"No, no!" I shouted. "I mean those HUGE genitals!" I could still see them in the mirror. I was aghast!

"Oh, my," tut-tutted Prahd. "Don't you ever take showers with other men? You must be awfully unobservant. For your home habitat, a tumescent size of ten inches is not overly large. Many on Earth have them that size—even bigger. I assure you that your previous one-inch tumescence was too small."

"Oh, I know you cellologists!" I cried. "You couldn't resist doing something strange!"

Prahd thought it over carefully. Then he pushed his straw-colored hair off his face. "No, not really. Of course, you may feel a little more vigorous. Your muscle tone will improve."

"Oh, you can't fool me!" I cried. "You did something peculiar! I'm sure of it!"

He thought once more. Then he seemed to remember something. He turned his bright green eyes on me depreciatingly. "Oh, yes. The catalyzer. It was a pretty complex scene getting all the nerve ends sorted out on the first testicle after it was grown from the gene pattern. And I did leave the other one in the growexpeditor a bit too long. But it won't produce in excess of more than half a pint of semen."

"WHAT?" I screamed.

"But," he said reasonably, "that's no more than a horse furnishes at one time."

"I knew it!" I wailed. "You've turned me into a horse!"

"No, no, no," he said soothingly. "It's completely human. You will produce completely human babies. Really, Sultan Bey, you should trust me. Horses are completely out of style. They have quite enough of them. You are now just a well-equipped male. Of course, you may have the urge to do it a little more often than you used to. And you can probably do it more than once in the same night. But truly, I think you'll find it quite all right."

"Oh, my Gods!" I wept. "I am sure all this will change my whole personality."

"What?" he said, his bright green eyes shooting wide in astonishment.

"Yes," I sobbed. "Ask any Earth psychologist. All a personality is, is the product of cells. One has urges. They come from the reptile brain, the censor and the id. And all that is made up of cells. You have changed my cells and so you have utterly altered my whole character."

"Ah," he said. "In your case especially, how I wish that that were true. Unfortunately, you are just mouthing the superstitions of an uninformed primitive cult: you find it on many backward planets. They try to make men believe that character is inherent and passed on by an evolutionary chain or some such nonsense. In some witch-doctor cults they even go so far as to say a man is totally the effect of his cellular inheritance and therefore can't be changed. It's a way of excusing their inability to mold character. When people try to hold them responsible for creating a criminal society that way, they just glibly say 'a man is just the product of his cells.' It obscures the fact that they are just too incompetent and too criminal themselves to mold character and teach right from wrong.

"Ah, no, Sultan Bey. If cells and glands were all there was to life, I'd be a God, wouldn't I? And I'm not. I'm just a poor cellologist, unpaid, but doing my job anyway, and without even a thank-you from my superior, but suspicion undeserved."

He dropped the sheet. He looked at me. "It's a very sad thing that personality can't be changed just by shifting a few cells. Particularly in your case. But," and he smiled bravely, "one does what one can to relieve pain and make people happier. And I do hope that your increased activity potential doesn't have violent consequences for others or this planet." He brightened up. "Well! That one was successful. You can be up and around and leave whenever you like."

He set the example and inarched out the door.

Nurse Bildirjin began to sweep the floor and tidy up the room. She seemed in a happy frame of mind but apparently it was too quiet for her. She went over to the radio on the hook, pulled out the earphone jack and turned on the hot pop station.

"Hey!" I said, being pretty tired by this time of "You Are My Monster," "He said I could leave! Unstrap this bed and let me out of here. Where are my clothes?"

"Clothes?" she said. She rushed out and came back with a type of bag they use to hold discarded body parts: Non-Odor Transmitting was on it very plain in Voltarian. She shoved it at me.

I couldn't take it. My arms were still strapped down. It looked awfully thin to have any clothes in it. "That isn't what I wore in here!"

"Oh, we had to throw your suit and overcoat away. They were all full of sauce of some kind. We threw out your shoes, socks and hat, too. This is just your wallets and papers."

I looked at her. Her black eyes might be pretty but she sure was stupid! I decided to be patient. I was immobilized. "Look, Nurse Bildirjin. I need clothes to leave the hospital. Through that window, I can see that it is very cold outside. There is a wind blowing. I cannot walk out there with no clothes on."

She understood that.

"So," I continued, "like the good, sweet, innocent girl that you are, please go out to the office and phone my friend, the taxi driver, and tell him to bring me some clothes."

She got that. She left. In about ten minutes she came back. "I phoned him." She was carrying a disposable bathrobe-and-slipper set. Ah, she did have some sense after all.

She put the bathrobe and slippers down all the way across the room. Then she stood there just looking at me.

It was an uncomfortable silence. I didn't like the look in those black eyes. Even the best of women are the most treacherous beasts ever invented. Whatever she was plotting right now had better be distracted.

"You instigated that operation," I said.

I expected a hearty denial. But she said, "Well, of course! Anyone who would TWICE interrupt a girl halfway through is undersexed. Such a person couldn't possibly appreciate the finer things of life. And at my first hint, Doktor Muhammed got straight to work. But I am not at all sure that we have put an end to it."

Those black eyes were too bright! "I think," she said, "I should be reassured."

A stir of alarm speeded up my heart. She looked just like women look when they are about to do something sly and cunning.

"Well," she said, "there's only one way to tell."

She raced over to the door and barred it. She came back and turned the radio up louder. She went to the windows and made sure nobody could see in.

My alarm grew.

She tested the straps and buckles on the bed. When

I saw she was not releasing them, my temperature started to go up.

She took off her right slipper. She kicked off her left slipper. She turned her back on me. She was doing something at her waist level.

What was she up to?

There was a shimmer. She bent over and rose again. She was holding her panty hose.

She threw them away!

She set her nurse's cap on the back of her head.

I was glaring at her in alarm.

"That won't do," she said. "Mustn't peek!"

She promptly arranged the sheet so that I could see only through a slit. I could see a corner of the window and the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling. I couldn't see Nurse Bildirjin!

I felt the bed tip: the light fixture slanted.

Oh, my Gods! What did she have in mind?

The bed tipped again.

Frantically, I tried to rise up and see what was happening. The straps prevented it.

A cold draft told me the lower part of the sheet was being lifted.

My eyes almost popped out of my head.

I suddenly divined what she was up to!

Good Gods! This girl was a minor!

Her father was the leading physician of the province. He would kill me if I touched her!

I tried to reconcile myself with the thought that SHE was doing all the touching.