A Day for Damnation

FORTY

"THERE WAS an old navy weather station nearby," Tanjy continued. "The Telepathy Corps used it as a retreat. Robots ran everything now, so the human quarters were completely available. It was the perfect place for this kind of exercise. We were on an island somewhere, completely isolated. There were three male bodies and four female bodies besides the one I was wearing. They greeted me as I came up the path.

"They must have been able to recognize that I was a new operator. Before I could even say hi, they led me inside into the main lounge. One wall was painted white and was covered with big black lettering-the ground rules for the retreat. They were very simple. The first one was you couldn't tell who you were. You couldn't tell your name or anything from your past experience. You had to make up a new name for yourself that didn't have any gender attached to it-I used my initials.

"You couldn't say anything that might reveal any past identity you might have held. No personal histories were allowed. Also, you couldn't speculate on the purpose of this assignment, and you couldn't ask other people how long they had been here, or any other question the answer to which would break any of the agreements.

"The point is, you couldn't go around explaining, `This isn't my real body, you know. I'm not really like this.' That's hiding out. That's pretending it isn't really happening to you. You had to be a person in the body you were wearing-nothing else. The only identity you could have was the one you created in this situation-whatever you made up in the here and now. I tell you, it was a very crazy time. I knew I wasn't really a girl, at least not inside-but I had no way of knowing I was a boy either, except by my own say-so. I didn't know what I was for a while. And neither did anyone else, I think. I gave off a lot of conflicting signals; come-hither mixed with bug-off, please-help-me, and I'mall-right-Jack. They were real patient with me though-or else they knew what I was going through.

"Eventually, what I found out was that I had an incredible investment in my sexual identity-and I had to give it up. Not the identity, the investment. I had to stop being a visitor in the body and start being the owner. I had to be a girl, as completely as if it were the only thing in the world I knew."

Abruptly, she shivered. "I still get cold chills thinking about it. It was an adventure. And the others-they were so ... supportive. Because they knew. They were going through it too. I think at least one of the other women had been a man before. I'm pretty sure-because of the way she spoke, the way she taught me how to be a woman, she was almost clinical-and by the way she made love. Oh, yes-there was a lot of lovemaking. A lot." She laughed and added, "There wasn't much else to do on the island. So we played combinations. The first time a man entered me I wept. I still don't know why. It was very intense. He was extraordinarily gentle."

She fell silent, remembering.

I was at a loss for words. I picked up my drink and held it in my hands. I looked at Tanjy, I looked at my glass again. I felt embarrassed-and I felt privileged. I'd never heard a telepath speak so candidly about his or her experiences before. And I felt even a little envious.

She looked up at me with those large Chinese eyes and smiled. The expression on her face was mysterious-as if she were looking at me from far, far away. It gave me a weird feeling of transparency-as if she were reading my mind. As if there were no secrets I could keep from her. I could feel myself stiffening. I wanted to be known-and I was scared of it too.

And then, abruptly, she grinned with Ted's old grin, and I knew it was all right.

"Hey-mix us a couple of Crazy Marys," she said. "I want to get out of this dress." She came back in a red silk robe that was probably illegal in some parts of the world, and sat cross-legged at one end of the couch.

I handed her a drink and parked myself at the opposite end. I wanted to hear the rest of her story.

"It was that willingness to experience that they were looking for," she continued. "That was the whole purpose of the retreat. They were tapping into me. They knew when I had broken through. When they picked me up again, they told me I'd graduated to the next level of my training. I'd demonstrated that I could assimilate. Now I was ready to be trained in assimilation.

"You can't imagine the classes, Jim. We wore the most incredible bodies, different bodies every day, bodies we'd never seen before. The paradox was that it was so we could be trained as beings, not identities. You see, identities and bodies are all tangled up together. You can't detach from one unless you also detach from the other.

"Do you know-no, of course, you couldn't-but after a while, when you know your body is just a transient phenomenon, you realize that bodies are irrelevant. Very quickly, you get detached from the physical universe that way; you lose all identifications and you begin to exist only in an experiential universe-a universe of pure beingness. I mean, the physical stuff is still there, of course, but it doesn't have any significance any more. It's just another piece in the game.

"And then after that, they started making us stay in the assigned bodies for longer and longer periods of time, so we wouldn't get too detached. Sometimes we had bodies as young as six, sometimes as old as seventy. Once I wore a Down's syndrome. Another time, I wore a little-girl body that still wet the bed. Once I was a football player. I felt like I was made out of bricks. They wanted us to know-and appreciate-the operating equipment that the rest of the human race is ... trapped in. So we could. .. sympathize with their condition.

"Then-and only then-did we start the classes in how to act like a male or a female in different cultures. I was amazed at how much I didn't know about how to be a man. I knew I didn't know how to be a woman-but there's a lot about manliness that most men don't know either. And we don't take the time to learn, because we think we already know it by the mere virtue of having been born male. The roles that we play-including gender-are almost all learned behavior. We make it up. Really! It's all an act, a performance. We had to learn those performances. We had, to learn how to be actors putting on our parts so thoroughly we became them. Just like you mundanes do-except you mundanes don't know you're doing it. That's the trap-and we escaped. We learned how to let go again too, so we could move onto the next identity.

"They told us we would probably change sex so often that we'd eventually lose any identification we had with either gender. And with that we'd also lose whatever investment we might have in a specific sexual identity. They said that ultimately we'd become omnisexual. I think I'm beginning to understand that now. Sex has become a totally different experience."

"I can imagine. .." I started to say.

"No. Unfortunately, you can't. I'm sorry, Jim-I feel like I keep excluding you. But this is beyond imagination."

"Try me," I said.

She sighed and waved a hand in frustration. "What I've experienced, Jim, is so ... incredible, I can't put it into words. It's that different when you don't have an identity attached. See, Jimthat's what I really learned-that I don't have to have an identity!" "I beg your pardon?"

"Normal people need identities. Telepaths don't. We're detached!"

"Uh-" I said. "I'm sorry, Ted. I don't get that."

"Oh." Her mood collapsed. Her effervescence disappeared. "You missed a step along the way, huh?"

"I guess so."

"Sorry." She scratched her head, a very unfeminine gesture. "Um, let's see-I guess I'm going to have to define my terms. Look, Jim," she said patiently, "the problem is the word `identity.'

"See if you can get this. Your identity is really a concept that you carry around. It's all attachments. You attach yourself to your name, to the cards in your wallet, to your job, to everything in your life-the car you drive, who you live with, who your parents were, what your rank is, where you come from, what school you went to, what your ambitions are, what your zodiac sign is, what church you go to, what branch of therapy you're currently in-did I leave anything out?"

"Doesn't sound like it."

"But that's not who you really are, is it? You could change any of those things-or all of them-and you'd still be the same self, the same person experiencing. Right?"

"All right, yeah. I got that."

"The self is what experiences the identity, Jim. Identity is only memory. It's the cumulative sense of all that stuff in your data banks. If I were to take away your memories, I'd be robbing you of your identity, but you'd still be the same person experiencing."

"But-I know I'm me now," I said, tapping my chest. "I know who I am-"

"You know your attachments. When I ask you who you are, where do you go to look? When I ask you where you went to school, who your parents were, what kind of terminal you work on, where do you look?"

"Uh-oh, I see. In my memory."

"Right," she grinned. "So if I took away your memory, you wouldn't know who you were, would you?"

"I'd be awfully confused."

"Sure. In your case, that'd be just like normal. But you see the point. If you had no memory, you'd have no identity. You'd have to build a whole new one, wouldn't you?"

I shrugged. "Yeah, sure."

"Now if I gave you all of my memories, if I could just pour them into your head, you'd think you were me, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah. I can see that."

But you'd still be you, the same person experiencing it all. You'd just be experiencing a different identity now, right?"

"Okay, I got it."

"Good." She leaned back against the sofa and relaxed. "Well, that's what this whole thing is all about. The self-that being inside-that's who you really are. A telepath needs to know that or he'll go crazy. That's what all that training is really about. I had to experience my identity as a thing apart from my self so I could know my self. Jim," she said, with frightening candor, "I can never be my old identity again-because I know how artificial it was in the first place. In my training, I learned how I made it up. I looked at all my old memories. I saw how it all happened and it freed me!

"They tell you when you start your training that you're going to have to give up that thing you'd rather die than give up. I didn't know then what they meant-but it's the attachment to your identity. I had to give up being Ted. I am not Ted any more. I will never be Ted again." She stopped abruptly and looked at me-as if waiting for a reaction.

I stared at her. For a moment, I had the bizarre sensation that I was sitting with a total stranger again. "But I know who you are-" I protested. "Or do I? Is there any of Ted left?" I asked.

"All of me is left," she laughed. "What's gone are the `foofoos'-the arbitrary attachments to being a specific person." "This is very confusing," I admitted. "I keep thinking they've done something weird to you. I mean, weirder even than you're telling me."

"Of course it's weird!" she laughed. "That's the only reason for doing it." And then she turned serious again. She took my hand in hers. There was a hint of-was it sadness?-in her voice now. "The difference between us is that I know that identities are all artificial. That's a terrifying thing to know. An identity isn't just threatened by that fact-it's destroyed. Of course, you're going to resist knowing that. Because then you have to start being responsible for the identity you've created, are continually creating!"

"Uck," I said.

"That's exactly what I said when I found out-but there's something else on the other side of that-a whole new way of experiencing people. It was like discovering a new species! I stopped seeing-that is, I stopped focusing on all the shallow, physical, temporal attachments that people surround themselves with, and started seeing beyond the identity to the being who'd created it in the first place! It is an eerie-and wonderful-experience."

"You did that to me before, didn't you?" She nodded.

"Yeah-I had the strangest feeling that you were reading my mind. Or something."

"I was. Sort of. Only not quite the way you think. I was reading the physical expression of your mind."

"Huh?"

"Jim." She put her hand on my arm. Her tone was serious and intense now. She captured me with her eyes. "People build identities out of fear. You build an identity because you think you need it for survival. You use it as a wall. Telepaths know how to read the walls. You think your life is a secret? It never has been. We can see how it turned out on your face."

I didn't know what to say. I felt as if I'd been slammed against the wall-my wall. Why was she telling me this? What did she want from me?

She must have seen it in my expression. She stroked my arm gently. "A telepath has to know all this, Jim, because part of the job of the telepath is to build new identities. Every time I shift into a new body, I have to create a persona that's appropriate. It's not about acting-it's about being. I know this is hard for you to understand, Jim. I'm trying to condense months of training into a single conversation."

"I really do want to understand," I said.

"I know. I can see it. That's what makes this so hard for me. All I can tell you is that when you lose your body and your identity, what you gain is an incredible freedom. You can't imagine it. Really. There's a-a thing that happens, a point you reach, like an airplane racing down a runway, where you become airborne, and then you're flying. You know when you reach it, nobody has to tell you. That's the experience, Jim. I wish I could take you with me. I wish I could share it with you."

I said, "So do I. "

She didn't reply. Neither of us spoke for a moment. The moment stretched out-became an uncomfortable silence. I looked at her eyes again. I felt myself drawn-and I felt uneasy too. She was my boyfriend who'd become a goddess, and I didn't know what that made me.

"What's the matter?" she asked. She touched my hand gently.

"I, um-' I shrugged and pulled my hand away. "I'm a little overwhelmed, I guess." I took a breath, I exhaled loudly, I put my drink down. I wondered if I should say good night and go.

She sat up a little straighter then, she became more purposeful. She said quietly, "I'll tell you the truth, Jim. I had a very simple intention for tonight. I was going to bring you up here and fuck your brains out. Nothing more. I didn't really intend to have this conversation. I just wanted to complete some old business fur myself and have a little fun with an old buddy and pay you back for all the hard times I gave you in the past. Stupid me-I guess I really do love you too much to take that much advantage of you."

"Huh?" I picked up my jaw and fitted it back in place.

"Well, yeah," she admitted. "Hell-the one time we did it, you were so intense, it was like touching a high-voltage line. Don't you wonder why I kept trying to get you back in the sack-or the shower? That was my hidden agenda for tonight. But then we started talking. And there was just too much to talk about. And I realized how much misinformation there was between us. And I wanted you to just know me as I am now."

Her face was shining again. I thought of Ted. I remembered how he was always like a big silly kid-and the whole world was filled with fascinating toys. He was always grinning-like this. I'd never realized before how innocent his grin had been.

That smile was so sweet, so infectious ... and Tanjy's eyes were incredibly fascinating. I could look into them for hours, years, the rest of my life. I forgot all about Ted. That was a couple of lifetimes ago. This was a beautiful woman; this was now-

Something-happened. A throb of dizziness and-

The way I saw her shifted. The easy personality that was Tanjy was gone-the performance of Tanjy, but not the self. It was like a veil being pulled aside, revealing the light behind as clearly as a rosy vision hovering in the sky. The smile was a window-and her drowning eyes were bottomless-I fell upward into them. She glowed like a god-she was radiant. And I felt beautiful, just basking in her reflection. The delight rose like a bubble, I surged with it--

And suddenly, I knew what she meant.

I had to blink and pull myself back out of her eyes. I didn't want to, but I had to ask. "Tanjy-there's a kind of telepathy that doesn't need an implant, isn't there-?"

Without taking her eyes from mine, she nodded slowly. "The corps thinks so. We know there's something that happens between two people that can't be explained." She took my hands in hers and held them warmly. Her face was angelic. I wanted to drown in her eyes again. "It's a kind of communication without words. . ." she whispered.

"I- heard of such a thing...I've never really experienced it... until now."

For a moment, we sat there looking at each other. She wasn't Ted-she wasn't Tanjy. She was just-beautiful.

The room, the world around us, ceased to exist. We were alone in an island universe, just the two of us. Her bright eyes had swallowed me. I had the weirdest feeling that the person opposite me was a mirror of my own soul.

In that moment, I loved her. Him.

I shook my head slowly. "None of this makes any sense to me," I said. "I don't understand any of this-and at the same time, I think I know exactly what you mean. There's a kind of tension between us, an electricity in the air. And I don't think it's just my hormones either."

"Uh huh." Her eyes were immense. "Don't try to explain it," she said. "Just... enjoy it."

"I have to know-"

She placed a finger across my lips. "Shh. Let it be mystical." And then she added, "Non-telepaths might call this love. It is, of course-but not the kind of love you think of when you use that concept-symbol. It's the experience of love without the attachments. "

"I do...love you...." Or did I? Who did I love?

"Listen to me--" she said abruptly. "You're going to be involved with some very big stuff, very soon now. I want to tell you something about communication. True communication. You're going to need to know this. It's not about talking-it's about listening. Listening with your whole soul. It's about listening so hard that you become the person you're listening to. Like you're doing right now. Can you remember that?"

"Yes, I will. I promise."

She looked thoughtful then. Even a little sad. She was Ted-or-Tanjy-again. It didn't make any difference. She allowed herself a small smile and touched my hand. "Good. Your life may depend on it. And-I love you too much to want to see you wasted."

And then there was nothing else to say. We just sat and looked at each other until the clock beeped. Three in the morning. "It's late," I said.

"Do you want to spend the night?" she asked.

"Sure."

She stood up then and offered me her hand. I got up off the couch and she led me into the bedroom.

I was surprised at how easy and natural it was.