Forgotten

by Evangeline Anderson

  Frankie’s pulse was racing so hard she wondered if he could feel it as he held her hand.

  “I think that would be great,” she said softly. “Um…should I give you my address?”

  “I’d love that.” Todd brought out his cell phone and tapped it in as she recited it. Then he tucked it back in his pocket and flashed her a grin. “See you tomorrow at eight, Francesca.”

  “See you then.” Frankie smiled and headed off to class. She was going to be walking in late at this point but she barely cared. A new TA position and an evening alone with the handsome Professor Ramlow—could this day get any better?

  * * * * *

  Commander Kerov Volx sighed with satisfaction and armed sweat off his forehead. Could his day get any better? The fighting had been particularly rough of late, but his battalion had repelled the enemy yet again and the Ministry wasn’t predicting another swarm for a week at least. Which was good. It meant he could have some time off—a few days when he didn’t have to sleep in the barracks and live on war rations.

  Kerov looked around the large, cavernous holding facility with satisfaction. Everywhere males and females in black and scarlet uniforms were busy—breaking down equipment, servicing transports, cleaning and checking weapons. His people knew they had a whole solar week off but before they could leave, every piece of equipment had to be in top shape, ready for the next swarm. There was an air of suppressed excitement and a hum of contentment all around. Though the battle had been even more arduous than usual, they hadn’t lost a single soldier. It had been a good day.

  “Kerov.” A hand clapped him on the back and he turned to see Jorn, the commander of another unit similar to his own.

  Jorn was tall and slim with narrow shoulders, a shock of white-blond hair and blackish-purple eyes. His build as well as his long, angular face betokened the fact that he was pure bred Tarkien with no Kindred DNA in his gene pool. Kerov was the opposite—his broad shoulders and heavy musculature gave away his Kindred origins as unmistakably as his pale gray eyes.

  Yet, despite their differences and the fact that those with Kindred DNA weren’t always smiled upon in Tarkinian society, the two males were good friends.

  “Greetings,” Kerov said heartily, clapping the other male on the back in return. “How goes the battle?” It was a standard greeting but his friend laughed anyway.

  “You tell me! I heard you repelled a swarm twice as large as usual and yet didn’t lose a single man. That’s good work, my friend.”

  Kerov shrugged modestly. “It’s all in knowing the strengths and weaknesses of those under your command. I have a good group.”

  “And they have a good Commander—which hasn’t gone without notice. Brigadier Tlox has requested your presence at the General’s Banquet at the Ministry of War tomorrow night.”

  “Really?” Kerov’s heart pounded a little faster though he tried to keep his face impassive. “I wonder what he wants with me?”

  “He wants to promote you, of course,” Jorn said. “That’s my guess, anyway. What else would he want from the most successful Commander in the Quadrex sector?”

  “I doubt that.” Kerov ran a hand through his short, dark blond hair—much darker than his friend’s white-blond shade and another giveaway as to his ancestry. “You know those in the upper echelon are all pure bred Tarkiens. When was the last time anyone with Kindred genes rose above the rank of Commander?”

  “That’s just holdover from the early days when the Kindred first joined our society,” Jorn objected. “Back before the need to Switch or Trade had been bred out. Everyone knows such prejudices are outdated now.”

  “Some bigotry never dies,” Kerov said darkly. “Sometimes I think I’ll never live down my ancestors’ shameful proclivity for Trading bodies with their mates.”

  “You will—you have,” his friend insisted. “All the old thoughts are dying as younger commanders rise to take the places of our sires and grandsires. Do you know that Brigadier Tlox is only five cycles older than you and me?”

  “And a pure Tarkien with no Kindred blood to sully his pedigree,” Kerov pointed out. But secretly, he couldn’t help feeling excited. Could Jorn be right? Was he really being singled out for promotion?

  “The Brigadier doesn’t care about things like ancestry and pedigree,” Jorn said, waving off his objections. “He only cares about results—and you’ve been delivering them steadily since you rose to the rank of Battalion Commander. You’ll be commanding a whole Brigade soon. And then a Regiment and before you know it, you’ll be the first Kindred bred General the Ministry of War has ever seen.”

  “You have high hopes for me, I see,” Kerov said dryly. “And what about yourself?”

  “Oh, I’ll come along with you—I’ll be your Chief of Staff.” Jorn grinned. “I’m going to be at the banquet tomorrow night too, you know. And rumor has it that there are two openings in the Battalion Commanders’ ranks. Next week you and I will be eating together in the Officer’s Mess hall.”

  “From your lips to the Goddess’s ears,” Kerov said, smiling at his friend’s enthusiasm.

  “The Kindred Goddess, you mean?” Jorn frowned. “Look, I know you’re just kidding but, uh, don’t let the Brigadier or the General hear you talking like that at the banquet. You know, the Kindred religion isn’t actually forbidden…”

  “But it is frowned on. Don’t worry.” Kerov clapped him on the back. “I’m not a true believer or anything—it’s just a saying of my sire’s.”

  “Well, just don’t say it at the banquet,” Jorn cautioned. “No one there is going to care if you’re Kindred as long as you don’t rub it in their face. And you know those that hold a religious view—especially that old Kindred religion—aren’t considered too bright.”

  “My sire is bright enough,” Kerov said a bit stiffly. “He just holds with the old ways—the Kindred ways.” Which was why he had gone against his mandatory mating assignment and married a female he loved instead of the one assigned to him. Such a thing would never be permitted now—a fact which didn’t really bother Kerov much since he was much more interested in promotion at his chosen career than finding “true love”—that elusive emotion those with Kindred DNA seemed to think so essential.

  “Of course your sire was bright—he had you, didn’t he?” Jorn grinned. “Kindred DNA be damned, you were the top of all our classes. I never would have gotten through quantum astronavigation without you.”

  Kerov grinned. “Only because I drilled the formulae for each test into your thick skull over and over.”

  “I thought I’d never get through that class—but look at us now—barely twenty-nine cycles old and about to rise to the exalted rank of Battalion Commander.”

  “Thirty-one,” Kerov corrected him but his friend waved his words away.

  “Who’s counting? We’ll still be some of the youngest to ever achieve such a rank! Come on—I’m taking you to the y’xx hall to buy you a drink.”

  Regretfully, Kerov shook his head. “I wish I could but I have my mandatory sexual encounter tonight.”

  “Even better—you lucky bastard!” Jorn pounded him on the chest with a closed fist. “To get news of a promotion and have your weekly fuck-session all in one day—I must admit, I’m envious.”

  “Don’t be,” Kerov said dryly. “I’m not exactly looking forward to it.”

  “What? Not looking forward to sheathing your saber? Why in the Seven Hells not?” his friend demanded amiably.

  Kerov shifted uncomfortably, feeling he had said too much already. Still, Jorn was looking at him for an explanation and he didn’t like to brush his friend off with a curt reply.

  “The relations between myself and my state-mandated partner are not always…amicable,” he said at last.

  In fact, that was a gross understatement. He found Xirnah, the female he had been matched with, to be cold and off-putting and she, in her turn, had made it abundantly clear that she resented being assigned to a male who had Kindred DNA. If she conc
eived a child by him, it would almost certainly have physical characteristics that were noticeably Kindred—a fate which would shame her—at least in her view.

  Kerov knew she detested his broad shoulders and heavy, well developed muscles, so different from the slender build of a pure bred Tarkien but he couldn’t help being who he was. And to tell the truth, he didn’t find Xirnah especially attractive either.

  It wasn’t that she was ugly—she was tall with a perfect, angular figure and a mass of straight, white-blonde hair which was always perfectly coifed. Her wide, blackish-purple eyes were fringed with white-blonde lashes and her breasts were high and shapely. Her hips were almost as narrow as her waist—another Tarkien trait that was considered especially beautiful.

  But there was nothing to hold on to while they had sex—she was all angles and straight lines. Kerov couldn’t think of it as making love because it certainly wasn’t. State-mandated sexual relations with Xirnah was a mechanical affair, devoid of any warmth or affection.

  When she came to his quarters for their weekly sessions, their routine was always the same. They would sit across from each other on his sensu-chairs making polite but stilted conversation as the chairs stimulated the correct parts of their anatomy.

  Then, once he was appropriately tumescent and Xirnah was sufficiently lubricated, they would retire to his sleeping chamber where she would open her sex garment and bend over his sleeping platform to reveal her narrow, bony behind. Kerov would part her thin thighs to locate her tight, almost colorless slit and insert his shaft into her chilly depths.

  True Tarkiens had a body temperature that was a good ten to twenty degrees lower than those with Kindred blood. The result was that Kerov always felt like he was fucking an ice sculpture—his partner was quite literally frigid. Xirnah, for her part, often expressed discomfort with his body heat, saying that he burned her with his crude Kindred temperature. Kerov always apologized but again, how could he help being himself?

  He would try to hurry the process along because he could feel Xirnah stiffen with resentment at his intrusion. Thrusting mechanically, he took only as long as was necessary to inseminate his partner exactly once. Then he would withdraw, to their mutual relief, and Xirnah would use his fresher facilities.

  Though she never admitted it aloud, Kerov was certain she was washing his seed out of herself, as much as possible. It might have hurt him if he had cared for her at all. But even after being paired with her for the last three years, he could summon no emotion other than dread when he knew it was time for their weekly state-mandated sexual encounter.

  “How can relations between you not be amicable?” Jorn demanded, breaking his train of thought. “I’ve seen your partner—Xirnah, isn’t it? She’s quite a beauty. I wouldn’t mind plowing her furrow myself.”

  “You shouldn’t speak so of another male’s partner,” Kerov said, glowering at him. He might not like Xirnah much himself, but he would be damned if he’d allow anyone to denigrate her. After all, it wasn’t her fault she was assigned to him and that they didn’t get along—it was pretty much the same with any partner he was assigned to and had been since he had reached sexual maturity at eighteen cycles.

  “Sorry,” Jorn said unrepentantly. “I’m just saying she’s pretty—I wish I’d be assigned someone like her.”

  “No doubt Xirnah would like that,” Kerov said dryly. “In fact, with your pure Tarkinian blood, you’d be her ideal partner.”

  Jorn shrugged philosophically. “Well then it’ll never happen—not unless there’s a foul-up of unheard of proportions at the Ministry of Matching.”

  “True,” Kerov agreed. The Ministry of Matching was the government agency that assigned sexual partners. But rather than matching males and females that were most compatible together, they sought out the most mismatched pairs they could find and put them together.

  This was an unpleasant but necessary part of life on Tarka Six, where it had been determined that too much interest in one’s sexual partner took away focus from an individual’s State-mandated career and responsibilities. Also, by matching people only with the opposite of their ideal, the Tarkinian government had been able to breed the tendency to Switch or Trade bodies with their mates out of the Kindred population.

  It was said that such a Trade was possible only between couples that were truly meant to be together—fated by the Goddess to fall in love and form a soul bond. By making sure that the males bearing Kindred DNA were matched with a female they did not love, the tendency to Switch or Trade or Jump—whatever you wanted to call it—had been all but eradicated.

  “Well, I’d better go. I can’t keep Xirnah waiting and she always arrives promptly at sixteen hundred hours,” Kerov told his friend.

  “I understand. Did you drive your rover?”

  Kerov shook his head. “Didn’t know I’d be getting a whole solar week off so I just rode public transport.”

  Jorn made a face. “Ugh—it’s a long way home on pubtrans this time of day. I’d offer you a lift but I’m on my way to celebrate.”

  “Alone?” Kerov raised an eyebrow at him.

  “Sure—why not? If my good friend can’t make it, I’ll have to make do with what I can find. And you never can tell—I might find a female willing to share my company for the night. I’ve been saving my credits to visit the new brothel near the Ministry of Agriculture.”

  “Enjoy yourself then,” Kerov said blandly. Prostitution wasn’t forbidden by the Tarkinian government—in fact, it was encouraged as a good way for over-eager males who weren’t content with their weekly mandated sexual encounter to release tension. But the prostitutes all wore masks and no talking was permitted during the encounter, lest inappropriate feelings be engendered by the encounter.

  Kerov had tried it once or twice but the sex workers were almost as cold as Xirnah and even more impersonal. Though at least he didn’t have to worry about impregnating any of them due to their mandatory use of contraceptives and plasti-shield barriers both inside and out. Still, he found the encounters to be like having sex with a machine and after one or two trips to the state-run brothels, he’d avoided them ever since.

  “I will enjoy myself—for both of us since you’re so dreading your mandatory sex,” Jorn said, laughing.

  “You don’t find it…impersonal?” Kerov asked, meaning both sex at the brothel and the state mandated encounters.

  “Sure I do, but who cares?” Jorn shrugged his narrow shoulders. “Fucking is fucking, my friend. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you’ll begin to enjoy your time with the lovely Xirnah.”

  He clapped Kerov on the shoulder once more and walked off, laughing.

  Kerov sighed as he watched him go. He wished he could adopt his friend’s nonchalant attitude but somehow he couldn’t manage it. His parents, who had joined before the Ministry of Matching had come to power, always seemed so fond of each other—so “in love”, for want of a better word.

  Although the very idea of passionately loving one’s mate was now considered a quaint and outdated notion, it was the ideal that Kerov had been raised with. He couldn’t help remembering the loving touches and kind words his parents often exchanged and comparing them with the stilted conversation and cold, mechanical encounters he had with Xirnah. He didn’t see his parents often now—he’d had to move closer to the base and the Ministry of War which put his off-site barracks far from their domicile. But when he did manage to get back on State Holidays, his Sire and Mater always seemed as much in love as ever.

  It made Kerov feel like he had missed out on something somehow—something vital and important. As much as he tried, he couldn’t reduce sex to a purely biological function or a purely recreational one either. It ought to mean something, damn it! Ought to have some significance other than blowing off steam or producing offspring for the State. At least that was what he thought when he let himself think about it at all.

  Overhead, the last whistle blew, signifying the end of the work day and letting everyone kn
ow it was time to wrap up tasks and get back to assigned domiciles and barracks. His underlings scattered and Kerov realized he’d stalled long enough. It was time to go home and get ready for his encounter with Xirnah.

  An encounter he was already beginning to dread.

  * * * * *

  “So he actually asked you out on a date?” Lacy leaned forward eagerly, sipping her Pumpkin Spice Latte with evident relish. She was a nurse over at University Community Hospital and since Frankie worked at the University Square Mall across the street, they often tried to coordinate their break schedules to grab some girl time in the food court.

  “Oh, no—it wasn’t a date.” Frankie brushed off the idea, though she could feel her cheeks heating at the idea.

  “Of course it’s a date,” her best friend said, grinning. “I mean, he asked to come to your house and he told you he’s getting a divorce. That means he’s definitely interested.”

  “He’s only interested in having me TA for him,” Frankie insisted. “Which is a good thing—it would finally get me out of Victoria’s Suck-ret.” She took a sip of her Matcha Green Tea slush. “Although I would miss our girl time.”

  “I’ll take an extra yoga class a week so we can be together—any one you teach, I’ll take,” Lacy vowed recklessly. “Even if it’s super hard core with a ton of handstands and headstands and inversions.” Of course, since she was tall and thin, and “extra-bendy” as she put it, Lacy would probably be able to manage that kind of class—not that Frankie ever planned on teaching one like that.

  “I’m only going to be teaching the beginner classes to start with—and that’s if I pass Sheila’s final exam.” Frankie made a face. “You’d think getting my two hundred hour certificate from the Yoga Alliance would be enough but no—not if I want to teach at the Lotus Pond.”

  “But look how far you’ve come,” Lacy pointed out. “You know, it seems like just yesterday we were taking our first class. Remember? You wanted to take kick-boxing and I wanted yoga. We flipped a coin and yoga won—aren’t you glad it did?”