by Cecilia Tan
She couldn’t shame the girl by demanding her time. No caste had the right of person or place over a member of another caste. Cross-socializing was not forbidden, but neither was it encouraged. Just as same sex relations were not outlawed, but were frowned upon as unproductive to the corporate community-over-corp, group and pod. Youthful flings were one thing, but a passion such as had overtaken Maddy would be considered worrisome.
Shula watched the play of emotions run over Maddy’s face. “We knew it wasn’t forever, Maddy,” she said, soothing.
“Just let me think, Shula. I can work out some arrangements.”
“Don’t get all crazed, Maddy. If we just take it as it comes, I’m sure we’ll see each other again. If not... it was lovely, wasn’t it? And to think,” Shula murmured, slipping her arms around Maddy’s waist. “We owe it all to the weather.”
Maddy pulled her closer, skin to skin. “Shula, Shula. I’ve never felt like this about anyone before....”
“But that’s good, Maddy,” Shula said, leaning further into Maddy’s embrace. “Maybe just knowing you had this feeling, even once, will make it all worth while in the end.”
Maddy clutched Shula tighter, a deep sinking feeling in the well of her stomach told her that once Shula was gone, she’d be gone for good. And maybe Maddy would never feel this way again, with a man or a woman.
Shula was running her small hands over Maddy, whose body was responding eagerly, even as her mind was whirling, until she finally gave up thinking and surrendered to Shula’s attentions. Pushing Shula down on the bed, Maddy made violent, passionate love to the girl in order to block out her doubts and fears of expected loneliness and grief.
‡
Maddy could feel the tension at Corporation Headquarters even as she gave her ID to the smooth faced Armsa at the front reception room.
“It’s been requested that you go right up to the Project Room, Madame Silwa. Your bags will be taken up to your room.”
On the lift to the appropriate sector, Maddy thought back to her parting from Shula. Click had been there to meet Shula at the station, scowling but otherwise evidencing no surprise at Shula’s arrival on an early express train, and in a first class coach besides. The bow he had given Maddy was only barely polite. He had grabbed up Shula’s bag and moved off to the small battery powered hansom bike.
Maddy, of course, was met by the Corporation magnetosine. There was really nothing for them to say to each other and in a public place any display of emotion beyond social courtesy would be out of place. Maddy had kissed and clung to Shula before leaving the train cubicle, but it was if she could feel the girl distancing herself from Maddy even then.
The scowl on Click’s face caused the tattoo on his forehead to stand out vividly. Many men and women below the service castes decorated themselves with tattoos. But Maddy had never seen one like Click’s. Bold yellows and reds over a smudged circle of blue and green.
But she had no time to contemplate it further. Keeping her face smooth and her gestures minimal, she followed the Corporation’s driver to the waiting vehicle.
She had hoped to go to her room for a few minutes to compose herself and review the stats and latest test results before meeting the with other members of the Project. But the Susalii corporation overseers had waited too long, to their minds, for Maddy’s arrival as it was. So when she reached the proper sector, she followed the fresh-faced corporate runner through the building to the Project Room.
The atmosphere could only be described as controlled panic.
“Condista Silwa!” The Susaliis in the room gave her barely enough time to make the appropriate bows and greetings before launching into their discourse. There were several long moments of shouting and cross talk, with numbers flying from the Enjeniros.
Maddy finally managed to grasp that the numbers she had downloaded to the test sites were wrong. Sometimes they were only off by a few digits, but enough to destroy months of work and expensive equipment and to set the Project back by years.
Stunned, Maddy sat down without waiting for a gesture from one of the Susaliis or Imperiatas. She could hear the shouting and accusations as if through deep water, making little or no sense to her. The figures had been correct. They had! They’d been downloaded into her PNA from the Corporation Home Quarters in Albany. They’d been confirmed upon receipt. What could have happened between receiving and sending?
With an outer calm that did not reflect her inner turmoil, Maddy requested that her transmissions be projected onto the big screen for review and comparison with the original figures. She then programmed her PNA to run the two sets of figures simultaneously. As the computers ran the program, the incongruities were highlighted on the big screen. Once more, chaos ensued in the room as the discrepancies were visible to everyone.
At the end of the numbers run the word “Attention” flashed across the screen in red and yellow letters. It flashed many times until a puzzled silence descended upon the room. After a few more seconds of the flashing word, a picture took its place. Maddy felt as if she couldn’t catch her breath. With an involuntary motion, she rose from her chair, but once standing could not think of where to go or why.
The picture was a blue and green ball of the planet, its continents standing out in vivid relief, topped by red and yellow flames from which rose a highly stylized bird of some kind.
Maddy recognized it immediately. She had seen it twice before, without really registering it. She had seen it on the forehead of Shula’s friend, Click.
The words “Gaia’s Warriors” appeared above the picture and the motto “Take Her Own Course” blazed underneath the representation of the planet.
Maddy hardly heard the spoken declaration that came after with Click’s image and the images of several other members of the organization.
“...we do not fear arrest and we do not fear punishment. We will not allow another disaster brought on by the upper castes whose uncaring and casual destruction of our home, our mother....” Maddy’s thoughts were swimming. Shula, Shula. “... fight the Over Corporations... this Project will never be allowed to take place...” the voice continued over the storm in Maddy’s head.
Shula. Who had access to Maddy’s PNA. Shula. Who had worked in a PNA factory. Who had worked on the Project components and had helped to build model condensers. Shula....
A set-up. Maddy had been set up. The girl had used her. Maddy, who had been in such control. Maddy, who had dominated the bed. Maddy, who was, in fact, nothing but a tool, a toy... an object to be used and discarded by a rebel group from a lower caste. Who had brought disgrace and dishonor and economic ruin on this Project. On her group, her pod, her corporation.
In the midst of the uproar, Maddy left the room without a backward glance.
‡
Some time later—Maddy wasn’t sure exactly how much later—she found herself sitting on a bench in a park, in an area totally unfamiliar to her.
She had walked and walked, oblivious to where she was going, ignoring the cold and damp. Vaguely she remembered wandering into an Armsa enclave. It had been tidy and well kept. The streets busy, members of its community moving about with purpose. People turned to look at her, of course. Some puzzled, some even with concern. But her clothes made clear her caste and status and so no one approached her as she walked. Even if the sight of a disheveled Condista—occasionally laughing and occasionally weeping as she walked—disturbed them.
It would be night soon. And the weather was uncertain in Tenth Month. Her thoughts were so disorganized that Maddy could not even try to sort them out. Only one clear picture came to her mind. Shula saying, “But then, if the weather had been under control, we wouldn’t have met, would we? So there’s something to be said for... what does Click call it?... randomness.”
Shula’s face as she lay beneath Maddy. “I want what you want. I have since you asked me to join you for dinner.”
Shula’s casual competence with the PNA and the sending of messages. Messages she h
ad corrupted and forwarded on to her companions in the Warriors. Shula’s sweet, last kisses. “Maybe just knowing you had this feeling, even once, will make it all worth while in the end.”
A new caste would be rising, Maddy realized. A rebel caste. A caste that did not believe it was a caste. How funny. How delicious. That Maddy—so secure, so confident and so safe in her caste and her belief in the Economium and the Over Corporations—should have been an instrument of rebellion.
“Out of sight of the eyes, not introduced to the mind.” The saying of Shula’s ayah. Maddy had not seen anything beyond her own feelings and so, though the clues were there, blatant and open, her mind had not warned her.
Her mind was so filled with thoughts of Shula that she was not surprised to see the girl coming towards her. She no longer had the capacity for surprise.
“I told you we’d see each other again.” Shula sat beside her on the bench, as casually and confidently as if she had arranged to meet Maddy here.
“How did you find me?”
Shula reached to the back collar of Maddy’s tunic. A small dot lay in her palm. “It’s a tracking device. Click designs them. I put it there on the train while we were kissing goodbye. Click is a genius, you know. He’s grouchy and temperamental... but that’s because he’s smarter than anyone in his over-Corp and yet is still in a lower caste. That’s going to have to change, you know.”
Maddy was cold. Her hands and feet felt like ice. Shula moved closer to share her body warmth and took Maddy’s icy hands between her own. Maddy did not move. She felt as if she were a very delicate crystal goblet, which would shatter at the slightest touch or movement. Yet she could not move. Crystal was also a type of rock, she recalled.
“Say something, Maddy. Anything. Curse me, hit me... scream at me. But don’t just sit there like nothing’s happened to you.”
“Did you plan it all?” Maddy was surprised to hear that her voice was low, controlled. No hint of her crumbling inner being reflected in her calm, Condista tones. “To seduce me... use me... Did you plan it all?”
“Oh, no. I’ve told you and told you. I just let things happen. I follow the chance.” Shula was shaking her dark head, the thick hair beginning to glow a bit with the evening mist on it. “The only thing planned was for me to join the group of Warriors here in the Western Territories. The rest was just... letting things happen. It really was just an accident that I got on in the wrong car on the train. That you saw me. That you wanted me. That I wanted you. The rest is just... being prepared to make the most of the chances.”
“Like having worked in a PNA factory.”
“Yes.”
Maddy nodded, absently. “What am I going to do? I’m disgraced... dishonored.”
Shula kissed Maddy’s cheek, laid her head on Maddy’s shoulder, still holding her hands. “I know. I’m sorry. Sometimes chance runs over people in its race to the future. You were just... in the way.”
“I’ll be demoted... Put down a full caste or more.” Of course that was the least that might happen. She thought of her parents. How their hopes for grandchildren participating in the future of the Over Corporation would be further shattered.
Shula smiled a bit. “It’s not so terrible. There are an awful lot of us down here in the lower castes. If you’re lucky, maybe they’ll knock you all the way down to Bindari. No one takes any notice of what we do. It’s very freeing.”
Maddy turned to look at her then. At the lovely face, the dancing brown eyes. The little mole that moved at the side of her mouth. She still longed to kiss that mole, those lips, those breasts....
Shula saw. “Come with me now Maddy. Free yourself. Forget going back to your project, the over castes and the Corporation. We can stay at Click’s for a few days before moving on.” Shula kissed the tears on Maddy’s face that she wasn’t even aware of.
“I can’t. You know I can’t.”
“I know. At least for now. But maybe someday...” Shula sighed. “I have to go Maddy. It’s important that we—the Warriors, that is—split up and hide out. You’re going to freeze out here. Let me get you a ride back to the Corporation House.” She tapped something into her PNA and nodded. “There’ll be a hansom bike here for you in five minutes. We can cuddle for three.”
Shula took Maddy’s face gently between her hands and kissed her, a kiss different from any of the others they had shared. Tender, loving and regretful. Shula was the stronger now. It was Maddy who melted into the kiss this time. Her arms moved of their own accord and she embraced Shula, clinging to her as though she were a lifeline—even though the opposite was true. Could someone be a deathline?
A sound of bells signaled the approach of the hansom bike. Shula stood up, urging Maddy to her feet. She opened Maddy’s palm, pressing something into it. Maddy looked down at the little black dot.
“If you change your mind, Maddy... any time, day or night, just crush this little transmitter. It will send a signal that someone in the Warriors will pick up. They’ll contact you and get you to me. Somehow, someway. Remember.”
“How will I know it’s someone I can trust?”
“They’ll have a pass phrase. Something only you and I would know.” Shula kissed Maddy hard on the mouth one last time. “Use it, Maddy. Use it soon. Changes are coming. Be ready to take the chance.” As the hansom bike driver pulled up Shula nodded, turned on her heel and walked away. She didn’t look back.
The driver solicitously tucked Maddy into the seat, wrapping a thermarug around her. She gave him the destination and he set off, at a moderate pace, heading towards the center of the city of Nuestra Donna Amiratsu where her Corporation House was located.
Sitting quietly on the passenger seat, watching as the driver’s legs pumped the battery into action, Maddy noted buildings, parks, people. They all drifted by her like scenes from a picture gallery. Still lifes set up here and there for the viewer’s pleasure or indifference, as the case may be.
Maddy felt as if she were free-falling through a gravity well... with no idea of when—or if—she would land. And who or what she would be when she arrived at the bottom. Maybe there would be room for the new her in the new future that was coming. If she could seize the chance.
THE END
If you have enjoyed this book of erotic science fiction and fantasy, you might enjoy many of the other titles available from Circlet Press, Inc. Since 1992, Circlet has defined the erotic sf/f genre. Find out more at www.circlet.com
Acknowledgements
Without the generous donations of the following individuals this book would never have seen print: Penney L. Robinson, Edgeplay, Leather by Danny, Allen & Kire, Lolita Wolf, William A Henkin, PhD, James Williams, Ayem Willing, Eve, phi, Shell Guertin, Regis, Connie Wilkins, Arch Brown, Amber Roy, and several anonymous donors, one of whom offers the dedication To Eve from Victoria.
Many people have believed in Circlet Press and aided our struggle as an independent press in tough times. Thanks to them all, but in particular Kelly J. Cooper, Lauren P. Burka, M. Christian, Borderlands Books, Patrick Hughes, John Romkey, all our stockholders, and our neighbors who never complain about the huge delivery trucks.
Reprint credits: "The Bridge" originally published in the e-book Wild Flesh, Jintsu Press, 2002. All rights reverted to the author. "Opening the Veins of Jade" originally published in Wicked Words 5: A Black Lace Short Story Collection, edited by Kerri Sharp, Black Lace Press, UK 2001. "Second Coming" by W.B. Yeates, quoted by Robert Knippenberg, from Michael Robeates and the Dancer (1921).
Contributors
B. Lynch Black is a writer, artist and out-of-work actor born, raised and still residing in New York city and has written numerous short stories, essays and reviews. Most recently: Third Place winner in Portia Steele Poetry Contest; short story "All of Me," published by Forbidden Publications, September 2006; short story "Sitting at the Gate of the Temple," published in Watching Time anthology, October 2006; poem "A Silver Hair" First in Category, Green Rivers Poetry 2005; poem "
Indicia" published in Binnacle Ultra-Short Poetry Anthology 2005; short story "In the House of Mourning" published on WriteLink.com UK 2003. She currently is working on a historical fantasy novel.
Renee M. Charles's work has appeared in Best American Erotica 1995, Symphonie's Gift, Dark Angels, Women Who Run With The Werewolves, and Circlet anthologies too numerous to mention. Her stories have received Honorable Mention in Year's Best Fantasy and Horror. She lives in the midwest in a big Painted Lady house with her many cats.
Kal Cobalt enjoys gingered noodles, stewed plums, and cold steel. Currently, K.C.'s apartment (not quite a penthouse) is filled with research for a Xon Xaedin novel. See more of K.C.'s work in the Hot Gay Romance, Distant Horizons, and Country Boys anthologies. K.C.'s fiction, nonfiction, and food blogging can also be found all over the Internet, starting at kalcobalt.com.
Though once nearly fatally embarrassed, Diane Kepler has recovered from having her first attempt at written erotica discovered by her parents. She now resides in southern California, land of the relaxed morals, with her wonderfully supportive husband and her marginally supportive cat. Other stories are featured in Best Bisexual Erotica 2 and Wet: More Aqua Erotica as well as at DianeKepler.net.
Robert Knippenberg recently retired from:
Work
The Northeast
Writing He now lives in one of the largest retirement communities in Florida where he:
Plays golf
Doesn't shovel snow or mow the lawn
Reads a lot Life is Good!
The author of numerous short stories, Anya Levin has long been a fan of speculative fiction. Most of her stories have some speculative elements—either scientific or magical. She is a rabid fan of Doctor Who. She lives in Southeastern Pennsylvania with her husband.
Catherine Lundoff says, "I'm originally from Brooklyn, NYC but now I live in Minneapolis with my partner Jana, a fabulously talented book artist, and a cat or two. I work as a software tester and analyst (read: computer geek). In former lives, I owned a feminist bookstore (Grassroots Books in Iowa City) and I spent some time living in Nicaragua, Mexico and El Salvador. I used to work as an archaeologist and before that I worked at a bar in St. Louis that boasts the world's largest collection of Elvis memorabilia outside Memphis. I started writing professionally in 1996 when I was in law school. I sold the first short story I ever wrote and quit law school a week or two later."
