© Copyright 2004, 2006 by silli_artie@hotmail.com
This work may not be reposted or redistributed without the prior
express written permission of the author.
A work of fiction, meant for adults. Read something else if you are
not an adult, or are offended by stories with sexual content. Then
again, if all you’re looking for is in-out, in-out, in-out, you
should probably read something else. I welcome constructive comments.
Enjoy.
1
I barely sat down for lunch in the faculty dining hall when I glanced up, responding to noise at the door on the other side of the hall.
And saw two Matrons in their long gray habits speaking with the staff.
I stood again. From across the hall, I recognized Sister Margaret, and saw her nod as she located me. I didn’t recognize her companion. Sister Vivian again? They made their way to me. No, too tall to be Vivian.
I turned to the young server. “We’ll be three for lunch, if you please.”
She glanced up, saw the Matrons, and blushed. “Yes, sir.” She hurried away.
Sister Margaret smiled as she approached. Her companion had her head tilted down enough so that the headcovering of her gray habit partially obscured her face; her hands were hidden together in the sleeves, and of course the body of her habit came to within centimeters of the floor.
“Sister Margaret,” I greeted her warmly, opening my arms to her.
She stepped back after a brief hug. “Alan Edwin Grant, we request your Service,” she said formally, but still smiling.
I bowed my head briefly. “I am here to Serve, Sister Margaret.” I indicated the table with my hand. “I was about to have lunch, and would be honored if you would join me. I suspect I’m going to need my strength.”
“We would be honored to join you,” Sister Margaret chuckled. She turned to her companion.
From what I could see of her face, she was young. From what little I could tell from the drape of her habit, she was most likely well endowed.
“Alan Edwin Grant, may I present Sister Rose.”
Sister Rose raised her head and looked at me. She was indeed young -- twenty? She had an impish smile and twinkling green eyes. She held out a hand, which I took in mine.
“Sister Rose,” I said softly, looking in her eyes, “we have beautiful rose gardens here, but your cheeks put their blossoms to shame, such a soft pink shade.”
She held her gaze, but the color in her cheeks intensified, her nostrils flaring.
“And now they are the red of promise,” I whispered as I kissed her hand.
Her smile broadened and we didn’t break eye contact until we sat down.
“Oh Alan,” Sister Margaret chided gently.
I reached out and took her hand. “How long has it been, how many years?”
Margaret exhaled, sighing and shaking her head, seemingly surprised by my question. “Twenty two years?”
The feelings running through me were strange-intense, bordering on tears. To think that she had been one of the few constants in my life over that period of time...
A different woman, one of the hall’s senior staff appeared with extra utensils.
“What happened to your younger associate?” I inquired.
Our server smiled and shook her head slightly. “She’s quite new, and not accustomed to serving guests such as yourselves.”
I nodded, agreeing sadly. Without glancing around, I’d guess there were no more than three other men in the hall, all substantially older, and sixty or so women. I expected that I’d recognize, and be recognized by most; I’d been eating here for the last twenty years.
Sister Rose suggested, “You could have her assist, if you think that would help.”
Our server smiled and nodded. “Thank you, Sister.”
Tuesday was meat pie day; I ordered a large, and my guests ordered small ones.
Sister Margaret retrieved two small capsules from inside her habit and placed them by my hand.
“Glad I ordered the large,” I muttered as I swallowed the capsules with a sip of water.
Sister Rose tried laughing as she drank, with the expected complications.
“Alan,” Margaret told me, “I’ve tentatively selected Rose to work with you, to replace me -- with your approval. I am to move to Geneva.”
I looked to Rose, who smiled and met my gaze, then to Margaret. I reached for her hand again. Her actions, her behavior became clearer. The last one she’d brought, Sister Vivian, I’d not expected to see again -- something hadn’t meshed between us.
“A promotion? Congratulations,” I said, sadness filling my voice. Our time was over?
“Thank you, it is a promotion,” she replied, her voice clouded with emotion, her chin wobbling slightly, her eyes showing moisture.
I don’t want you to leave, I didn’t say to her, knowing my eyes and my expression told her, told her clearly and emphatically. Don’t leave me, please...
I had to turn away, or break into tears. I turned to Rose. She smiled still, but her smile was strained. She offered a hand across the table. I took it, warm and soft.
“Tell me about yourself,” I managed to say.
She nodded, and held my hand in both of hers. Did I see compassion in her eyes, or did I need to see it?
“I was raised near Brisbane, Australia, called to the Order when I was twelve, studying there and in Sydney. I haven’t made the move all at once, though -- I spent the last two years at Johns Hopkins in the States.”
“With Kalansky and Nishimura,” Margaret added.
“So you are as bright as you are beautiful,” I told Rose.
She only blushed a little this time, holding her head high and laughing softly.
“Yes she is,” Margaret praised, “Helen Kalansky offered her carte blanche.”
...And she chose me, I was to conclude. I glanced to Margaret again. No, I let my eyes rest on Margaret. She would choose carefully. This had undoubtedly started more than a year ago, with Vivian, and the ones before her. The way she’d looked at me, held me, had changed.
“When did you arrive on this sunny isle?” I asked Rose.
Sister Rose replied with a smirk. “Last week, so I’ve had a few days to get over the time change and see the sights, but I’ve yet to see my shadow.”
And I’d been here over twenty two years, and hardly seen a thing...
I challenged her. “In your professional opinion, how many generations do we have left before we observe effects of monoculture?”
Sister Rose inhaled sharply, evidently taken aback by my question. The Service I gave came with a price, a price for us all. I’d had a number of exchanges with Kalansky along those lines.
“Well?” I reiterated, keeping her on the spot, using the tone I’d use with an unprepared student at a tutorial.
Rose glanced around, then to Margaret. I didn’t take my eyes off of her.
“Conservative estimates,” she began.
“Your opinion,” I interrupted.
She nodded, took a breath. “Five before risks become significant, and seven or eight for detrimental effects -- if they happen at all, and I believe they will not.”
I smiled and nodded. I liked the way she emphasized the last part. “You share my optimism.”
That seemed to shock her all the more. That’s optimism?
“Alan, please behave,” Margaret chided. “I told you he will challenge you in many ways,” she told Rose in a tone that suggested she’d made that remark a number of times before.
I saw our server approaching. “Saved by lunch!” I intoned.
The meat pies looked and smelled delicious. “This is good, warming, comfort food,” I suggested to my guests.
Our younger server refilled our water glasses as we ate. Margaret and I thanked her, and Rose drew her into conversation. She was studying economics; working in the dining hall was part of her Service. I signed for lunch at the end of our meal.
“Should I cancel my tutorials for tomorrow and Thursday?” I asked as we stepped into the brisk fall weather outside.
Margaret chuckled. I felt her hand on my back. I wanted to grab her, hold her, and cry -- don’t leave me!
“Freeing up tomorrow would be appropriate,” suggested Rose.
I looked her in the eye. “You don’t think I’ll last longer?”
I heard Margaret laugh, and Rose replied with an impish smile. “Then you might want to free up the following day as well -- to recover!”
I laughed as well, and took their hands as we made the brief walk to my quarters. I nodded along the way to the watchers who although not seen, I knew to be present.
Approaching the door, I saw three bags on the stoop. To be there, they’d been carefully vetted, as had my guests. I opened the door and carried the two clothing bags inside, leaving the third for one of them.
“Welcome,” I said, setting the bags down.
Margaret and Rose entered, Rose closing the door behind us and setting down the equipment bag.
“The leather collar with the bell,” I told Rose, “Hang it on the hook outside. That signifies privacy.”
As Rose picked it up and hung it outside, I added, “As it has for the occupier of this abode for hundreds of years, so I’ve been told.”
I gave them the short tour and history; Margaret had heard it before. I remembered the first time, walking through with her, as the history had been recited to me, the famous people who’d occupied it. In a hundred years, would my name be part of that history?
We ended in the study I use for my tutorials, with its comfortable couches and chairs. I stepped to my desk and left a message for Alexandra, my assistant. “Alex, it’s Tuesday about two. Please cancel my tutorials through Thursday. Oh hell, give everyone a break and cancel through the end of the week. I’ll need privacy, but may call for meals to be brought for the three of us. Thank you again for all your help.”
I turned to my guests with a smile. “Please, sit down.” I sat in my usual chair.
But I felt so different -- this wasn’t a tutorial, sitting with students. I remembered the first tutorial I took here at Oxford, and the first I gave from this chair, the nervous yet eager students sitting around me. The college, the University, this building, even the chair and this office -- felt so solid, so permanent -- and suddenly I felt so transitory.
Margaret stepped close, too close -- my arms flew around her waist. I closed my eyes and sobbed, “Don’t leave me, please don’t leave me,” as I held her tight.
She wrapped her arms around me, holding me to her through the heavy cloth of her habit.
I babbled in her arms; I don’t know what I said. I heard and felt her sobbing, her tears. We moved to the larger couch and both of them held me, rocked me.
When I settled down, Margaret stood up. “I’ll fix tea.” She kissed me on the head and moved to the kitchen.
That in itself spoke volumes, the senior Sister fetching tea -- she was disengaging, or trying to.
I looked to Rose again. I touched the tears which streaked her face.
“I can hear them now,” I spoke gently, looking into her eyes. “These outbursts -- they don’t match our models, and they’re becoming more frequent. Is this instability? What do we have in his family’s history? Any signs in his offspring? Who do we have doing comparisons across cohorts?”
Rose nodded solemnly. “I have marveled at your strength and resilience.”
I held her hands. “Now you experience the reality.”
Her gaze resolute, she said, “I am where I want to be.”
We looked into each other. I knew my need could blind me to serious flaws and differences -- remember Vivian.
The sounds of cups on a tray -- we turned to Margaret bringing a tray with our tea. She set down a cup and saucer for me, one for Rose, and the remaining one for herself.
Without conscious thought I picked up the cup she’d set out for Rose. I looked at Margaret before taking a sip.
“They’re all the same, Alan,” she said with a tinge of sadness.
I shook my head, looking down. I looked up to her again. Such suspicion after accepting two capsules from her at lunch without hesitation. “Please forgive me?”
Margaret looked pained. “No, Alan, please forgive us. We have asked so much of you.”
...And taken even more, I thought.
I took a sip, then looked to Rose.
“What do you know of me?” I asked.
“What I’ve studied; what Sister Margaret has told me.”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty seven; I was born in 2069.”
I nodded, closing my eyes. She looked much younger. “When was I born?” I asked.
“You were born August 23, 2060 in Las Cruces, New Mexico,” she replied.
Even though I anticipated her answer, and my stomach tightened, I asked anyway. “Was I planned?”
“You were perhaps the luckiest accident of the century,” she replied happily.
...Quoting Kalansky’s damned paper on me, and filling me with rage! I stood and hurled my teacup blindly, shattering it against a wall.
“I’m so glad someone is happy about it!” I shouted. “How many children do I have?” I accused them angrily. “To the nearest order of magnitude? The oldest should be over twenty now, are we breeding true in the second generation? I got a note from one of them a few weeks ago. One of my students brought it back with her; she presented a paper we wrote to the Copenhagen conference. I couldn’t go, of course, for my own safety... You know what the note said? The only thing I’ve heard from an offspring? It said, ‘You are my father. I hate you.’ Multiply that by how many ... million?”
Margaret stood, saying something as she touched me. The world wobbled. She touched the back of my neck and I started to melt into her, decades of conditioning overriding my anger.
But Rose shouted out, “No! Let him talk!”
Margaret stepped back.
I took a breath, clearing my head. The knowledge, the desire, of her touching me, whispering to me, melting me into trance as has happened so many times rekindled my anger.
“I’ve read or heard of some of them -- I imagine they’re being carefully tracked, especially the older ones. I know number 317 took her life a few years ago, but I haven’t been able to learn any more -- this prison is too secure.”
I saw the shock in their faces. “It’s a prison! Yes, I am a professor, in a minor but honored Chair, and I’m watched and monitored day and night, and can’t leave! I’m told they don’t have sound or visual coverage in here -- I don’t know if that’s true.”
I tapped my chest, the monitor implanted there, transmitting physiological data. “But I can imagine what they’re doing and saying now, calling everyone around the monitors. ‘Look, his BP, respiration, and pulse have all jumped! Not in there an hour, and they’ve started! Who put money on the first one within an hour?’”
Margaret had a look somewhere between shock and dismay.
Rose was blushing furiously, tears rolling down her cheeks.
My hands were shaking. The wall was stained, bits of teacup embedded in it. Would that become part of the history of this place, like the bell on the leather collar?
I tried to calm myself. I knew either of them could, with a touch, a word, with drugs...
I looked to Rose, still crying silently. “You’ve been in Kalansky’s lab, probably spent time monitoring me. That’s what happens, right?” My volume had diminished, but the anger was still there.
Rose nodded and wiped her face.
With a sigh I told her, “I’m sorry -- that wasn’t called for.” I looked to Margaret. “Maybe you should have grabbed me.”
Rose surprised me. “No! We’ve all paid far too little attention to your feelings,” she said with strength. “And you’re right; that is the way they talk, monitoring, modeling, losing sight of us, of the human beings at the other end.”
“Forgive me for my outburst? I’m not myself today,” I pleaded.
“Forgive our callousness?” Rose asked.
“Of course,” I replied, “What can I do for you?”
Rose nodded, a smile returning to her face. She nodded to Margaret, who turned down the lights and sat on the couch, leaving a space between them. “Sit with us. Tell me about yourself? Growing up?”
I sat between them.
“Closer, please, both of you,” I whispered. They moved closer, very comforting.
More than comforting -- they held me, whispering, touching, and I let go, dropping into trance. I was uncomfortable, twitching, but they held me, rocked me, taking me beyond that. Part of me knew I was sitting on the couch with them, but I also knew I was rocking and being held. Their voices were so far away but their warmth and touch were so close.
I described the movie unfolding in front of me.
“You know I was born in 2060, 22 years after the outbreak of the Plague. Las Cruces, New Mexico -- both parents taught at the University, dad physics, my mom sociology. My earliest memories are of a normal childhood -- normal for me. Mom and dad started teaching me early; they were always teaching me -- it seems I’ve always been able to read.”
“When did you first learn about the Plague, and yourself?” Rose asked.
“I wasn’t aware of anything unusual for years. Yes, I had checkups and tests regularly at the University med center, but it was all presented as routine. When I started pre-school, three boys including me, twenty-something girls total at the start, there were a few of us who could already read and write. I realized later that the function and importance of programs at that age is socialization more than learning. When we started first grade, one of the boys was gone, and I thought the other one was slow -- something I didn’t understand. Of course when we started counting and arithmetic, not only was I already doing multiplication and division, two other girls could as well, but I knew the difference between a ring and a field -- abstract properties. That’s when I started feeling different, but that was a difference based on what was between my ears, not ...” I sighed and they held me.
The scene in front of me changed. I recalled the smell the fall air, the feel of sheets touching my skin as I woke up that morning. “Things changed in the fall of second grade, October. I was six. I woke up early one morning to shouting and gunshots. My dad was running around, and mom was really scared, holding me. We lived on the edge of the chaparral, a ways from the University. A group of javelina had come down from the hills and were on our property. They hadn’t been seen in the area for many years. Someone spotted them and raised hell. The police shot them, and people started going crazy. What idiots! Javelina are called ‘pigs,’ even though they’re a completely different family, and incapable of harboring the Plague virus. I remember my parents saying that, and the CDC and UN people on the phone telling the locals that. One group wanted to torch the whole area, with us in it, I thought. By the end of the day it was clear that we were stuck there, quarantined to placate local idiocy, fear, and superstition. That’s when I learned that I was different, and others were afraid of that difference. My folks, for the most part, were supported by the University. With video links they continued their teaching, and even more people were involved teaching me. We were stuck there until the Spring, with food and supplies dropped off regularly. We had visitors once -- we were taken ill suddenly, vomiting; it scared the hell out of us. A swarm of medical people helicoptered in, all in isolation suits, and decided it was food poisoning -- the folks responsible for our provisions had been cutting corners. They were replaced, and we ate better, too. When we could finally move around again, my folks talked to the school, but I didn’t go back that year. Instead I kept studying as I had. It was a shock to learn that some people considered us a threat; I didn’t understand why. To a certain extent, I still don’t.”
I paused to hold them for a while, and be held. “One of the University people taught me about the Plague. It was a summer evening, the sun had just gone down. I can remember how things smelled, her worn denim shirt, the bandanna on her head, the direction and sound of the wind. The Plague started in ‘38. Initially considered a low-grade flu, minor symptoms for a few days, the little pustules behind the ears. It spread like wildfire, but it seemed so mild, so benign in comparison to SARS or Holmberg-Weiss at the beginning of the Century. She told me even epidemiologists didn’t take it seriously at first, interested in it as it allowed them to track and model rapid propagation. It spread so quickly, so easily.”
“Then about six weeks in, people died in large numbers -- and quickly, 12 hours. All of that first group were immuno-compromised; most of them had the scourge disease of the last half of the twentieth century; I don’t remember what it was called, an immuno-deficiency virus. I remember the woman who taught me; that disease killed, but slowly, over a period of years to decades. She thought that quite a few governments viewed the Plague as a quick way to clean up a slow problem, and if they didn’t actively spread it, they treated it with officious indifference, allowing it to clean up a lingering mess. Some viewed it as wrath of God stuff, punishment for immorality. So in that first wave, what, seventy million died? Another phrase I learned -- collateral damage -- there were others who were immuno-compromised, organ transplant patients, people on medications that suppressed the immune system. After some politicians and their families died, research started in earnest, identified pigs, Suidae, as the probable viral host, origin in Asia as a novel virus resulting from a shift event or combination of viruses, and revealed that once infected, people had the virus and remained contagious long after symptoms diminished; technically, lifelong latency and longterm reactivation.”
“At twenty weeks, pigs died all over the planet, followed in a few days by people. What was it? 40% of the remaining human population died in eight months? Another few percent were collateral damage -- cholera and similar diseases, insurrection, rioting, starvation, mass suicides.”
“I was seven years old when she told me, with the equivalent of a high school education, a weird education -- deep but narrow. Yeah, I was bright, gifted even. But, as I was told, I’d also picked my parents well -- you know that neither of them could ever remember bring sick, and I’ve never been sick either, other than food poisoning. They were four and six when the Plague hit; both lost friends and relatives, but both of them, their parents, their siblings lived.”
“The Plague seems to have a thing against males, killing off sixty percent of human males and rendering most of the remainder either sterile or genetic cripples. Only the most common problems had been identified at that time, and my parents were in good shape; the Eugenics Acts weren’t in place yet.”
“And then I came along -- a surprise to my parents, since something about the Plague made it harder for women to get pregnant, and an incredible surprise when she gave birth to a boy, and I tested genetically clean... I guess I was lucky -- the med school at the University was one of the first to start that screening, and they hit the jackpot early on.”
“The fall after our quarantine, they tried me back in the normal school for a week, but it didn’t work. I understand better now -- there were, I think, six boys in the school, which went to 8th grade, and I was the next to youngest. They didn’t know what grade to put me in. Kids picked on me; I didn’t understand why. I think my parents talked about putting me in the high school, but that didn’t happen. Instead I went to the University every day with them. I took classes, did a lot of tutorials.”
“I knew I was special -- a lot of testing, hushed questions when I was around. I never knew I had bodyguards, though.”
Another scene, the smell of steamed tamales and fresh cilantro. How I missed tamales... “I was twelve, it was early spring, a faculty dinner with a bunch of families and a bunch of kids. I remember an older girl, late teens and very pretty, and a boy two years older than me. I can almost hear her screaming. It was after dinner, but I was still packing myself full of tamales. I guess the girl and the boy were off necking when the boy went into convulsions and died. They didn’t know the genetic markers for those problems yet.”
“That’s when it was explained to me that I was a rarity, one of a very small number of healthy, undamaged males. I was healthy, intelligent, and destined to help rebuild the human race.” I shuddered and shook my head.
I opened my eyes and turned to Margaret. “And the next year you came into my life. I didn’t know it then, it was one of the things kept from me, but that was when the Eugenics Acts -- mandatory screening, sterilization, and abortion were being debated in the States. I didn’t realize the ‘protective’ veil had descended years earlier, isolating me. I remember all these people in our house, some with guns, and two dressed all in gray, you and Sister Evalyn, she was so much older -- she must have been thirty.”
I paused as we laughed at that.
I shook my head. “I thought I understood. I knew you wanted to take me away, ‘for my safety.’ I remember telling you that we were safe from the javelina, they weren’t even the same family as the true pigs that had harbored the Plague. I remember telling you, an attempt at humor, that the two-legged pigs were more dangerous.”
“You and dad convinced me -- Oxford was the place. I’d get a first-rate education, and I’d be safe. I can still see mom and dad holding hands on the couch, hear dad talking, mom nodding her head but looking so frightened, and one of the women with the guns standing by a window, looking outside, looking with the intensity of a hawk.”
We both sighed and held hands. “And what was it, 18 months later, you were telling me that my parents were dead, the house burned to the ground with them in it...” I felt the moisture build in my eyes as I watched hers fill.
Emotion reduced my voice to little more than a whisper. “Will I ever see Las Cruces again? Taste tamales? Am I condemned to spend the rest of my life in this gilded cage? I don’t even get to visit London. I don’t remember joining a cloistered order.”
I held her hands tight as emotion built. “And now you’re telling me I won’t even see you. Margaret, you are the only family I have, or have known for all these years.”
I could barely see her tears through mine. “I know I’m being selfish -- I owe you so much. You brought me to Oxford. You trained me, yes conditioned me, but some times I think that conditioning is the only thing that has held me together.”
I put my arms around her, holding her tight. “I don’t want you to leave. Please don’t leave me.”
We both broke down, holding each other and crying.
I felt hands on my shoulders and neck, soft words whispered in my ear, relaxing me, carrying me to safety and peace.
Surprisingly, when I opened my eyes again, I was still on the couch, still clothed.
I looked to Margaret. She was leaned back, eyes closed, breathing softly -- trance, drugs, both?
A hand on my back, I turned to Rose.
“Alan,” she said softly, her voice full of emotion, “please be gentle; this is very, very difficult for her, and she blames herself for so much.”
I nodded, looking at Margaret. I guess I’ve been her only family as well.
When I turned back to Rose, the look on her face changed to a smile. She reached a hand to the back of my neck and squeezed gently, making me moan as she move closer.
She looked into my eyes. I was on the edge, falling into her. “Please,” I pleaded.
She nodded slowly, sliding her other hand up my chest. She squeezed the back of my neck as she whispered, taking me deeper and deeper into her eyes, letting me escape the pain.
...Counting me back up, my arms wrapped around a warm body, my head held between cloth covered breasts. I held her close, reveling in the touch, the warmth, the sound of a heart beating in my ear. She squeezed me again and helped me sit up.
I opened my eyes, looking at Rose. My eyes and throat had the feeling I associate with deep trance work.
We were still in the study, on the large couch. She’d changed, taking off her headpiece and the heavy outer part of her habit, revealing short blond hair. She was wearing the soft gray one-piece top and gray slip of the same material common to her Order. I could tell she wore a bra, and was well endowed. I felt my erection grow, conditioning asserting itself.
“Supper,” said Margaret from the doorway. She was dressed the same.
As they helped me stand, I glanced to the mantle clock. Almost two hours had passed. The broken cup was gone, but the stain on the wall still present. Ah, history preserved.
We hugged, strongly. I stopped at the loo before joining them in the dining room.
Beef barley soup, hearty soup and fresh bread. I sat between them. Each of us had two capsules, looking to be the same as what I’d been given at lunch. We took them silently with sips of chilled white wine.
Margaret looked better. Rose was smiling, but it felt forced.
“What did we do this afternoon?” I asked Rose.
When she didn’t respond, I added, “It felt like deep work. I don’t recall any such of late.”
She nodded. “Yes, it was deep. Alan, I’m learning -- learning how to help you.”
I looked to my soup. That’s a change; if it’s true.
“I’m sorry if I was difficult this afternoon,” I apologized.
“Nonsense,” Rose stated emphatically. “You’ve held too much for too long.”
I looked to Margaret, and back to Rose, but she didn’t elaborate.
We finished our meal, all the soup, bread, and wine. We cleaned up.
The undergarments they wear may be eminently practical, but they’re also revealing, showing every curve. I’ve memorized Margaret’s curves over the years; my body responds to the mere memories. Watching Rose move around in my small kitchen stoked the fires even more; I longed to be in her embrace again.
Rose looked up at me as hands touched my shoulders from behind and Margaret’s voice filled me.
I was sitting in my chair in the study, naked. Warm soft hands and a warm soft voice led me up the narrow stairs to my bedroom.
I saw her, naked on my bed, and I wanted her so much. Something told me to kiss my way up her delicious body, enjoying all of her. I was trapped between her legs, her moans filling me with fire as I pleased her. She held me to her breasts, comforting me, filling me.
Our bodies slid together, joined from our lips to our toes, moving, holding, thrusting. She came underneath me, time and again, until voices and hands took me over the edge, thrusting into her again, wanting to be so deep within her.
We held each other and I listened to the music of a rapid heartbeat, kissing the side of a sweaty breast. I caught fire and moved atop her again, this time her legs wrapped around me, squeezing me as I held on, giving myself to delirium and coming again, collapsing to hold each other close and drift away.
I woke in the middle of the night, wedged between two soft, warm, sleeping forms.
And with a shock, I realized -- I’d topped Margaret, not Rose! Remembering, I could almost hear Rose’s soft but strong voice weaving Margaret and me together.
Margaret was in front of me; I moved down a bit, moving her more to her back. Closing my eyes again, I let my lips find a nipple. I sighed at the contact; she murmured and wound her arms around me. What peace, what satisfaction, in her arms.
I woke in the morning wrapped in soft warmth, listening to the slow regular music of a heartbeat. I kissed and mouthed the side of a breast, and was rewarded with a nipple, a nipple that became taut in my mouth -- Rose! But I didn’t need to think, holding on, enjoying, being rolled to my back, inflamed, ridden, and held once again.
On my back in bed, moving my arms out slowly, just two of us. I turned to my right -- Rose opened her eyes and smiled.
“Where is Margaret?” I asked.
Her smile diminished. “Gone.”
She moved closer; I returned to my back. That’s how it happens.
“Let me hold you,” she whispered.
I stayed on my back. I was waiting for the pain, the sadness to hit, but there was only emptiness.
“Don’t you like being held?” she asked.
I closed my eyes, squeezing out the tears. “Yes,” I whispered.
She pulled me to her, putting a leg over me, burying my head between her breasts. I held her fiercely.
“What’s wrong?”
“This is how it always goes,” I told her, holding her tight.
“How what goes?”
I held her, burrowing in, trying to suffocate myself in her.
She squeezed me, moving me to a nipple, cooing gently as she held me. I held on as best I could, suckled, and cried.
“Tell me, tell me,” she whispered later, still holding me close.
“Later today, tomorrow, the day after, I’ll wake up alone ... again,” I told her, holding her, feeling her, needing her.
She sighed, moving a hand to the back of my head, confirming for me the pattern of the years.
“It feels so good -- it’s so good going to sleep being held, holding, but I know I’ll wake up alone again,” I whispered, tears still streaming.
She held me, rocked me.
“Get up, go to the bathroom, and come back,” she told me.
We unwound. I made my trip. One of the bags was gone. The empty space on the floor, the empty space inside me. As I crawled back into bed, she got out. I lay on my side, turned away from her side of the bed. I stayed there as she got back in, reaching for me.
“Let me hold you again,” she whispered.
I stayed where I was.
“Alan, I need to hold you. I have something to tell you. All that is changing, Alan.”
I rolled to my back, looking at her. She was crying. I reached up and touched her tears.
She shook her head slowly, a teary smile filling her face. “Alan,” she said, voice choked with emotion, “I’m not leaving you today, and I’m not leaving you tomorrow...”
I moved closer to her, my heart pounding, but still afraid of the pain.
With more strength in her voice, she said, “I’m not leaving until you throw me out. Do you understand, Alan? I’m staying as long as you want me to. I promise.”
I threw my arms around her, burying my head in her chest again as I cried. She cried with me, holding me.
“I need you to hold me, Alan,” she cried.
Not as much as I needed to hold her...
Our tears eventually turned to passion as we kissed and ran our hands over each other. She pushed me to my back and moved up, at first holding me to a breast, then pressing down, engulfing me, pulling up to let me gasp, and moving me to the other side.
She impaled herself on me, pressing on my shoulders with her hands, rocking her hips strongly. Her voice took hold of me as her hands moved to my neck; she lowered herself down, elbows on my chest, her eyes getting bigger and bigger, taking me in.
I couldn’t take my eyes off her as she rocked. Her voice was so far in the distance, but I heard, felt, and watched her orgasm on top of me and around me, once, twice, and as she approached the pinnacle again, she moved, lowering a nipple to me.
Slowly, oh so slowly, and I was oh so close -- I needed her nipple, her weight, her softness. A hand under my head pulled me and held me to her nipple. Her hips rocked slowly and strongly, pushing me over the edge, pumping into her. And she held me, and held me, and held me.
I woke up in her arms and held her, squeezed her, trying not to cry, at least not out loud. She held me, and sighed.
Eventually, though, we needed to get up.
Another change -- she stayed on her back and had me get a little gray case from the other bag. She had me open the collection kit, and walked me through collecting my semen from her, coaching me. Strange, a process I know has happened undoubtedly thousands of times, yet I’d never witnessed it, either asleep, in trance, drugged, or not present. Even the women I was supposed to impregnate, I imagine the “excess” was collected.
I sealed up the kit. It had a label on the top, with a barcode and “AEG-144-19937” printed on it. “What do I put on the ‘Collected from’ line,” I asked.
“RCS,” she told me, “And on ‘collected by’ put ‘AEG,’ your initials.”
“That’s going to give someone a shock,” I muttered.
“They’ll have to get used to it!” she told me.
I dated it 2096/10/23, and put it on the night table.
She was on her back, naked, smiling from ear to ear.
I rejoined her, kissing, holding her.
“I thought we needed to get up,” she said later.
“We need to drop off the next generation?”
She gave me a squeeze. “We’ve got twenty hours, and you canceled everything through the end of the week.”
“I’ve got my exercise schedule...”
She squeezed me again and growled, “I’ll give you exercise...”
“There is lunch,” I managed to say a while later.
“Ah, you are gifted,” she said, squeezing me once more, then letting go and rolling away. “I’ll shower first.”
By the time I got out of the shower, she was dressed.
“Why the long face?” she asked, straightening the top of her habit.
“I wanted to watch -- I wanted to help,” I told her.
“A likely story,” she told me with pursed lips and a lifted eyebrow.
“Yes, you are very intelligent as well,” I said, and kissed her on the nose.
“Get dressed -- we need to get out of here!” she scolded me, but with a smile.
I got dressed. Downstairs she gave me two more capsules, and took two herself.
“If we drop the packages at your offices, the hall will be open for lunch by the time we get there.”
“Great,” she replied, putting her arm in mine as we headed out the door.
We stopped outside the door and she kissed me, long and deep.
“I thought public displays were against the Order’s rules,” I told her, trying to get my bearings again.
“To blazes with the rules,” she growled.
We walked to her Order’s office. “Why the change?” I asked. “What’s happening?”
She sighed, and I felt purpose in her stride as we walked arm-in-arm.
“Alan, many of the people working with you, Margaret for example, have been geneticists, medical doctors.”
“Yes, as is Kalansky, not surprising.”
Another sigh. “I’m a medical doctor as well, but a psychiatrist.”
I grunted. “Someone thinks I’m other than gonads with a life support system?”
She stopped us mid-path and turned to face me, beaming from ear to ear. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “I’ve been trying to convince people that you are more than a pair of testicles! A number of us have been trying, for so long! Oh Alan -- we’ve psychoanalyzed your offspring, your mates, your offspring’s mates, but has anyone ever talked to you? Asked you what you felt?”
“Not since I was fourteen,” I told her.
With a serious visage she said, “Alan, that’s at an end -- if you want it to be. I want to help. I want to listen, and to understand, if you want to talk about it. I will not force you.”
I nodded. “I still have my other duties?”
“Yes, and we can talk about that, how to make those duties more appealing to you.”
I held her gently. “Thank you.” I looked up at the building housing her order’s offices. “How long has this taken?”
Rose frowned. “To get this far? Years. Margaret ... no, she should tell you.”
“I have so much to thank her for,” I whispered, holding her.
“You thanked her last night, and helped more than you could know.”
“I need to tell her again, and again.”
“We will.”
We entered the building. Usually I only came by for checkups, tests. I pulled the sample kits out of my coat pockets. “What do we do with these?”
Rose took them from me and handed them to the woman at the desk, who blushed.
She looked cute.
“You could help some time, if you want,” I told her.
She blushed furiously, but smiled. Rose chuckled, took my arm, and led me out of the building.
Once outside we laughed and hugged. I closed my eyes, holding her, breathing her in.
“What’s gotten into me?” I asked as we headed to the commons for lunch. “I can’t imagine saying something like that, even though it’s what I felt. And last night -- the things I said, the way I felt. Today, I feel more alive, colors seem brighter -- is it you?”
She smiled, but her look turned serious. “Part of it is the work we did yesterday, opening you up, helping you remember. Part is the capsules we’re taking. Another big change.”
I stopped, holding her hands. “And that is?”
She sighed, shaking her head. “Alan -- please forgive us, forgive them. For the last few years, you’ve been medicated. Oh hell -- you’ve been medicated, observed, sampled, and prodded since birth; you know that. Vitamins, minerals, life extension, those will continue. But for the last few years, you’ve been medicated, it’s hard to characterize -- anti-anxiety is perhaps a good catch-all, a stabilizer. Cognitive processes are unaffected -- supposedly. I’ll give you the data if you’re interested, and discuss it with you. It’s pumped into your bedroom in the air at night. The capsules counteract it. It’s been discontinued, but it’s going to take a while before it’s purged from you and your environment.”
I was angry again. I knew my abode had an advanced air heating, filtration, and circulation system, explained to me as another of those ‘for your safety’ deals. “I bet I can tell you when it started. Looking back, it’s affected my drive, among other things.”
She beamed again, frowning at the same time. “Alan! That’s what I want to hear! That’s what I need to hear -- what they need to hear!”
“And what’s being done to replace that leash?”
Her smile became more intense. “Do you know the old American folk tale of Brer Rabbit?”
“Nope, a hole in my education, one of many.”
“Well, Brer Rabbit was a crafty character. She’s caught by Brer Fox, and pleads and pleads -- please don’t throw me into that briar patch. Please don’t throw me into that briar patch, Brer Fox...”
I smiled, thinking of the Manzanita around our house outside Las Cruces, and the wildlife living in it. “Where she wants to be all along... So they made you promise to be by my side?”
She nodded, tears forming. “Where I want to be, more than anything,” she squeaked out.
I held her again. Our watchers must be having apoplexy. “Help me, please. Maybe you should have grabbed me earlier last night. I don’t want to cause trouble.”
She held me fiercely. “No Alan -- you need to cause trouble, and I’m going to help. You are a person, not a thing .”
I leaned back, looking at the fierce determination on her face. Such complex motivations -- was I a subject, an object, or more?
“I tried reading psychology a number of years ago. I finally concluded I was being dissuaded from that path, and have gotten by on books my students smuggle in for me.”
“And those are recorded as well. You’ve more than made your contribution. If I’m here for very long, I expect to teach. I’ll be happy to be your tutor.”
“Want to study physics?” I asked.
“No,” she answered quickly and definitively.
I hugged her again, laughing. She joined me.
We showed up for lunch earlier than my usual, and sat in a different spot, fine with me.
“What’s so funny?” she asked a few minutes later.
I tilted my head to the door. “Threw my watchers off schedule. Usually one or two of them whenever I’m in a public area such as this.”
“Does that make you feel safer?”
I scowled. “Hell no. I’m not sure why I’ve put up with it.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Some of us have been killed, you know.”
“Us? Who’s this ‘us?’”
“Our clan of genetic clears, saviors to the race.”
“Who turned so many men into mules?”
She took my hand. “The same. I think, I hope, society has outgrown that anger.”
She stopped us as we walked along the path back to my residence after a good lunch. She touched my forehead. “You’re frowning -- why?”
I took a breath. “You’ve opened up so much, in a short period of time.”
“Too short a time? How do you feel about that?”
I looked around; typical gray day. “Not sure. Better, I think -- as a physicist, I believe that more knowledge is better than less. I must, even if that knowledge shatters earlier beliefs.”
She managed a slight smile. “We can have some interesting conversations about that...”
“I’m sure we can. Right now, I want to check some notebooks.”
“For what?”
“A hunch. Any side effects of those capsules?”
“Why? What are you noticing?”
“Not sure. A little twitchy perhaps.”
“Keep telling me how you feel, if things change. There may be side-effects from suddenly eliminating any medication. Do you still get regular bodywork?”
“Massage? Yes, part of my exercise regime.”
“Good.” She put a hand on my back. “Of course I can do a good job.”
I slipped an arm around her waist. “That’s definitely more enticing.”
We went to my study. I pulled a group of notebooks off a shelf and sat at my desk.
To Rose’s questioning looks, I explained, “An old custom -- keeping records by hand, using a fountain pen that came with the residence, the Chair. A few months ago, a student had a question about something we might have covered years ago, and that sent me digging. I spotted something else.” I opened a pair of books, glancing at entries, then moved to another pair. “Surprised these haven’t been scanned off somewhere,” I muttered sotto voce.
Rose was sitting opposite the desk. “Oh, they have, but I don’t recall reports of anything interesting from them, other than you’re a gifted and considerate teacher.”
I shook my head, my jaw muscles clenching, getting angry again. “Then those people are fools!” I muttered angrily as I got another section of books, setting the others on the floor.
“Here, I’ll put those back in order,” Rose offered.
I ended up with three notebooks on my desk. So many students, so many skilled, bright minds, all of them female...
“March 2090, that’s when they started the gas, early to mid-March,” I declared.
Rose looked over her shoulder to me, shelved the last of the notebooks, and sat in the chair again.
“How can you tell?” she asked.
I frowned again, opening the three notebooks and turning them to her.
She glanced at each. “I barely made it through the physics I needed for my medical degree,” she told me apologetically.
I shook my head, almost snarling now. “That isn’t it -- look at the handwriting! My bloody handwriting changed! Look, compare the way I wrote the names, here, here, and here.” I pointed to each of the books.
She looked up at me, smiling. “You’re right -- they are fools.”
“I’d like a word with the good Doctor Kalansky.”
Rose shook her head. “Not her fault. She’s a geneticist, with a narrow focus.”
“As long as what happens doesn’t affect my balls...”
“Sad but true... But that’s why I’m here.”
“Why? Why the change?” I thought for a moment. “Did they lose one, is that it?”
The look on her face became far more serious; she averted her gaze.
“I’ll take that non-response as agreement,” I told her, being deliberately provocative.
“You’re not supposed to tell me,” I added after a few more moments of silence.
She nodded, then said softly, “About more than one...”
That sat me back. “More than one? All right, how do you define ‘us,’ how many were -- are -- there? God, I have been in a gilded cage! And I was taught that the tendency toward retentive ‘state secrets’ and Machiavellian schemes died along with male-dominated socio-political structures.”
“Some things die out slower than others.”
We looked at each other in silence.
My gaze drifted, unfocused. “They died of starvation,” I whispered. I could feel it in my legs and in my chest.
“What?” she questioned.
“You let us taste, but that’s all -- you’re starving us to death. Drugging me for those years just prolongs it.” I looked to her again. She was frowning, looking pained.
“Alan, please explain.”
I slid my chair away from the desk and held out my arms. She moved closer, my arms wrapping around her, and hers around me. I closed my eyes.
“Tell me, please,” she pleaded, holding me, rocking me, “if you can.”
I let my shoulders down so she could better hold my head to her. “I need skin,” I whispered.
She let go and stepped back for a moment. I left my eyes closed, letting my head hang forward, breathing deep, feeling the horrible emptiness, the pain in my chest and legs.
She held me again, to soft, warm skin, the top of my head pressing up into her breasts. Her hands, so warm, held me as she rocked gently side to side, my arms around her waist.
“Can you tell me?” she asked again after a while.
I took a breath, inhaling her natural scent, exhaling with a sigh. “I’m conditioned -- and I respond. I’m used. Oh, it feels good, so good -- but I wake up alone, empty again. Little tastes, delicious tastes, but so little, so brief, and I’m so hungry.” I kissed skin, felt skin. “It hurts so much, waking up alone, knowing all I’ll ever get is little tastes.”
“Oh, Alan,” she whispered, holding me.
“I woke up alone so many times, crying, and it hurt so much.” I sighed again, holding her. Then a thought -- that had changed too; when?
I moved her to my lap. She pulled me to her again, and I nestled in, but not for long.
“I need to check something.”
She tried to get up. I held her waist. “No, stay here. Let’s look.”
I pulled the three notebooks closer, flipping pages, glancing, reviewing. “That may have saved my life,” I told her.
She had an arm around my shoulders. She jiggled me. “Explain, please!”
I managed a smile, pointing at the margins, the edges of the page. “Bet they didn’t figure this out either. I knew I was under a microscope; I couldn’t keep notes on a computer, which was a pain -- private notes that is. So I keep them here.”
“I don’t get it,” she said.
“Fountain pen -- an old cranky one. I make marks in the margins to keep the nib clean and the ink flowing. Some of it is doodling. Some isn’t.”
I flipped through the pages, peeking at a later page, then back. “Early 2090, waking up so many mornings crying. Holidays are the worst, students going home to families -- families still exist, they must exist.”
“Early January, Margaret brought a woman on Friday afternoon who left Sunday morning, Margaret stayed, but Tuesday I woke up alone again -- tears all that week, tapering off,” I told her as I turned pages.
“Where are you reading that?” Rose asked.
“Then, early March -- lots of tears, but Margaret shows up, Tuesday, and stays for five glorious days! She leaves, and I cried, but not as much and not as long. That must be when it happened -- call it March 8, or thereabouts.”
I flipped quickly through more pages. “The tears diminished -- and after a few weeks I invented a new symbol, to note the empty feeling that replaced the pain.”
I closed the book and put it on the pile, holding her again. “I can’t remember the last time I woke in pain, in tears; instead it’s the emptiness, the hunger. Some times it’s so bad I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.” We held each other.
“Will you teach me how to read those marks?” she asked later.
I took a breath, feeling my jaw set in determination. “Only if you share what you learn.”
I was surprised; she hugged me strongly.
“Let’s go upstairs,” she whispered.
We went upstairs. I got undressed, we crawled into bed together, and held each other. I felt her relax in my arms. I followed, drifting into sleep.
Waking on my back, with her curled up at my side, her head on my shoulder. I held her close and she burrowed in. A new feeling -- followed closely by doubt, wondering when she would leave, when the emptiness would return. I kissed the top of her head.
With a deep breath she stretched, looking at me, smiling. She moved and we started kissing. I soon found myself on top of her, sliding together, moving together, coming together, resting together again.
At her side, kissing her shoulder, how many times had that happened? How many times had I had sex when it wasn’t directed, orchestrated, controlled? Oh, when I was in trance the sensations were so intense -- yet hadn’t this been just as intense? Intense yet relaxed at the same time -- a big difference -- no pressure to perform.
On our sides, I held her from behind, one arm under her pillow, the other over her side.
“Should we get up?” she asked.
“Why?” was my reply.
She pulled my hand between her breasts and held it. I kissed the back of her neck.
We eventually got up. Once dressed, we returned to the dining hall for a light supper.
“I think we should postpone the tour until tomorrow,” I suggested to Rose as we stepped outside; it was drizzling again.
“Oh? You expect clear, sunny skies tomorrow?”
I managed to chuckle. “Let’s not be nasty. What can I offer you instead?”
“A warm, cozy bed? Hold me?” she whispered.
“That I can do.”
In bed, we held each other. That was all. We held each other, closely, tightly, and eventually we went to sleep.
END of Part 1
Rev 2006/10/12
A Life of Service
By silli_artie@hotmail.com
http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/artie/www
© Copyright 2004, 2006 by silli_artie@hotmail.com