them seemed to regard as important.
Dr Ridpath said, `Explain things to her, Dag. I’m going to take a shower and get
ready.’
`What do you want to do, Maureen?’ Dagmar asked me. `Doc tens me that your total
assets are that terry-cloth tent you’re wearing and this orange cat. Pixel! Stop
that! This is not a night you can go to a police station and ask your way to the
county poor farm; tonight the cops skin down and join in the riot.’ She looked me up
and down. ‘If you go out on the streets tonight – well, you’d have a quieter time in
a lions’ den. Maybe you like such things – many do. Me, f’rinstance. But tonight a
gal is either locked up or knocked up. You can stay here, sleep on the couch. I can
find you a blanket. Pixel! Get down from there!’
`Come here, Pixel: I held out both hands; he jumped into my arms. `How about the
Salvation Army?’
‘The what?’
I tried to explain. She shook her head. ‘Never heard of it. Sounds like another of
your daydreams, dear; nothing of that sort is ever authorised by the Church of Your
Choice.’
‘What church is your choice?’
”Huh? Your choice, my choice, everybody’s choice – the Church of the Great
Inseminator, of course – what other church be there? If it’s not your choice, a ride
on a rail might clarify your thinking. It would mine.’
I shook my head. `Dagmar, I’m more and more confused. Back where I come from there
is total religious freedom.’
`That’s what we have here, ducks – and don’t let a proctor hear you say anything
else.’ She suddenly smiled like the Wicked Witch of the West. `Although there are
always some proctors and some priests found stone-cold dead in the dawn’s early
light, grinning in risus sardonicus, the morning after Saint Carol’s feast; I am not
the only widow with a long memory.’
I must have looked stupid. `You’re a widow? I’m sorry.’
‘I talk too much. Not all that tragic, luv. Marriages are made in Heaven, as
everybody knows, and my patron priest picked just the man Heaven had in mind for me,
no possible doubt and you’ll never hear me say otherwise. But when Delmer – my
appointed soul mate – fell out of favour at the throne and was trimmed, well, I
cried but not too long. Delmer is an altar boy now and quite a favourite among the
male sopranos, so I understand. The awkward part is that since he isn’t actually
dead, just trimmed, I can’t marry again.’ She looked bleak.
Then she shrugged and smiled. `So Santa Carolita’s nigh his a big night for me,
seeing how closely we are watched all the rest of the year.’
I said, I’m confused again. Are you saying that things are puritanical here – except
this one night?’
‘I’m not sure I know what you mean by “puritanical”, Maureen. And I have trouble
staying with your “Man from Mars” pose – if it is a pose -‘
`It’s not a pose! Dagmar, I truly am lost. I’m not on my own planet; I don’t know
anything at all about this place.’
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Heinlein, Robert A – To Sail Beyond the Sunset.txt
‘Ali right, I’ll throw in with you, I said I would. But it is hard to keep it in
mind. Okay, the way things work here – Three hundred and sixty-four days of the year
– sixty-five on leap years – everything is either required or forbidden. The Golden
Rule, the Supreme Bishop calls it – God’s Plan. But on Carolita’s feast day, from
sundown to sunrise, anything goes. Carolita is the patron saint of street singers,
whores, gypsies, vagabonds, actors, of all whom must live outside the city walls. So
on her day – Boss! You’re not going outdoors in that outfit!’
‘And why not?’
Dagmar made retching noises; I turned to see what the fuss was about. The doctor had
gone to shower, had returned still stripped down and sporting the most amazing
phallus I have ever seen. It was standing straight up, rising out of a wide, dense