New Kings of Tomorrow

by J. M. Clark

  “Hello, Gramps. You feeling alright this morning, or we needing to grab your cane so you can make it back to your pod after morning enrichment?”

  Trevor let out a huge bellow of laughter and slapped Jacob on the back, maybe a bit harder than necessary. “Funny guy over here. You ready to get your brain scrambled a bit for breakfast?” Trevor said under his breath.

  It was an inside joke between the friends about morning enrichment classes. Trevor liked to call it indoctrination. Jacob wouldn’t go that far, but he thought everyone was a bit brainwashed to some extent. It really depended on the message. The teachings weren’t religious in nature or anything like that.

  The Order had outlawed religion. The teachers sent from the government taught that religious institutions were a huge part of where things went wrong in the Old World. It had always been a crutch of mankind to create deities that were empathetic to them. Having a scapegoat to justify killing and thievery didn’t hurt either.

  The morning enrichment (also known as ME) lessons were discussions about healthier ways of thinking and reconciling emotions in a beneficial way. Trevor always called it “egghead bullshit.” He had a way with words. Those who had a propensity to fly off at the mouth about the teachings and lectures would be seen as volatile and in need of mental evaluations. Which would then lead to negative marks on their files, and that would ultimately make it harder to get into the Greater Understanding Program. Such behavior could even result in banishment from the Palace, and everyone knew what that meant.

  Jacob had everything he could want or need here, and somehow, he still found himself unhappy more than he would like to admit. Trevor had expressed the exact same feeling. Lots of depression, but because you get your head tampered with if you say too much, most never do.

  He’d seen depressive behavior in some of the other Palace people. Like his friend and usual relations partner, Mary. A girl of about twenty years old, beautiful face, high cheekbones, and long black hair that reached down to her bottom, she would have been modeling in someone’s magazine in the Old World. But that world was gone, so instead she spent her days learning to try to be a perfect person, talking his ear off about the Old World, and having the occasional sexual encounter with Jacob or any other male that suited her fancy. Mostly Jacob though; they broke the rules together in that regard quite a bit. Relations exercises were only once a week with an appointed partner, and anything outside of that would be considered sex for the sake of sex. This was not allowed.

  The sex act itself had been flipped on its head in the Palace. Sex was no longer what it was before for Jacob: something that involved passion, sometimes love, and excitement (if he was lucky). Relations exercises served the purpose of either reproduction or health benefits. He thought there was more between him and Mary though, and he didn’t know how to feel about that. Jacob hadn’t felt anything for any woman since Leanne. It was complicated for him because that relationship seemed to be in limbo. He had never found out for sure that she had died, and the possibility that she was in some other Palace somewhere always floated in the dark recesses of his mind no matter how much he tried to convince himself that she was gone. Palace members could only be in contact with members from their own Palace. There were no phones or internet access to communicate with anyone on the outside.

  “Apostle Paul gonna get started here soon, or can we go back to our pods?” Trevor whispered to Jacob with a short elbow stab to his ribs and a smirk.

  Jacob leaned in closer. “Better keep it down before someone hears you. Lots of ears around in here.” He looked straight ahead as Teacher Paul entered the room, wearing his carefully ironed black suit complete with dark blue tie and shiny black dress shoes. This attire served as the uniform for all the teachers. There were no female teachers in the Palace, but there were females in high positions and in the child center. Even in the security squad.

  “I don’t give a shit,” Trevor whispered as he sat back in his seat.

  Jacob almost laughed out loud, He choked back the giggles and kept his focus on the front of the room.

  “Hello family,” Teacher Paul began. “I’m giving thanks to Mother Earth today for allowing us the chance to be here with one another in this moment, for every moment is precious and nothing is promised. It’s great to see you all, and I’m very excited for today’s topic. Is anyone else excited?” Teacher Paul ran his small bony hand through the few scraggly strands of graying hair on his head and stared out into the room.

  Forty pairs of eyes sat in white chairs facing him. Each Palace member came with a notepad and pen in hand to take notes on the lecture. The entire room was white, from the walls to the white marble flooring. It was the trademark décor in all the ME session rooms. Long beams of light on the ceiling illuminated the room, making it brighter than necessary.

  “We are,” the entire room responded, like a choir singing about the good Lord. Always “we are,” because there was no longer an “I” from the collective.

  “Good, good. I like to hear that.” Teacher Paul came from behind the desk and stood in front of the class. He stared at every single person in the session, not saying a word, just looking at everyone for what seemed to be a minute or so. Jacob could see the cogs turning in his head.

  “If I were to ask you, ‘Why do you become angry or sorrowful when someone that you care for passes away,’ what would you say?” He began to walk up the center aisle between the seats. Everyone stared at him, following his movements and voice.

  “You would probably say that you were sad to lose that person, or that they were too good to be gone so soon, right? In the Old World, people praised different gods. Theoretically, these gods would be waiting for you upon your death, and you would live with them in happiness, doing whatever it is that humans do with gods after moving on to the afterlife, right?”

  Teacher Paul reached the back of the classroom and turned to head back down the aisle. He had a way of making the rhythm of his words match the rhythm of his movements. The type of man who knew when he had an audience paying attention to his every word.

  “Now, if we really believed what we say we did as far as the afterlife, back in the Old World that is, why would we be so guilt-ridden and overcome with pain when those we loved died? According to the old teachings, we should be excited for them, elated even. Sure, our best friend may have just smashed in his cranium while driving drunk, but that’s okay, because now he gets to be in the afterlife with insert idol god’s name, right?”

  Jacob wiped a tear from his eye, hoping that no one saw him, and went back to jotting on his notepad.

  Why are you crying, you big idiot? He didn’t know why he was shedding tears about shit that happened so long ago. He should have been over it by now. He wasn’t though, that was clear. He was a forty-year-old grown man and still hadn’t dealt with the loss of his parents and everyone else in his life. Leanne in particular was a soft spot. Thinking of her made him ashamed of what he did. Or better yet, didn’t do.

  He never got the chance to go see her after finding out she was sick. She had probably died alone while he sat in the hallway of his parents’ home, blubbering like a child. She deserved better than that; she deserved better than him.

  “You see, we never got excited about the untimely deaths of our loved ones because somewhere in a dark corner of our hearts we all knew they weren’t in heaven…or hell for that matter. They were just gone, no longer around, and this was enough of a reason to cry and mourn. That person becomes a memory, and then at some point even that goes away, and they become forgotten. And that’s what we fear, becoming like that person, a memory…forgotten.”

  Teacher Paul sat down in his seat and opened the floor up for discussion. The session was lively, with many different speakers giving their two cents and probing teacher Paul for more gems on the topic. Jacob didn’t take part. For the remainder of the time he jotted down things here and there, but he was still thinking about Leanne and the day his life changed forever. These m
orning enrichments were meant to bring old memories and mind-sets boiling back up to the top of your brain, forcing you to deal with them. He could deal with most of the lessons in the Palace, but having to think back to what he lost and would never get back was too much.

  He and Trevor were alike in that way. Jacob didn’t hear him speaking either. When he turned to look at his friend, he was staring down at his desk. Trevor had been like that for the majority of the session. It hurt Jacob to see the man like that, but somewhere inside, they all were “like that.” The important question now was: How deep could you bury those feelings?

  Chapter Twelve

  Mary

  His fingers grazed her soft lips, feeling for the wet center of her mouth as he slammed his penis deep inside of her repeatedly. Mary loved when he put two fingers into her mouth during their relations exercises, which felt more like “sex” to her, as they called it in the Old World. She liked that though; it was like night and day when compared to what she had experienced with other men.

  Oh my God, I think I love him…does he know?

  She felt his fingers curl over her bottom row of teeth, giving her something to suck on so she could keep from crying out too loudly. Mary laid on her back, looking up at Jacob, meeting his thrusts. She saw the intensity in his eyes as his heavy panting quickened, and he gave her all she could handle and more. He had both of her legs wrapped around his body, one hand supporting himself on the bed, the other pacifying her moans.

  “You like that, don’t you?” he said in a winded voice. Mary was not used to men speaking during relations exercises. There was nothing to speak about, only the job of procreation and the benefit of physical exercise in a social setting. It felt more like a duty to her. This though? No, this felt like so much more. It felt like everything.

  This position would be their fourth or fifth of the night, she didn’t know. She couldn’t remember. It all felt like a whirlwind of powerful orgasms, excitement, and being lost in passion so deeply that nothing else mattered in that moment.

  The Palace, the teachers, the tenants…her very own moral compass could piss off.

  “Yes, yes…Oh yes!” she mumbled as she attempted to answer him from around his fingers creeping over her tongue. Mary could feel him deep in her stomach, stretching her, forcefully pulling her into yet another moment of climax as she bit down on those fingers of his.

  Jacob never missed a beat, the rhythmic stroking never breaking stride. Mary could see the fierceness in his eyes intensify and a smile creep over his lips. He loved bringing her to the precipice of an orgasm and watching it play out over her face. The way her eyes shot open, the way she bit down on her lip (or his fingers), and the tremors from her body as she shook and jerked involuntarily. Mary knew he loved all of it, because he had told her as much in bed only days before.

  He took both his hands and grabbed both her wrists, lowering himself down to her level, their chests touching, his face on the side of hers. She could feel his breathing calm, almost as if he were holding his breath. Mary could feel a pulsing feeling from inside of her, a throbbing as Jacob let out a light moan. She knew he was trying to contain himself and not be too loud as he came inside of her.

  He pulled out and rolled off her body, onto his side, and she could feel his seed spill out of her vagina, trickling down onto the bed between her legs. Mary turned onto her side, facing him. His eyes were already closed. She smiled.

  She intertwined her legs with Jacob’s and felt the hard course hairs of his beard brushing over the soft delicate skin of her forehead. Mary accepted that she was the happiest in these moments. It was wrong though. She should just carry out the act of sex and move on with her day, not get swept up in the act itself and the moments of peace after.

  This was a physical relations exercise and nothing more. But telling herself that was a lie when she was with Jacob. It felt different with him. Wrapped in his arms, Mary could feel her heart catch the same rhythm as his, beating in sync with his. The teaching said: “We are all individuals, but we come together to become whole.” That was meant within the parameters of humanity, not man and woman individually.

  Man gave the woman a child, and the woman bore that child into the world. These were the basics of the man-woman sexual relationship. Somehow in the Old World, things got misconstrued and people came to believe that they owned each other. That was wrong, clearly. Everyone knows what happened twenty years ago. Still…when she was encapsulated in Jacob’s arms, she did not feel like just an individual—she felt something more.

  Mary took in air through her nose, smelling him, so close. This was her favorite part. The smell that he gave off—it was different from all the others. Mary knew that in the world before the sickness, a woman was not considered old enough for a “proper” sexual relationship until she was eighteen years old. It was never explained what made that age the age of responsibility.

  Here in the Palace, you could begin sexual exercises the second you were physically ready to reproduce. This age was different for everyone, but being ready was based on your body, not your mind. At age ten, Palace members were considered old enough and mature enough to make the same decisions as everyone else.

  As a child in the Palace, Mary’s first memories were that of the child center and her peers. Sure, there were watchers there to make sure everyone had food and drink, had clothes to wear, and got through the day safely, but there was very little coddling from the teachers. Children could interact with each other and learn in that way to gain independence. The idea was that it would teach the children to be self-sufficient and work together to reach common goals. This foundation would hopefully carry over to adulthood.

  She could feel Jacob’s breath all over her. His body suddenly jerked, but he didn’t wake. It was a hypnic jerk, something that happened right before you fell into a deep sleep. Raising her head up to kiss his lips, she helped him relax again so that he might sleep peacefully. He was beautiful to her.

  She’s stayed in his pod much longer than she should have. She never did this with any of the other men. And even though there were others, Jacob was her favorite. He was different—in so many ways that she could not even begin to understand. This strong feeling that she kept hidden deep inside felt so foreign to her, but at the same time, it felt like home. Maybe because he was not a Palace-born human like all the others she’d had relations with. The desire to be around him all the time was so strong that sometimes she couldn’t help but to cry about it when she lay in bed alone in her own pod. She’d never told him that though.

  Mary freed one of her arms and placed a hand on the side of his face, caressing his jawline and bringing her fingers though his beard as she stared up at his face. She loved that.

  With the other men, she didn’t feel a closeness. There was no attachment. It was “Wham bam, thank you ma’am,” and she was back to the next thing on her daily agenda. With Jacob, it was something more. Something she couldn’t quite put words to. The way he moved, touched her, and looked into her eyes during relations drove her absolutely insane. It left her mind and body whirling out of control like a ribbon swept up in a tornado.

  “I really should go back to my own pod now,” she said softly, but she didn’t move. While she loved the time she got with Jacob, she would often leave totally confused and questioning all that she’d been taught. That was dangerous, because everything here was based on buying into the tenets. The goal was to get into the Greater Understanding Program—to get back out into the world and help with repairing the damage that was created by the sickness. There was so much cleaning, repurposing the earth, and repairing damage to be done that things would not be ready for a full transition from Palace to outside living for another twenty or thirty years. This information was shared with her from Teacher Paul, and she was told not to share it with anyone. Especially the people from the Old World.

  The sooner she could get out there to help, the better. This had been her life’s goal since she could remember. At
only twenty years old, she was as wise and mature as a forty-year-old from the Old World. That wasn’t saying much though, considering.

  All she could ever think about was getting out in the world to help repair things…until she met Jacob. Then she got the chance to pick his brain about the earth and the people of the Old World. Her desires and values became compromised.

  I wonder if he knows how I feel about him when we are together? She considered the idea as she kissed his chest. Of course he couldn’t know. To him, she was a simple Palace girl with stupid questions about the past and someone to have weekly relations exercises with. He was so into their moments together because that’s the way they did things in the Old World, not because he felt anything for her.

  Mary wriggled free from his slumbering embrace and sat on the edge of the bed as Jacob rolled on his side and continued to sleep.

  She sat there, completely naked, her legs as white as milk and her hair as dark as night. She felt a wetness coming from her vagina and, looking down, she noticed more of Jacob’s seed exiting her body. Mary wondered: Could this be child number three? That would be amazing. She knew that having children gave her so much more worth in the Palace. Mary had no idea who had fathered the first two, because relations partners could change on a weekly basis. For the most part, you could choose who you wanted to be with for this activity, but if impregnation didn’t happen after a designated amount of time, you could be “recommended” to continue relations with someone else.

  Of course, once a woman was with child, she would go through the entire child-bearing process on her own. At that point, the male’s portion of the process was complete, and the rest was up to the woman. When the child was ready to be delivered, the woman was taken to the infirmary for the procedure. As soon as the child was born, the nurses took the newborn straight to the child center, no stops in between.