No, definitely not ugly.
But then, Sha reem had been programmed to be perfect.
Soft air wafted through the artificially cool room scented with sandalwood. The lecturer, an older woman with a voice like mellow wood, droned on.
Talan had always loved her time of learning and meditation in the school of her Way, but after she’d met the Sha reem, she’d had a hard time concentrating.
These ladies had no idea , she thought, glancing at their closed eyes, bowed heads, and furrowed brows. They had not read Lady Ursula’s diary. They had never seen a Sha reem male.
Magnificently tall, broad of shoulder, strong, sexual.
He embodied everything forbidden in the Way of the Star. Everything shunned by modern philosophy.
Bor Narga was a highly advanced civilization. In a time when people could manipulate genetics and produce children outside a woman’s body, coupling was unnecessary. Sex had been deemed animalistic. Thinking humans did not need it.
Sex, in fact, took away from the better things in life. One needed a clear head to meditate and study and write. Sexual appetites pulled a woman down.
A woman could still marry and have children, of course. She would seek a man who wanted a marriage of minds, and then they’d donate their DNA to the Ministry of Families to create a pleasing child.
A woman did not need carnality.
Or Sha reem.
Talan had been perfectly happy to follow her path. She liked the Way and the friends she’d made in it.
Until she’d found the diary.
Lady Ursula d’Mato of the Way of the Star had spent one sinful week twenty years ago with a Sha reem called Brandt. He’d taught her many, many things, and she’d written all about them in her diary. The descriptions had been earthy and most detailed.
Lady Ursula had started her week with mild curiosity and had finished it never wanting it to stop.
They diary had broken off after she’d left for her last encounter with Brandt. There were no further entries and no more records of Lady Ursula after that.
Talan had asked her foster mother, Lady Petronella, if she knew what had become of the woman, but Lady Pet didn’t know. She hadn’t known Lady Ursula very well and had assumed the woman had moved off-planet.
The diary had given Talan strange dreams. She’d dream of a Sha reem doing the things Lady Ursula described.
He’d strip the coverings off the bed, Talan’s nightclothes from her body. He’d lick the underside of her arm, then the inside of her thighs. He’d touch her with fingers sensuous and slow.
Talan would wake up with her own fingers pressing against her opening and her cream everywhere.
She’d wanted to see a real Sha reem, just to look at one.
And so when she’d spotted the Sha reem—Rees—she’d felt compelled to follow him.
Talan had thought a Sha reem would be different. More alien. More bizarre than the normal human male, certainly.
But he’d been so real. He smelled real and looked real and felt real.
Her reaction when he looked at her had completely unnerved her.
He had suggested so casually that she’d followed him because she wanted her first fuck. Her nipples had tightened, and her cream had started to flow.
A Sha reem could trick a woman with his touch and his voice, but this one hadn’t needed to try very hard.
When he’d asked her to come for a swim, she’d had to stop her arms from flinging off her clothes and her feet from running out into the ocean.
She’d imagined the cool water caressing her naked skin, imagined him smiling a Sha reem smile at her, imagined him reaching for her. The feeling called lust had woken up and waved for her attention.
Her reaction made her realize she’d easily given up carnality because she’d never felt it before. Easy to give up sweets if you’ve never tasted any.
Talan had been a voyeur to Lady Ursula’s one forbidden week. She’d wanted to see more.
And now, she wanted to experience what Lady Ursula had.
She looked out of the corners of her eyes to the ladies around her. They had no idea what she was thinking, they did not know that her cream was flowing just remembering the Sha reem and his smile.
The Sha reem’s touch had softened her mind, opened it.
There in that lecture room, while her beloved teacher began the chant about giving up bodily pleasure, Talan made her decision.
“Lady Pet,” Talan said that night at home.
Lady Petronella d’Naris set her silver fork on the china plate, brought all the way from Earth. Lady Petronella always insisted on the best.
“Yes, dear?”
“I met a Sha reem.”
Lady Pet’s crystal wineglass froze halfway to her mouth. “You did?”
“Yes. Two weeks ago.”
Lady Pet raised her brows, set down the wineglass. “Talan, you naughty girl, you never told me. Did you like him?” She waved her hand. “What am I saying, of course you did. No one is dissatisfied with a Sha reem.”
Talan’s face grew hot. “I didn’t mean I had sex with him,” she said quickly. “I met him. I talked to him.”
“Talked? Talan, you don’t talk to a Sha reem. That’s not what they’re for.”
“I did.”
Lady Pet sighed. “You are the oddest girl I ever raised.”
“I’m the only girl you ever raised,” Talan pointed out.
“I know that. And I’ve failed utterly. Else you’d not have fallen into this odd philosophy twaddle, and think you are supposed to talk to a Sha reem.” She shuddered. “Ladies didn’t think that way in my day. We liked men. What is the world coming to?”
She went silent a moment, then her eyes widened. “Oh, dear, you did not try to preach your no-appetite philosophy to a Sha reem, did you? I hope he didn’t know you were my foster daughter.”
“No.” Talan turned her wineglass uneasily. She had confided her encounter to no one, not even Lady Pet, who had embarrassingly rabid appetites and didn’t mind talking about sex.
“I did not really know what to say to him. I just babbled.”
“Well, never mind what you said. What did he say?”
Talan frowned. “I don’t really remember. What he said seems so unimportant, now, but at the time, I was riveted. Does that make sense?”
“Of course. They can charm you just by saying hello. That’s how they were programmed.” She licked her lips. “How delicious.”
“I am researching them,” Talan said.
“Researching? Talan, you are strange.”
Talan had loaded the Sha reem’s DNA into her computer. The monitor had obligingly shown her pretty helixes, color-enhanced by the program.
Rees’ DNA had not looked different from a human’s. She’d compared it to her own and to that of one of Lady Pet’s male servants. They had all looked remarkably the same.
“They are as human as we are,” she said slowly.
“Well, I know that.” Lady Pet picked up her wineglass again. “They have manipulated DNA, not completely different. People who say they aren’t human tell you that because they are afraid of Sha reem. And sex.”
“I want to meet one.”
“You just said you did.”
“I didn’t mean like that.” Talan flushed. She could not continue.
Lady Pet smiled suddenly. “I am proud of you, Talan.”
Talan blinked. “Why?”
“For not being narrow-minded. I suppose you would like this Sha reem you’ve already met?”
“His name is Rees,” she said, her throat dry.
Lady Pet picked up her fork. “Would you like me to find him for you?”
“Yes,” Talan said hoarsely.
“Excellent. Anything to keep you from bleating about how women don’t need to have sex.” She started eating again.
Talan did not rise to the bait. She drank her wine, feeling flushed and at the same time excited.
If anyone could find
one Sha reem in a teeming city of millions, it was Lady Pet. She’d bring Rees home for Talan and gloat about it.
Talan believed in her Way, and she wanted to follow it. But she wanted to know, just briefly, like Lady Ursula, what it was she’d give up.
A small dose of carnality, and then nothing, forever.
She shivered. She didn’t know why. But in Rees’ eyes, there had been something.
Dangerous.
Nonsense , she thought. He would be here, in her home. With Lady Pet and servants nearby. How dangerous could he be?
But something still made her uneasy.
The way he smiled. The way he said her name. The way he invited her to swim.
She had a feeling she would either regret this, or treasure the memory for the rest of her life.
Probably both.
* * * * *
“So what have you got for me?” Rio asked.
Rio , a level three Sha reem, stood six foot seven and had black hair and Sha reem-blue eyes. He liked to wear black leather.
“I’m working on it,” Rees said.
They were in the bazaar. Acrid scents of spices and incense floated to them. One stall held a jumble of computer and robot parts sold by a man who insisted they’d work with just a little fix-up.
The stalls opened from each vendor’s caravan. They were collapsible, so that when an inevitable sandstorm blew through, the vendors could quickly slide everything back into the caravan, don their breath masks and huddle inside to wait it out.
Everyone carried a breath mask, fully charged. To get caught in a sandstorm without one meant certain death.
“I want off this rock,” Rio said under his breath.
Rees gave him a look, but no one had heard.
Rio’s problem was simple. Sha reem were not allowed off Bor Narga, and Rio wanted to go.
Most Sha reem came to Rees with their problems. He was not their leader by any means, but he knew people. He knew people who knew people. And he could get people to do things for him.
“I know,” Rees said. “But it’s not simple.”
“I know it’s not simple,” Rio growled. “I never said it was simple.”
“So shut up and let me work on it.”
Rio gave him a look, but shut his mouth, thank the gods. The last thing Rees needed was for them both to be arrested for even talking about leaving the planet.
Women gave them sidelong looks as they passed. Rio grinned back at them.
Rio’s motto was, have whip, will use it. Anytime, anywhere. Just ask me.
These ladies looked like they wanted to ask him.
“Come with me,” Rio suggested to Rees. He was still talking about blasting out of Bor Narga.
Rees considered digitals he’d seen of cool green worlds, long sandy beaches and mountains reaching to the sky.
Bor Narga was dry and empty. It had rugged mountains and sand-filled seas. Not much else.
“No,” he said. “I like it here.”
Rio gave him a look. “You’re crazy, you know that?”
He wouldn’t understand.
I met a girl.
And what a girl. Rees kept dreaming about her. Long red hair on the pillow, blue eyes heavy with desire. Lips soft on his flesh. Her pretty voice saying his name. Saying thank you.
His dreams were all mixed up. Level one, level two, and level three pleasure fantasies swirled through him one after another.
He wanted to rip off her clothes and fuck her until she screamed. He wanted to slowly slide oil all over her body, listen to her soft voice telling him how much she liked it.
He wanted to tie her to the bed and spank her sweet ass until it was red.
He’d wake up hard and hot and have to spend the rest of the night in his old-fashioned water shower with the temperature set to freezing.
He wasn’t getting much sleep.
“So when will you be done working on it?” Rio asked, impatient.
Rees snapped back to the present. “I’m talking to a pilot this afternoon. I’ll tell you tonight.”
“Meet up at Judith’s place?”
Judith ran a bar down in Pas City, the heart of the old town. “Yeah. Works for me.”
“Hope you have good news for me, boy-o,” Rio growled. “Or I’ll have to find a beautiful woman to take it out on.”
“And you’ll hate every minute of that.”
Rio laughed. All women within earshot of that Sha reem-enhanced laughter turned and sent longing looks at him.
“Watch it,” Rees said. “You’ll be accused of starting a riot.”
Rio’s laughter died. “That’s why I want out of here,” he said in a low voice. “I want to find a place where seventeen women can follow me home without me being accused of disturbing the peace. At least, not until after I get home. Then I’ll disturb it plenty.”
“Your ego is planet-sized,” Rees remarked.
“Just like my cock,” Rio said smugly.
“I’ve seen your cock. Don’t brag.”
“Hey, boy-o. Every time you’ve seen my cock, it was going in a woman screaming for it.”
“Or screaming for you to stop.”
Rio laughed again. He never stayed down for long. “They never want me to stop. See you tonight then.” He peered at Rees’ face. “And get some sleep. You look awful.”
Rio walked away, whistling. Sha reem could not stay depressed, so went the theory. They could not be deeply hurt, or grieve, or love. In theory.
Rees knew that despite Rio’s hot and cold moods, he really did want off Bor Narga. He wanted to go someplace he could be human. Somewhere no one had ever heard of Sha reem.
Rio was Rees’ best friend, and he’d do what it took to help him.
Rees turned down an alley, heading toward a dock where an unscrupulous woman pilot he knew might be bribed to smuggle out a Sha reem. But would she stay bribed and not sell Rio out to the first patrol skimmer that happened by?
That’s what he needed to find out.
Rees looked behind him and saw a litter—an upper-class means of transport that floated on an anti-grav hover—surrounded by four burly men, following him.
Unusual. Most upper-class women who wanted the forbidden delights of the Sha reem sent for them or smuggled themselves to them. They didn’t announce themselves by taking litters into the back streets.
But an upper-class woman had followed him to a rather seedy holo-block just a few weeks ago.
His heart beat faster. Talan.
He stopped and politely let the litter catch up to him.
One of the bodyguards, a man who looked like he didn’t bother with intelligence, said, “You Rees?”
Generally, Rees would ask who wanted to know. But his whole body knew Talan waited in that litter.
Any minute, she’d pop her head out between the sun-blocking curtains and ask in her sweet voice if he’d come in and fuck her for three days without stopping.
“Yeah, I’m Rees,” he said.
The bodyguard gestured to the litter. “Get in.”
Rees wasn’t stupid. Not usually. But his mind was filled with images of Talan—never-ending, cock-throbbing images. She was in there. He could smell her.
He lifted the sun curtain. The litter was empty.
He took a step back. He opened his mouth to say “Fuck off” but he never got there.
A stun rod bit through his tunic and he crashed against the bodyguard. A black hood went over his head and cold metal locked his wrists together.
The bodyguard shoved Rees into the litter. He only got the “Fff…” out of his mouth before he lost consciousness altogether.
* * * * *
“What did you do?”
Talan stared in horror at the bound and hooded Rees stretched out on Lady Pet’s cool, tiled entrance hall.
Behind her, a fountain trickled, belying the heat and dust of the outer world. On the stairs beyond that, Lady Pet watched, interested.
“He didn’t want to come,” the
bodyguard said defensively.
Talan swung around and glared at Lady Pet.
“It’s no use looking at me,” her foster mother said. “It took me forever to find him, and I told them under no circumstances was he to get away. I suppose they took me literally.”
Talan made an exasperated noise and hurried down the stairs to the recumbent figure. He was still out.
Talan gently loosened the black silk hood and drew it off over his head.
Dust creased Rees’ face. His dark blond hair was pulled back from his face, like before. His eyes were closed, and dark blond lashes lay against his cheeks.
His mouth was a pale line above a square jaw. She had an irresistible urge to kiss it.
“Rees,” she whispered. She touched his cheek.
His eyes moved behind his eyelids. He made a faint moan, then he opened his eyes.
“Rees, it’s me. Remember me? From the holo-block?”
Rees looked at her, and his eyes focused. “Talan.”
His voice was as smooth and seductive as she remembered. The two syllables of her name never sounded so enticing.
Rees had blue eyes. Sha reem-blue , Lady Ursula’s diary called it.
The irises were larger than a normal humans’ and flecked with black. When a Sha reem was aroused, the irises expanded. They could fill almost their entire eyes with mesmerizing blue.
Rees’ eyes drew her gaze, now, as they had in the holo-block. They said, you’re beautiful.
His hands were still bound. “This could be fun if all these people weren’t here,” he murmured to her.
“I’m sorry,” Talan said. “They had no right to do that to you.”
He stared as though she was insane.
Lady Pet said, “You don’t apologize to Sha reem, Talan. You want one, he comes. That is what they have to do.”
“You could at least be polite.”
Rees looked like he was trying not to laugh.
“Rees, would you like to be a guest in my house?” Talan asked him.
“He doesn’t have a choice, Talan,” Lady Pet said.
Rees looked around him at the vaulted ceiling and paintings around the skylights, at the marble stairs Lady Pet stood on.
“I have a choice,” he said. He looked back at Talan. “I’ll stay.”
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