She placed her right hand on Lea's face. Lea returned the gesture, and they looked into each other's eyes for what seemed to be a very long time as I grew increasingly self-conscious. Then, without speaking, Carol touched my face and began the same smiling, but silent, encounter. I felt as if I was drowning in her magnificent hazel eyes, set in as pretty a face as I have ever seen. Reluctantly I broke our eye contact to become aware of a beautifully formed body cast from a giant mold. Carol was as tall as I, and I'm six feet three!

CHAPTER 4: Alpha Mates

Suddenly Lea was gone and L was alone with Carol. Why did I feel so nervous? I hadn't felt that way with Lea. What was it about Carol that made me feel like a gawky adolescent on his first date?

I suddenly remembered that, as a telepath, Carol could read my mind. I found myself blushing. In my desperate attempt not to think anything embarrassing, I became inundated with thoughts about Carol's magnificent body which her pink well-fitted tunic did little to hide.

"You're discovering," said Carol, "that it's impossible not to think of something by trying not to think of it. In fact, the more you try not to think of my body, the more you think of it."

My voice seemed to be strangled as I croaked out, "I... uh, I'm sorry."

"You certainly needn't be. It would be sad, indeed, if you didn't appreciate the beauty of our bodies!" With these words Carol tugged the top of her tunic, which caused it to fall to the floor, leaving her wondrously naked.

"Carol!" I gasped.

"Please, Jon, go ahead and look at my body," she said-as if I could have looked at anything else!

"I know it's difficult and embarrassing for you. Your being a Virgo-the virgin of the Zodiac-only multiplies your 20th-century sex guilts, so we might as well deal with them right now if you're going to live comfortably in a 22nd-century Alpha. Let's see, bathing together should be the perfect beginning for a Virgo."

"You believe in astrology, then?" I jumped at a safe topic to diminish my self-consciousness.

"Only as an influence, Jon-not as a determinant. Now, about that bath." She took my hand and we entered the most spacious bedroom I've ever seen.

The room was thirty feet square. In one corner was a huge nine-foot-square pad about a foot high, while in the opposite corner was a sunken pool ten feet wide by fifteen feet long. A couple of soft oval cushions in the center of the room faced a three-foot-square video screen. Carol led me to the sunken pool and, releasing my hand, made a shallow dive into the water.

My evolved adventurous self won a quick victory which led me swiftly out of my tunic and into the water after her. I found the water very warm and clear. The floor slanted down until at the far end of the pool, which I went to immediately, it was about eight feet deep. Carol was apparently using her PK power, because a clear plastic partition, slid out of the wall and completely surrounded our pool-bath.

"There," she said, turning to me. "Now we can splash to our heart's content. Let's wash each other!"

With these words Carol surprised me with another PK demonstration as the floor beneath us began to slowly rise until we were standing in water that barely covered our knees.

I felt very naked.

A wall panel slid open revealing two retractable hoses, one dispensing sparkling, slippery cleansing bubbles, the other clear water. Carol invited me to stretch out on a cushion that extended out from the shallow end of the pool. There she began spraying me with one hand while slowly lathering my body with the other.

She covered every square inch of my body with the utmost care. Once again, I tried not to think or feel sexually and ended up with one hell of an erection.

As her hands slid over me I listened to her softly telling me of the joys of sharing a bath with your Alpha mate. She admired my shoulders and my firm abdominal muscles. When she came to my penis she made a number of casual remarks about its esthetically pleasing composition and its remarkable tumescence. This last was too much for me, and I broke my long silence.

"For God's sake, Carol, help me," I pleaded: "I don't want to be sexually aroused."

"Why not?" Carol promptly asked.

"Because," I replied lamely, "it makes me feel like a child who can't control himself. Besides, I don't want to be unfaithful to Lea."

"If you're worried about Lea, she's at ninth level," Carol said in her deep soothing voice, as if this should immediately put my mind to rest. "I mean," she continued, "that Lea is so adequate that she has no neurotic need to possess any part of you and so she could not be offended or jealous, no matter what you do."

"But, I don't-"

Carol interrupted, "Lea asked me to help you in every way I could and that specifically included dealing with your sexual neurosis."

"I'm not neurotic!" I defended vehemently. "I am perfectly normal."

"Maybe, by 1976 standards," Carol replied calmly, "but it's not normal in a 22nd century Alpha to feel inadequate or in conflict with yourself over a perfectly normal, healthy enjoyment of out beautiful bodies."

"Well," I replied righteously, "in 1976 I didn't take baths with girls I had only just met five minutes ago."

While we were talking, Carol had finished washing me, then used the other hose to rinse. Now she handed the hose to me and, raising her arms above her head, began to turn slowly and seductively about. I took a deep breath and gingerly began to apply the sparkling bubbles while I held the hose with both hands.

Carol smiled impishly. "That's not how I washed you, Jon. Are you really afraid that you'll lose control if you touch me?"

"Oh, hell!" I exploded and began to feverishly rub the bubbles over her satin smooth skin.

"Hardly hell," Carol answered with a laugh. "It feels to me more like what the 20th century might have called heaven!"

She was right. I recognized my guilt-ridden judgmental self shaking its frightened finger at me. It was so limited, so one-sided, like a white-line figure drawn on a blackboard. I erased it and began to enjoy a truly heavenly experience. I covered her with bubbles, then, with both hands, lovingly explored every delightful curve and valley. I was in no hurry and would have stayed in that bath all day if Carol had not, after some time, caused the floor to descend, taking us back down into the water. After a few moments of splashing, and playful wrestling, Carol led me out of the pool. Activating another circuit, she removed the plastic shield and emptied the pool, refilling it with fresh water. Streams of warm air quickly dried our bodies. Taking my hand, she ran and flopped across the huge pad in the corner.

For the next hour I abandoned myself to the joy of a romping physical emental union with Carol.

By the end of that hour I had learned that sexual intercourse, when it is emental intercourse as well, can open two people to a oneness that I had never before thought possible.

As we lay in each other's arms I told Carol about my guilt and fear concerning pregnancy. I told her that I had not been able to freely enjoy a sexual relationship since my high school days. As I talked about my guilt concerning Valerie, I relived the most unpleasant experience of my teen years when my father had angrily denounced me– for my "animal selfishness:" It was then that Carol told me that no female in the Macro society could ever have a child without special emental preparation. Even then it required permission from the Deltar.

I didn't understand her technical explanation of how the female reproductive cycle had been modified so that no female experienced menstruation unless she was going to bear children. However, I knew it would have been welcomed by most 20th-century women-and men!