Meaningless once, but now.... NOW.... Another woman passed him, her eyes downcast, her tightly-sheathed breasts burgeoning despite their bound state, breaking through the restraining, semi-translucent fabric. Like great tropical blooms the breasts of the women seemed, ensnared by clinging vines which were parasitic and wholly pernicious, a new growth introduced by Man in a jungle of his own cruel planting.
How cruel it was to select one woman out of fifty and say to her alone: "You may mate and bear children." How cruel to compel the rest to conceal their charms and pretend to be completely sexless!
Teleman drew in his breath sharply. What was happening to him? Why should he feel angry and resentful when he knew that only one woman in fifty could be stirred by the sight of a man, or respond to a man's love-making? Had not all other women been made virtually sexless in their mental processes by selective mating and other gene-altering techniques?
Surely a woman without physical desire had no need to appear seductive or to flaunt her charms. And surely a man without physical desire would not care at all if a woman lacked a mating look, and was just a human being more fragile than himself with contours that were softer and more rounded.
Am I going mad? he wondered. In all the books there was no reference to the possibility of a change in non-sex-privileged men and women. It could hardly occur biologically. How could it, when all desire had been bred out of the non-sex-privileged for four generations?
To every man his appointed task, his niche in the social fabric. And to every woman. The sex-privileged were naturally in the minority. How could it have been otherwise, when there was so great a need for trained specialists in an advanced technological society? How could a reasonable and thoughtful man fly in the face of what history had confirmed time and time again?
Had not three great societies gone down in flaming ruin because Man had permitted his animal instincts to block the road to progress?
Another woman passed him and this time the stirring became almost uncontrollable. He had a wild desire to abandon all restraint, cross the strip to her side and plead with her for permission to take her into his arms and make passionate love to her. She was blonde and very beautiful, her hair a golden fleece spread fanwise across the dazzling whiteness of her shoulders. Her garments were free-flowing, all of her charms tantalizingly unconfined. The tips of her full breasts were clearly visible, pushing against the material of her tunic, and the other curving, secret places of her body were revealed in the play of light and shadow, the rippling of fabric. Her eyes were not downcast, but bold and fearless and she met his gaze searchingly and without embarrassment, as if she were greeting a sex-privileged man without shame in the mating center.
He knew at once that she was a sex-privileged woman. No modesty of attire had been imposed on her. Her lips were heavily rouged and her slender young body had the supple grace of one adept in the arts which can only be learned at Eros' shrine.
She returned his gaze steadily for an instant, with an unmistakable look of amorous invitation. Then, slowly, her eyes hardened and her lips curled in scorn and derision. His hesitation and the flush which had mounted to his cheekbones had quite transparently given him away. He was not one of the sex-privileged. She instantly lost all interest in him, and moved away from him with a slight shrug, as if the stern taboos erected by society did not in any way concern her.