If at First

had chosen that day to put in an appearance.
    The biolum strip came on revealing a lounge area with a sturdy oak-top bar separating it from a minute kitchen alcove at the rear. Its built-in furniture was compact, all light pine. Wearing thin, Greg acknowledged, following Eleanor’s questing gaze. Entropy digging its claws in.
    The corners of her lips tugged up. ‘Nice. At Egleton, there’d be five of us sharing a room this size. You live here alone?’
    ‘Yeah. The British Legion found it for me. Good people, volunteers. At least they cared, did what they could. And it’s all paid for, even if it is falling down around me.’
    ‘They were bad times, weren’t they, Greg? I never really saw much of it. But there were the rumours, even in a kibbutz.’
    ‘We rode it out, though. This country always does, somehow. That’s our strength, in the genes, no matter how far down we fall, we’re never out.’
    ‘And you don’t mind?’
    ‘Mind what?’
    ‘Me. I was in a kibbutz, that made me a card carrier.’
    His arms went round her, hands resting lightly on her buttocks. Faces centimetres apart. Her nose was petite and pointed. ‘Only by default. Nobody chooses their parents, and I’d say you un-chose yours pretty convincingly tonight.’ His nose touched hers, rubbing gently.
    She grinned, shy again.
    The bedroom was on his right, behind a sliding door. A tiny pine-panelled room which was nearly filled by a huge doublebed, there was a half-metre gap between the mattress and the walk.
    Eleanor flicked him a quick appraising look, and her grin became slyer, lips twitching. Greg leant forward and kissed her.
    He cheated with her, just as he’d done with all the others. His espersense was alert for exactly the right moment. It came a minute into the kiss; his hands found the hem of her T-shirt and he was pulling it off over her head, muffling her giggles. The long skirt and silky panties followed quickly.
    Her figure was just as spectacular as his imagination had painted it for him. Eleanor’s years at the kibbutz had toughened her, more so than most of the girls he had. He found that erotic; her flat, slightly muscular belly, wide hips, broad, powerful shoulders, all loaded with athletic promise.
    Greg’s own clothes came off in a fast heated tussle, and they moved on to the bed.
    It lasted for an age, building slow. With his eyes he watched the blue and black shadows flow across her smooth damp skin as she stretched and twisted below his hands. With his mind he sensed cold shooting stars igniting along the glistening trail left by the tip of his tongue, then fire along her nerves into her brain, adding to the glow of arousal. He saw what excited her, the words she wanted to hear; then exploited the discoveries, whispering secret fantasies into her ear, guiding her into the permutations she’d never dared ask from a partner before.
    After the initial astonishment of making love to someone who not only shared her desires but actually relished them, Eleanor shook loose any lingering restraint. Greg laughed in delight as she let her enthusiasm run riot, and told her how she could repay him.
    When he asked, she rose up in the way he loved, poised above him, light from the slumbering bonfire licking at her flesh, deepening her mystique. His hands finally found her breasts. She grinned, seeing his weakness, and played on it, drawing out the poignancy before she twined her legs around him, and pulled herself down. Her mind became almost dazzlingly bright as sheused him to bring herself to orgasm, all coherency overwhelmed by animal instinct.
    Greg let go of Edwards and duty and guilt, and concentrated solely on inflaming Eleanor still further.

2
    Julia Evans sat at the dresser in her bedroom while the maid brushed daytime knots out of her long chestnut hair. It had to be done every night; she hadn’t allowed her hair to be cut for years, and now it hung almost down to her waist. Her best feature, everyone said, striking.
    She studied her face in the mirror, plump cheeked and bland, wearing a slightly sorrowful expression. It wasn’t an ugly face, by any means. But at seventeen some allure really ought to be evolving.
    Access Vanity#Twelve , she told her bioware processor implant silently. At least she had had a sense of humour when she began this memory sequence.
    A mirage of her own face, six months younger, unfurled behind her eyes. She compared it to the one in the mirror. There was some change. A burning-off