skirt that came down to mid-thigh.  They carried trays.

                The male said, “Mind if we sit down with you?”

                “Sure, go right ahead.  I’m showing Vic a few ropes.”  They sat down opposite us, the female straight in front of me and the male in front of Toni.  They introduced themselves as “Paul”---the male---and “Dor”---the female.

                “So, you’re just in,” Paul said.

                “Just yesterday,” I said.  “This is my first meal.”

                “I’d shake hands with you if you weren’t eating with them,” Paul said.

                “Well,” Dor added, “I’m sorry cafeteria food has to be your first meal.”

                Toni said, “Dor is firm in her dislike of what’s served here.”  She looked straight at Dor.  “Dor like other---things---better.”

                I couldn’t understand the hesitancy in Toni’s comment.  But I nodded.

                Paul said, “You’ve got your schedule?”

                “Oh, yes.”  I had managed to memorize iit.  “I’ve got a lecture at ten AM, another at eleven AM, then a break for lunch, then I’m supposed to scan some data.”

                “What are the lectures?”

                I thought, then said, “I---do not know.”  That was true.  The schedule told me the room assignments, and I could find my way to them, then back to my room for the data scanning.

                “It doesn’t matter much,” Paul said.  “We’re all here to learn about how to live in the flesh, not so much acquiring data.”

                “Maybe we can help,” Toni said.  “What rooms are they in?”

                I told them.  {Paul nodded at that, and said, “I can’t say with certainty what the second lecture is, but the first must be history.  That’s Pataki’s room.”

                “Pataki?”

                “He’s the lecturer.  It might seem like history, but it’s a test of your ability to gather and absorb data---and if you can recall it later.”

                I made note of that---when I was a happy and free-floating intelligence, I had perfect recall of data, but now I wasn’t so sure.  I had been warned about the perils of memory.

                Dor smiled.  “It’s how things go outside of these classes that are more…interesting.”

                Just then, I felt something rubbing against my left leg.  Before I looked down, I realized what it was.

                Dor was rubbing her foot against my leg!

                I was confused.  I looked at her.  Dor’s body language gave away what she was doing, but her face held nothing more than a smile.  What did it mean?  I didn’t understand.

                Before I could say something, I heard someone call out, “Vic!”  I turned and looked.  Tania and Kat were approaching, carrying trays of their own.  They were out of their bath robes and wore shirts and pants, much like mine in color and material.

                Tania said, “Mind if we join you?”

                Still confused about Dor---she had stopped rubbing my leg---I said, “I, er, well, I suppose it would be all right.”

                Toni said, “Sure, Tania, you and Kat sit down.  Eating kind of late?”

                “We had to help move some furniture,” Kat said.  “It took longer than we thought.”  They sat down on the other end, and, with them, the table was full.  “What time is it now?”

                Toni looked at the wall.  I followed her glance and saw, high up on the wall, a large square clock that read 7:29 AM.  I had not noticed the clock when I came in.  How long had I been there?  I had eaten all of it except some bits left on the fruit plate.  I had drunk most of the contents of the container.  The feeling in my lower torso---hunger?---had faded.

                “First meal, right?” Kat asked.

                “It’s different than I thought.”  I took my napkin and tried to wipe off my fingers with it.  A lot of food and grease had stuck to my hands.  The napkin got some, but I needed to wash my hands off.  I said, “Is there some place around---?”

                They anticipated my question.  A general chuckle went around the table.  Paul pointed with his hands.  Below the clock was a door---which I hadn’t noticed, either.  The door was marked “RESTROOM” and while I looked someone came out, the door swinging in place.

                A restroom would have the sink and water I needed.  I rose and swung my legs around and over the bench.  Toni said, “Don’t forget to bus your tray, Vic.”  I must have looked confused, because Toni pointed and added, “That means take your tray over there, scrape any food off into the garbage, then stack your dirty trays and plates and utensils and such into the right tubs next to it.

                It was clear.  I nodded---I had that human gesture down and intended to use it.  I took my tray over to where Toni had pointed.  It was a sort of table with large containers, with a stack of trays on one end.  Past that was a large hole in the counter, under which was a can I recognized as a “garbage can.”  I scraped the remaining food off my plate with my hand---I had not finished it all, but I no longer felt hungry.

                After I stacked up and put away all my dirty dishes and such, I went into the restroom.  It was a lot like the shower room I had first been in, but there were no showers here.  Sinks were on both sides of the walls, and beyond that were some walled-off partitions that contained toilets.

                I did not feel any need to remove my body’s waste.  I went up to the nearest sink and began to wash my hands.  Nobody else was around.  I soaped up my hands from a dispenser, and the soap had a strange but pleasant smell.

                I was in the middle of that when I felt something.  Two arms slipped around me, under my arms, sliding hands across my chest.  I straightened up out of reflex.  “What?” I said.

                “Couldn’t you feel it between us?” she said---it was Dor.  I tried to turn my head to see, but it wouldn’t go that far.

                “I, ah, I don’t know what to say.”

                “You don’t have to say anything.  Just feel it.”

                What was I feeling?  This was so far out of my experience and knowledge.  How should I react?

                Dor’s right hand slipped further down my stomach.  I could feel her fingernails through my shirt.  Then she started to slip her hand under the waistband of my pants---

                “Ahem,” somebody else said.  It was Toni.

                Dor slipped back and I was able to turn around.  Dor was smiling---Toni was not.

                Dor kept smiling, and said, “All right, all right.”  I turned around as Dor walked away.  She raised her right hand and sort of waved, a little gesture with just her fingers.  Then she left, the door swinging back and forth as she did.

                Toni sighed and turned to me.  “Are you all right?”

                “I’m confused.”

                “Finish washing your hands and I’ll explain.”

                I had already washed and rinsed my hands clean.  Toni pointed out the towel dispenser---a device that emitted a square of paper when I waved my hand under it.  It took more than one square to dry my hands.  I then turned to Toni and asked, “I don’t understand what happened at all.”

                “Any ideas?”

                “No?”

                Toni smiled.  “I don’t know if you know about how someone incarnated in the flesh can become obsessed with something that can be done in the physical world.  In Dor’s case, and it’s a common mania---well, Dor is obsessed with sex.”

                “Sex!”  I knew about it---knew that sex was a primary concern among humans.  I had all the data on file.

                Or I thought I did.  I couldn’t relate what I knew to what Dor had done.  I had not had an erection---I knew what one was supposed to be---but, here, my penis remained limp and uninflated.  I moved my hands down to look in my pants, but Toni said, “You don’t have to show me.”

                I wasn’t going to show her, but I moved my hands away from my waistband and said, “I am not ready for this.”

                “You will be.  Someday.  Before your time is up.”  She smiled.  “It’s a matter of integrating your mind with your, um, your matter.  When you’re through, it will all seem natural.”

                Someone came in the door.  Toni said, “Well, let’s see that you get to class on time.  Let’s go back to your room and review your schedule.”

                We left together.  The others were still eating at the table.  Dor had resumed her place.  She caught my eye and waved, and I waved back as Toni and I left.

#

                I sat in the chair at my computer terminal.  Toni stood to the right, bent over a little, looking at the screen.

                The day was fixed at twenty-four hours.  Since we were at a specific place on Earth, day and night, morning and afternoon and evening, would be at the traditional times.  I said, “Aside from two or four classes a day, the rest of my time seems to be my own.”

                “Look,” Toni said, and pointed to a line of information.  “You are expected to select and sign up for other classes.”

                “Right now?”

                “No, you have a grace period…mmm…two weeks.”  She pointed to another line.  “You also must select some athletic activity.  Same time frame.  I, ah, I’d recommend starting with one of the group exercise classes.  You can change later when you understand things better.”

                I felt a little embarrassment.  “It seems funny,” I said, “since, as a free-floating intelligence, I could download any necessary information.  I thought I already had.”

                “You couldn’t have downloaded everything,” Toni said.

                “But I can’t understand why I have to study something in this form?”  I tapped my chest.

                “Easy to download, harder to know how to use it.”  She again pointed to another line.  “Look at this.  A chemistry class, once a week.”  She held up a hand.  “And before you say you already know how chemistry works, remember that it’s different to handle something with your own hands.  You know that.”

                I thought of Dor, and said, “I know that.”

                “You’ll find it useful after.”  Toni straightened up and stretched, her hands behind her head and her elbows out.  “I can’t wait to get back into the cloud and put what I’ve learned here to use in my life there.  I’ve got another week.”  She lapsed into silence, and said, “I understand the data I already have, and much better.”

                She looked at the screen, then put her hand on top of the file and papers I had been given yesterday.  Toni said, “Take this.”  She held up the paper that was on top of the pile, which had the password for my computer.  “You remember this?”

                “Yes.”

                Toni put the paper down.  “And you read this all last night?”

                “Yes.”

                “How much of it do you remember?”

                I had to think about it.  I found I remembered a paragraph here or a line there, the schedule, but all of it----  “No,” I said, feeling some regret and some embarrassment.  “I can’t remember much of it.”

                “It’s pat of why you’re here,” Toni said.  “You have to learn how to learn.”

That seemed strange.  Why did I have to learn that?  Why did I need to?

Toni tapped the pile of papers.  “Be sure to reread this, several times, over the next few days.”  Toni pointed to the clock displayed on the screen.  “It’s nine thirty.  Your first class is at ten.  I’m free then, so I can come with you and show you where you must be.  I’ll sit with you.  But for your eleven o’clock course, I have an exercise session of my own to attend, so you’ll be on your own.”

“Thank you,” I said, then felt puzzled.  “What do you mean when you say ‘eleven oh clock?’”

Toni seemed confused for a moment, but then she laughed.

#

                “Class” was in a room with tables and chairs laid out in a circular half bowl, rising in levels.  These were laid out around what seemed like a stage and a large white screen.  A theater?

                Toni led me to a seat in the back row, high over the stage.  She advised me to sit in the back till I got a grip on the situations I would run into in class.  We arrived a few minutes before ten---ten o’clock, as Toni explained to me on the way, was a term used to indicate the numbers that indicate time.  I could relate it to clocks and how they displayed but had an odd feeling that it was something I should have known.

                The class filled with other people.  I spotted Paul from this morning’s breakfast, taking a seat down in the front row.  I started to say something to Toni about him, but Toni made a “Shh!” noise---I knew that was for silence---and then pointed to the screen.

                The screen darkened, then brightened, and images formed and firmed up.  I saw a picture of a man, with long hair and a short beard flecked with gray and white, head and shoulders, large as the screen.  The screen must have been an image projector of some sort.

                The image shrunk until the man was about what size he would be if he was standing ther.  Then the man began to speak.  I listened.  He spoke of something called the Battle of the Crater, which took place during something called the First American Civil War.  Maps appeared behind him, the man pointing out features on the maps with his hands.  I gathered this Battle of the Crater took place on the North American continent, near the East Coast, close to towns named Richmond and Petersburg.

                I knew of the First American Civil War, and how two groups in North America had struggled for four years before one group won, after many battles.  But I lacked details, and this battle wasn’t even among the details I had.  The story of it seemed interesting.

                However, as maps, pictures, and photographs came and went, my attention wandered.  I looked around the room and, as the man on the screen went on, I saw many of the people at the tables had paper of some kind in front of them, and from time to time rubbed the point of a short stylus against the paper.

                I connected that all in my mind with the idea of “writing,” information put down in a form that was for all intents and purposes permanent, that they were doing what was called “taking notes.”  I whispered to Toni, quiet as I could, “Why take notes?  Can’t they look up information later?”

                “There’s a text you can read,” Toni whispered back, softer than I had.  “But it won’t go into details.  And you’ll find you can’t do any research or reading beyond that text, for now.”

                “I need to start making these, uh, notes,” I whispered.  “Have you got any paper?”

                Toni looked amused.  She said, “You’ll have to pick things up later, after your classes.  If anyone asks, tell them you didn’t know.”  She smiled.  “It’s the truth, after all.”

                “Have you been through all this?”

                “Not this lecture, but many like it, over and over.  Now be quiet and pay attention.”

#

                “Sometime in the next week or two,” Toni said, as we walked in the hall, “you will be back in that room and expected to answer questions about what you saw and heard.  You won’t do well---nobody does well the first time---but if you have any ability you’ll do better as time goes on.”

                “Seems frustrating and useless,” I said.

                “Remember,” Toni went on, “the object isn’t to teach you this information.  They’re trying to teach you how to input this information while in the flesh.”  She smiled.  “After I was embodied, I felt frustration with the information that seemed so limited or incomplete, even wrong in one detail or another.”

                “Did you get over it?”

                “In some ways, but it’s still frustrating.”  She paused for a moment, then said, “I imagine when I’m back in the cloud, it will help me in understanding what to make of everything.”

                “But I’m confused right now,” I said, and sighed.  “Is this what they mean by the phrase, ‘live with it?’”

                Toni nodded.  Then she pointed ahead, at a door people were going in.  “Here’s your next class.  According to your schedule, you don’t yet have anything scheduled in the afternoon.  Go to lunch, Vic---get some sandwiches, because you are supposed to eat them with your hands---then go back to your room.  I’ll meet you there just after four?”

                “O’clock?”  Toni laughed when I said that.  I added.  “I guess that’s all right.  But why are you doing this?

                “What?”

                “I mean you are spending your time with me.  You must have other things to do---better things, maybe.”

                “Except for exercise, and not much of that, I’m free for the rest of the week, everything’s done.”  She smiled at me.  “You seemed so lost when I ran into you.  Now---”  She reached up and put her hand on my shoulder and turned me around.  I resisted for a moment.  I was already facing the door to the next class.  “Now you go in.  Meet me at four.  And don’t forget to go to lunch.”

                It was another one of those courtesy-and-politeness situations, as Principal Thomas had spoken of.  “Thank you,” I said, and turned and walked through the door.  I pondered social interaction.

#

                I found a seat in the back room, and was just about the last person to find a seat and sit down.  I sat between two others, a male on my left, a female on my right, neither of whom I recognized.  My classmates here were a mixed bunch---I saw Tania and Kat, sitting together down front.  The room itself was another one of those half-bowl-shaped containers, but maybe a little smaller.

                The projection---no, it wasn’t a projection, it was someone standing there, a man, about the same age as the projected man in my history class, but without a beard and, I think, shorter.  He looked out at the class, then said, “All right, settle down, now, settle down.”  Then he said, “Take out a single sheet of paper, and write your name in the upper right-hand corner.”

                I looked around and saw the others doing it, taking out a sheet of paper and a short stylus---that was a pencil, I remembered---but I had neither.  A tense feeling, nothing at all like hunger, formed in my stomach.  “Sir!” I said.  “I don’t have any pencil or paper!”

                “What’s that?”  The man looked in my direction.  “Stand up and say that again.”

                I stood up.  “Sir,” I said, “I don’t have any pencil or paper!”

                “What’s your name?”

                “Vic, sir.”

                “Vic?”  The man seemed to remember something and looked in my direction.  He raised a hand to hold over his eyes, as if shielding them from a bright light, but there was no bright light.  After he lowered his hand, he said, “Vic.  So, you have decided to grace us with your presence at last.”

                Confused, I said, “I just arrived yesterday, sir.”

                “All right, then.”  In a louder tone, he said, “Someone give Vic here a pencil and paper.”

                The female on my right slid a single sheet of paper to me, and the male on my left rolled a pencil across the tabletop.  “Thank you, thank you,” I said to each, but neither spoke.

                “Now, Vic,” the man said, “you remember what to do now.”

                I smiled, but I still felt uneasy.  “Write my name in the upper right-hand corner?  Yes, sir!”

                “Go ahead.”

                I took the pencil in my hand.  Writing proved more difficult than I had thought.  I understood the concept.  I could visualize how “Vic” should look, spelling and appearance---three letters.

                But I had trouble moving the point of the pencil across the paper.  I made more marks than needed.  I managed to get a "V," then a line with a dot, then a semi-circle that was very rough.

                The man on the stage moved on.  “Now write down, ‘The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.’”

                I knew the phrase.  But it was hard to move the pencil the right way.

                I got past the word “over” and wrote the “t” of “the,” but the man spoke again.  “Stop!”

                Everyone stopped.  I did.  I looked around.  I could see what some of the others had written.  Most of it seemed neater and smaller than what I had written down.  Most had finished.

                I wondered if any talent writing like this was something that you had to be born with.  Since I wasn’t born---

                The man spoke out several phrases, some of which I recognized, some unfamiliar.  I thought I did a little better, but I always left about thirty percent unfinished.

                In the middle of the last sentence, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” something I recognized from some literature files I had scanned, I had to stop.  A bell, clanged by a small hammer in a rapid-fire manner, rang out right behind me.  I turned to look.  It startled me.  Was this how classes were dismissed?  The history class, the lecture just finished and we filed out.

                The bell rang just a brief time.  “Stop!” the man on stage said.  I looked over my paper.  The writing was terrible.

                The man said, “Pass your papers to your right, and those on the aisle hand the papers down.  Your results will be posted.”

                A sheaf of papers was handed to me, and I put mine on the top.  Once the papers reached the bottom, the man collected them from the person there, and then said, “Class dismissed.”

                The male on my right grabbed the pencil out of my hand and got up and left without saying a word to me.  As did the others.  The man---teacher, professor, whatever---exited through a door to one side of the stage.  I got up and was the last one to leave.

                Just being in a body wasn’t enough.  I had to learn how to do things.  Food, information, coordination.  Eating, learning, handwriting.  It was just one thing after another.  I felt overwhelmed.

                I also felt hungry.

#

                I could still trace a taste of what I ate at breakfast.  But from the now-familiar rumblings in my stomach, I knew I had to eat again.  I found my way to the cafeteria.  It was different this time.  Toni had suggested sandwiches, and I found two slices of bread with something between them.  I wasn’t sure of what.

                I found a seat in the back.  The cafeteria was more crowded than at breakfast.  And I didn’t see anyone I knew.  I ate and found the taste pleasant.  Was this adapting to being in a human body?

#

                I had finished and had put my plate and glass on the stack.  I didn’t need to wash my hands.  But as I was doing so, someone tapped me on the shoulder.  A man, taller than I was, who wore a white-but-stained rubber apron over the front of his clothes, running from neck to knee.  He said, “Pick up that stack of trays and follow me."

                I was confused.  I started to speak, but could just get out, “But---”

                “Pick up that stack of trays and follow me,” he repeated.  He pointed.  I picked up the stack of trays, over a foot high, and heavy.  I started to slip, and almost dropped the stack, but then got a better grip and lifted it.

                The man who told me picked up a stack of dishes and headed off.  I followed.  The stack of trays was the heaviest thing I had yet lifted.

                He got ahead of me, moving between the tables, then went through a swinging door.  He did not hold the door open for me.  I pushed the door open with the trays and went in.

                It was a hot and steamy room.  People moved around the room, doing strange things, things I was unfamiliar with.  Voices shouted this or that over the noise in the room.  I lost sight of the man with the dishes.  And the trays were feeling heavier by the second.  I looked around, and found another stack of trays, near a big machine that let out a lot of steam.

                I started to put the trays down on top of those trays, but a voice called out to me, “No, not there!  Those are clean!  Put them over here!”  It was a female voice, and belonged to someone about my own apparent age, also wearing a white rubber apron over her clothes.  “Over here!” she said, and pointed to another stack, on the end of the steaming machine.

                I did so.  The woman looked me over, and then said, “You work here before?”

                “Er, no, ma’am,” I said.

                She grabbed a rubber apron from a hook on the wall and handed it to me.  Then she pointed to the machine.  “Scrape off any big amount of food into that can there---”  She pointed to a cylindrical can.  “---put any utensils or plates you find in this---”  She pointed to a rectangular container, maybe two-by-three feet and six inches deep.  “---and then put them on this like this.”  She picked up a tray and put it on this slow-moving rack that ran into the machine.

She waited while I put the rubber apron on---all I could do was loop one fabric strip over the other, though I had seen the man’s apron strips knotted behind him.  After that, she left me.  I guessed I had been drafted in some way for work here.

I did as I was told.  Most trays were clean, but I did find smears of food on a few.  Little had to be scraped off.  I did find an occasional plate or utensil, making the stacks somewhat irregular.  And I put the trays on the rack, just a couple of stiff wire teeth sticking up that held the trays just fine as the trays leaned against them.  The trays passed into the machine---I guessed it was some sort of washing machine.  Dishwasher?  Yes, that was the right word.

                I tried to keep up.  The rack was slow, but I had to leave some gaps.  The floor around this dishwasher machine was wet with puddles, and the steam blew out of the machine.  I soon found my clothes soaked and wet.  It was unpleasant and uncomfortable.

                I noticed Paul stood down at the other end of the machine.  He was taking the clean trays off the rack and stacking them.  He looked in my direction a couple of times but did not seem to recognize me.  He looked as uncomfortable as I felt.

                Someone I didn’t know put another stack of trays on top of the ones I had worked on.  What time was it?  My internal chronometer wasn’t working right---or did I even have one in this body?  How long have I been here?  I didn’t see anything that looked like a clock anywhere around.

                I ran out of dirty trays.  I wondered if I should leave.  I started to pull the apron off, but as I did, the female who had put me to work grabbed my arm.  “Not yet,” she said.  “Now you have to put the dishes through.”

                “Do you have the time?” I asked, but she headed away.  My shoulders slumped---I’d seen that phrase and now I knew what it meant---and I turned to the plates.

                The plates nested on the teeth of the rack, like the trays.  It was the same, but there was more food to scrape off.  A man on the other side---not Paul, he must have moved off---stacked the clean plates.

                After the last plate was on the racks, before I could look around, I was shoved---bumped in the back by the man who had brought me in here with dirty trays.  He carried a large plastic container that held, in neat compartments, assorted utensils.

                This container fit on the rack.  He walked away, and, further down, I could see more such containers with more utensils.  I looked around and saw that the man who brought the utensils and the man stacking the trays and I were alone in the room.

                Was I done?  I hoped so.  I didn’t want to do it anymore.  I took off my rubber apron and hung it on the peg on the wall.  Then I walked away, out the door, my sneakers squishing with water.   No one stopped me.

#

                The clock in the cafeteria said 3:45 PM.  I walked back to my room, my soaking-wet clothes and sneakers reminding me of that with every step.  I remembered I still had the robe I wore from the shower, and I thought I should put that on while I figured out what to do with my wet clothes.

                After I got into my room, I took my wet clothes off and hung them over the back of the desk chair.  I hoped they would dry out.  I was at a loss about what could be done with my wet shoes.

                I put on the robe and had just sat down on my bed edge when I heard a knock, once, twice, a third time.  For a moment, I was confused, then I realized what I should have remembered.  Somebody was at the door.

                It was Toni.  She wore a robe like mine, similar fabric, but a dark green color.  We sat together on the edge of the bed, and she said, “You look a little down, Vic.  Did you get through the day all right?”

                “Er…” I said, then spilled out everything I had been through since I last saw her.  It seemed a lot had happened to me in a short time, that disturbed me.  Emotions?  I had them, even before this, but it felt different, somehow, in a body.

                When I ran out of things to say, she shook her head and made a tsk-tsk noise.  Then she said, “You should have been assigned an adviser.”

                “Adviser?”

                “Someone to guide you.  Say, someone who would see that you had pencil and paper when you needed it.  Someone who would have stopped them from drafting you for kitchen work until you were able to handle it.  Someone…”  She thumped her hand hard on the mattress of the bed.  “Someone who would have seen you had sheets and blankets and pillows for your bed.”

                The concepts flowed into my consciousness as she mentioned them.  I had a lot in my mind, but, so far---   “I---I knew about these things,” I said, “but I didn’t know about them.”  I shook my head.  “That’s not right, the right way to say it.”

                She patted my knee, her palm slapping against my bare skin.  “I do know what you mean.  I missed my first week of classes from not knowing.  I got hungry.  And, and…”

                She leaned towards me and took a deep sniff.  She leaned back and said, “Speaking of which, you haven’t washed since yesterday, have you?”

                “I…a…haven’t thought about it.”  I took a sniff of myself, lifting up the robe.  The odors were unfamiliar, and somewhat unpleasant.  I said, “I got wet today.”

                “That’s not the same, and I think you know it.”  She stood up.  “Let’s go.”

#

                We showered, side by side.  We were alone in the shower for the moment, though there was room for three more people.  It was a smaller shower room than the one near the bed containers.  But it had the same features, and racks of towels and robes.

                “I didn’t shower for almost a week,” Toni said.  “I mean, I washed off that dried green crud after I crawled out, but, after that, nothing.  I had also menstruated and did not know what to do.”

                “Menstruated?” I said, before the information floated up.  Part of the human fertility cycle.  “Are you fertile?”

                “I think it’s something put in us for the experience.  Nobody here gets pregnant, far as I know.  In any case, I smelled bad.  I got dragged off to a shower by a party of six and scrubbed down with stiff brushes---and that’s how I found out about bathing.”

                “Mmm…bathing seems pleasant to me.”  I rinsed off the last of the soap.  I wondered about taking a bath, immersing myself in a full container of water.  Were there any around?

                Toni finished when I did.  As we grabbed towels and dried ourselves off, I asked her, “I had been wondering.  You don’t seem to be shaped like the other females---girls---women---”

                “No, I’m not.”  She looked down at herself.  “My, ah, parents---”

                “I’m familiar with the concept.”

                “Well, they were, of course, free-floating intelligences when they created me, but they did a lot of work around high-gravity planets.  Humans often looked like this.”  She smiled.  “I understood that.  It doesn’t matter here, and this body isn’t any stronger in a one-gee gravity field than any of the others, and I did sometimes wonder whether I should have chosen this form.”

                “You’re all right with that?”

                “So far, yes.  I’ve gotten by.”  She finished and grabbed a robe.  It was green, like her other robe.  “See this?  That means I was on Team Green for athletics.  Of course, when I met up with them today, I didn’t participate---it was kind of a farewell party for me---but I had to wear at least the robe.”

                I could visualize “athletics,” but not anything specific.  “What sports did you do?”

                “A lot of things.  Ball games, wrestling, swimming, running and jumping.  Pretty much everything.  This body was all right for all of that.  Some things I was good at, some things others were better than I was.  I thought I was good at running, but it didn’t transfer much into other sports.”

                I knew what all of them were.  I felt some tension, that, soon, I would have to do that.

                Toni went on.  “It was fun, hanging out with everyone, but, when you get down to it, I’m just as glad that it’s something I’ll be leaving behind me next week.”

                We put robes on, Toni putting a white one on this time.  We carried on with our conversation as we walked.  Other people were in the corridor, but we ignored them.  I asked Toni, “You are anxious to return to free floating intelligence state?”

                “I wouldn’t say anxious,” Toni replied, “but I feel I’ve done my time in this corporeal form.  I need a break.  How has it been for you?  Corporeal life, I mean.”

                I had to think a little about that, but not for long.  “Er…it’s been…mixed.  I mean, some of it was interesting and enjoyable.  Showering, for one.”

                “If the water isn’t too hot or cold.”

                “Right.  But others, well---some of it seems beyond my ability.  Not that I couldn’t work up to doing it, but starting, here and now---I had nothing to build on.”  I frowned---human expressions were coming easier to me---and I said, “Frustrating.  That’s the term.”

                “You should have prepared better.”  Toni grabbed my hand.  “Come along, now, we’ll get you outfitted for class, and other things.”

                She pulled me along---another odd sensation.

                “Stop,” I said.  “Let me change into clothes first.”

                She slowed down.  “All right,” she said.  “You go to your room, I’ll go to mine, and I’ll meet you at your room.”

#

                “This is Vic,” Toni said.  “He arrived yesterday and needs a few things.”

                The person behind the counter, another male about the same age appearance as Toni and I.  I reflected for a moment that Principal Thomas and his secretary seemed to be older than that age bracket.  No one else.

                This man was thin and bony, dark-skinned, and wore a tight-fitting shirt that had “STAFF” printed across the breast pocket.  We stood in something I tagged as a “store,” some place where things were acquired.  But there was not much to see---pictures of items, familiar and strange, were on display on counters and tables, and not the items themselves.  A couple of people were in the store already, looking at these pictures with great interest.

                Toni led me right up to the counter.  The man said, “What does he need, Toni?”

                “Pretty much everything,” she said.  “But, for a start, the standard sheets and pillow and blanket set, and, oh…”  She blinked, hesitated, and then said, “The Number Two school package.”

                The man nodded, then said, “Put your right hand right here.”  He tapped the counter where I could see a built-in scanner.

                For several moments, I didn’t realize he meant me.  I was dealing with money.  What I understood about how money worked was theoretical.  I had an account that I could draw on, and pay for things with, but the account was not large and I had already been told it would not last forever, and I had to watch to make sure it did not happen with unexpected suddenness.

                I knew that money could be acquired.  What I had done in the kitchen was a “job,” and I could “earn” money with labor.  The counter position this man had was another.

                The man coughed and tapped again.  I had gotten so lost in my thoughts that I was distracted.  So, I stepped forward and put my right hand palm down on the square patch of plastic.  It should do double duty, reading the palm print unique to my body, as well as the identity chip embedded in my hand.

                The scanner flashed.  The male looked at a readout on the counter beside it, then said, “Vic?”

                “Yes, sir,” I said.

                He seemed amused that I had called him “sir.”  “I’m Bill,” he said, smiled, and held out his hand.  I had done that before and gripped his hand with mine.

                Then Bill touched a few spots on the counter, then turned around.  Something behind him, something behind a small sliding door, made a “whoosh!” noise.  Bill turned around and slid the door to one side and took out two packages before sliding the door back.  He turned around and put both on the counter.

                One package was larger than the other.  Both were wrapped in some transparent plastic material.  The larger package contained sheets and blankets and the pillow, and was two feet by two feet and just inches high.  I thought a pillow was supposed to fluff out, but maybe it did when the package opened.  The second package, a foot-and-a-half by a foot and inches, contained paper and pencils and pens, as well as what seemed to be a small book without a title.

                “That’s all for now?” Bill asked.

                I started to speak, but did no more than mumble before Toni said, “That’s all for now.   We will be back tomorrow or the next day for more.”

                “Fine.”  Bill turned away to deal with a woman who had come to the counter.  Toni nudged me with her elbow. “Pick up your packages, Vic, and we’ll go.”

                I did.  As we walked out of the store, I said, “I do not know how much I have in my account.”

                “You have enough,” Toni said.  “You have enough for necessities---these---”  She tapped the packages I carried, a quick triple tap with a forefinger.  “---are necessities.  There are others.  But you’ll find you want more.  You won’t want to live like a nun in a cloister.”

                I knew what a “nun” was, but “cloister” I didn’t recognize.  Toni said, “It’s almost five.  We can get in line at the cafeteria.”

                I did not feel all that hungry, breakfast and lunch had filled me up---and washing up after like that ruined my appetite.  I held up the packages a little.  “Can I put these in my room first?”

                “Sure.  It’s on the way.  Come on!”  She quickened her pace, and I tried to keep up.

#

                We got to the cafeteria just after five.  There was a line, but it moved with a good amount of speed.  A larger number of people were eating, but it all moved along fast enough.

                The food selection---the “menu”---was larger, but I still did not know enough about food and eating to select something.  I said so to Toni, and she made selections for me.  I wound up with what she got for herself: a slice of something called “meat loaf,” a small bowl of colorful pieces called “mixed vegetables,” and a large bowl of leafy green things and some other items I at least knew was called a “salad.”  Also, we both had a green cube of gelatin that Toni said was flavored “lime.”  I found it a little disturbing; it reminded me of the green liquid I had crawled up out of two days before.

                We found a spot in the back, and sat opposite sides of the table, almost against the wall.  The room was filling up.  I said to Toni, “I know I need to eat to sustain this body.  But I also must exercise to keep this body in shape.”  I smiled as we sat down.  “You said you were a member of a sports team?”

                “Yes, but don’t start with that.”  Toni paused as she cut into the meat loaf with her utensils.  She watched me as I watched her movements and tried to duplicate them.  This meat loaf was not an easy thing to cut into.

                Once we had chewed and swallowed a portion, Toni said, “Don’t sign up for teams right away.  There are exercise classes.  But solo exercise is boring, so you should sign up for team sports---but sign up later.  Till then, stick with the exercise equipment.”

                I tried to visualize exercise equipment---there seemed to be a lot of varieties.  But just then Paul and Dor were approaching.  Paul shouted, “Hey, there!” and put his tray down next to Toni.

                Dor sat next to me, close enough so her leg brushed against mine.  I felt disturbed by it.

                Paul said, “Have you enjoyed your first few days, Vic?”

                “Somewhat,” I said.  “It’s all different.  I never expected to work in the kitchen.”

                “You were in the kitchen?”  He seemed startled.  “I didn’t see you.”

                “You were busy.”  After a brief pause, I said, “It seemed, well, bad when I was doing it.  But, now, after a few hours, it doesn’t seem all that bad.”

                “You can get a job there.”

                I shuddered when I thought about it.  I said, “I, uh, will think about it.”

                Paul grinned.  “Just as well.  I was putting in a few hours substituting for someone else.”

                Dor rubber her leg against mine.  “There more to do in the day than work.”

                “Yes,” I said, as I thought about the meaning of words and its possible uses.  I understood what she meant but didn’t want to go into it.  I shifted my leg away from hers, and said, “I’ve still got to finish this day, then start another one tomorrow morning.”

                “Look forward to the night, Vic,” Dor said.

                “Do you remember what you’ll be doing tomorrow, Vic?”

                “Ah.  I haven’t, ah…no, I have no idea.  I…forgot?”  Was that the right word?  I had looked at the schedule, but I hadn’t memorized it.

                We had all gone on eating.  The tastes of the food were interesting---what I knew about “taste” didn’t do the experience justice.  It was difficult to concentrate and carry on a conversation.

                In any case, Toni had finished, and I was just a few bites behind.  I looked across to Toni.  Toni nodded, and we both stood up, carrying our trays.  “We’ll be going,” Toni said.  “I’m sure Vic doesn’t want to be volunteered for kitchen duty again today.”

                “I sub for someone just once a week,” Paul said.

                Dor put her hand on my right buttock and squeezed.  I almost stumbled but caught myself.  I was able to slide out from the table without having to rub against her.

                I glanced at the clock as Toni, and I took care of our trays and plates and utensils.  It was 6:15 PM.  Dinnertime still had---I counted it out in my head---forty-five minutes, but by the time I figured it out, it was down to forty-four minutes.

                I looked at the many who were still coming in as Toni, and I went out the door.  Toni said, “I’ll stop by your room later and we can work out your schedule.  Also to show you how to put your sheets on your mattress.”

                I was going to say I knew how, but then I wasn’t sure I did, so I smiled and said, “I appreciate your help, Toni.”

#

                I opened the package with the sheets.  The vacuum seal kept the pillows smaller, and they expanded when I broke the seal.  Two pillows, big white rectangular-shaped and fluffy things.  There were two sheets sewn together to make a bag of sorts, and I reasoned were supposed to go over the pillows.

                Two other sheets, much larger but also rectangular, puzzled me.  I knew enough to know that one should be tucked into the mattress, and the other tucked in over it, but which should be tucked in first?  Seemed by logic the smaller should go under the larger, but maybe there was some reason it should be the other way.

                I stood over the mattress, trying to puzzle it out, when there was a knock on the door.  Toni?

                No, it was Dor.  Before I could say a word, she put her hand on my chest, pushed me back, and closed the door.  I stumbled, and she kept pushing, until I fell back on my rump on the mattress.

                She got on top of me and pushed me down.  “I can feel it, between us, Vic, can’t you?”

                I tried to think of something to say, but all I could think of was, “I beg your pardon?”

                “Give it to me,” Dor said.

                I was flat on the bed but had one foot still on the floor.  Dor’s hands moved down.  “Give it to me,” she repeated.

                “Give what?”

                “Don’t play the innocent.”  She had one hand in the waistband of my pants and tugged on the waistband until it was down around my thighs.  She pulled my underwear down, too.

                “What are you doing?” I asked, my voice loud.  She grabbed my penis and I almost buckled up at the waist.

                I yelped.  “That hurt!”

                “You’ll get used to it.”  She swung so her hips were over mine.  Her skirt was hiked up and she wasn’t wearing underwear.

                My knowledge of human anatomy told me this might be sex.  If it was, it didn’t do a thing for me.  My penis did not inflate.

                My words tumbled one over the other.  “Dor---I mean---what you want---I can’t help---can’t help you---I can’t.”

                “Give it time,” Dor said, and squeezed.  Hard.  I did not like that feeling at all.  It seemed to be pain.

                Something moved behind Dor.  It was Toni.  She had a look of---what?---disapproval?   She shook her head, then reached out and grabbed Dor by the shoulder.  With a quick flip, she pulled Dor back from me.

                Dor turned on Toni.  Dor’s face was red.  Outrage?  She started to raise her arms, hands clenched in fists.

                Toni shoved Dor.  Dor stumbled out of the open door, into the corridor outside.  Then Toni swung the door shut.  I heard Dor rattling the doorknob---the door had locked.  I could hear the shrill tone of her voice, but not the words.  Then Dor banged on the door and raised her voice.

                Toni must have understood something.  “Go and take a cold shower, Dor!” she said, in a loud voice.  Dor said something else, and Toni added, “Do you want me to summon the proctors?  Go away.”

                Maybe that worked, because Dor shut up and stopped banging.  “Proctors” summoned up the image of some sort of law enforcement officers---was something like that used here?  Well, maybe.

                Toni turned to me.  I was breathing hard and my pants and underwear were still down around my knees.  I grabbed the waistband and pulled them both up again, then sat up.

                “The door was open,” Toni said.

                “Uh…she must have left it when I let her in.”

                Toni came and sat on the edge of the bed.  For a moment I was uneasy about a female human---any female human---sitting next to me.  But Toni tapped her palm on my leg, and said, “I’m sorry that had to be your first experience.  Believe me, Vic, it’s not at all like that with other people.”

                I calmed myself---it took more than a minute---and after my breathing had come closer to normal, I said, “I feel frightened.”  It was a new experience for me, but I had no trouble identifying it.

                “It’s all right now,” Toni said.  “Somehow Dor got interested in sex, to the exclusion of everything else.”

                I thought about that.  “And she---she is a free-floating intelligence, right?”

                “Once she was.  She’s embodied in the flesh now, Vic, just like you and me.”

                “What will she do when she has to go back?”

                Toni hesitated, as if she was thinking the possibilities over.  She said, “I can, ah, think of two things.  She could stay embodied, incarnated---it does happen---and just keep at it.”  Toni grimaced.  “I’ve learned the big outside world beyond this place is, well, not as tolerant of certain behaviors.”

                “And that’s one of them?”  After Toni nodded, I said, “You said two things.”

                “The other is if she does return to the cyber world, she could just replay her memories as she’s recorded them here, and just replay them, over and over.”  She smiled.  “I’ve been told there’s some distortion, that it isn’t like a memory picked up in the cyber world, but it might still be good enough.”

                Memories.  I tried to recall some of the details of my day and a half here, tried to think of them as if they happened here and now.  It didn’t work right, or at least it didn’t work the way I thought it should.

                Toni laughed.  “Long as you are here, you’ll live here in the now.”

                “I know that phrase.”

                We lapsed into silence for a few moments that stretched into minutes.  We were both lost in our thoughts.  Then Toni patted my leg again and said, “Someday you’ll see.”

                I felt a sudden intense interest in Toni that I had not felt before.  Without thinking about it, I said, “How about with you?”

                Toni seemed startled but then relaxed.  “I fell into that one.  You know I was planning to leave in a week.  We can’t continue our relationship.  We shouldn’t start one.”

                “You can text me.”

                She blinked, then said, “Yes.  Yes, I can.”  She shook her head.  “But I was here to help you with your mattress and sheets and pillows.”

                The pillows and sheets were lying around, where I had dropped them when Dor tackled me.  We picked them up, and Toni showed me how the pillowcases went on the pillows, how one sheet and then another went on the mattress, how the sheets were tucked in, and how the blanket went on top of both.  It looked neat when Toni did it, but she pulled it all loose again and said, “Now you try.”

                My version didn’t look neat, but Toni seemed satisfied with it.  I had watched, and when Toni bent over, to straighten the pillows, I found myself staring at her pants-covered buttocks---and found myself fascinated.

                “Mind if I…touch you?” I said.

                She glanced back, then giggled.  “Am I affecting you?”

                “I don’t know.  I think so.”  I put my hands on her hips.  Even with her clothes on---I remembered how she looked in the shower when we showered together.  I said, “It is interesting…oh…something is happening.”

                My penis was inflating.  I had let go of Toni.  Toni started to pull her shirt off, then her pants.  “Come here,” she said.

                We half-sat, half-fell onto the bed as we finished removing our clothes and came together.

#

                I had nothing to match what happened next, or how it felt.  Over the last day and a half, I had spent a lot of time reviewing human sex and anatomy, and after what happened I knew I had known nothing about it at all.

                I could link how I felt to the word “orgasm.”  That was it, it had to be.  But I hadn’t expected it, hadn’t understood.

                I was getting lost in my thoughts.  Toni lay beside me, against me, an arm across my chest.  Toni said, “Was that good for you?”

                I looked down.  My penis had deflated to normal, and drying semen was on me, and on her as well.  “Uh, yeah, yes.  I can’t describe it.”  I smiled.  “Yes, it was good.  Is this what physical incarnation is all about?”

                “There’s more to it than that,” Toni replied, “but it’s a big part of it.”

                “It was good,” I said.

                Toni got up and reached for her clothes where they had fallen on the floor.  I dressed, too.  My own clothes were a little grimy, but I would worry about that some other time.  I must have muttered something about it, because Toni said, “There’s a laundry down the hall.  Too late now, but tomorrow morning I can show you.”

                “Thank you.”

                She turned, winked at me, then grabbed me in a tight squeeze.  “Get some rest.  I’ll see you tomorrow.”

                Then she was gone, the door closing and locking behind her.  I lay down on the bed---we had messed up the sheets and blankets, but I didn’t mind---and thought about what had happened.

                Life in the flesh was better than I had expected.

                Damned good.

#

                The next morning, she knocked on my door.  “I don’t remember your schedule,” she said.  “Have you got anything?”

                “Not till after lunch, after noon,” I said.  “Do we have time to have sex again?”

                She laughed.  “My, you’re bold.”

                “I’ve got no taboos about it, if that’s what you mean.”  In human societies, sex was often shrouded in mystery and practiced under prescribed circumstances.  Something most recent iterations of human civilization had discarded.

                But there were some things that had to be talked over before they were permitted.  I said, “I was just thinking that, with you leaving us soon, there wasn’t much more time for us to have sex---that is, if you wanted to.”

                “Oh, I wanted to.”  We sat down on the bed again---I had stripped the now-dirty sheets from it.  She said, “I want you to know, I’ve had sex before, but that was the best it ever was for me.”

                “It was?”  I had nothing to compare it to.  Just the one experience.

                “And that’s why I canceled my departure and arranged to stay another three months.”

                “What!”  I slipped away from her, so startled by that.  “You shouldn’t---I mean, you can’t---”

                “We’ve started a relationship,” Toni said, smiling.  “I want to pursue it, take the time to pursue it.  I can’t do that if I leave at the end of the week.”

                I felt unease, but I felt relief.  The thought of losing Toni so soon after we met, so soon after---  I said, “Is that fair to you?  You said you didn’t have anything to do.”

                “Oh, I’ll take up exercise and maybe a few classes.  Besides---”  Did her smile grow broader?  “---besides, when I changed my departure time, I also arranged to become your adviser.”

                Now it was my turn to smile.  I needed one, and, it seemed, a volunteer for the job would be better.  I said, though, “It won’t interfere with anything?”

                “Not at all.  And let’s not have sex again until tonight.  I’m not like Dor, who insists on sex all the time.”

                “No…no.”  I suppose I would be ready if Dor tried again.  Experience does teach you a lot.

                “Now,” Toni said, and stood up, “gather up your dirty laundry---that’s your dirty clothes and sheets.  I will take you to the laundry room and show you what has to be done.”

                I had to add the clothes I wore to it.  Toni showed me how to bundle everything up by making a sort of sack with one of my sheets.  I put on some of my other clothes---my shoes were still damp from the kitchen experience---and I said, “All right, lead me to this laundry room.”

                We went out the door.  Toni slipped her arm under my arm, holding on with a tight grip.  Other people were around, and some stared at us.

                But I didn’t care.

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