Chapter 3: June's Story

Warning: This chapter goes to some dark places. I wasn't planning on writing it this way, but June demanded it. She wanted her story told. Caveat lector. Z.

June couldn't cry any more. She'd cried all she could cry. There were no more tears left. Erica was spooned up behind her, trying to comfort her, but it wasn't enough. Mummy had gone years ago. That scar had never properly healed, just scabbed over. It was too easily broken open again. Daddy had gone earlier that day. That new scar was red-raw and bleeding. It felt like it would never ever heal. The two people she loved most had both gone. She was even sucking her thumb, something she hadn't done since mummy had died. She knew in her head that daddy was trying to help, but what was the point of living longer if it was going to be like this? She lay awake, unable to sleep, listening to Erica's quiet breathing behind her.

Tina and Erica were nice to her, sometimes too nice. She tried to be nice back. She smiled and said thank you, but it was all on the surface. Could she ever trust anybody not to leave her? Maybe better not to trust anyone too much. Hugh was nice too, but he was often away on his training. Now that they'd landed in the colony, he was a lot busier. Erica had got pregnant on the trip from Earth. That only meant a potential rival. Erica would obviously have to spend a lot of time looking after her baby. June's CAP test was due before the baby, so she might be able to use that to avoid the problem.

School wasn't too bad. Nobody expected anything long-term from school. You studied, took the CAP test and went off to do whatever your CAP result said. You could keep your relationships shallow if you wanted and nobody minded too much. You could always give the excuse that you needed to study or practice or something.

One day in school June accidentally cut herself during a cookery lesson. She was slicing some meat with a sharp knife, when her hand slipped and she cut her finger. It wasn't serious, just disinfect it and bandage it. Not worth the time in a med-tube. In bed that night she felt the pain from her finger. It was an ordinary pain, an easy pain. Much easier than her other pain. If she concentrated on the easy pain in her finger, then her other pain didn't seem so bad. The easy pain distracted her from the difficult pain. Things didn't feel quite so bleak.

June remembered. Whenever the pain got too much, she'd cut herself. Deliberately. She used the easy pain to mask the difficult pain. The easy pain gave her a retreat, almost a safe place, somewhere she could escape to. It meant she had to wear long sleeves all the time, so her scars and scabs didn't show, and she had to give up swimming. You could wear long sleeves playing football, so she changed to that. She found that she enjoyed it more than she'd expected. Everyone had their role in the team: goalkeeper, defender, midfielder, striker. You performed within your role, and nobody expected any more from you. You knew how long the match would last. You didn't expect it to last forever, so you were ready for it when the final whistle blew. The football helped. She cut herself less after she joined the team.

June thought long and hard in the weeks before her CAP test. She knew she'd be a concubine, that much was obvious. That would be difficult. Any sponsor could reject their concubine at any time. She couldn't bear that uncertainty. Mummy had left her and then daddy had left her as well. A sponsor could do the same any time he wanted. That would probably kill her. The pain from two rejections was so bad. Three rejections would be worse. At least death wouldn't reject her, ever. That was difficult though; daddy wanted her to live. He wanted her to live so much that he had left her behind and gone back to Earth on his own. That was almost as sad for him as it had been for her. Dying might solve her problem, but it wasn't what daddy wanted. She still loved daddy, despite .... No, death was for later, not for now. She still had the problem of what to do after her CAP test to solve. She could distract herself a little by thinking about that.

She scored 4.9. Below average. That got to her more than she'd expected. She thought she'd score in the low fives, just above average. She didn't, she was below average. That didn't feel good. Tina and Erica smiled and congratulated her of course. They were both really nice. It was such a pity that she couldn't truly connect with them. She made all the right noises, but she was still alone inside the invisible box she shared with her pain.

Hugh was away on his first deployment, but he'd left behind an offer to take her as his concubine. She'd expected that, and she already had her answer ready. She refused. She liked him, he was nice, but she couldn't bring herself to trust him not to reject her. It wasn't Hugh's fault, she couldn't trust any sponsor not to reject her. Trust was dangerous for her, it made her vulnerable.

Tina and Erica were both astonished of course. They each loved Hugh and couldn't see why June wouldn't want to be his concubine. The tried to persuade her to change her mind, but June knew she wouldn't. In the end she promised to think about it overnight just to get them to stop bothering her.

That night she made a mistake. She cut herself again; her CAP score had affected her more than she thought it had. She cut too deeply. She woke up in medical. The AI had noticed the blood seeping out from under her covers as she slept and had called the emergency medical team to their apartment.

June's secret was out. Well, one of her secrets was out. The medical people saw all the old scars on her arms so she couldn't claim she'd only cut herself once, because of her CAP score. No pills here, so they gave her some nanites, which dulled her real pain a little. They also made sure she came in for regular checks to see that she wasn't cutting herself. That made it more difficult; she would need to find other ways to hurt herself. She still needed occasional doses of easy pain to hide the real pain.

She still lived in Hugh's apartment, but she didn't belong to Hugh. She was put on the 'available for selection' list, and she did get a few offers of interviews. She turned them all down. Any sponsor could reject her and she didn't want to risk having that happen to her. Going to an interview was pointless if she was going to say 'no' at the end anyway.

She ended up having a video conference with Signifer Wei, one of the Civil Service people.

"Don't you want to be selected?" the Signifer asked. He was Chinese, as his name implied, and spoke English with an accent.

"No."

He looked surprised. "Why not? You'll end up with the Civil Service if you don't get selected. That's not a good option for you. You'll be much happier with a sponsor."

'No I wouldn't,' June thought. That was the thing about the Civil Service, they couldn't reject her. Any unselected concubines ended up with the Civil Service, there was nowhere else to go. "I want to work in the brothel."

The Signifer looked dumbfounded. "That is not a good choice. We normally have to order women to work there. We even use it as a punishment sometimes."

"I want to work in the brothel," she repeated. She'd worked it out a few days before she took her CAP test. Any other sponsor could reject her. The Civil Service couldn't. It had to take all the concubines that nobody else wanted. The Civil Service would never reject her.

"You're just going to keep refusing interviews until we take you, aren't you?"

"Yes." June knew what she wanted.

"We might assign you somewhere else, not the brothel."

"I'd prefer the brothel."

"I'll get back to you," he said and cut the link.

She got her wish. The brothel Madame, Lorna, was nice. She thought June's choice was strange, but she didn't comment on it much. The few girls who volunteered were usually sex-addicts, which June wasn't. Lorna didn't want a long term relationship, or any emotional involvement, which was good. June could deal with an employer-employee relationship. Those relationships started and stopped. You didn't expect them to be permanent and you weren't emotionally involved. You weren't disappointed too much when they ended.

The same with the johns. Those relationships were very temporary: you met, you fucked, you parted. Simple. No complications. No emotional involvement. June could cope with that. There was no new pain when the relationship ended.

Sometimes there was pain, easy pain. June couldn't hurt herself, they were watching her too closely for that, but she could get someone else to hurt her. The other girls talked about what to look for, the danger signals, when a guy came through the door. When she needed some easy pain, she'd go with one of the dangerous ones. She knew which buttons to press to get what she wanted. Sometimes it was difficult to judge. If she pushed him, or occasionally her, too far she'd end up in a med-tube, which was no good at all. That fixed everything so she didn't hurt. She needed the easy pain as a distraction. If the johns were hurting her, then she wasn't hurting herself, so she didn't get into trouble.

The brothel wasn't perfect, but it wasn't as bad as many outside people thought. Everything was detached. Relationships weren't emotional, and nobody expected them to last. June certainly didn't expect them to last. She could even get a bit of easy pain when she needed it. The easy pain helped a little.

She made another mistake. Actually, she made too many small mistakes. It was difficult to judge the johns, especially the ones she hadn't seen before. Sometimes they overdid it and she ended up in medical. The AIs noticed, they noticed everything in their strange way. She was being treated in medical too many times. A "statistically significant excess" the AI told Lorna. She checked the videos of June's encounters. Lorna wasn't stupid, she knew how to deal with the dangerous clients herself. She could see that June was, sometimes, deliberately pressing the wrong buttons and inviting the pain.

June was back talking to Signifer Wei again. Her earlier interview with the signifer had meant a change in her life. This one probably would as well.

"You are seeking out pain." He wasn't asking a question, he was making a statement.

June stayed silent. A statement didn't need an answer.

"You're not a masochist. The AI tells me that your reactions show that you're not getting any sexual pleasure from the pain."

"No, I'm not a masochist."

"So, why do you provoke the pain?" he asked.

'Because I hurt so much inside, you silly man. If you can't work that out for yourself, then I'm not going to tell you.'

He saw he wasn't going to get an answer to his question. "Your records show you self-harmed before."

June nodded.

"You need to find a better way. Some of your clients got into trouble for damaging Civil Service property. I don't want that to happen again. They are a lot more use to us than you are. Since I don't trust you not to go back to provoking them, I'll be assigning you away from the brothel."

She sat quietly. If she wasn't in the brothel then she'd have to find some other way to get her easy pain. There would always be a way.

"You seem to need pain. No doubt there are people on Earth who could work with you and help you so you wouldn't need it any more. We don't have those people here, and neither we nor the AIs have their skills either. All I can do is to, hopefully, limit the damage. Lie down on the floor."

"What?" That didn't seem to follow.

"Lie down on the floor," he repeated patiently.

June shrugged and lay down on the floor of the signifer's office.

There was a strange sizzling sound, and she hurt all over. She hurt! The signifer had hurt her! What had she done? How could she get him to do it again when she needed?

He waited, watching her. "Get up when you're ready."

She could move. "What was that?" she asked as she got back into her chair.

"It was a stinger, set to low power. It hurts you, but it doesn't knock you out." He paused. "Does that give you what you want?"

June thought about it. The pain was there, the easy pain. It had been better when she'd cut herself, more satisfying. This was more like when a john had hurt her; someone else was doing it, not herself. "It's better than nothing," she said.

"I have instructed the AIs to sting you, at your request. If you need pain, then you can get it. You must be alone, and you have to be lying down. I don't want you injuring yourself falling over."

He was handing her an easy way to hurt. She asked the obvious question, "How often can I use it?"

"There are limits, of course. The AI knows them. Don't use it too much."

"It will help," she told him. It would. It wasn't perfect, but life would never be perfect for June again. Life hadn't been perfect since mummy had died. "What happens to me now?"

"You go back to the brothel and get pregnant," he told her. "You have a womb, and I don't want to waste it. After that I'll find something else for you."

"You trust me?"

"Lorna will select your clients. No more sadists. I don't want to put any temptations in your way. Use the stinger, not a client."

Part of her plan had worked. She'd been rejected from the brothel, but she was still a Civil Service concubine. Her sponsor hadn't rejected her. The brothel was all temporary relationships, which she'd expected to end sometime. Her sponsor was permanent. She'd kept her sponsor. That was good.

The signifer had June working as his receptionist. Mostly just dealing with people coming to see him, and handling messages when he wasn't available. She could do that. Dealing with the people was much like the brothel, smile, talk and they leave. No sex, but that wasn't the point. If she wanted pain then she had the stinger. She hadn't found its limits yet, but she hadn't tried. She only needed the easy pain when the other pain, the real pain, got too much. She still had those nanites they'd given her after she'd cut herself too deeply. They didn't cure her, nothing could cure her, but they did reduce the pressure a bit. She could go a month or more before needing to use the stinger.

She smiled at everyone, including Signifer Wei. Smiling was easy and it didn't mean anything deep. As with Lorna before, she was the signifer's employee, and everything was kept on that level. He'd offered to fuck her if she needed it, but she didn't. Maybe he thought that she needed sex after working in the brothel? She wasn't in the brothel for the sex. She'd gone there to avoid any serious relationships. Fucking her boss was the last thing she wanted to do. That might lead her down a road she didn't want to travel. A road to a real relationship and to potential danger.

Another meeting with Signifer Wei. A serious meeting, not a normal workaday meeting. The sort of meeting that would change her life again.

"June," he began. "You're pregnant and your child is developing. I'm going to stop letting you sting yourself. We don't know the effect repeated stings will have on your baby."

"But ...."

"I will, temporarily, allow you to self-harm again. I don't think we can stop you, short of dosing you with so many nanites that you turn into a zombie. We can't cure you, so we have to give you an outlet."

She nodded, "That will be good. I don't think I can manage without the pain now. It helps."

"Would you care to explain?" he asked.

June shook her head. He didn't need to know. He was allowing her the easy pain when she needed it, that was enough. He wasn't a doctor, so he wouldn't be able to help her even if she did tell him. He'd said that he was an electrical engineer back in China, before he'd been extracted.

"Your choice," he sighed, looking frustrated. "You will still have limits. Always ask the AI for permission. If you keep to about the same frequency as you've been using the stinger then you'll be OK."

"I won't need it more."

"Good. It's only temporary, so you'll have to go back to the stinger after you've had your baby." He paused, "You'll need to look after the child, which you haven't done much of so far. I'll reassign you to work in a baby care centre so you get the experience you need."

Some of the other girls in the brothel had babies or children with them. June had picked up a small amount of experience there, but not much. The other girls were all looking for relationships, and they used their own babies for that. They didn't often allow June much time to look after their kids. For June, it was just another job. She could do jobs. Jobs were temporary, and she could deal with that.

Signifer Wei played a sneaky trick on her. He didn't assign her to a Civil Service barracks near her new work, instead he assigned her to live with a family, Hugh's family. There were four of them now; while she'd been away, Erica had delivered a baby boy, Alan, named after Erica's dad. Hugh offered June his sponsorship again, and she turned him down again. He offered her his friendship, which she sort-of accepted. If she thought of this as part of her new place of work, then she could treat the relationships like work. Friendly, but temporary. The same for Tina and Erica. They both offered real friendship, but she couldn't accept that. All she could deal with was a shallower, transient, friendship. She gave what she could. It was less than they were giving back, but it was the most she could manage. She knew that they all meant well, and she appreciated their efforts, but it wasn't what she needed.

Tina was pregnant too, so they were able to discover the joys of morning sickness together. The nanites were supposed to help some, but it still wasn't pleasant.

There really was a baby care centre nearby. It was in the same apartment block, so she was able to walk to work, or take the lift when she felt tired. June was on the permanent staff, with various concubines living nearby coming in on a rota to help as well. Despite herself, she enjoyed it. A baby couldn't abandon her, not until it grew up anyway. She could in theory abandon the baby, not that she'd want to, but she was the one in control. That helped. Like she knew when a football match would end, she knew that any child would leave at fourteen. She could detach herself from the child first, by passing it on to another concubine. She could have more control over her future. She wouldn't be so vulnerable.

She still belonged to the Civil Service, but the signifer had told her to obey Hugh as if he was her sponsor. Hugh was nice, so that wasn't much of a problem. They did fuck a few times, but that wasn't really important for her. Hugh enjoyed it and that was enough. He wasn't either her sponsor or her employer, he was just another job for her to do. More than one of the johns in the brothel, but a similar sort of relationship. He was away on deployment half the time anyway. Tina was head concubine, so June had to do what she said as well. That was never a problem. She'd been with women in the brothel, so she was able to show Tina and Erica a few new tricks. They all enjoyed that.

Looking after babies was better than the brothel. She had more control over things. Even if one baby left, there would always be another one to replace it. There was less variation in the babies than there had been in the johns. That meant her life was more stable. Not so much change. Not so much uncertainty. The Civil Service wouldn't reject her. The babies wouldn't reject her. She felt safer. She still cut herself sometimes, but not as often as she had before. She still needed the occasional dose of easy pain. The real pain was still there of course, that would never go away, but she was getting more used to it now. She could use the babies to distract herself as an alternative to the easy pain. She had to have something, anything, to mask the real pain.

She retested on her fifteenth birthday. Motherhood potential was her best sub-score, and she'd gained a lot more experience over the last few months. Her sex score went up too, though not by as much. Overall she improved her CAP score from 4.9 to 5.2. That helped her feel better about herself. She was now up where she'd expected to be, slightly above average. That let her relax a bit; one of the small bad things was gone from her life. Sometimes bad things did go away. It wasn't just the good things that went away.

Tina had a girl, named Molly after the baby's grandmother. Both Tina and Erica had named their first babies after one of their absent parents. June wouldn't do that. Her own baby boy arrived a month later, and she called him David. She knew that David would leave in fourteen years time. Like in football, the whistle would blow and the match would be over. She would be expecting it, so it wouldn't be a surprise and she wouldn't be too disappointed. There would be other babies to follow on behind David. She wouldn't name any of her babies after either her father or her mother. That would be too close to losing her parents all over again, and she definitely didn't want to go there. She still missed her mummy. She still missed her daddy. She had loved both of them, and they had both loved her, before they'd gone away.

Frank always loved June. He thought of his daughter every day, right up to when he was killed trying to defend London from the Swarm. Hugh loved June. She never became his concubine, but he loved her just as much as if she were. Tina and Erica both loved June. She was their sister concubine and always ready to help with the kids. They knew she had some problems, but they loved her anyway. Perhaps they loved her more because of her problems, she needed it more. The kids all loved June. They didn't know anything about her problems, they just loved their Mummy June completely and unconditionally, the way children do.

The only person who didn't love June was June herself. She couldn't. She still hurt too much inside. She spent so much time distracting herself from her pain that she didn't have time to love herself. Inside she was screaming. Inside she was thirteen years old and crying for her daddy. Inside she was eight years old and screaming for her mummy. Inside she was screaming for them, and they never heard.

Endnote: My thanks to Bad Line Ghoul, Tomken, Zen Master and the Swarm authors for their comments and editing help. All remaining errors are of course my own.