by Jenny Foster
I am not afraid, I want to say, but that isn’t true. “Oh, of many things,” I evade the question smoothly. Johar doesn’t say anything, but just accepts that, instead. We lie there quietly for a while, each one of us lost in thought. It is a magical moment, unhinged from reality, and everything seems possible at this moment. I see his face in the half-dark, with its sharp contours and sensual mouth. His eyes are closed and his dark hair is spread over the pillow. I reach into it, enjoying its silky, smooth feel. I run a single strand through my fingers. “No man should be allowed to have hair like this,” I mumble.
His answer consists of him lowering his lips to mine. Instinctively, I put my arms around his neck, and return the kiss. This has nothing to do with what I learned in basic training. This is a real kiss, passionate and demanding. His tongue explores every corner of my mouth, he sucks on my lips and runs his hands up my shirt. His caressing and inviting moves go down further and further, until he reaches my panties and he pulls them down. I help him with an awkward kicking move, because suddenly, I don’t want any clothing against my skin, not anymore. I pull my shirt over my head and my hard nipples are touching his chest. The lessons I received from Sherri come to mind, and disappear again. Now is not the time to turn love into science. I want him inside me, without any elaborate, time-consuming foreplay.
Johar seems to feel this, because he pushes back on the mattress and enters me with one, smooth thrust. His hands close around my wrists. He lets me feel his whole weight, and I know that he could break me if he wanted to. But that is not what he wants. I press my pelvis against him invitingly and urge him deeper into me. His cock is indeed the perfect size. He fills me completely and rubs against my clit with every thrust, until I am close to coming. I know all he needs to do is move one more time to make me scream. I see his mouth pull into a smile, and know that, once again, he knows exactly what is going on inside me. “Say please,” he tells me. I bite down on my lip to stop myself from moaning.
“No games,” I counter, breathing heavily and squeeze my pelvis muscles, as hard as I can, around his manhood. With a surprised expression on his face, he says my name, and I think it is the most beautiful name I have ever heard. He comes inside me, and while he is still pouring his hot semen out into me, he thrusts into me one more time. I have an orgasm that that practically throws me out of my own body, and I am afraid I will lose consciousness. But while my body goes through its last convulsions, I am back in my body, impaled by Johar, who smiles happily.
For a time after, we lie there in bed, holding each other close. It is like it was before the sex, only now it is without sadness or fear. I can feel his sperm running out of me and have to giggle. It tickles, and is almost as intimate as the act from which it came. He holds me even closer without asking the reason for my amusement. Instead, he wants to know what Sherri told me about Cassie. After a short hesitation, I tell him the Betanians hold Cassie responsible for several deaths on their planet.
“I heard that, too,” he mumbles sleepily. “It is a strange story. Did you learn anything about her companion? This man … I don’t know how he fits into the story. It is absolutely not like a Qua’Hathri to share his woman with another man.”
“Maybe he didn’t have a choice,” I object. “We simply know too little about what happened here on this planet.” It won’t help anything to engage in speculation, and I tell him so. He changes the subject, as if Cassie’s experiences on Betania were of no importance to him.
“Do you know, by chance, what your father is planning to do to the children?” His question is out of nowhere and hits me like a punch in the stomach. I wriggle out of his arms and my voice has a hard, cold sound to it.
“That is actually none of your business, but everything my father does, he does for the well-being of humankind.” This sounds a little too vague and much too pompous, so I add: “He won’t hurt them, you know that. After he has studied them, and improved them, they will have a longer life than they would have in their former, simpler condition.”
“You don’t actually believe that, do you?” Johar sounds pitying. He feels sorry for me. I don’t understand why.
“You’re acting like you know more than I do. You are forgetting that I am not only his daughter, but also his assistant. He tells me everything.”
Johar raises his eyebrows. That is enough to make my blood boil, but he isn’t finished. “You are forgetting that I am his creation,” he says so softly that I can barely understand him. He pushes the thin blanket from his legs and shows me the sole of his foot. There, I see the number CB 0003 tattooed to the bottom of his foot, along with my father’s initials.
I am speechless and stunned. I didn’t know that my father signed his creatures, like an artist. I can’t understand why. He never mentioned that in my presence, let alone did it at a time when I could observe it!
“You don’t understand what it means for us,” he says, without any reprimand. “Right?” Who in the hell does he mean with us? Himself and the other cyborgs my father created? “We are nothing more than property, nothing more than objects.”
“But … you have always known that. Why is this so important all of a sudden?” I want to tell him that he has had a long life for a cyborg, and that he is doing well, that he even has a rank similar to that of a human officer. But one look at his face tells me that Johar is aware of all of these things. He is still looking at me, almost lovingly and concerned.
I can’t stand it. I don’t want a machine-human’s pity for something I don’t know or don’t understand. I throw something on, blindly, and want to rush out of our room, but Johar is at the door, fast as lightning, and stops me.
“Don’t go,” he says. It is a combination of an order and a request, and I realize that my resistance is fading. “You are not allowed to let someone you love leave during a fight. Who knows what could happen?”
“Love?” I croak, stunned. “I don’t love you. We hardly know each other, and, in any case …” I bite my tongue at the last second.
“And in any case, you are a human and I am a cyborg,” he finishes. Something I can’t read flies over his face. Sadness? Melancholy? Fury? I can’t put my finger on it. I barely have the strength to stay on my feet. Too much has happened too fast. Johar picks me up. I am lying in his arms, buried in his chest, as he carries me back to the bed as if I were the most precious thing he ever owned.
I have nothing to counter with. I don’t want to. The only things I want are for his arms to hold me, and his mouth to whisper sweet nothings, while he loves me.
And that is exactly what he does.
Chapter 10
I dream of Johar.
When I open my eyes, I still remember every detail from the dream. I am in my father’s lab, but this time, it is Johar who is lying on the table, being held down my metal clamps. My father, who is young again, leans over him and cuts open his ribcage. My head reaches up to the table edge, because I am still a child. I see Johar’s eyes. The gray-green seems dull, but he is still conscious. A small noise comes from his lips, and my child-self identifies it as a sound of pain. I walk around the table, out of my father’s bloody reach, and pet Johar’s fingers with a sticky child’s hand.
I wake up with the confusing feeling that this was not a dream, but a memory. It felt absolutely real, standing next to Johar and holding his hand. I glance at him. It is still early, and he is sleeping the light sleep of a machine-human. Surely, he knows that I am awake and is just keeping his eyes closed. Maybe he feels the same way I do, and doesn’t want to look reality in the eye. We have to forget this short episode, erase it from our memories. If only it were that easy! I cannot forget how much I needed him, and how he gave me exactly what I needed. But … a thought jerks me wide awake. I am ashamed to even be thinking this way, but the thought won’t let me go.
I could turn the cyborg off for a short time and erase last night. It isn’t as complicated as it sounds, and I had an excellent teacher in my father, after all.
No. Or
maybe? I imagine returning to the space ship. It will be bad enough that I have Shazuul and Hazathel in tow. Sooner or later, someone will notice that the cyborg and I have more of a connection than just a working relationship. I know exactly what my father would have to say about it. He would despise me. Maybe even cast me out. That is a risk I cannot take, no matter the feelings I have for this gorgeous machine-human next to me.
My fingers feel around for the switch on his neck. Right before I turn him off, Johar opens his eyes. I freeze, but he does nothing to stop me. He just stares at me. That is almost enough to make me change my mind, but with the last ounce of resolve I can muster, I turn him off.
I can’t stand his unseeing, dead eyes, and close them with a shiver. It feels like I have to tell myself 100 times that he isn’t dead. How can something really die, anyway, that isn’t really alive? For the first time in my life, I wonder if what my father did was right. Sure, the cyborgs have taken over the most dangerous things from the humans, because it doesn’t matter if a machine is destroyed or not. At least, that is what I used to think. But when I look at Johar, who is lying there like dead, I don’t think that’s true, anymore. I wipe the tears away that are falling all over his body.
Would Johar want me to erase his memory? I am at least saving him from the pain he would feel when I reject him. I have to, and I will. I have no choice but to carefully edit the hard drive.
It takes me less than half an hour to erase the memories of our night together. I start with the moment when he notices that I am having a bad dream, and ends with the moment when he is looking at me while my hand is looking for the off switch. When I turn him back on, I put on a neutral face and look at him expectantly.
Johar opens his eyes.
His hand reaches for me, and I am afraid that I didn’t erase his memories completely, after all. It is the gesture of a man who wants to pull his lover to him, so he can say hello with a kiss. My heart contracts and I look away from him. At the last second, I see him looking at his hand as if it is an object that has taken on a life of its own. I exhale. It was probably just a sparking synapsis that was continuing his last thought before I turned him off.
“Why is the blanket so damp?” he asks and sits up.
“No idea,” I lie. “Maybe I was sweating. It is pretty hot next to you in the bed.”
The double entendre gives him a lazy, familiar smile.
“So,” I say crisply, and hurry into the bathroom. “We should be on our way to the space port. It is already nine thirty, I still have to pack, and I wanted to take a shower, too …” I escape into business. “Did I tell you what Sherri told me yesterday about Cassie?” I yell, while the hot water runs down my body. It is a test and insurance, at the same time, because this conversation took place during the hours I erased, as well. I am afraid I am going to make a mistake and tell him why I am telling him everything again. When I am finished, he comes into the bathroom and hands me a towel without looking at me. One would think I was a piece of wood. It hurts so much that I close my eyes, because I am afraid that he will see the pain in them.
“Is something wrong?” he asks. “You are acting strangely this morning. Different from usual.” He looks at me searchingly. I give him my most radiant smile and hurry out of the bathroom, and slam the door shut behind me.
****
We arrive at the space port five minutes before 12. Shazuul and Hazathel are not there yet, so I take the opportunity to ask him why he wants to take Hazathel with us on our search for Cassie. “As far as I can tell, he will be of no help to us. Or does he have special abilities in tracing missing persons?”
“No, I don’t think so. His strengths are his speed and the poison that he can pump into his enemy’s body with one touch.”
My eyes almost pop out of my head, when I remember that Hazathel shook my hand. Now I understand why he was so extremely careful and barely touched me. I was very close to death and didn’t even know it. “You could have warned me silently…”
“And miss out on the fun of this moment right now?” His eyes sparkle with amusement. “Calm down. It is a purposeful decision, not a reflex, with which he applies the poison. You just have to be careful not to anger him. Other than that, your life is not in immediate danger.”
“Let’s get back to the point,” I remind him. He looks pointedly at the clock above the departures counter. “Why is Hazathel coming with us?”
“Because it was the only way to get him to talk and guarantee his cooperation.” I roll my eyes as he falls into bureaucratic speech.
“Got it,” I respond with a hint of sarcasm. “It has always been Hazathel’s dream to see Earth.”
Johar looks up. The force in his cold eyes hits me in the face. “It is his wish, to see Earth again,” he corrects me. “He still has family there. While he was being modified in your father’s lab, his wife and brother were looking for him, he says. He hasn’t dared to go near them in his current state, because he is not the man he used to be.”
“Okay,” I whisper with a raw voice, and raise my hand. “I get it.”
“Do you really?”
This isn’t good, not good at all. I am either having déjà-vu, or we are returning to the same conversation we had last night. I put my hand on my forehead, which feels unusually hot. I feel Johar’ eyes on me, searching and inquiring. Something is tickling my neck. Probably a mosquito or some kind of other insect. I scratch at the spot. It feels like something is under my skin there, but I don’t have time for trivial things like that right now. Time is getting away from us.
“What is taking them so long?” I ask nobody in particular and search the huge terminal for Shazuul and Hazathel. Our two new crew members are taking their sweet time. I fidget around restlessly. They are already 16 minutes late, and I hate tardiness. I turn around to ask Johar if we should leave without the two of them, or if we will have to stay on Betania longer. I haven’t the vaguest idea where Cassie and her lover fled to. I haven’t told Johar this yet, but I strongly suspect that Cassie and her man want to go back to Earth. Everything points to that. The strongest argument for this, in my eyes, is the pregnancy. Women who are about to give birth have a strong urge to nest, and surely, she would want to bring them into this world on her home planet. The medical care, thanks in part, to men like my father, is excellent. The dangers of the birth are distinctly fewer there than, say, here. I notice that my thoughts are wandering and turn around again, to talk to Johar.
But he is gone. Damn it. Have all the men gone crazy? Where has that guy gotten to?
Not a man, my father’s voice whispers in my head, he is not a man, and also not a guy. He is a cyborg. I breathe deeply and count to ten, trying to reassure myself that I am not going crazy. It must be the stress, the unusual experiences.
Then, finally, I see Hazathel and the Sethari, both of them waving to me excitedly. They are half an hour late, but are grinning, and looking very proud of themselves. I have to turn away so they won’t see my relief – and also not the unexpected happiness that I am feeling, looking at their glowing faces. “At least two out of three are happy,” I mumble something unrelated and their effusive apologies, which are tumbling out of both of them in a duet, wash over me.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say through clenched teeth. Twenty to one. We are supposed to take off at one o’clock. We have less than a quarter of an hour to take care of all of the formalities. All it will take is one grumpy official, and we will have to delay our departure. In my thoughts, I weigh my options. I could grab these two creatures and fly back myself. It has been a long time since I flew a space glider myself, but that is something you never unlearn, after all. I would leave Johar behind. I am pretty sure that he would do well here, maybe even better, than back on Earth. He would be free. Nobody would ever accuse him of being only half-human. The Betanians would accept him for what he is, and not for what others made out of him.
The second option is to blow off the departure and to postpone it for a da
y or two. We do not have a set schedule, although I don’t know for sure how far Cassie’s pregnancy has progressed and how long she will continue to carry the children. Is it nine months like human children or twelve months like the descendants of the Qua’Hathri? Or more quickly, because the other father of her child had animal genes in him? I curse silently to myself, but Johar is still gone.
I scratch myself again, but this time on my stomach. The tickling moves down further. Now it is down by my right leg. What in the hell is it? Without any consideration for the other passengers, who are already looking at me strangely, I pull the skirt of my dress up. At least I don’t have to let my pants down in public.
Now I feel nauseous. No, I think I am going to vomit. Something is moving under my skin! It looks like an animal making its way through my body, using my arteries as an express way. I can’t take my eyes off of this thing that is flitting back and forth, as fast as a spider, leaving a prickling behind as its only trace. Instinctively, I smack my hand on my thigh when I can. It would be better to kill this thing dead inside my body, than to have it wandering around in there any long. I exhale, relieved, when nothing moves. No tickling, no prickling. Everything is fine.
Until I feel it again, this time under the skin in my belly. I punch my belly with my fist, and then I pinch myself on my upper arm. Please, I beg, leave my body alone. The thought that this tiny something could make its way into my brain and feast on me is too much. I rip my clothes from me, and beat myself up, without caring if I get hurt, like a woman possessed. I am aware of the pain, but only vaguely. But I welcome it, because it means that I have landed a good punch. From what sounds like far away, I hear a woman scream. Is that me? I pull at my hair, because if the thing really wants to get into my brain, it will only be in my way. The fewer obstacles that loom between me and the thing in my body, the faster I can catch it and kill it.
The screaming stops when two arms close around me from behind. I am barely aware that this is happening, and only because my ability to move is restricted. Who dares to hold me like this? Don’t people understand that I am going to die if I can’t catch the cute little animal and squash it? Someone says my name, again and again, but I am beside myself and don’t pay attention to it. When the man, who is holding me in his arms, says something different to me, I listen a little more closely. “A switch to turn you off would be really nice right now.”
