The Astronomer

by Charmaine Pauls

  “Don’t go there, Claudia.”

  “Fine. But think about this–you’re one of the very few people in this world who are O+, compatible with anyone, who can choose any mate you want. The rest of us, we have to go with what nature deals us. We’re compatible with only a few males, unless we want our bodies destroyed by their sperm.” She smiled wryly. “I guess it’s nature’s way of finally giving us a gift we don’t deserve, ensuring that we end up with the right person, because I’m yet to meet two mates who don’t love each other. Mating is for life, Fraya. You’re in the position of having a choice. Don’t make the wrong one.”

  “Yeah. Sometimes choice is harder than what you think.”

  “And sometimes it’s easy, if you follow the old ways, if you follow your heart.”

  “How long will his hormone stay in my blood?”

  “Its concentration may weaken, but from what I’ve learned and read, it’s pretty much permanent.”

  Fraya wiped a hand over her face. This could not be happening. She placed her palms on the counter, looking at Claudia from under her eyelashes. “For life?”

  “I’m sorry, Fraya.”

  “What about the males in such cases? Do they experience the same symptoms?”

  “Not as intensely as the females. They tend to not suffer as much. But each case is unique. It could be different for him.”

  Fraya took a deep breath and straightened. “How quickly can you have a serum ready?”

  Claudia sighed and put her hands into the pockets of her lab coat resignedly. “I can have it for you by tomorrow. I have enough of your blood to extract white blood cells.”

  Fraya smiled shakily. “I can’t pay you.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “Thank you. I’ll come by tomorrow.”

  “Alright.”

  Claudia looked at her with an emotion that almost caused the tears Fraya held back to flow.

  “It’s not too late, Fraya, to call off the mating with Gene.”

  “And destroy him and his family? He saved my life. They took me in when I had no one. I can’t turn my back on them.”

  “Just remember, a mating is for life. Once you’ve taken that step, you can never turn back. You know the law.”

  Fraya nodded. She squared her shoulders and walked bravely from the building, back into the street, into the summer sunshine. Inside of her, it felt like it was already winter.

  Chapter Seven

  One year later

  It was déjà vu to see the most beautiful woman in the world, the perfect woman in every way, on the arm of Gene. It reminded Emilio too much of the night in Zone 13 when he had learned the extent of Fraya’s deceit. The couple had been standing just like that when he, Emilio, had entered the reception hall one year ago in the New Monte Carlo Bay Hotel and discovered the woman of his dreams belonged to his best friend.

  Tonight the party was a farewell in Gene’s honor, hosted in Fraya’s Toronto flat. From his position by the door through which he had just entered, Emilio saw Gene plant a kiss on Fraya’s cheek and say something that made her smile. The sight was enough to make Emilio head straight for the drinks table. He needed a strong one.

  A cheap imitation whisky in hand later, Emilio made as much small talk as he could tolerate with some of the guests, mostly people both Gene and he knew from school, while his eyes followed Fraya around the room. It came as no surprise that she avoided him. She had effectively steered clear of him during the past year. The few stolen minutes he had seen her at other social events were not nearly enough to satisfy his hunger.

  He swore he could feel her enter a room. He could tell when she walked through the door with his eyes closed. She had an effect on him he couldn’t explain, even after what his doctor had said about unique chemistry and mating. A mere hormone couldn’t account for the intensity of his feelings. It was eating him alive. He was dying, one day at a time, just for her touch, knowing that it wasn’t his right to claim it. She belonged to another. To his best fucking friend.

  Anger made him want to pounce on her and tear off her clothes, proving to her what they both knew, with whom she belonged. He groaned inwardly at the loss he felt. There could never be another for him. There was no one like her. He would live his days in her shadow, following her secretly like a mangy dog, fulfilling her wishes without her knowledge, ensuring she had every comfort that was due to her, while loving and hating her all at the same time. He was doomed. Until the end of his days.

  He had never needed a woman like this. When he couldn’t see her, lay as much as one borrowed glance on her in those months between chance meetings, he could feel his soul perish. He needed until he felt his heart drying, becoming as brittle as weathered paper, flaking between the ribs in his chest, only to pump to life again when she entered a room. Like it did now. He was about to explode seeing her next to Gene, Gene’s arm around her slender waist, where his was meant to be.

  Already in that forest he had known his life wouldn’t be the same, not after she had fallen into it. He never could have guessed the hell she would turn it into. He was a haunted man, no good for anything but the crumbs she didn’t even realize he scavenged. He had made her life his business, not only the present but the past, too. He had obtained every little detail about her, every useless morsel he could put his hands on, hungrily consuming her history, the years on which he had missed out. When he was satisfied that he knew all there was to know, he had shadowed her in her waking moments, in every breath she took. There were no limits to the lengths he would go to. Not even buying private prying satellite time was too much of an expense. Yes, that was the depth of his obsession. He knew things about Fraya Gene didn’t know. He knew how she ached at night, in her bed, not reaching for Gene, but for a fucking vibrator. He made certain he knew her future plans, to mold events, to shape the world, in order for her to get what she wanted. Nothing would be denied. Not where Fraya was concerned.

  His reason for working, for making his millions, had suddenly changed course after that night in Zone 11. His reason for living. If he hated himself for the degraded human being he had become, he hated her more for making him so. Yet, he stood there and stared at her, at her beautiful features, her perfect nature, her strength, and felt every molecule in his body react, come to life. Around her he was a building volcano. When she was gone, he was nothing but cold ashes. He grimaced. His life had become one, big black hole. And there was nothing he could do about it.

  Why the hell couldn’t he get her out of his head? It’s been a year, and he still dreamt of her, saw her panting under him like she had that night he thought she would drown. What he had learned about her since that day had only strengthened his obsession and admiration.

  An only child, she was born in Zone 102, to a Canadian mother and Danish father. She had never traveled outside of the county, until last year, when Gene took her to Zone 11. Her parents had died in a nuclear accident at the plant where they were working when she was sixteen, leaving her in the care of an aunt, who passed away when Fraya was in her final year of school. She had always achieved straight A’s. Fraya was exceptionally bright, but her outstanding talent, her brilliance, was mathematics. Her tutor called her a number genius. Her biggest gift however, was her determination. There was nothing Fraya couldn’t do if she put her mind to it. Genius plus perseverance equaled invaluable asset.

  She had been accepted to a Canadian university in her zone with a partial bursary for a degree in science. Points had been tight since the death of her family. She had started working part-time while still at school and took three jobs to pay for a second-hand car and small flat in a dorm building near the university. The points that were transferred to her after her parents’ death weren’t enough to cover the PhD in Astronomy with a major in Archeoastronomy that she had been approved for, not even with the additional points she earned from holding three jobs. Patrick, Gene’s father, had paid the shortfall. Now her thesis, her life’s work to date, was behind her
and the doctorate was hers, granted only yesterday.

  The most disturbing part of her history was her accident. Emilio felt his guts clench every time he thought about it. Driving to work one morning when she was only eighteen, she was hit by an automated air purifying truck. The autopilot program malfunctioned, and the large tank that sprayed anti-bacterial and anti-viral gasses into the atmosphere had skipped a red light. This part he didn’t have to learn from public records or private investigators. He had heard it from Gene, only once. It was a subject too traumatic for his friend to dwell on. Gene had seen the tank hit Fraya’s fuel cell car on the driver’s side. The vehicle had skid across the intersection before rolling twice and folding around a lamppost. Gene had described the smoke that had leaked from the bonnet, and the lick of a flame he had seen as he had unclasped the unconscious girl’s safety belt. He said he had only thought about the hydrogen, and the explosion that was seconds away. After that, Gene said he couldn’t remember exactly what had happened, only the excruciating heat as he realized her door was stuck. He recalled hearing spectators scream and seeing the driver in the electric car next to them grab his head between his hands before speeding off, but he couldn’t remember sticking his face through the flames on the passenger side, neither throwing his jacket over the girl to protect her from the fire before hauling her through the window and dragging her to safety. All he felt afterwards, when the adrenalin wore off, was the pain.

  Gene had been admitted to the same hospital as the girl he had saved. During the skin graft he endured, she stayed by his side, night and day. Their ordeal and her gratitude brought them close, and soon Fraya was like a part of his family, his parents taking her under their wing. It was only natural that they ended up together, Gene had said.

  Emilio couldn’t blame his friend. Any man in his right mind would be a fool not to fall for her. She had those doe-like chocolate eyes, blonde hair feathering around a sweet, heart-shaped face, and a tiny body, one he ached to possess and protect, but underneath her fragile veneer were plenty of brains, courage and passion, a passion he knew Gene hadn’t managed to unlock, a passion that wasn’t Emilio’s right to explore.

  He resented her for how she had made him suffer and at the same time admired her for her loyalty to Gene. He was a mass of conflicting emotions. For one whole year he had burned and craved, never able to look at another woman to soothe the ache he felt for the only one in the world he wanted and couldn’t have. First, he had thanked that French storm for sending her to him, and then he cursed it.

  Even so, during that year he had looked for ways to make her life easier. The hardships she had endured gnawed at his insides. When he discovered it was her dream to work for the Southern World Observatory in Zone 30 but that they couldn’t expand due to budget constraints, he had bought the land on the Chajnantor plateau where the new AKMY telescopes were to be constructed, where she could take up a position, and donated it to the SWO, for that purpose. For her.

  The condo he had started constructing a few miles from the observatory wasn’t the mating gift he made Gene believe it to be. It wasn’t for them. It was for her. Just for her. To live in comfort. To be safe. Far away from the hungry men who staffed that site. He would break every law, compromise every rule to get her what she wanted, except the loyalty he felt for his friend, even if he was damn sure that Fraya and Gene were bound to each other with that same sense of loyalty, and nothing more. Both Fraya and Gene were as hardheaded as mules. Neither of them would see reason, that duty bound them. He could point it out to Gene, mention it as a concern, but he could never steal his best friend’s woman.

  Gene was his friend and he loved him like a brother, but Gene was also a coward who had become too dependent on Fraya to see his affections for what they were. If Gene hadn’t saved Fraya from that car wreck, she would have been free, not blindly binding herself to Gene in a twisted repayment for her life. Since Emilio had first laid eyes on her, he knew she was the one for him. She was perfect for him. Only him. His. She promised him. She told him, writhing under his body, begging him to fill her, that he could have her, and she broke her promise. In that single act of betrayal, she had ruined his life in ways she couldn’t even imagine. Still, his guts clenched in possessive protectiveness as he stared at her face and noticed the dark circles under her soft, big eyes, and the tiredness that had settled in the fragile hunch of her shoulders. She had worked like an ox to finish her thesis and keep up her jobs. She didn’t need tonight, playing hostess, catering for Gene’s bachelor farewell party too. Damn Gene. Damn him for not noticing.

  Emilio saw Fraya move away from her future mate. He adjusted a cufflink on the French cuff of his dress shirt and made his way through the small, crowded space of Fraya’s living room to Gene.

  “Buddy!” Gene pushed forward and grabbed Emilio’s hand, shaking it jovially. “Glad you could make it.”

  “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

  “Thank you, mate. I appreciate it. I know what you sacrificed to change zones. Could do with your support tonight.”

  Emilio’s eyes rested on Fraya. “Support?” Even as he said the word he felt himself fill with contempt for his friend. “You should feel like the luckiest man alive. What’s up?”

  She wore a black camisole under a cream lace top and a knee length skirt that hugged her hips. The black silk ribbons of her high heels made her dainty ankles look like exquisitely wrapped gifts. Her straight hair was tied back in a simple ponytail and a few feathery bits had escaped to frame her face and accentuate the contrast the color made with her eyes.

  “Mating nerves.” Gene laughed uncomfortably.

  Emilio sipped his drink. “It’s normal, I’ve been told.”

  “This is forever, man,” Gene said, sounding nervous.

  Emilio watched Fraya with narrowed eyes as she moved around the room, clearing away empty glasses and picking up paper plates and crumpled serviettes. Anger built inside of him for Gene’s slackness. The mating ceremony was only a week away, and the person who was supposed to be the center of attention had been working herself to a standstill. She needed a break. Gene shouldn’t have expected her to host this party. Neither should he have insisted on a bachelor week in Zone 41.

  Emilio turned to his friend. “I wish you’d heed my advice and forget about this trip.”

  Gene put his hands into the pockets of his cargo pants. “Hey,” he shrugged, “it’s my last week of freedom. It should cure the jitters.”

  “Maybe if you’re having jitters, you’re not doing the right thing,” Emilio said, regarding Gene from under his eyebrows. God knows, if it had been him mating her, he would never leave her, ever, not even for a fucking day, never mind a damn week.

  “Don’t start again, buddy.”

  “You’ve asked for a piece of my mind so I’ll give it to you again. You don’t have to marry her because you feel responsible for her. You saved her life. That’s enough. Are you sure you know what you’re doing?”

  Emilio doubted that Gene carried Fraya’s best interests at heart. He loved his friend, but he could be a selfish asshole, and he was acting like one now.

  “Fact is, saving her did bind us in a strange way. She’s a great woman. I’m mating her, and that’s that. You said yourself it’s normal to feel edgy. I just need to enjoy freedom one last time. I wish you would change your mind about coming with us.”

  “Sorry, this time you and Bruce and Terry are on your own. Can’t get out of my contract deadlines.”

  “And Zita,” Gene added almost inaudibly.

  “What?” Emilio gave him a sharp look.

  “Yeah. Zita decided to come. She finally managed to get the points together.”

  “How?” Emilio said, his suspicions raised.

  “My father gave us points for the ceremony. I thought it wouldn’t hurt to use some of them for a friend.”

  “You’re an asshole, Gene. You know how Fraya will feel about that. If you’re going to mate her, then treat her righ
t. If you can’t do right by her, you shouldn’t be mating her. Don’t do this. Stay. She needs you. Now more than ever.”

  Gene shook his head. “She’s a big girl. She’ll cope. Besides, my parents offered to pay an event organizer to take care of the ceremony, but she insisted on doing it her way. She needn’t have done it all by herself.”

  “She insisted because of her pride. You know she doesn’t like taking points from your parents.”

  “Well, it’s too late now to change my travel plans.”

  Emilio rubbed his brow and checked his watch. “What time is your flight?”

  “Just before midnight.”

  He pursed his lips. “Need a ride to the zone station?”

  “Thanks buddy. I’ve booked a shuttle service.”

  “Promise me you’re not going to do something fucking foolish in India, Gene.”

  He shrugged. “Like what?”

  “Like Zita. Like cheating on Fraya again.”

  “Yeah. Sure, man. That happened once. It was a long time ago. Listen, I need a drink. Want something?”

  Emilio lifted his whiskey. “Still going strong.”

  “Right.” Gene gave his friend a guilty smile before he made his way to the back of the room.

  Emilio fought his way through drunken bodies and loud laughter down the hallway to the kitchen. There he found who he was looking for. Fraya dragged a big garbage bag around, wiping the mess on the counters into it. She stopped when she saw him and managed a slight, if wary, smile.

  “Hey,” she said.

  Even if she tried to hide it, he could see the vein throbbing in her neck. He could see her nipples straining against her camisole under the lacey top. He knew about the hormone treatment. His sources had even dug that one up. He also knew it was less effective than what she would have hoped. He couldn’t see her suffer, and yet, it infuriated him that she took the treatment, that she denied what they had done to each other, even as he refused any form of relief, preferring to burn to hell and back in the reality of his need.