Levels: The Host Page 7

  By and large, people were resigned to their station on the island country. They knew their places, high and low. That was the history. In spite of obvious inequities and an almost comically literal split between the classes, the levels of Manhattan kept lumbering along. To Watly the extreme opposites of Manhattan’s parts somehow balanced into a functional—if uneven—yin-yang symbiosis.

  Over those early post-Cedetime years, the bi-level system continued to grow. And it continued still. Watly knew Second Level, even now, had not reached capacity. There were still areas of construction way uptown and a few places on the West Side. It would be years before all of the island was completely covered. So the building continued. On First Level, people could always get a job in construction. The pay stank and the injury rate was high, but the work was steady. And in the back of most everyone’s mind, like a fairy tale wish, was the dream that they might somehow, in some way, make it to Second Level. Watly recognized this wish even in his own uncle. It was an almost universal First Level dream. Work your way up, save your way up, win the Level Lottery, or whatever. It was the carrot. It was all that kept some people going. The dream of Second.

  That and, lately, something new. Something about California. Watly had heard that something happened in the Republic of California. Maybe... maybe something worked. Maybe things were possible. Maybe change was in the fetid wind.

  CHAPTER 7

  Euroshima. Cedetime. The bi-level system. Walker Gavy. Central Park. The subs. Ah, yes.

  Watly just let his mind wander on all this. It was a good way to kill time. He’d mentally covered just about all he had ever learned about history. Reviewing it. Modifying it. Even letting himself think about California. Just a little. It was calming to let his thoughts drift. Relaxing. Every so often a claustrophobic sense of helplessness crept up on him, but now he seemed able to control it. It was all a matter of mental control. Concentration. As soon as he felt the beginnings of panic he would force himself to mentally explore some subject or other. The more complex the better. This distracted him whenever the reality of the situation was difficult to accept.

  The reality of the situation at the moment was that his body was leaning casually against a girder on East Fifty-seventh Street. His eyes were scanning the pedestrians who passed by. Occasionally, his left hand would swing over and hang on his right wrist, as if trying to surreptitiously cover the hosting cuff. The donor must be self-conscious, Watly thought. People do tend to look at our cuff. It was like a big sign that said, I may look like one of you folks, but I’m not.

  They had been standing there, host and donor (Watly and the Stranger), for almost half an hour. They were only a block from the Alvedine Hosting Building. There was a rag store, a laundry, a used clothing store, and a CV repair shop on the street opposite. Some guy was on the corner trying to sell broken buzbelts—quite unsuccessfully, it appeared. The Stranger just gazed at all this lazily. Watly wondered when things would get started. Perhaps it’s the first time for the other guy, too, he thought. The humor of that did not escape him. Two virgins.

  A police cruiser passed and the donor focused on its taillights until it disappeared around the corner. A few cats streaked across the street. More people passed—on foot and bike. The donor inhaled and exhaled slowly. Things were not exactly hopping right along here. Not that Watly was complaining. He’d just as soon it continued on like this, thank you. So far the hosting had been surprisingly uneventful. The most frightening moment yet had been one of the first.

  After slowly and shakily getting to his feet, Watly’s donor had trembled for a moment while Dr. Tollnismer looked on, and then carefully tried to take a step. It didn’t work. Watly’s right foot did not behave as the donor apparently had expected, and the already precariously balanced body flipped forward, head first. To Watly it seemed to happen in slow motion. As the floor came closer and closer he tried everything he was accustomed to doing to break his fall. Of course, nothing worked. His body wasn’t responding. It was like a pet that’d stopped doing tricks. The floor neared. Watly let out what he would later call a thought-scream. It had no physical manifestation but, at least mentally, Watly was screaming insanely—hysterically. The floor kept coming. Just before Watly’s already slightly crooked nose would’ve been mashed beyond recognition against the tiles, his donor clumsily shot both hands out to break the fall. It was an awkward, last-minute attempt, but prevented serious damage.

  There was no movement for a while.

  “You all right?” It was Dr. Tollnismer’s voice coming through.

  “Fine.”

  Fine was just one word. It was a simple word. No big deal. Four letters. One syllable. Unfortunately, it was still enough to send Watly into another period of mental hysterics. Yes, it was his mouth; and yes, it was his tongue; and yes, of course, that was his voice—but, subs help us, that was someone else telling it what to say!

  Dr. Tollnismer was checking Watly’s body over for any damage. The somewhat distanced sense of her hands gently examining him was soothing and helped calm him. He could still smell her powder scent when the donor inhaled. There was another smell in there too. Something baser and more primitively female.

  “If you want to use the bathroom, the W.C. down the hall will be just fine,” she was saying as she worked. “That W.C. will be just fine.”

  What was that all about? It struck Watly as a somewhat odd statement. What did going to the bathroom have to do with anything? He’d just gone a short while ago. It was at that moment Watly noticed how much concentrating on some mental problem helped to relax him. If things got out of hand, Watly discovered, you just needed the willpower to focus on an absorbing topic. Think narrowly.

  The doctor had finished checking the body over and helping them back into the chair.

  “To be sure the process was completed properly,” she said, “I’m required to ask you the password.”

  “Bluebird,” Watly felt himself say.

  “Ah, very good. Welcome, donor. I’m sorry about your first few moments in this body. I’m afraid you tried to stand too quickly. As you know, sometimes it takes a while getting used to balancing.” As she talked there was a slight hint of distaste in her voice and expression. Her eyebrows turned up as if mildly disgusted. Her words were unfeeling, mechanical. Little crinkles around that broad brown nose made her look as though she smelled something unpleasant, sour. Watly felt hurt and rejected until he reminded himself that she wasn’t talking to him. Not at all. She was talking to the donor. It was apparent to Watly that she didn’t like donors. He felt a renewed sense of closeness to her. She was on his side. She was a fuckhead.

  “To your right,” she was saying, “is a reverse-corrected mirror. I’d recommend you take a few minutes to acquaint yourself with the body. Take it slowly—it won’t take long to get the feel of things. If you need any help, just yell—I’ll be nearby. If not, when you’re ready to go, turn left outside the door and follow the yellow arrows. I hope you enjoy your hosting. Remember, take your time standing up and walking for the first time.” Suddenly the disgusted look lifted from her face and the Dr. Tollnismer Watly liked best showed herself. She smiled warmly. The teeth flashed, glaringly white. “Don’t forget,” she said. “That W.C. will be just fine. Just fine.”

  Again the strange bathroom topic. And then it hit Watly. W.C.—Watly Caiper! She was talking to him! Him alone! She was giving him a secret message! You’re gonna be okay, Watly Caiper, she was saying. That W.C. will be just fine. Watly felt a surge of joy. He felt almost safe for a second. She kept talking, her features relaxed. “In fact, on reconsidering, I may avail myself of its services after all.” Her smile broadened. If Watly could have smiled back, he would have. And then he would have kissed her. And whatever else came to mind.

  The fixed mask of disapproval returned to the doctor’s pretty face. “I’ll leave you now,” she said curtly. “Again, if you need anything, yell. And
donor”—Her eyes blazed for a second—”be careful, would you?”

  Dr. Tollnismer walked quickly from the room.

  With some difficulty, the donor swiveled the chair to the right and Watly found that his eyes were carefully scanning his own body in the mirror. Whoever the donor was, he used Watly’s vision differently than Watly himself would have. The focus jumped from one part of the upper body to another. Shoulders, chin, ears.... The movement was at times so rapid it was dizzying. This was not how Watly looked at things. After this somewhat frantic overview, the eyes inspected Watly’s face in minute detail—traveling along lips and lashes and cheekbones—and spent a long moment on the somewhat receding hairline. Then the eyes moved on. Watly felt a brief feeling of embarrassment and shame. I’m sorry the hair isn’t perfect, he wanted to say. I’ve always had a high forehead, but I find if you brush it forward, you can camouflage it a good deal....

  By now the donor was not only looking, he was gently moving—poking, prodding that, flexing this, wiggling his jaw, raising his eyebrows, and generally “breaking in” Watly’s body. Watly realized he had nothing to be ashamed of. Right now the body was as much the donor’s as it was Watly’s. No—more. “Buyer beware,” and all that.

  The body sat forward in the chair and Watly felt his donor very carefully ease toward its edge. The donor was being much more cautious about standing this time. No more pratfalls. After about five minutes of extremely slow edging, Watly found himself standing upright.

  It did not take long for the stranger to get “land legs” once standing. Whoever it was held the arm of the chair for support and took a few cautious steps. It was amazing to Watly how differently the donor used his body. Things Watly had always taken for granted—the set of his shoulders, the angle of his head, the swing of his arm—all these things were slightly different now. The donor used Watly’s whole physical being differently. Totally. Watly’s body was an instrument being played by a different performer with a subtly different style. It was eerie. Watly could even feel that the muscles of his face were set in an unfamiliar way. His brow felt tight and strained as if stretched from either side, and his bottom lip was bent in slightly and seemed to be trying to grip hold of his teeth. His lower back was overly arched and his head tilted down a bit. From the outside he probably just looked like good old Watly Caiper. From the inside it was obvious someone foreign was in charge. Very obvious. Watly felt another wave of vertigo and panic approaching. He tried to shut it out by concentrating. Concentrate, Caiper! Concentrate! Think narrowly! Now, what’s this donor fellow up to? Come on, Caiper—pay attention!

  Watly became aware that the donor had developed an enormous erection and was now uncovering it for inspection. The panic attack subsided as the removed-Watly watched his own genitals come into view. Well, well. The donor turned to the mirror and unashamedly inspected the rigid organ from every conceivable angle, giving it a few hardy—almost painful—tugs for good measure. The erection was one of those super solid ones Watly usually connected with the loss of virginity or the beginning of an affair or maybe even a bloated morning bladder. It was so hard it practically hurt.

  The humor of the situation was enough to quell any last vestiges of the attack Watly had felt. Here he was, Watly Caiper, floating around powerlessly in his own head while his body was being mentally aroused by some unknown person. The farthest thing from Watly’s mind was sex, but there bobbed Watly’s own penis in contradiction. Down, boy. Whoever this donor was, he seemed pleased with the allotted equipment and, after playing with it a bit more, replaced it under cover of the veneer pants where it still bulged noticeably. I have a feeling, thought Watly with a mental smile, that this guy plans to have sex. Call it a wild guess.

  The donor spent a few more minutes alternately staring into the mirror and walking up and down on his new legs. He seemed to be getting the hang of it rapidly. There was still an awkwardness and tentativeness to his movements but it was lessening. At first every action involved with walking had been overexaggerated to the point of some distorted military march with the knees being raised way too high. Gradually, the donor gained more control. It wasn’t graceful, but it no longer looked and felt as foolish.

  Meanwhile—as the lump in his pants receded—Watly continued to ponder the erection. The idea of it. His erection. Their erection. Whose erection had it been, anyway? Whose penis? He’d never viewed his own sex organ in such a removed fashion before. There had always been something intrinsically important about the little fellow. It was his. Yes? It was a part of him—an extension of his personality. A manifestation of his private sexuality. But no. Suddenly it was just another one. Another schlong aimed skyward—aimed to the Second Level. It could have been anyone’s. In fact, for the time being at least, it wasn’t Watly’s at all. It was the donor’s penis. And it was the donor’s face. And the donor’s hands. And the donor’s high forehead and crooked nose. The body is, after all, just a thing. We are not our physical beings, Watly realized. He’d known it before to some degree, but it had never really sunk in until now. The body is a shell. The body is a vessel. We are merely the “I” inside. (Inside for the moment, at least.) And even our most private parts—or our most public—are still not “us.” They are just another “it” that can, it turns out, be transferred. Thus the principle of hosting. It was all the principle behind hosting. Obvious, perhaps—and yet it just then solidified for Watly.

  He made up a little something—a chant or mantra. It was just a few simple phrases, but Watly took comfort in them. He concentrated and repeated the words mentally. Thinking narrowly.

  The me is not the body.

  The me is not the body.

  The me is neither hand nor face nor sex.

  The me is Watly Caiper, I.

  (A sense of self.)

  The body is an it.

  The body is a that.

  It could belong to another.

  For the me is a movable thing.

  The me is a movable thing.

  Watly had repeated it then over and over. He somehow found solace in it. He ran through it again and again as his donor finished assessing and breaking in. He continued the chant as his body left the building with cautious steps, following the yellow arrows. Dr. Tollnismer—the lovely and wonderful Dr. Tollnismer—was nowhere to be seen on the way out. Watly broke his concentration for a moment to hope she would be there when he returned. If he returned.

  The me is not the body....

  And so here they stood, donor and host, Watly and the Stranger. They were still leaning against that same East Fifty-seventh Street upright, occasionally covering the hosting cuff with a casual brush of the hands. Watly had gone from acute awareness of his situation, to his mental chanting, to reciting history, and back to awareness again. Hard as it was to admit, he was actually growing bored. Who knows how long they’d been standing there. The donor seemed quite content to lean back and watch the First Level world go by through Watly’s eyes. Occasionally he’d fix his borrowed vision on a passing rear end or thinly covered bosom. Both sexes were ogled. Again Watly would sense a twinge in his donor’s rented genitals and an unfamiliar tensing of the groin muscles. The fellow was hot to trot. All right already—let’s get on with it, Watly thought. Don’t be a chicken!

  At that moment, the donor leaned forward from the girder. The movement was so abrupt Watly at first thought the donor had heard his thinking. But no. There was a wall between them. It was an impenetrable mental shield. They had a sense of each other’s presence but nothing more. In fact, Watly was at the advantage in this department. At least he had the donor’s behavior to go on. The donor had nothing but the body.

  Watly realized they were turning and had begun to walk swiftly. The donor’s pace and footing were strong and sure now. After a few blocks it became clear what direction they were heading. Watly and the donor were going southwest—into the heart of Sexsentral.

 
CHAPTER 8

  It took Watly’s donor only a few minutes to walk from that girder on Fifty-seventh to an entrance into Sexsentral. They headed rapidly down Sixth Avenue, wending through the thickening crowds. During the short walk, Watly wondered if he should feel happy for the change of scenery, or nervous about what might happen next. He settled on an uncomfortable combination of the two.

  Watly had never been in Sexsentral. In his one month of Manhattan living he had avoided the entire area. It extended from the Riverwall on the west over to Fifth Avenue, and from Fiftieth Street down to Twenty-third. Of course, there was some spillover into other neighborhoods, but that was basically it.

  A rusty old banner announcing the zone stretched from upright to upright above them as they entered. There was an abandoned guard box standing to the left of them as they passed under the banner. It looked like someone had made the box into a home. Watly knew there were banners across every street and avenue that entered Sexsentral. Now Entering Sexsentral, they said in glowing red letters. No one under puberty permitted. In the old days, the police had enforced that. There would have been guards posted in the boxes, ready to check for authentic pubic hair on anyone who looked too young. Now, it was just silly. Watly couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen someone who looked under twenty-five, let alone near puberty. There was no need for guards now.

  Entering Sexsentral was like entering a different country. The crowds were much heavier, but there were no tenters at all. Gaudy signs and drifting floaters of increasing explicitness became more prominent overhead. Watly’s donor had to duck more than once to avoid them. Some of the floaters had lost their program and never been repaired. These bounced about overhead out of control. Mangy-looking cats scattered as Watly’s body approached. Street vendors sold porn and high- and low-tech sexual devices. A lot of the daylites had been vandalized or shot out, so the lighting was sporadic. One got the feeling of a perpetual evening lighting setting. Lots of hosting-cuff-wearers meandered by. This made Watly feel better. All around him he could see others with trapped consciousnesses inside—consciousnesses praying fiercely that theirs was a wise and gentle donor. A donor with a lot of luck. Naturally, the area was bustling with men and women who didn’t have cuffs, as well. Some locals and some probably from outside of Manhattan on visitor’s passes. Sexsentral was a very popular place and attracted all types.