Water Games

by Juliann Whicker

  “Because I am so well-born.” His lips were so delicious. I leaned closer to him and he popped a tea cake into my mouth. Hm. Cucumbers and dill. A not sweet cake with a crunchy crust to keep the inside from getting soggy. How special. Like that was going to deter me from his lips.

  He gave me a look and shook his head. “If you want to kiss me, I have no problem with that. Say the word, that you’re done with this transformative experiment and I will kiss you until your lips ache worse than after Soremni Botox.”

  I hesitated before I pulled back and crossed my arms. “It feels like a punishment.”

  “Yes, it does. You aren’t the only one struggling with human habits.”

  He got up and swam with me to my room, kissed my fingers and then told me to use the darkest green tag, and left me alone. Good thing Fraun knocked on my door a few minutes later. I’d hate to get lonely.

  My dinner dress was extremely long, past my feet so it trailed when I floated down the hall towards the dining room. Fraun had done some twists with my hair, pinning it up with blue diamond clips. The bodice was too low, but whatever. It matched the skirt.

  The dining room was segregated. Each table was divided, one half filled with men, the other half with women. At head of each table sat a male or female, the men in dark blue or the women in various shades from fuchsia to periwinkle. My dress was the color of Sean’s eyes, streaked with midnight. Fraun led me to my seat at the right of Madame Claria then took her own seat a few spaces down. Was she someone special? What did well-born mean, exactly? Money? Family? Fame? Excellent brogge milking skills?

  I didn’t see Sean at first, which made sense because he didn’t come in until a few minutes later. He wore a midnight tuxedo and came in quickly, so strong and powerful, taller and more broad-shouldered than any of the other men. I gazed at him adoringly until I remembered that I was supposed to do that which made it more difficult. Psychology was so weird.

  He greeted the men on either side of him before he looked at me, openly staring and smiling while he raised an eyebrow in what felt like a slightly suggestive expression. Maybe it was my bodice. Maybe it was the fact that the sharks were circling. Maybe it was because I was far from home and only had Sean on my side.

  “Excuse me,” a delicate voice in English said from my right.

  I turned to see a girl with soft brown hair and soft blue eyes and a soft smile on her soft pink lips. Was I supposed to look at her, or stare at Sean?

  I turned to see him and he nodded towards her, an imperceptible movement. Okay. I looked at her and smiled. “Good evening,” I said in Soremni.

  Dimples appeared as her soft smile bloomed into something truly delightful. “I’m Petra. My husband Anul is seated next to Takeo. Would you come to see us sometime? You should see the market. We would love to have you come for lunch.”

  We were going to be busy for the rest of our time down here. “I’ll have to ask Takeo.”

  She nodded like I’d said the right thing, and put her hand over mine. I barely kept from flinching and ripping my hand away from her, however pleasant she seemed. “Of course. I’m sure he has many duties. He’s been away for so long. I’m so glad that he’s found someone to adore.”

  I tried to keep my smile genuine, but what did that mean? There’s no way she could possibly actually like anything about me. Dinner was a wonderful opportunity to showcase exactly how utterly idiotic I was about what utensil went with which dish. And how to eat said dish. Instead of the garnish which wasn’t edible. Apparently.

  Petra started hinting to me, subtly nudging the next utensil and slowly breaking apart the roll into pieces before pulling out bones. Huh. Maybe not rolls. She also murmured the name of the dish, and the utensil, and smiled encouragingly. It was a little bit funny, her gazing adoringly at her husband while she nudged my spiked spoon with her elbow, or carefully peeled some crustacean after crushing it with a graceful movement of the hammer. “Firsque,” she murmured, setting it daintily beside her plate without ever dropping her eyes from Anul. How did she do it?

  I tried to stare at Sean and eat, and sort-of watch Petra, and not watch everyone else who wanted to chomp me up. I caught very little of the conversation among the females, but all of them were perfectly capable of talking to the people around them while staring adoringly at their mate across the room. It was a ridiculously strange skill to cultivate.

  By the end of the dinner, which went on and on, I was thoroughly sick of smiling pleasantly and gazing adoringly, also I was just tired. I really wanted to put my face down in the gelatin dessert. Finally, Sean stood, bowed and came around the table. He took my hand and tugged me with him, floating through the water, him all the thrust and me all the gazing adoringly. When we got to the tube I crashed my face against his chest.

  He rumbled a laugh while I held him tighter.

  “You didn’t like it?”

  “I bit myself instead of the food three times. Looking at someone else, however much eye candy, while eating, is dangerous. Soremni are much edgier than they look.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and for a long time we stayed like that. Finally I had it together enough that I could push him away and float on my own.

  “Thanks, Sean. I know that you must hate all that charming, smiling, pleasantness you have to do. How did your training go? Do you feel like you’re making progress?” I touched his face, his beautiful, perfect face with that faint scar across his forehead.

  He caught my fingers and kissed them, but the way he looked at me, it didn’t feel like another Soremni custom. “It’s terrible. My mouth hurts from smiling. I’ll be used to it in another week. I think I smile so little in real life because of having to smile so much as a Soremni.”

  I stared at his mouth. “Your lips hurt? I could kiss them better.”

  He slid his fingers up my throat to cup my face. “You could.”

  My heart pounded as I stared at him. Could it possibly be worth all this torture just to do an internship? It wasn’t just the internship; it was being with him authentically. Even if I’d have to pretend to be someone else to the world.

  I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead to his. “Goodnight, Takeo. Sweet dreams.”

  I slipped out of his arms and swam the rest of the way up the tube, not stopping or looking back until I was on the other side of the wall. I undressed in the dark with the roof invisible so I could see the ocean. Instead of putting on one of those fancy nightclothes which was mostly jelly with dangling filmy fins, I dug around in my bag for a t-shirt. Sweat pants wouldn’t fit in the bag, but regular underwear totally did. It was weird wearing cotton underwater, but nice. Comforting.

  I fell asleep over my music box working on the beginnings of a new song.

  Chapter 9

  The next few days went by like that. Not the fancy dinner, just the rest of it. I saw Sean at breakfast, just us somewhere new around the property or the house, and dinner was in the dining room with Madame Claria and some males who sat beside Sean talking in Soremni while I gazed at him. I got better at eating and staring at Sean. I got better at everything, except singing. It’s not that I didn’t want to put emotion into my voice, but my emotion and my voice were two separate things that only came together in a tsunami. Or a hundred foot tower in a bay. The thing I was slowly learning was how to put false emotion into music using techniques. That’s the way Madame Claria approached it since I was Vashni and therefore incapable of actual emotion. Sean said that wasn’t true about Vashni, it’s just that Vashni didn’t express it. At any rate, the voice lessons were the worst part of my day, and the best of course, was Sean. Except when it was the worst.

  It’s not that there was anything wrong with him. That was the problem. I started to feel like an idiot, dragging Sean into a mess just so I could have my way, which wasn’t what I’d thought it was, but somehow not kissing him really made me reconsider my priorities.

  It was four days after we’d gotten there, on the day off, when everyone went
to the temple and prayed or donated something. No one explained the religion to me, but it was the day when no one cooked, the stoves were shut off and it was just fasting or eating jelly sticks or raw shrimp. I don’t know.

  Sean went to the temple, but told me I probably shouldn’t attend this time because he’d be there a really long time, like all day, greeting temple goers and seeing how their whole world was doing. You know, common people, not just the well-born brogge milkers.

  I stayed in my goop bed all day, wearing my Sean, Sean he’s all brawn t-shirt and eating peanut butter from a jar. Peanut butter and water did great together, you know, really cut back on the sticking to the roof of my mouth thing.

  Every day should be Sunday, or whatever day it was in Soremni. Temple day. I called Junie and Flop, hearing their voices and English was almost as good as not having Madame Claria jab her bony fingers into my ribs. Poor Sean, having to go talk to a million people while I hid in my bed. I should write him something amazing.

  And that’s what I did for the rest of the day. I could manipulate the black box almost adequately. The song didn’t entirely suck. Sean called me towards the evening when the afrateau were dimming for the night.

  “What are you doing? Didn’t you come out of your room all day?”

  “I would have, but you’re the only person I want to see in this entire world.”

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  “Nope. I packed snacks in my bag.”

  “You’re eating in bed? Oh, Gen. You’re going to attract pests.”

  “If they’re six-four, blonde, and icy hot, I think I’ll manage.”

  “We’re having a small, musical evening if you’re interested. Never mind. It would be over by the time you changed. I’ll see you in the morning.”

  He hung up and I sighed. Maybe straight peanut butter wasn’t the best thing underwater. But, I really, really didn’t care.

  I worked on my music until I fell asleep.

  I woke up with an eight-legged crustacean on my knee.

  I didn’t mean to scream. I covered my mouth with my hands while the water rushed around me, breaking off bits of my Jell-O bed and swirling them away in the current.

  I sat perfectly still, my hands pressed against my mouth while the monster crab dug its sharp little claws into my leg. Sean ripped open the cocoon, took one look at my situation and then bit off the creature’s head. He spat it out and then pried the claws off me one at a time.

  He tossed that over his shoulder and then fell towards me, slow, through the water, his eyes dark, luminous above his sharp cheekbones. He held himself up above me, gazing down at me for a long time.

  He wasn’t wearing a shirt.

  I tried not to stare at him, but there was so much of him. I needed to calm down and the water and his chest and neck and mouth… I reached up to pull him down. I was going to drown in his skin, his neck, his chest, but instead I found myself sideways in the Jell-O bed, my back against his deliriously perfect chest.

  “First eating peanut butter in bed like a human, then trying to mark me like a Vashni female.”

  I wiggled, trying to face him, but his arms were like the enormous trunks of the kelp mardu. “Why don’t Soremni have any interesting customs? Not that I hate staring at you while deboning fish, but as far as I can tell, the Vashni have all the fun.”

  “It’s a good thing you don’t know about Soremni customs.”

  I turned my head, but couldn’t get a good look at him. “I knew there was more to it than staring and hand kissing.”

  “Mmm.” His arms relaxed slightly and I twisted, almost facing him before he tightened his grip and held me firm. “It isn’t wrestling.”

  I would have struggled, but I wanted Sean in my bed, holding me tight. Maybe if I kept trying to nibble on his neck he’d leave. “Too bad. How was the temple thing?”

  He brushed my shoulder with his nose. “Petra’s husband is part of the clergy. He kept things moving along quickly. I shook twelve-hundred hands. I also checked on the reserve generators. Every week the whole of Terramore shuts down and we check backup emergency resources because that’s all we have available. You keeping your light on in here all day has used up most of the house’s reserves.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Good thing Junie isn’t here. She’d smack me around for that. So we spend the temple day in darkness?” I moved my arm to turn off the lights, but he had me too tight. “Turn off the lights, Soremni lover.”

  He moved, leaving us in the darkness with the dark ocean above us. There were still the phosphorescent jellyfish, but the lit net was darker. “I’m tired. I should go before I fall asleep.” His voice was very close to my ear, a low growl that sent a shiver across my skin.

  “Do Soremni not sleep together?”

  He brushed the side of my neck with his lips then pressed a soft, delicate kiss on my skin. The water was still moving, but not like before, more of a caress around the two of us. My heart pounded as he kissed me again. “They do.”

  “But we’re not Soremni married, so it would be shocking.”

  “Mmm.” He kissed me again, almost like he liked kissing my neck. My skin prickled and it wasn’t just from his lips and the water rushing over my skin that wasn’t covered in Sean.

  “Soremni males kiss other places on females besides hands, don’t they?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Maybe even necks.”

  He stopped nuzzling me. “Does it bother you? I should probably leave.” He didn’t move, though.

  “Can you stay? I kind of miss you even though I see you every day.”

  “I can stay.”

  The water slowed down to a gentle rocking as I relaxed in Sean’s arms. “You won’t get in trouble with Madame Claria?”

  “I don’t mind trouble.”

  I smiled in the darkness. “How does sound carry so well underwater? I thought that I’d do more signing.”

  “It’s complicated. Let’s just say there are magical little specks in the water that clean, charge, and spread water particles so it isn’t so dense.” He kissed the back of my neck.

  “I really like that.”

  “You’re probably not practicing your sign enough.”

  “Not that, although talking is good, helps me practice the Soremni, the kissing.”

  His arms tightened around me. “You shouldn’t say that.”

  “I’m not supposed to like you kissing my neck? Your lips are perfect.”

  “And if I chewed on you?”

  “Like marking me? I’d definitely get a tattoo.”

  He laughed and slid his cheek down my neck until his teeth lightly touched my shoulder. “Wrong ritual. Promise me that if I leave a mark, you won’t get a tattoo. People will think that you’re mocking their customs, or what did Junie say, cultural appropriation?”

  “So Soremni do kiss necks.”

  “Males mark females.”

  “Are you going to do it?” I felt his mouth open on my shoulder, the delicate bite of his teeth against my skin before he pulled away.

  “Probably. Not tonight.”

  I smiled as I snuggled against him. “Good. That means you’ll sleep with me tomorrow too.”

  “Do you want me in your bed? It isn’t very big and it tastes like peanut butter. Your entire room will need to be purified and filtered.”

  “Who eats beds? Is the Jell-O stuff edible? So weird.”

  “I’m weird? I’m not the one who packed a t-shirt and jar of peanut butter among my few precious possessions.”

  “I like the t-shirt. It’s not technically as comfortable as the goo night clothes, but it feels like home. I left the other one at home in case of an emergency. Do you think my Sean, Sean, he’s all brawn tee will disintegrate in the water if I sleep in it for a few months?”

  “I think I’m going to kiss your neck and then fall asleep, dreaming about goo nightclothes, beds, and peanut butter.”

  Chapter 10

  Suddenly life as a Soremni wel
l-born wasn’t quite so difficult. In the morning, Sean kissed the back of my neck before he slipped out of my cocoon bed. I was ridiculously happy, sitting across from him with jelly sticks and sea salad, staring at him while I ate even though we were all by ourselves on the terrace overlooking the fire fountain. The fountain couldn’t compete with how delicious and beautiful he was. He didn’t have quite as dark circles under his eyes. Hm.

  “Sean, have you been sleeping since we got here?”

  He glanced up at me from his sea salad studded with who knew what. “No.” He smiled and took my hand, kissing each knuckle slowly, like we had all the time in the world. My heart beat faster with each brush of his lips. “Last night, I slept very well. Thank you.”

  I swallowed. Water. “Thank you. If you weren’t sleeping, you should have told me.”

  He shrugged. “Terramore is very traditional. Until we’ve gone through the Soremni marriage customs people will get ideas.”

  “Let’s do them. Today.”

  He laughed. He had a beautiful laugh, even if it was a fake Soremni laugh. “There are not enough hours in a day, but we could begin.”

  I nodded and tightened my grip on his hand. “What is the first step?”

  “Milking a brogge together.”

  I stared at him. “Are you sure you aren’t just messing with me?”

  “It’s a Terramore custom, specific to this district.”

  “Oh. Okay. Let’s do it.”

  He kissed my hand and pushed back from the table, pulling me with him. “You don’t need to. It’s a strange custom.”

  “I like strange customs, particularly involving necks.” I smiled up at him demurely.

  So, milking a brogge was about as weird as it sounded. It stank. Stank is the wrong word. It exuded sweat and other things that I could taste in the water. Even though I kept my mouth closed.

  Anul was in the barn, caring for the holy brogge, and we milked it. Sean pinned it against the wall of the barn while I attached these tubes to the mucous covered brogge bag. Anul explained how it was done, pulling down on the teats to fill my airtight container, but the telling of it wasn’t the same as the doing of it. Probably most Soremni couples who got engaged by milking a brogge did it in less than two hours. Poor Sean. The brogge wasn’t happy with my incredibly oblivious handling of things and tried to get Sean off him.