THE GIRL IN HIS MIND

By ROBERT F. YOUNG

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of Tomorrow April 1963 Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Every man's mind is a universe with countless places in which he can hide—even from himself!

The dance that the chocoletto girl was performing was an expurgated version of the kylee sex ritual which the Louave maidens of Dubhe 7 practiced on the eve of their betrothal. Expurgated or not, however, it was still on the lascivious side. The G-string that constituted the chocoletto girl's entire costume put her but one degree above the nakedness which the original dance demanded. Nathan Blake's voice was slightly thick when he summoned the waiter who was hovering in the shadows at the back of the room. "Is she free?" he asked.

"I do not know, mensakin. Perhaps."

Blake resumed watching. The girl's movements were a delicate blend of love and lust. Her face accompanied her body, eyes half-lidded one moment to match the languid motion of her limbs, wide and feral the next to match the furious bump and grind of her hips. For a chocoletto she was light-skinned—more bronze, really, than brown. But then, the word "chocoletto", coined by the early beche-la-mer traders, was misleading, and few of the natives of Dubhe 4's southern-most continent lived up to it completely.

She was beautiful too. Her high-cheekboned face was striking—the eyes dark-brown and wide-apart, the mouth sensuous, the teeth showing in a vivid white line between the half-parted purple lips. And her body was splendid. Blake had never seen anyone quite like her.

He beckoned to her when the dance was over and, after slipping into a white thigh-length tunic, she joined him at his table. She ordered Martian wine in a liquid voice, and sipped it with a finesse that belied her cannibalistic forebears. "You wish a night?" she asked.

Blake nodded. "If you are free."

"Three thousand quandoes."

He did not haggle, but counted out the amount and handed it to her. She slipped the bills into a thigh sheath-purse, told him her hut number and stood up to leave. "I will meet you there in an hour," she said.

Her hut was as 

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