The Sopaths by Piers Anthony

her,” Bunty advised.
    “We’ll pretend she’s real,” Dreda said bravely.
    Next morning Nefer was there by the car, modestly garbed. She took her place in silence.
    Abner paid for the five and they entered the fair. He bought cotton candy for all, and paid for the rides and games. Nefer behaved perfectly, which meant acting just like an innocent excited child. She was able to follow rules when she had reason, exactly as she had told him.
    When it came to the horror house Clark and Dreda hung back. But Nefer wanted to go. He knew that was why the other two did not want to: they would be jammed in close with the sopath.
    Abner hesitated. Bunty would stay with theirs, but that meant he would have to go with Nefer, because children were required to be accompanied by adults. “I don’t want to be alone with her,” he whispered to Bunty. “You know why.”
    She did. There was no telling what the sopath would do in the noisy darkness. She might try to kiss him, or get her hand into his fly. She might try for more. She had a vagina she wanted to get into play one way or another, and in the privacy of the horror house the limits might be off. “We’ll all go,” Bunty decreed.
    They all went, carefully seated. Clark and Dreda sat beside Abner, while Nefer sat beside Bunty. That eliminated any chance for any funny business. The sopath did not protest; in fact she almost seemed relieved. Perhaps because she didn’t trust herself not to mess up their deal, if tempted.
    And the ride was fun. They all enjoyed it. The pretend horror was laughable compared to what they had experienced with sopaths.
    Thereafter Clark and Dreda associated more closely with Nefer, so that they seemed almost like three siblings. They were getting used to each other despite their formidable difference. The rest of the fair went well.
    “Thank you,” Nefer said politely as they went home. “That was fun.”
    “We can drop you off at your house,” Bunty said.
    “No thank you, Mister Slate. My folks think I spent the day at the children’s library.” They had to laugh.
    They got out at home, and Nefer promptly disappeared.
    “She’s sweet on daddy, all right,” Dreda said without jealously.
    “She’s a sopath!” Clark protested. “I touched her and felt that emptiness.”
    “So did I. They get crushes too.”
    “That could explain why she was so well behaved,” Bunty said. “She wants you to like her, Abner.”
    “She wants me to have sex with her!”
    “That, too,” Bunty agreed. “Be careful of her, Abner. Don’t rebuff her in such a way as to make her feel like a woman scorned.”
    Because any sopath was dangerous, and this one doubly so. “She is quite explicit about what she wants of me. There’s no way I can oblige it. You know that.”
    “Keep telling her no,” Dreda said. “But leave a little bit of doubt in your voice, so she thinks maybe you don’t really mean it. Like mommy when she says she’ll spank us if we don’t behave.”
    “I never spanked you!” Bunty protested indignantly.
    “But you threatened to. That’s what I mean.”
    “Even when we did misbehave,” Clark said.
    Bunty lifted her hands in surrender. “Point made.”
    “But that’s tacitly encouraging her!” Abner said.
    “It’s the safest course, dear. Her interest in you is a lever that can make her emulate a conscience. Nothing else will.”
    And that was excellent advice. “But with luck I’ll never see her again.”
    “She’ll be back,” Dreda said. “She wants to get close to you.”
    She was surely correct, again.

CHAPTER 5
    For a while things were relatively calm. The traps continued to get sopaths, and the detention cellar continued to take them out. Most were young, three or four years old, and inexperienced, easy prey. It was the older ones, like Nefer, that were dangerous, because they were learning to emulate normals, and some were quite good at it.
    “We’re losing ground,” Sylvia said. “We’re taking out the