She kept waiting for him to bite her again, or sneak up behind her and rip out her throat, or force himself on her. But he only opened a jar of food and reminded her to stay inside, and then he went back to bed. She sat at the small table eating the strange food he had brought her—a can of oranges, a can of tomatoes. He had also brought a box of crackers, a can of corn, and a package of cornbread. These were less exotic and more common to her.
After she finished eating, she rinsed the cans, put them in a small plastic basket on his counter, and cleaned the table. She washed the cans from the night before and put them with the other things he could return to the store for reuse, threw away the cornbread wrapper, and then began cleaning the rest of the house. She had nothing else to do while her captor slept. She liked it more than cleaning the new sap bar where she worked. Cleaning there was much worse than at Estrella’s. The sap bar was disgusting and dirty and it always would be, no matter how much the weakened humans cleaned. Too many years of too-tired humans doing a minimal cleaning job had left the bar permanently grimy.
So Cali cleaned, and when she got tired, she slept in a soft chair in the Man with Soft Hair’s living area, and no one made her get up or do a certain amount of tasks. No one came to bite her, no one had told her a list of things she needed to do and told her she would be punished if she didn’t finish them or if she forgot one. She hardly knew what to do with herself. So after she slept, she cleaned more, ate more, and then she slept some more. When she woke, the bloodsucker was licking her wrist hungrily.
17
“I must return you,” Draven said as he emerged from the shower. The slanting rays of light made the building next door appear especially red behind Cali, who stood in front of the window. Without waiting for a reply, Draven went to ready himself for work.
When he emerged from the bedroom, Cali sat in the chair where he’d found her sleeping when he awoke. “Have you read all these?” she asked, nodding to the bookshelf.
“Yes. Can you read?”
“No.”
“Of course you can’t. Did you eat the food I brought you?”
“Some of it.”
“Eat the rest if you like. Otherwise I’ll have to throw it out.” He went to the window and opened it to let the air come inside. The small apartment always got stuffy when he forgot to open it in the morning. Not that one puny window did much as far as fresh air, but it was better than nothing. When he turned back from the window, Cali had moved to the counter to watch him. Briefly he wondered what she was thinking. Of course that was ludicrous. He knew as well as anyone that sapiens weren’t so complex in their thinking, but her face seemed strangely contemplative. The notion amused him, and he smiled as he returned to his room.
What a strange night he was having. First the unusual attraction he’d felt for Lira and now crediting a sap as capable of higher thought. Perhaps he needed more sleep. He opened the metal box on his dressing table and looked inside at the pathetic little stash of money he’d accumulated. He removed a few bills and folded them into his wallet and went to collect his illegal sapien.
“Come along, little sap,” he called to Cali. She trudged toward him, face drawn, eyes darting about.
Though he wanted to draw from her again, he thought if he left her healthy, she might have a few extra days before she was nearly dead again. He found it more difficult to pay exact attention to her sap flow than other sapiens’, more difficult to ration it out and stop when he should. If he could leave his teeth in her and remain all night until there was nothing left to suck out of her, he would.
Instead, he grasped the back of her neck and steered her out the door in front of him, keeping a firm grip on her so she couldn’t run without his sensing her intention. Though she was quite tense, she let him steer her down the short hallway to the doors that led outside, then down the steps to the car and inside without incident. She did not struggle or attempt escape, and no one saw them. Most slept or stayed inside until the sun sank a bit further. But Draven had to return Cali and come all the way up from the South End to Estrella’s.
Perhaps Cali’s place of employment would be angry with him for keeping her an extra day. They might try to charge him more for the second night. He decided he would negotiate for the second night. Perhaps he could save up and just buy her outright. Although he hadn’t known how to take care of her very well and he didn’t have the proper facilities, he liked having her around. It made eating easy, and she wasn’t so bad to talk to, and she wasn’t bad to look at, either. And most of all, he liked having her scent permeate the apartment, so the moment he walked in he could savor the most delicious fragrance.
“Are you very smart?” Cali asked as they drove through the deserted streets towards the south end of the city.
“Smart enough, I imagine.”
“And you’ve read all those books you have?”
“Yes.”
“How did you learn to read them?”
“Someone taught me.”
“When?”
He paused and glanced at her with a frown. “After I evolved.”
“Evolved?”
“After I became…well, a long time ago.” He had talked to only Superiors for so long that he’d forgotten that sapiens didn’t know these things.
“Do people still teach that? Reading, I mean.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I suppose they could. Someone ought to remember. It’s been quite some time since anyone has been taught to read, though. Everyone already knows.”
“I don’t know.”
“Of course not. You can’t be taught those kinds of things.”
“Why not?”
“Your brain doesn’t have the capacity to learn something so complex.”
“How do you know?”
He looked at her, trying to remember the reason he’d been given, but it hadn’t seemed important enough to commit to memory at the time. “I have forgotten. Perhaps I read it somewhere,” he said, and then realized the irony of this statement and laughed. Cali laughed too, and he glanced at her, surprised again to hear the sound coming from a sap.
“What does that word say?” she asked, pointing to a sign.
“It means stop.” He stopped, and then continued driving.
“How do you know when you have to stop and when you get to go on?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I just do.”
“You’re not very good at answering questions.”
“You ask too many.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Good. Let me have your hand. I very much enjoy your scent.” Darkness had fallen when Draven turned his car off the ramp onto a narrow street with dilapidated buildings and a few rusty old cars squatting in their trash-strewn lots. The lots stood mostly empty, but for a few tufts of dry grass sagging in defeat after trying to conquer the asphalt world through cracks filled with dirt-like residue.
“Scoot down in your seat,” Draven said. When he rested a hand on Cali’s head, she slid down until her knees touched the dash and her head was below the window level. Draven sped up a bit, debating whether a nightcap of Cali was worth the trip to this dangerous and depressing side of town. He would be expected to eat at the restaurant where he worked even if he had time to slip away for long enough to drive all the way down to South End and back during his break, which he did not. If only he had the money to buy her.
He decided that one day he would. He would save the money he made, every spare pent and anya. He would deposit them in the tin on his dressing table until he had enough for her, and then he would work on getting the right equipment for caring for livestock. He would be dining with Byron’s family soon, and he would ask about homo-sapien care, about equipment and facilities, and he would learn everything he could about them. By the time he bought Cali, he would know how to take care of her, what she was supposed to do and what was abnormal.
Draven’s mind filled with these thoughts as he pulled onto the street containing Sap Heaven, Sap Haven, and several
other eateries of the same nature. He pulled up short in surprise, and Cali sat up. Instantly Draven’s hand shot out and nearly crushed her pushing her down in the seat so fast. She let out a strangled cry, and he jerked his hand back. Her eyes had grown watery and shiny, and she sucked her lips in.
“Have I hurt you?” Draven asked, pushing the car up to a slow cruising speed. From the corner of his eye, he saw Cali shake her head no.
“Good. Your employment appears to be over. Your restaurant has been raided by Enforcers. It will be closed down.”
“How do you know?”
Draven smiled. “There are laws about the treatment of saps, and this place violates nearly all of them. So you are without a job. If you had been there, you would have been confiscated along with the rest of the restaurant’s live property.”
“So what are you going to do with me?” she asked in a small voice.
Draven glanced at her. He had forgotten she was barely older than a child. And sapiens were apt to frighten with little or no provocation.
“Zut! I don’t know.” He paused and turned left at the end of the street. “I couldn’t just stop and dump you in front of the place. I would have been arrested for having you at all—they’d think I…acted inappropriately towards you. Perhaps I could bring you back now and say I found you on the street, that you’d escaped during the raid…” But he didn’t stop. He kept driving. Musing. “They wouldn’t believe me. You’d look like the damn lottery prize to most of the derelicts around here. You’d be drained dry in five minutes. You’d never have made it to another street. And the saps in that place are all too weak to run.”
Cali didn’t say anything. She just sat looking at the blue-black of the darkening sky and let him continue. “I could put you out, but that would be even worse, because then you really would be sucked dry, and I wouldn’t only be slapped with a fine for borrowing you.”
“You could keep me?” Cali said in that same small voice. He glanced at her, frowning. She sounded almost hopeful. Why wouldn’t she be? He’d treated her well and kept her calm. And likely saved her life, with great risk to himself and not much personal gain. In fact, he’d been quite reckless.
“I can’t keep you,” he said. “I rented you. I had to fill out a form guaranteeing I’d bring you back in equal or better health to when I got you. If I kept you, I’d have to pay your full purchase price, and I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t.” He didn’t want to admit to a sap that he had no money. He’d already mentioned it once, and she didn’t need to know those things about Superiors. Not that it mattered what she thought, but… He knew she wouldn’t understand if he tried to explain it to her, anyhow, and it would only frustrate him. “Be quiet while I think,” he said, stroking her hair. All the way back he pondered his options.
When he drew close to his side of town, he turned right instead of left and sped up. “I’ve decided what I shall do.”
“What?” Cali asked, looking around. He sensed her increasing agitation immediately. He took her wrist again. Already he could feel the sap throbbing through her veins, could hear the acceleration in her heartbeat, could savor the faint creeping odor of fear in the air inside the car.
“You’ll be all right, little pet. I won’t hurt you.” He pressed his nose to her wrist and breathed deeply of her scent, already missing her. “Nothing bad will happen to you. They take good care of livestock at the Confinement. It wasn’t so bad last time, was it?”
“You’re taking me back to the Confinement?” She pushed with her feet until she was sitting straight up in the seat. Her eyes widened as she looked ahead with him.
“Yes. I will tell them that I found you wandering and you appeared weak but not badly injured, and you were in a dangerous area. I didn’t know where you came from, and I didn’t imagine you’d live if I passed by and left you. They will scan your code and find that you belong to a restaurant that has been closed, and they will keep you. Do you understand what I’ve said to you?”
“Yes. I’m going back to the Confinement.”
He heard the awe in her voice and glanced at her. A giddy grin stretched across her sapien face.
“Is this good news for you?” he asked.
She grinned even bigger. “Great news. I’ve been wanting to go back for years.”
“Is that so? But you ran away from there, yes?”
“I did, once. But I was younger and brainless and I didn’t know how lucky I was. Maybe I’ll find some of my family, if they haven’t been sold. It’s been so long, though… I don’t know if I’ll recognize them.”
“You have family?”
“Yes. My mama and a lot of sisters. Mama made lots of new babies, and the overseers treat her good because of it. I hope she’s still there.”
“I am glad you find this solution agreeable. It is the best I could think to do. You must remember what I’ve said to you, so you can tell the same story if anyone asks. Can you repeat what I said to you, where I found you, what happened?”
She briefly recapped what he had said, but she sounded distracted, and he could feel her tension. She sat on her hands, leaning forward in the seat, looking out the windshield and smiling. He grew annoyed that she did not take the situation seriously. He could be slapped with a large fine for having an illegal sapien, even a bit of jail time if he had committed another offense against her. He hoped the record of bringing her in the last time wouldn’t pop up in the system. It would seem a bit strange that the same Superior kept finding the same sapien wandering the streets.
He stopped at the back of the large parking lot, away from the security lights and cameras. “I will bring you inside so you don’t run again,” he said.
“I won’t run.”
“You can’t trust a runner,” Draven said. “Although I don’t imagine you are strong enough yet.”
“Thank you so much for bringing me here,” she said, her voice welling with emotion. He sat motionless, wary of her next move, as she leaned towards him. Before he could be shocked by the realization of her intention, her arms circled his neck.
18
Cali’s mouthwatering aroma flooded Draven’s nostrils and filled him with an incredible hunger for her sap, flowing and pumping through every part of her, in the arms that surrounded him, in the warm knot of muscles at her shoulders, the soft little swells of her breasts, the neck that was so, so close to his mouth and so alive with veins.
But with the longing came something else—the unpleasant sensation of a mass of warm flesh between his hands, the distaste he experienced when he touched a sapien now multiplied tenfold, and even her scent could not quell his discomfort.
He pushed her away. His reaction to her touch must have been apparent, because she looked quite startled, although that could have resulted from her own bold and unthinkable action, or from how forcefully he had separated from her. Whatever the reason, she recoiled from the embrace quite flustered, and he caught a glimpse of something like embarrassment on her face.
“I’m awfully sorry for having offended you, Master Superior,” she said, bowing her head. “My actions were far from appropriate, but it was not my intention to cause offense. I am ready for punishment.” She kept her eyes down after her rehearsed speech. He waited for the last part of the line, if you deem there is cause, but she didn’t say more and her head remained lowered.
“I do not deem there is cause for punishment,” Draven said stiffly.
She looked up at him, hope and fear mixing on her face. “Thank you?”
“I should take you inside.” He didn’t move to do so.
“I want to thank you,” she said, leaning towards him. This time he was prepared to act if she drew too close. But he let her come, curiosity winning over distrust. She stretched her neck, lifting her face towards the ceiling and pulling her short hair back. No one had ever offered him sap before, willingly, freely given. He found the prospect electrifying.
He had heard
of saps who grew to enjoy being tapped, who longed for it. He’d even heard stories about some who enjoyed it a bit too much, but he imagined these last were urban legends. No one had ever liked his bite that much. The idea of a sapien approaching him to make an offering was empowering somehow, although at the same time, it stripped every bit of power from the act.
He tilted Cali’s chin to the correct angle, slid his other hand behind her neck as he drew her forward. Then he slid his teeth into the slant of her vein. She tensed slightly and sucked in a quick breath before relaxing slowly. Draven kept his body separate from hers very deliberately, not wanting the unpleasant distraction of her warmth to cause him to miss the subtleties of her flavor. He thought briefly of his distaste for sapien warmth, and how it clashed so completely with his love for the warmth of their sap. After all, that was one of the most appealing things about drinking straight from the source instead of buying canned sap. But he didn’t try to reconcile his two preferences. Instead, he pressed hungrily into her neck and drew a bit longer than he should have, a bit harder. Cali’s hands wound into his hair, and she kept his face pulled close.
When he finally forced himself to withdraw, close her wounds and clean around them, still she clutched him to her, so he made sure they were closed properly, and that she was clean around the pierced area. Suddenly he remembered when, upon going to eat at the Confinement, he had seen a mother sapien cradling her sapling as it suckled. He jerked back from Cali at the thought. Her hands wrenched at his hair before she released her grip. She opened her eyes, looking dazed and embarrassed.
“Did I take too much? Are you dizzy?”
“No. No, I’m fine.” She turned away and Draven unlocked the doors and got out. Cali waited obediently for him to come around the car and take her in the usual authoritative hold. Hand around the base of her skull, he steered her into the admittance office of the Confinement.
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