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expected to be exposed. Why hadn't they used the painless mists instead of the huge blunt needles? To humiliate and cow us, of course; that was common knowledge. So we should have been prepared for something akin to rape as the Navy introduction to sex; the Navy prided itself on making any natural occupation a horror. Yet, in our naïveté, we were dismayed.
    One man broke ranks and fled. The Saxon sergeant turned and aimed his stunner almost casually, but caught the man in the back, a perfect shot, and the fugitive fell facedown to the floor. No one went to pick him up; he was left there unconscious as an object lesson for us all. We knew he wasn't seriously hurt—the stunner only stuns—but still, this had a sobering effect. No one else broke ranks. Numbly we waited as the lines moved forward.
    In one sense it was an eternity before my turn came; in another it was an instant. The act of sex was not foreign to my experience, but I had no interest in this manner of indulging it. A uniformed matron, a female sergeant, met me just inside the door and guided me to Room Number Eighteen. Eighteen—my older sister, Faith, had been eighteen when she was brutally raped. “You have fifteen minutes, soldier,”
    she said, and more or less shoved me through the entrance. Fifteen—my age when I watched my sister raped. I heard the door click behind me, and knew I was locked in. Both physically and symbolically.
    A young woman in a pink negligee sat on a bunk. She was attractive enough in face and form for a Saxon, but her bored expression and my knowledge of her profession put me further off. I really had no sexual desire for her. Some people assume that any young man will eagerly indulge in any sex that offers; this is fantasy. For most of us, there has to be some emotional commitment, some indication that the woman is not merely willing but interested, that some sort of continuing relationship is possible. Our drives are strong but with many counterindications, so that the net effect is often doubt rather than passion.
    “Well, get your clothes off, soldier,” she snapped. The way she pronounced “soldier” reminded me that a soldier was the lowest form of life in the Jupiter Navy, and a recruit somewhat beneath that.
    “I—do not feel inclined,” I said, aware that I was blushing about as well as my swarthy skin permitted.
    “Would you like me to undress you?” she inquired, as if this too were dull routine. Surely it was, for her.
    “Uh—please, no, thank you. I—”
    “Listen, kid, you only have fifteen minutes, and it takes five to undress and redress. I've got a schedule to keep. If you don't strip, I'll do it for you. I don't indulge with clothed men.” Again, the term used was not
    “indulge.”
    “It—I think that would do no good,” I said. “I—”
    “You asked for it,” she said impatiently. She bounced off the bed and strode to me. Without formality she unbuttoned my fatigue shirt and tugged it free of one arm and then the other. Then she went for the trousers.
    I am, as it is put in English, ornery in some ways. I did not resist her; I let her undress me completely, moving when and in the manner she directed me, to complete the operation. In moments I stood naked before her, un-aroused. This is, if you choose to call it that, another kind of talent I possess.
    She looked at me and made a wry face. Then she shrugged out of her negligee and stood as naked as I was. She bounced a little on her feet so that her breasts lifted and fell impressively. She had the requisite physical attributes. But to me this was like a laboratory exhibit, and I did not react.
    “May I touch you?” she asked. In the Navy no person is permitted to touch another without that person's permission; it is supposedly a safeguard against abuse. An inspecting sergeant asks the recruit's permission before he takes hold of the belt buckle to see whether the back side of it has been properly shined. Of course the sensible recruit