Now, anyone under normal conditions would have taken a good look at the blonde. I was, however, performing what is known in aeronautics as a barrel-roll, and my viewing of the blonde was the sweeping scan of a surveillance radar.
Not that I hadn't seen the blonde before. I knew her well. Her name is Gladys. She's the most gorgeously put-together creature at the Sands. Most of the boys would ride bareback on a Nike if she gave them the smile she was giving me then.
Gladys was in a gentle orbit as nearly circular as that of Venus. Her primary was the sun-chandelier.
I thought then of another Venus. Only Gladys has arms. Her arms were bare. In fact, a lot of Gladys was bare and there's a lot of Gladys, all nicely proportioned, of course. The sunsuit's designer had indubitably been inspired by a Bikini.
I bounced off a sofa, which absorbed some of my inertia, and through some frictional freak stopped my axial rotation. I went then into an elliptical orbit grazing the chitchat bench at aphelion and the chandelier at perihelion.
The thought of Helene crossed my mind in a peculiarly guilty manner, and I was rather glad at that moment that Gladys and I weren't on a collision orbit.
"Now that you've stopped pingponging," Gladys said, "you might tell me how we're going to get out of this fix. And I don't mind behaving like an electron but you might make like a positron and come a little closer; it's getting cold in here! By the way, where's Helene?"
I don't know why, but I told her. And maybe I did put on an aggrieved husband act a bit, but who could blame me?
"Oh, Bill, I'm sorry," she said throatily. "You're so attractive, so fine. To think you've been snared by someone who doesn't appreciate your worth, your handsomeness, your manly strength. Oh, why couldn't you just have given poor little me a glance? After all, we've been together in the Project Lab every day. I know you, Bill, and I'm so sorry!"
And she moved on, lovely, graceful in her gentle orbit, and my heart swelled with recognition of her compassion.