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From Our Correspondent
| I've now been in Cassinni for four months
and I am proud to announce that I have met some new people. Three to be
precise. Two of them are Earthers, and both are quite a bit younger
than me, have no money, tedious jobs and are deeply depressed. The Earther
girl is so low that she comes round to the dungeon that is my apartment
to spend the evening watching imported sitcoms. The Earther boy tends
to go out and then feels miserable because he can't afford to go anywhere
and so he too ends up in my dungeon watching sitcoms.
But I have met another friend of the deeply glamorous Ganymedeian kind. She is single, in her late thirties and worked for Jasmin De Silva for some years (she is, unfortunately terribly discreet, so, I didn't find out if Jasmin loved her late second husband or how much she paid a cage mother to carry her daughter, Jade to full term so as not to damage her expensively acquired perfect figure. All she would say was that Jasmin was a kind and giving woman - which I know to be a lie. But for what reason?) My new friend knows lots of other deeply glamorous off-worlders, all single and all in their thirties. Last week she invited me out to dinner with one of them. We met at the nauseatingly trendy Europa bar. Caroline, an art critic for various Society magazines was dressed entirely in Black. She was on her fourth Jovian Eclipse as my friend introduced us. "I've got no sex drive," she says by way of reply. "I beg your pardon?" "I said, I've got no sex drive. I used to screw Earthmen and Martians but now I don't even like it with them. My therapist says I should try a Martian Blue." "Oh," I say. "I'm sure that will help." "Help what?" "Er, your sex drive?" "Yeah, well, what's the point of having a sex drive when all the men on Mars are schmucks? Did you know that? Do you know how hard it is to find a decent man on Mars?" "No," I say, which isn't really true. "Well, you should. There are rules; never talk to a man in a bar - he could be a belter or something weird like that. Never even agree to meet a man who is shorter than you, balding or who wears grav-assited shoes - he's bound to be a Triton or a long haul shipper. Don't sleep with anyone who hasn't slept with at least half your friends and even if they pass all the above don't even talk to them unless they have their own private shuttle." "You're joking, surely" I say. Her black within brown eyes narrowed on me in an 'is she for real?'fashion. "You think I'd go with someone who doesn't have a shuttle? Oh purleeaze."
"Sorry about that," says my new friend. I shrug and nod toward the little guy.
As we walk back to the dungeon I feel like I'm walking on air, one of the more pleasant side effects of too many JEs. My friend informs me that I am more likely to be accepted by Cassinni society now I have made the acquaintance of Caroline; at last some real and true friends and maybe one of them will even have their own shuttle. |
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"Beauty
-- the adjustment of all parts proportionately so that one cannot add or
subtract or change without impairing the harmony of the whole."
Leon Battista Alberti "No
sane man would dance with Jasmin." -
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Jasmin De Silva's Beauty -- the adjustment of all parts expensively so
that one cannot add or subtract or change without causing a cascading collapse
of the whole." --
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