He remembered the nights of running and hiding, choked dry breath glued to his throat, heart rattling loose. He had been lucky. He didn’t look like a hetero. They said you could tell one just by watching him walk–Jesse walked correctly. He fooled them. He was lucky.

And he was a criminal. He, Jess Four Martin, no different from the rest, tubeborn and machine-nursed, raised in the Character Schools like everyone else–was terribly different from the rest.

It had happened–his awful suspicions had crystallized–on his first formal date. The man had been a Rocketeer, the best high quality, even out of the Hunter class. Mother had arranged it carefully.

There was the dance. And then the ride in the spacesled. The big man had put an arm about Jesse and–Jess knew. He knew for certain and it made him very angry and very sad.

He remembered the days that came after the knowledge: bad days, days fallen upon evil, black desires, deep-cored frustrations. He had tried to find a friend at the Crooked Clubs that flourished then, but it was no use. There was a sensationalism, a bravura to these people, that he could not love. The sight of men and women together, too, shocked the parts of him he could not change, and repulsed him.

Then the vice squads had come and closed up the clubs and the heteros were forced underground and he never sought them out again or saw them. He was alone.

The beads tinkled.

“Jesse–” He looked up quickly, afraid. It was Mina. She wore a loose man’s shirt, an old hat that hid her golden hair: her face was shadowed by the turned-up collar. Through the shirt the rise and fall of her breasts could be faintly detected. She smiled once, nervously.

Jesse looked out the curtain. Without speaking, he put his hands about her soft thin shoulders and held her like this for a long minute.

“Mina–” She looked away. He pulled her chin forward and ran a finger along her lips. Then he pressed her body to his, tightly, touching her neck, her back, kissing her forehead, her eyes, kissing her mouth. They sat down.

They sought for words. The curtain parted.

“Beer,” Jesse said, winking at the barboy, who tried to come closer, to see the one loved by this thin handsome man.

“Yes sir.”

The barboy looked at Mina very hard, but she had turned and he could see only the back. Jesse held his breath. The barboy smiled contemptuously then, a smile that said: You’re insane–I was hired for my beauty. See my chest, look–a pectoral vision. My arms, strong; my lips–come, were there ever such sensuous ones? And you turn me down for this bag of bones .

Jesse winked again, shrugged suggestively and danced his fingers: Tomorrow, my friend, I’m stuck tonight. Can’t help it. Tomorrow.

The barboy grinned and left. In a few moments he returned with the beer. “On the house,” he said, for Mina’s benefit. She turned only when Jesse said, softly:

“It’s all right. He’s gone now.”

Jesse looked at her. Then he reached over and took off the hat. Blond hair rushed out and over the rough shirt.

She grabbed for the hat. “We mustn’t,” she said. “Please–what if somebody should come in?”

“No one will come in. I told you that.”

“But what if? I don’t know–I don’t like it here. That man at the door–he almost recognized me.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Almost though. And then what?”

“Forget it. Mina, for God’s sake. Let’s not quarrel.”

She calmed. “I’m sorry, Jesse. It’s only that–this place makes me feel–“

“–what?”

“Dirty.” She said it defiantly.

“You don’t really believe that, do you?”

“No. I don’t know. I just want to be alone with you.”

Jesse took out a cigarette and started to use the lighter. Then he cursed and threw the vulgarly shaped object under the table and crushed the cigarette. “You know that’s impossible,” he said. The idea of separate Units for homes had disappeared, to be replaced by giant dormitories. There were no more parks, no country lanes. There was no place to hide at all now, thanks to Senator Knudson, to the little bald crest of this new sociological wave. “This is all we have,” Jesse said, throwing a sardonic look around the booth, with its carved symbols and framed pictures of entertainment stars–all naked and leering.

They were silent for a time, hands interlocked on the table top. Then the girl began to cry. “I–I can’t go on like this,” she said.

“I know. It’s hard. But what else can we do?” Jesse tried to keep the hopelessness out of his voice.

“Maybe,” the girl said, “we ought to go underground with the rest.”

“And hide there, like rats?” Jesse said.

“We’re hiding here,” Mina said, “like rats.”

“Besides, Parker is getting ready to crack down. I know, Mina–I work at Centraldome, after all. In a little while there won’t be any underground.”

“I love you,” the girl said, leaning forward, parting her lips for a kiss. “Jesse, I do.” She closed her eyes. “Oh, why won’t they leave us alone? Why? Just because we’re que–“

“Mina! I’ve told you–don’t ever use that word. It isn’t true! We’re not the queers. You’ve got to believe that. Years ago it was normal for men and women to love each other: they married and had children together; that’s the way it was. Don’t you remember anything of what I’ve told you?”

The girl sobbed. “Of course I do. But, darling, that was a long time ago.”

“Not so long! Where I work–listen to me–they have books. You know, I told you about books? I’ve read them, Mina. I learned what the words meant from other books. It’s only been since the use of artificial insemination–not even five hundred years ago.”

“Yes dear,” the girl said. “I’m sure, dear.”

“Mina, stop that! We are not the unnatural ones, no matter what they say. I don’t know exactly how it happened–maybe, maybe as women gradually became equal to men in every way–or maybe solely because of the way we’re born–I don’t know. But the point is, darling, the whole world was like us, once. Even now, look at the animals–“

“Jesse! Don’t you dare talk as if we’re like those horrid dogs and cats and things!”

Jesse sighed. He had tried so often to tell her, show her. But he knew, actually, what she thought.

That she felt she was exactly what the authorities told her she was–God, maybe that’s how they all thought, all the Crooked People, all the “unnormal” ones.

The girl’s hands caressed his arms and the touch became suddenly repungnant to him. Unnatural. Terribly unnatural.

Jesse shook his head. Forget it, he thought. Never mind. She’s a woman and you love her and there’s nothing wrong nothing wrong nothing wrong in that. . . or am I the insane person of old days who was insane because he was so sure he wasn’t insane because–.

“Disgusting!”

It was the fat little man, the smiling masher, E.J. Two Hobart. But he wasn’t smiling now. Jesse got up quickly and stepped in front of Mina. “What do you want? I thought I told you–“

The man pulled a metal disk from his trunks. “Vice squad, friend,” he said. “Better sit down.” The disk was pointed at Jesse’s belly.

The man’s arm went out the curtain and two other men came in, holding disks.

“I’ve been watching you quite a while, mister,” the man said. “Quite a while.”

“Look,” Jesse said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I work at Centraldome and I’m seeing Miss Smith here on some business.”

“We know all about that kind of business,” the man said.

“All right–I’ll tell you the truth. I forced her to come here. I–“

“Mister–didn’t you hear me? I said I’ve been watching you. All evening. Let’s go.”

One man took Mina’s arm, roughly; the other two began to propel Jesse out through the club. Heads turned. Tangled bodies moved embarrassedly.

“It’s all right,” the little fat man said, his white skin glistening with perspiration. “It’s all right, folks. Go on back to whatever you were doing.” He grinned and tightened his grasp on Jesse’s arm.

Mina didn’t struggle. There was something in her eyes–it took Jesse a long time to recognize it.

Then he knew. He knew what she had come to tell him tonight: that even if they hadn’t been caught–she would have submitted to the Cure voluntarily. No more worries then, no more guilt. No more meeting at midnight dives, feeling shame, feeling dirt . . .

Mina didn’t meet Jesse’s look as they took her out into the street.

“You’ll be okay,” the fat man was saying. He opened the wagon’s doors. “They’ve got it down pat now–couple days in the ward, one short session with the doctors; take out a few glands, make a few injections, attach a few wires to your head, turn on a machine: presto! You’ll be surprised.”

The fat officer leaned close. His sausage fingers danced wildly near Jesse’s face.

“It’ll make a new man of you,” he said. Then they closed the doors and locked them.