In Which Une joins in the study of Algebra; the properties of Twelve are examined by Algebra; and Chastity returns to Innocence.
After their one session of lovemaking, Algebra was disappointed to find that despite her attempts to repeat it Dodie was decidedly unenthusiastic to do so. Algebra soon came to conclude that her brief love affair with Dodie had finished almost before it had begun, and resigned herself to her studies as a means of keeping her mind off her continued passion. Her assumption may well have proved to be true, but events interceded. An old lover of Innocence's, Une, had arrived in Congress and had decided to stay in the flat with them.
Algebra was attracted to Une, although she was much older than anyone whom she'd made love to before, except for one of her lecturers, who in any case was a man. Une dressed very simply in a long white dress to her ankles and paid absolutely no attention to the fashions of the city. She soon re-established her intimacy with Innocence, showing rather more modesty than Dodie by restricting her lovemaking to the bedroom. Dodie was clearly not at all delighted by this intercession in her love life, and particularly in the way she was excluded from participating in it in any form at all. Despite Innocence's occasional sexual activities with her lover, these were clearly too few and too brief to satisfy Dodie. Algebra watched Dodie from a distance, her head generally immersed in text books, although her mind focused on Dodie's beautiful hairy cunt and the slim breasts with the nipples so prominent against the fabric of her tee-shirts. She hoped and hoped that Dodie's apparent frustration would be relieved on her ever-waiting self.
Her hopes were eventually rewarded, but Algebra sensed that Dodie's lovemaking was almost certainly from a perverse sense of revenge than from any feeling of passion towards her. Although Algebra was expressly forbidden from pissing on Dodie, her lover felt no compunction about releasing volumes of urine onto Algebra's body and into her mouth, a diet which was soon supplemented by a more solid and horribly smelly alternative. Algebra didn't really enjoy the long messy turds as they squeezed out of Dodie's buttocks and plopped onto her face or her chest. She certainly didn't enjoy the taste and felt rather humiliated as she bent to Dodie's demands and took them into her mouth. She felt a disgust which somehow drinking urine never provoked. Although superficially her desire for lovemaking with Dodie was being satisfied there seemed to be very little genuine passion and it made her feel rather unhappy.
She sat down in the living room with Une on a night when Innocence and Dodie were out together to see a concert which Dodie insisted Innocence would enjoy, though even Algebra knew that there was too much of a gulf in the two girls' musical tastes for this to be particularly likely. Une was reading a rather thick hardback book which seemed to be several centuries old and was turning the pages from right to left on occasion. Algebra glimpsed the print in the book, but to her eyes it appeared to be nothing more than illegible scribbles in a very unfamiliar alphabet. She was immersed in the meantime in a book of attractors and fractals, and paused on occasion to muse on the more bizarre conclusions that the author was deriving from the various equations.
It was on one such occasion that Algebra caught sight of Une who was studying her with a certain amount of curiosity. Algebra looked across and wondered if Une's interest might not have been stimulated by her nudity, which seemed quite strange contrasted with the long white dress Une wore. Une smiled back.
"You're a student aren't you?" Une asked. "What is it you're studying?"
"Chaos theory," answered Algebra. "It's about how there is chaos in order and order in chaos."
"That seems a fairly accurate description of life," mused Une. "And in your life as well, I dare say. Dodie treats you rather badly doesn't she? Why's that, do you think? Is it because she thinks I'm taking Innocence away from her?"
"I think that might be why," Algebra answered. "Though I wouldn't say she treats me badly..."
"Do you like eating shit then?"
"Well, not really, but..."
"That sounds pretty cruel to me. You poor girl. You really need a better lover than Dodie. You know that she'll return to Innocence when I've gone."
"She will?"
"You know she will!"