"Please, Utanc," I wept. "You have no idea..."

"Listen, you (bleepard). I am tired of your tricks! You go to such EXTREMES! One minute you couldn't even please a flea and the next minute you would wreck a camel! I am going to my room now and don't you bother me again until you decide to be more NORMAL!"

She got off the bed. The door slammed! She was gone.

I lay there in shock. All my anticipation had been aroused to the bursting point. The sudden twist of events left me in midcareer. My heart was pounding with unspent passion while my brain reeled with shock.

I tried to lie quietly, hoping that I would settle down. Instead, I began to twitch.

I couldn't lie still. I got up.

Thinking that she might be experiencing remorse, maybe even crying with frustration herself, I went to the receiver of the bug I had long ago planted in her room. I turned it on.

There was more volume in it now. Maybe it had been moved to a better place when the credit card people had tried to strip the house of rugs.

I could hear water running. Then I heard some clinks and clatters. Then Utanc's voice, "Wake up, you little dears. No reason to sleep your lives away."

Some "What's this?" and "Huh?"s from the two little boys. Then some "Oh, goodies."

The clink of glasses. Was she giving them their evening milk?

Then some Turkish music. Probably recorded. Savage. Primitive. The rhythmic pounding of a foot. Then the swish and swirl of fabric. Then the clash of swords together in rhythm. My own body began to respond, no matter that I couldn't see her dance.

The voices of the two little boys began to rise in gasps of appreciation.

Then suddenly a change. The cura irizva striking bold and savage chords. Then Utanc's voice in song:

You may be small,

But oh, you're good.

I would eat you,

If I could. Why should hunger

Be in fashion,

When you're there,

To slake my passion?

So off with hat,

Let down your hair,

I'm going to eat

Your table bare!

Now I'll throw

You into bed.

You better hide!

There goes your head!

The clatter of the cura irizva being thrown down.

Small shouts of surprise.

The swish and rustle of sheets and bed.

Squeals of delight!

I couldn't stand any more. I turned the receiver off. My passion was at a bursting point. I lay down in my bed.

My arms were empty. I ached. I had never ached before like this. Painful. Awful!

And for hours I lay there like that. I realized that there was no torture to compare with unsatisfied desire! All centralized in a very sensitive place!

The next morning it was very cold. The electric fire had blown a fuse. I got into a blue ski suit. Warming my hands around some kahve, I thought it over carefully. I came to a desperate decision.

I would stop being true to Utanc.

I phoned the taxi driver and when he came, I had him drive down the road a few yards. There was a turn-in there where another villa had been burned in centuries past and one could go a few feet off the road and park under a cedar tree while still retaining full view of any traffic.

He shut off the engine. The sigh of wind in the cedar was very mournful. He turned in his seat, pushed his sheepskin cap onto the back of his head and waited for me to speak. He obviously could see that I was troubled.

"I've got to do something about Utanc," I said.

He digested that. He thoughtfully lit a cheap Hisar cigarette. "You can't get anything out of a trade-in," he said. "The bottom is out of the market. Things have gotten even worse behind the Iron Curtain. Hundreds of thousands of girls have come over the border. Threatened with rape from the Red Army, it was a case of either infection or defection. They chose the latter. Can't say as I blame them. You ever feel the beard on one of those Ivans? Or see the body lice? Fleas, too. No, Officer Gris, we're stuck with her."

"I don't mean to make a big thing out of it," I said. "But a long look at it has convinced me the matter isn't going to settle down."

"Well," he said, "you never can tell what you're getting into in these things."

"You've got to come up with something," I said. After all, he was the only one who seemed to care what happened to me. And the criminals on Modon are a pretty smart lot. "The situation is wide open to suggestions."

The cedar sighed. Three camel loads of opium went by, led by a farmer and a donkey, heading toward the Agricultural School. The farmer looked at us curiously.

Deplor, alias Ahmed, waited until they were out of sight. Then he threw away his cigarette in sudden decision. "I don't want to get you into any tight spots you can't get out of, Officer Gris. I have your best interests at heart. So, I tell you what you better do. You better give me some money and I'll get some women for you."

"No more slaves!" I said hastily.

"No, no," he said. "I got you into a hole on that one. And you don't want any prostitutes, either. The type I have in mind are just women who need money for a dowry. They need money to get married. You can get a one-night stand with such a woman. Good lookers, too. Lots of variety. Different one every night. Spread it around. And they're real hot, too."

Oh, that sounded good!

He continued, "Now, to do this right, you should have a big car. Women go in for big things and that includes a big car. You remember that bulletproof limousine I told you about? The ex-general's car? The one who got shot? It's still for sale up in Istanbul."

A snag suddenly occurred to me. "Wait. You can't get women on a credit card. And I'm trying to swear off, anyway."

"On women?" he said, astonished.

"No. Credit cards. I hate the things."

"Well, you don't need to use credit cards," he said. "Just deal in cash. So if you'll just give me some money..."

It was time to confess. He was, after all, my friend. "I'm stone-broke," I said. "I don't have any money at all."

The taxi driver started up the car rather quickly, I thought. He dropped me off at the villa up the road. He didn't even say good-bye.

I stared after him.

(Bleep)!

It was all too plain to me that it took money to get things done. Life without money, as I had always known, was death.

I limped back to my room with this awful ache.

(Bleep) Prahd!

I decided some physical work might take my mind off my plight. I warmed up my secret office, stripped myself down and began to clean guns, sweep away old clothes and, by late afternoon, began to straighten up the mess of fake gold bars and the boxes.

Puttering around, I was mostly done when I saw that one of the cases had fallen onto some packages of unexamined mail.

Idly, and with no thought, I picked up some of the letters. They had been forwarded from the Section 451 office on Voltar and had come in on recent freighters. Faht's orderly had slipped them through the slot in the tunnel door.

Routine stuff. A notice that I'd been dropped from the Academy Alumnus Association for the nonpayment of dues. A bill from a gun dealer on Flisten—years old and I didn't intend to be on duty on Flisten soon. An advertisement for new General Services officer caps "that would remain undamaged under the hardest blows of troops' cudgels." An ad for the latest release of "the ever more popular sweetheart of Homeview, Hightee Heller," song strips, featuring hits from the new musical show that was "jamming Voltar theaters nightly: Bold Prince Caucalsia." A warning that I had not acknowledged reading the latest general Apparatus order about filling in forms that listed the correct sequences of forms and must fill in the attached form at once. A new type of chank-pop that "totally eradicated for seconds at a time the gaseous odors of troops." A special offer to Apparatus officers only—a fun gift for their friends —exploding boots. An electronic bird whistle, available in dozen lots, that called in selected types of female songbirds for breeding purposes.