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We lived just a half-hour jump east, in a small town of only a half million or so, called Deseret, cradled deep in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. Yes, my family is wealthy. You have to be, to live on Terra. For being rich, we lived a sheltered, eccentric, lifestyle. Dad (Tall, solid; stern—yet loving. A manly man) was always off on a business trip to some star or another. Mother (a handsome, rather than beautiful, caring woman) hated piloting, and she wasn't about to let me take the Rolls anywhere on my own. Mother didn't believe in using Ports for local travel. Besides she was always involved with something, if not her classic literature club on Beta Antares VI, then it was the church or some local civic function. Most of my Grandparents had died, the men in my family tend to die early for some reason. Great-Great-Great Grandfather Rochelle vocally maintained that "If God wanted men to leave the atmosphere, He would 'ave given him LOX tanks, instead of lungs." He vehemently objected to Ports fearing that they would take him apart and never put him back together.

It was on my twentieth birthday when Dad first had some time to spend with just the two of us. My twentieth—a big time, big deal, as it meant I was now as a tween allowed to peak in on the adult goings-on. For my birthday he took me to one of the beaches in Los Angeles, Cabo San—something.

When we first hit the beach, the late morning sun was shining warmly in the crystal clear blue sky, smog had gone the way of the dinosaur, and the air was redolent with the sharp, tangy smell of salt. Gray and white seagulls dancing in the sky accented the crashing of the waves with their raucous cries; sandpipers chased those same waves in some primitive dance. Dad took one look at my face and laughed out loud with an indecipherable grin on his face. You see, everywhere I looked I found fascinating shapes—female shapes if you know what I mean? Details that just didn't come through on the ThreeDee. ThreeDee in our area was quite tame, do to a strong religious presence in the area. Still, I had seen the travelogues, and you can't miss the commercials, especially those for Soaps, Shampoos, and current Fashions. I hear that just showing some of those commercials could get you arrested in some backwater places in the empire, and if a woman wore one of those dresses!

There wasn't a tremendous difference between the Microbikini's worn swimming around home, and the Monokinis' and other creations some of the swimmers here wore, or maybe I should say, didn't wear. They would have been less naked nude, but the difference was enough! Face it—Terra is decadent.

I was very self-conscious at first, but a few of the other sun worshipers wore old-fashioned swimsuits also. When no one paid any attention to me, I finally started to relax.

While I was lying on the warm sand, basking in the sun, the girl of my dreams flowed slowly out of the waves. The gentle sway of her hips, accentuated as they were by the full white bikini—which contrasted vividly against the golden hue of her flawless skin—affected me as if she was the flute and I was the cobra. She wore, not a Microbikini with its surface area not much larger than a butterfly's wings and just about as opaque (I've always wondered just how girls put a Microbikini on—with adhesive?) She wore a full old-fashioned bikini with strings to hold it in place. There was even a back, to the bottoms—which produced a devastating effect as she walked away from me. Being so thoroughly covered, in contrast to the other women in the area, lent her an air of mystery. I never knew her name, but I still dream of her.

That was how I had felt when Lady de Winter, a woman with a shape from my dreams, first walked into the room. Then I had gazed into her eyes, into the depths of her soul, into evil itself—wrapped up with sugar and spice and everything nice.

Now all I felt was sick.