it come through to
me, I don't know. I'd managed to stay in a golden daze from the time
in the Garden till that moment, refusing to think through the
implications of what Larry said.

Sex. Sex is mating and reproduction. Dating and dancing and kissing
are parts of the courtship procedure. And the television shows all
stop with kissing, because the mating itself is taboo. Very simple.
Also _very_ taboo.

Of course, they didn't _say_ I couldn't. They never said anything
about it at all. It was just obvious. It wouldn't even work. We were
_different_, after all.

Oh, technically, biologically, of course, we were probably
cross-fertile, but....

The whole thing was so obviously _impossible_!

They should have warned me. I'd never have let it go this far, if I'd
known.

Sex. Mating. Marriage. Tribal rites. Rituals and rigamaroles, and stay
here forever. Never go back.

_Never go back?_

There was an instant's sheer terror, and then the comforting knowledge
that they wouldn't _let_ me do that. I had to go back.

Baby on a spaceship?

Well, _I_ was a baby on a spaceship, but that was different. How
different? I was older. I wasn't born there. Getting born is
complicated. Oxygen, gravity, things like that. You can't raise a
_human_ baby on a spaceship.... _Human?_ What's human? What am I?
Never mind the labels. It would be _my_ baby....

I didn't want a baby. I just wanted Larry to hold me close to him and
kiss me.

* * * * *

I drove downtown and on the way to the library I passed a bookstore,
so I stopped and went in there instead. That was better. I could buy
what I wanted, and not have to ask permission to take it out, and if
there was more than one, I could have all I wanted.

I asked the man for books about sex. He looked so startled, I realized
the taboo must apply on the verbal level too.

I didn't care. He showed me where the books were, and that's all that
mattered. "Non-fiction here," he said. "That what you wanted, Miss?"

Non-fiction. Definitely. I thanked him, and picked out half a dozen
different books. One was a survey of sexual behavior and morals;
another was a manual of techniques; one was on the psychology of sex,
and there was another about abnormal sex, and one on physiology, and
just to play safe, considering the state of my own ignorance, one that
announced itself as giving a "clear simple explanation of the facts of
life for adolescents."

I took