"Nor did I force you. But I knew what your choice would be, and further, I knew what my choice would be. Emotion is my trade, as electronics is yours. Electrons, I have been told, have a certain freedom of choice, or appear to have. Yet you know with quite high probability which choice they will make under the influence of certain physical fields. In the same way, I know what choice to expect of a man or a woman, under the influence of certain emotional fields."
"You didn't want me, though, you just wanted a technician. The first man would have done just as well for you, if he had 'reacted.'"
"That is true. And I am the first woman you have ever made love to?"
"No, of course not. But I've never felt the same about them as I do about you."
"I, the same. George, I think you still do not understand me. In your time there are women who get things from men by seeming to promise more than they intend to give, for simulating emotions they do not feel. You think I am one of those ... no, please don't interrupt ... I am not. In my time there are no such women, people understand each other too well, they are too hard to fool.
"Instead, there are women like me, women who are peculiarly attractive to men, and peculiarly susceptible to men—honestly so. Believe me, it is not an easy way to make a living. A woman has only so much honest emotion to give. Do you understand now?" She looked up at him appealingly.
He did not understand, but he believed.
He could not doubt that this was as important to her as to him, that regardless of the motives behind it, her feeling was deep and honest. And yet, it was impossible to understand, impossible for him to visualize a world in which people knew accurately the feeling others held for them; and yet still loved, disliked, or were indifferent. It was, he thought, a little like a caveman trying to understand the complexities and compulsions of polite urban society.
He slumped back down beside her. "I don't know," he said glumly. "You're right, I suppose, it all sounds logical; but I still don't understand."
She drew him to her. "Poor George," she said with her mouth against his ear. "Poor George, I know only one way to console you, and only one way to console myself." She sighed. "And it seems they will not permit that, I suppose the 'reaction,'" she smiled wryly, "would not fit with their plans."