g her
tightly against him, nuzzling her, smelling the perfume of her hair,
incoherently mumbling into her ear. "Jennette, Jennette," he sang, "I
think more of you than anything. I love you. I know it's wrong, but I
would never even shoot you, because sometimes it hurts you, and I
wouldn't want you to feel even the slightest discomfort." He stopped,
took a deep breath, and added meekly, "I'm sorry."

"But Mark," she whispered. "Why is it really so wrong?"

"You know."

"Suppose I told you that this body is my protobody right now?" she
asked earnestly.

"But it isn't."

"It is," she said faintly.

Mark's breath hissed as he gasped. Jennette was blushing all over her
body, heightening the golden color of it. He let her go, and she slid
off his lap onto the shadowed grass beside him. She bit her lip. "I
didn't really mean to tell you--yet."

There was silence. Mark said quietly, "That's all right, Jennette."

"You aren't angry with me, are you?"

"No," he said slowly. "Not angry."

"Mark--"

"Yes?"

"Now that we're into this thing," she asked hopefully, "why don't we
try this marriage agreement--you know, like the ancients did. It seems
like such a beautiful thing to do when two people like us--you know."

"I don't know." Mark shook his head doubtfully. "I just don't know
about it."

"Why not? You wouldn't have to really stay here. It could be just a
secret agreement between us. And you could come and see me whenever
you liked."

"It all seems so unreal," he muttered.

They lapsed into thought, both avoiding looking at the other. There
was no sound except a faint sighing of wind in the leaves of the well
trimmed shrubbery.

"Suppose," Mark said finally, "suppose other people started doing this
thing? This cooperative agreement? Lots of people must want to, just
like we do."

"I suppose so," she admitted.

"I went through this once before," he went on absently. "About ninety
years ago I met this woman--she was awfully nice. Clever. Understood
things. Not like you, of course, but still she was very nice. I
thought about it then."

"What happened to her?" Jennette asked numbly.

"She died after a while. She was pretty old. Oh, we didn't do
anything," he hastened to add. "We kept it all on a perfectly moral
and honest plane--never saw each other except at authorized government
sex parties, like this, and all. Fought whenever we ran across each
other outside. But I remember thinking at the time tha