Instead he learned about the gyro-jet cars which hugged the roads like lovers on a honeymoon. He watched them sprout stubby wings and breathe flame and soar straight up. He learned about saying 'Open' to a lock and having the electronic device 'recognize' him and let him in. He learned about personalphones which 'recognized' your voice. He learned about the tiny pellet of potassium cyanide and sulphuric acid with which the guns were loaded. The pellets struck and broke and the victim was dead in seconds. Very humane. No maimed or wounded. Just the dead.
He learned about self-shaping sandals—the most comfortable and most sensible shoes man had ever worn—and air baths and soft-voiced alarm clocks which politely told you it was time to get up and about unbreakable ring-finger chronos and about atomic heating and flawless plumbing and he saw plastic, plastic, plastic.
He learned about all of them. But his real delight was the depilatory cream. This, above all others, was man's greatest invention.
"No shaving ... no silly damned socks or tight, hot shoes or tie ... no battery stalling or flat tires ... I guess this is paradise, Kevin!"
"And the perfect government and the perfect religion! All one race! One religion! One nation! One language! One nationality! One God!" Ilaria added exuberantly.
"That reminds me. How come I never see any coloreds?"
"Haven't you? By the way, no murderous car insurance or alimony laws, either. And no need for them. All marriages are ideal."
Jay was readily detoured to this new novelty.
"Now, don't let's go too far. Identical religion and race and customs and ideals and opinions may lower the divorce rate a lot, but there's still ye olde sex angle. A couple can go together twenty years and break up on the wedding night. Some are hot and some are cold and some are slow and some are fast. The only thing you could have improved on, is sex education. It's astounding how many people of my time know nothing about the sexual part of marriage. The most important part!
"Of course it's doing what comes naturally; but what if two people have been taught from different viewpoints? Or if one hasn't been taught at all? Some people are actually ashamed or embarrassed. There are intelligent people who don't even know the biological facts! Few—especially women, know about the pleasure and the habit-forming angle. That's the one thing than can break up something beautiful in ten minutes.