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“It doesn’t matter. Who would believe him?”

“You’re upset. You don’t realize–“

“He’s mine and I want him.”

“The Directorate will give you a refund of the purchase price.”

“You didn’t understand me. I don’t want one of your pretty automatons; anybody can buy them for a few shares of stock. I want a man–a real man; I want to belong to him.”

“He belongs to you; you bought him.”

“And that’s what’s wrong. We really belong to each other.”

The old woman glanced at George and he saw the same flicker of feeling in her eyes. And tears, tears of regret. Why? “We have you outnumbered,” the old woman said quietly to Jenny.

“I don’t care. I have a gun; I’ll use it as long as I’m able.”

The Morals Squad raised their weapons. The Director shook her head imperiously and they snapped to attention again. “If you take him from us,” she called out to Jenny, “you’ll be outlawed. We’ll hunt you down, if we can.”

“I want him,” Jenny persisted. “I don’t care about the rest of it.”

The old woman nodded to George. He couldn’t believe that she meant it. The Director was on her home ground, in her headquarters building, backed by an armed squad of stone-faced Amazons. She had no reason to let him go.

She walked beside him as he moved down the hall. When they were twenty feet from the guard, she closed her thin hand on his arm; her eyes swam with tears and she whispered, “There truly is a love potion. Not this nonsense we bottle here, but something real and very worthwhile. You and this girl have found it. I know that, from the way she talks. She doesn’t say anything about ownership, and that’s as it should be. As it has to be, for any of us to be happy. Hold tight to that all the rest of your life. Don’t ever believe in words; don’t fall for any more love stories; believe what you feel deep inside–what you know yourself to be true.

“You men who learn how to break away are our only hope, too. Most of us don’t see that yet. I do; I know what it used to be like. Someday there may be enough men with the stamina to take back the place of dominance that we stole from them. We thought we wanted it; for decades before we had been screaming about women’s rights.” Her thin lips twisted in a sneer and she spat her disgust. “Finally we took what we wanted, and it turned to ashes in our hands. We made our men playthings; we made them slaves. And after that they weren’t men any more. But what we stole isn’t the sort of thing you can hand back on a silver platter; you men have to get enough courage to take it away from us.”

Her grip tightened on his arm. “There’s a fire door at the end of the hall; if you push the emergency button, you’ll close it. That will give you a five or ten minute start. I can’t help you any more….”

They were abreast of Jenny. She seized Jenny’s hand and thrust it into his. “Beat it, kids; there’s a bachelor camp on the north ridge. You can make it.

“And from here on in, what he says goes,” the old woman added. “Don’t forget that.”

“She won’t,” George answered, supremely self-assured.

He took Jenny’s arm and, turning abruptly, they made their break for freedom. The Director managed to remain standing in the middle of the corridor, making a dangerous target of herself so that none of the Morals Squad could risk a shot at the fugitives. As the fire door clanged shut George looked back. He saw the old woman’s lips moving in silent prayer.