Taste of Passion

by Renae Jones

  And then Fedni considered the packed waiting room. How many of them were worth more investment in medical care now, for a Federation based light-years away, than they had been to their own temple? What horrors had Rasmus pulled out from under the rug since coming to Xana?

  More silence, then Rasmus spoke. “Perhaps I’m not the one to ask. When I look at you right now, you’re beautiful. Injured, but beautiful.”

  It was cheesy and cliché and oddly comforting, exactly the sort of thing she’d expect Rasmus to say.

  The woman laughed brokenly. “Sky Lords, you really do. I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Your dominant sense? Hearing?”

  “Yes. I hear lies, deception...and truth.”

  “That’s useful.”

  The woman paused, distracted from her terror.

  “It’s very rude to just ask like that, by the way.”

  “I’ve been told I am a very rude person,” Rasmus commented dryly.

  Had Fedni said that? She didn’t think she’d said that.

  “By a Xanian?”

  “Oh yes.”

  More rustling, and the soft snick of a stylus on a cheap data pad.

  Fedni reached out, closing the curtain around her. Her curiosity about the woman’s injuries was turning restlessly in her mind, by turns looming and fading, sickly and bright. She would not be standing looking when they came out, though. She suspected her eavesdropping was a transgression Rasmus would not forgive.

  “We’re all done. I’ll see you next week.”

  “Of course. I look forward to it.”

  A pause, and Fedni knew what was coming, long before Rasmus did.

  “I look forward to our appointments so much... We should get together sometime, enjoy a show.” The woman’s voice dropped seductively at the end.

  Fedni wanted to sigh. It was clumsy and ill done. She’d gone from crying to come hither in about two seconds. Rasmus was kind, and an off-worlder, but neither made him stupid.

  “I’m afraid I do not court my patients,” Rasmus declined with just the right amount of polite regret in his voice.

  “Oh no, that’s fine. I didn’t mean...” The woman hastily changed her tack, abandoning seduction and jumping straight to sex. “I just meant, my body’s fine. And I’m good at satisfying a man. The best. If you ever have needs, I could satisfy you. No commitments. I didn’t mean courtship.”

  She didn’t even try to sink a hook in the bait. She would be completely reliant on Rasmus’s goodwill, if he took her up on it.

  Fedni closed her eyes, tasting both of them. Rasmus was dry, salty crackers, not attracted and slightly offended. The woman was paper, paper once handled by dirty hands. It was the most passionless exchange possible, the offer made out of calculation and met with resigned disgust.

  It was an offer Fedni could understand. In the demise of the temples, finding a benefactor was a popular move, one she had considered at length herself. And Rasmus would make a good benefactor—kind, enough money, some status but not considerate of it himself. How many people had seen this and thrown themselves at him?

  Rasmus answered slowly, and for the first time Fedni heard pity in his tone. “Since you’ve already taken the conversation out of the bounds of professionalism, I’m just going to say this. If your body were truly all you had left, shouldn’t you value it higher? Which I don’t agree with, by the way. I know you have a sharp mind, a strong will, a very useful dominant sense, and I barely know you.”

  Fedni expected outrage or maybe a good vicious set down—what her own reaction would be—but the woman responded in a shaky, broken voice.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “You didn’t offend me.” But she had, and the woman would hear it.

  “I’ll go, I’m sorry.” Her voice was shaky again, and the desperation back, making Fedni wonder about her sanity. It seemed a frail thing, too beaten to be damaged by just an injury, no matter how horrific.

  Fedni stood frozen as Rasmus solicitously saw the woman out. He was so polite, so careful of her feelings, just like he’d been of Fedni the morning after he saw her temple mark.

  Was this how he thought of her now, frail and damaged? Did he think he was her retirement plan? Fedni snuck out before Rasmus returned, her taste for confrontation gone.

  As quiet as she moved, it seemed her thoughts beat louder. Did he pity her? The look on his face while pulling at her hair had been anger, not pity. But the next day, that had been pity.

  Her memory returned to the woman’s words. “Who will I be?”

  Was Rasmus right? Was pity what Fedni deserved?

  And why did that question make her more sad than angry?

  * * *

  That evening, still burdened with doubt by what she’d overheard, she received another apology in a gorgeous rose-shaded envelope, smelling of chamomile and soft like cheesecloth in her hand. It was very Xanian—handmade, handwritten, contrite. It was the apology of a suitor, written in the inexpert script of a barbarian, on a paper embossed with an accent margin of silver squirrels. It made her smile.

  In the attached box were her pruning shears, neatly cleaned and oiled.

  She was tempted to not read it, worried it, too, would offer her more questions than answers. As she’d left the clinic, she’d realized it all hurt so badly not because she’d wanted him so badly (which she had), but because she’d taken such pride in her decision to pursue him. She’d failed, again, facing rejection over her status and temple, again. It was a new story with an ending grown familiar since the conquering.

  In her former life, when she deigned to accept a contract for a sum that could, and would, pay her expenses for years at a time, a man’s first and foremost response was polite gratitude, and a liberal helping of greedy lust. Back then, she’d been pursued romantically too―members of her caste interested in pursing a long-term partnership, or even lower-situated gallants holding out hope of an affair, used words and gifts and tricks to catch her fancy. She was the one to be won.

  When she’d bravely turned the tables with Rasmus and offered him her own budding interest, he’d showered it with scorn and distrust.

  But she’d cried that out. She was past it.

  With trepidation, she opened the note. It read:

  I have apologized, and that still stands. And now it seems I should apologize for my apology.

  I do not view you as a child, I promise that. I guess I was letting my experiences color my reactions.

  I work as a doctor assigned to the old Temple of Flesh campus. Many of my patients are former acolytes, still living in the run-down dormitories.

  I see their horrors daily. Often it’s old injuries―broken bones and scar tissue. Sometimes it’s suicide attempts, or just a horrifying lack of education or self-esteem.

  And they tell me their stories—pain and humiliation, abuse and rape. I do not hold the Temple of Flesh in high esteem.

  I’ve heard rumors of a big difference between serving in the Temple of Flesh and that of Passion. Yet, instead of seeing you as proof of that, I assumed you were a victim like so many of these people are, even years later.

  In the moment, it seemed if you were a victim, that would make me your attacker.

  But you are right that these are my issues. Everything I said was inappropriate.

  I apologize. Please forgive me.

  With sincerity and regret,

  Rasmus

  Fedni made dinner, cucurbits in a light mango sauce. As she moved from cooler to counter to cabinet, she held the letter in her left hand.

  Yes, the Temples of Flesh and Passion were very different places. She’d been taught that even as a child―the least dedicated children would be traded to the Temple of Flesh, which was a less glamor
ous, less luxurious place. She’d always known a Flesh patron was unlikely to include an amazing meal, a night of simple fun, in a contract.

  The injuries Rasmus described were not the same lack of pretty dresses she’d once feared.

  She spoke aloud, addressing the letter in front of her. “This is like the news vids. You work as a doctor, so you meet the injured. You see the worst.”

  And she’d seen, or heard, a hint of that too. Her memory of that conversation was branded on her mind.

  Then she set the scented paper down on her dining table, and brought over her bowl. The table was large, a proper dinner-party size, and made of a dark natural wood. Her salad bowl was tinted blue, handblown glass and delicate. The slices of green, yellow and red cucurbits made a colorful arrangement. She gazed at it for a moment, then fetched a full place setting―mat and napkin and silverware. She already had a fork; she didn’t need any of this, but she loved the visual effect.

  A dinner party for one. A bowl of color.

  Now she addressed her dinner. “And I see beauty, always. In dinner, in service. I’m surrounded by beauty. Perhaps I’m just like him, in opposite.”

  She was talking to herself. She needed to get out of her house more.

  After she ate, she composed a reply―a proper one. On an exquisite scented paper made of lemon peels and threads of coriander, using a cinnamon-scented ink, she laboriously formed a perfectly scripted note.

  She let him know his apology was accepted, and his motives understandable. She promised nothing more.

  * * *

  Too early in the morning, she peered from her front window, past the foliage of a giant hibiscus, marking when Rasmus left for work. He was eating a food bar, juggling a thermos, wearing a bag on his waist and acting the hurried professional in every detail. He had no scruff.

  A safe distance in his wake, she emerged, heading for the lev rail. It was time to fulfill her resolution to leave her house more.

  She’d chosen a park she’d never visited before, in the middle of a luxury-caste neighborhood she knew passingly. It was out of her way and obscure and somehow she hoped that would make it an adventure. When she arrived, the park stretched in the distance, open and green, and full of children playing and local residents getting exercise.

  She approached the path into the park with a light trepidation. She was luxury caste, she always had been, yet sometimes she feared someone would use the closing of her temple to refuse her an entrance. In her nightmares, sometimes, a polite woman in a pretty sundress would call for the police, accurately exclaiming that Fedni had no temple. Calling her casteless.

  It was a stupid fear, in the light of day. It was illegal, now, to restrict who could enter a public place based on caste. At most, her reception would be chilly, but the police would not come. Still, it was a fear that hovered, like a monster at the bottom of a dark pond.

  Once she was on the path, her fears receded. It was a park like any other―more open than a park in the city center, with more children and fewer couples or workers on lunch. But it was just a park.

  As she walked, she passed many pairs on sunning outings. A child or teen in a simple school uniform would walk with a parent, a mom or dad usually in their work clothes. Most children went to live at a temple when they were seven, but responsible parents were still there for phone calls and visits and sunning outings once or twice a week when the student had a break in lessons.

  Her own sunning outings were some of her fondest memories. Her mother had felt sunning while shopping was just as healthful as the park version, and spent the time spoiling her, when she came at all.

  At the park’s center was a grand arrangement of ground slides, which is where the young children congregated. Rough-and-tumble toddlers and more coordinated six-year-olds stood in short lines, waiting for their next chance at a slide. Parents sat nearby on benches, surrounded by seasonal flowers, watching for spills, conversing with other parents. And attendants in red-and-white stripes hurried by with brooms as big as they were.

  Fedni took a seat at the edge of the crowd, on a bench near a slide that was currently closed. A smile already filled her face.

  Watching children slide was something of a mood cure-all. Who could feel lonely, watching children run and throw themselves at the super-slick surface of a slide? They would tumble against the bumpers, screaming laughter until they slid to a stop against the foam at the end of their lane.

  The next slide over, she watched a little boy have a go. He was a toddler in a cloth-covered helmet and thick padding, with his mother helping him get the hang of it. He ran as hard as he could for the slide, little steps turning the short distance into a long journey. At the transition to gray oiled plastic, he threw himself at the ground, bouncing more than sliding. He still crowed with delight.

  His mother let him scoot around on his belly for a minute, then picked him up before the rest of the line could get impatient. The mother was a short woman, in half-length pants and a white quilted, sleeveless vest, a sort of parent’s uniform for every caste, comfortable and with many pockets. She was laughing, her mouth wide and her hair pulled into a braid.

  She looked familiar.

  Fedni stared, searching the woman’s features. She looked just like a girl she’d known in school. One of her eyes was just a bit lower on her face than the other, like Kelsa’s had been. For both, it threw the symmetry of their faces out of alignment.

  Once she recognized the similarity in their eyes, the resemblance vanished. It wasn’t Kelsa all grown up. The woman was a stranger who, luckily, hadn’t noticed Fedni staring.

  Now she thought of Kelsa, though. Fedni hadn’t known her well, or thought of her in years, but they’d been the same age. They’d shared classes and seen each other around.

  Kelsa’s eyes and her coarse features had been damning in the Temple of Passion. As she grew into a young preteen, the word ugly had been whispered behind her back. Or said to her face. Fedni had never been one of those girls, the vicious ones, but she’d still witnessed a few taunts that made her sad to remember.

  Beauty wasn’t everything, not in Passion, but with a face such as Kelsa’s was, she would have needed an amazing personality to find success.

  On her second choosing, shortly after she turned twelve, no one had been surprised when she left. Her friends said her service had been sold to the Temple of Flesh―again, not surprising. The two temples shared many of the same skills, but a visit to the lower-caste temple wasn’t about beauty, desire, passion. It was a physical need that must be sated for continued mental health.

  Fedni’s mouth tasted like dry ash, the taste inspired for once by her own emotion. The words from Rasmus’s apology haunted her. Scars. Lack of education. Low self-esteem. Was Kelsa one of his patients?

  Fedni glanced back at the woman, the stranger with the cute child. The boy was back in line, and the woman was sitting on a bench, talking animatedly with another woman. It was impossible to guess her temple from her clothing, but she was luxury caste. She could be a land owner, or a world-health scientist, or a business dealer.

  She looked happy and healthy, and Fedni had a feeling whatever she did, the alignment of her eyes had never been a serious issue. Probably a source of endless teenage angst, sure, and perhaps an issue when dating―though something had gone right there. She had a baby to dote on. But only if she’d been born to parents from the Temple of Passion would her appearance have been able to bring her ruin.

  Fedni sighed. She’d managed to avoid Rasmus, but her mind tread the same circles.

  Kelsa’s parents shouldn’t have sold her service to the Temple of Passion. They should have violated tradition, and sold her elsewhere. Or maybe her mother never earned out her own Temple of Passion contract, and had had no choice.

  She went back to watching children slide. She smiled at more toddlers, the
n at skillful five-year-olds, older daredevils who tried to stand while sliding and got yelled at by the attendants. She refused to leave until she’d recaptured her peace.

  As she headed home, sitting primly in the first cream-upholstered lev car, once reserved for the luxury caste, her thoughts returned to Rasmus. If she told him about Kelsa, how would he look at her then?

  She sighed. She’d have nightmares again that night, as she had the night before. Even in daylight, all of her memories were taking on more sinister contexts. Veils she hadn’t realized were there were falling away from her eyes, and she was seeing the ugly in previously innocent aspects of her upbringing.

  And if she ran into Rasmus now, he would surely finish the job of driving her crazy; she checked the time, to be sure he was working. Then she decided she was an idiot. She wasn’t stupid for wanting to avoid him―that was an important need.

  She was stupid for not avoiding Rasmus properly.

  She arrived back home to obsess over travel guides, investigating amazing spas and retreats hidden in the carefully sculpted wilds. Through pictures, she admired lush jungles and temperate pine forests and the sea of lights at Chabliss.

  Quite easily, she found one that interested her. It was a painting retreat for non-artists, nestled at the base of one of the hundred great peaks (which, in actuality, numbered thirty-six). The cost was steep―but then she realized this would count as a reeducation credit for her. An attempt to reeducate herself meant a four-month extension on the money she received from the government, the pittance that barely paid her base expenses.

  With that money figured in... Well, it was still expensive. But she had the excuse she wanted. She booked a two-week stay, far away from her crazy off-worlder neighbor.

  * * *

  Fedni locked the gilt-and-glass door of a little boutique at the edge of the diamond district, nestled between a swanky custom electronics shop and an antiques seller. The lock-up ritual was becoming familiar after two months of working there, closing up in the evening while the lights on the street switched from twilight dim to full-dark bright.