I slapped my palm against the wallplate and then fumbled through my still-unpacked shuttle bag for a nail file. I stepped up on Zibet’s bunk with it and started to unscrew the intercom.
“To the young women of Moulton College,” he boomed again, “to all my darling daughters.” He stopped. I tossed the screws and file back in the bag, smacked the plate, and flung myself back in bed.
“Who was that?” Zibet whispered.
“Our founding father,” I said, and then remembering the effect the word
She didn’t answer. She was already asleep, gently snoring. Which meant so far I had misguessed every single thing today. Great start to the semester.
The admin knew all about the party. “You
He was an old scut, probably forty-five. Dear Daddy’s age. He was fairly good-looking, probably exercising like edge to keep the old belly in for the freshman girls. He was liable to get a hernia. He probably jig-jigged into a plastic bag, too, just like Daddy, to carry on the family name. Jiggin’ Jesus, there oughta be a law.
“You’re a trust student, Octavia?”
“That’s right.” You think I’d be stuck with a fucked name like Octavia if I wasn’t?
“Neither parent?”
“No. Paid mother-surr. Trust name till twenty-one.” I watched his face to see what effect that had on him. I’d seen a lot of scared faces that way.
“There’s no one to write to, then, except your lawyers. No way to expel you. And restricks don’t seem to have any appreciable effect on you. I don’t quite know what would.”
I’ll bet you don’t. I kept watching him, and he kept watching me, maybe wondering if I was his darling daughter, if that expensive jism in the plastic bag had turned out to be what he was boning after right now.
“What exactly was it you called your dorm mother?”
“Scut,” I said.
“I’ve longed to call her that myself a time or two.”
The sympathetic buildup. I waited, pretty sure of what was coming.
“About this party. I’ve heard the boys have something new going. What is it?”
The question wasn’t what I’d expected. “I don’t know,” I said and then realized I’d let my guard down. “Do you think I’d tell you if I knew?”
“No, of course not. I admire that. You’re quite a young woman, you know. Outspoken, loyal, very pretty, too, if I may say so.”
Um-hmm. And you just happen to have a job for me, don’t you?
“My secretary’s quit. She likes younger men, she says, although if what I hear is true, maybe she’s better off with me. It’s a good job. Lots of extras. Unless, of course, you’re like my secretary and prefer boys to men.”
Well, and here was the way out. No more virgie freshmen, no more restricks. Very tempting. Only he was at least forty-five, and somehow I couldn’t quite stomach the idea of jig-jig with my own father. Sorry, sir.
“If it’s the trust problem that’s bothering you, I assure you there are ways to check.”
Liar. Nobody knows who their kids are. That’s why we’ve got these storybook trust names, so we can’t show up on Daddy’s doorstep: Hi, I’m your darling daughter. The trust protects them against scenes like that. Only sometimes with a scut like the admin here, you wonder just who’s being protected from whom.
“Do you remember what I told my dorm mother?” I said.
“Yes.”
“Double to you.”
Restricks for the rest of the year and a godspit alert band welded onto my wrist.
“I know what they’ve got,” Arabel whispered to me in class. It was the only time I ever saw her. The godspit alert band went off if I even mastied without permission.
“What?” I asked, pretty much without caring.
“Tell you after.”
I met her outside, in a blizzard of flying leaves and cotton. The circulation system had gone edge again. “Animals,” she said.
“Animals?”
“Little repulsive things about as long as your arm. Tessels, they’re called. Repulsive little brown animals.”
“I don’t believe it,” I said. “It’s got to be more than beasties. That’s elementary school stuff. Are they bio-enhanced?”
“You mean pheromones or something?” She frowned. “I don’t know. I sure didn’t see anything attractive about them, but the boys—Brown brought his to a party, carrying it around on his arm, calling it Daughter Ann. They all swarmed around it, petting it, saying things like ‘Come to Daddy.’ It was really edge.”
I shrugged. “Well, if you’re right, we don’t have anything to worry about. Even if they’re bio-enhanced, how long can beasties hold their attention? It’ll all be over by midterms.”
“Can’t you come over? I never see you.” She sounded like she was ready to go lezzy.
I held up the banded wrist. “Can’t. Listen, Arabel, I’ll be late to my next class,” I said, and hurried off through the flailing yellow and white. I didn’t have a next class. I went back to the dorm and took some float.
