She doesn’t, J’are told himself firmly. She said so and I’m going to abide by her wishes.
And that was that—he was certain of it.
Twenty-Three
The public anti-grav pool reminded Imani of visiting the YMCA with her mom when she and her brother were little. Her mother had taken them both there for swimming lessons and then, after they learned to swim, she’d taken them just to play and have fun.
There was a long white counter at the front where you checked in and paid and rented a locker for your things. This was also the first place on Yonnie Six where Imani had seen any children. They were all little girls, there with their Mistress mothers or nannybots, and they ran, screaming and laughing, down the echoing corridors inside.
As J’are had told her, the anti-grav pool was located in a tall, white building not far from the Luxx. He explained that the pool itself took up several stories in the middle, with the ground floor devoted to a sprawling restaurant, while the top floors were private spas.
Imani was hungry by the time they got seated and she was glad that J’are was allowed to sit with her. As he explained it, this was one of the few restaurants in the city of Opulex where this wasn’t frowned on.
“Yet another reason Mother Hownow took me here,” he said dryly. “It was one of the few places she could treat me like her son in public.”
“It’s nice.” Imani looked around the large dining area with kids running back and forth while their mothers sat and talked with friends and bodyslaves. The chairs and tables were made of some kind of green wicker and there were potted plants everywhere, which gave the whole place kind of a casual jungle feel.
J’are nodded stiffly.
“I haven’t been here since she died.”
Imani put a hand on his.
“You must miss her a lot,” she murmured.
He nodded stoically, but she thought his eyes were suspiciously bright.
“Sometimes I hated her for taking me from my home world and bringing me here, but mostly I loved her. She was a good mother—a little strange for Yonnie Six—but wonderful all the same.”
“She really must have loved you a lot to want to adopt you from so far away,” Imani said.
“Oh, she did her research before she got me,” J’are said seriously. “She honestly thought I would be well-suited for life on Yonnie Six because the females of my people Claim the males.”
“So she equated that to a Mistress owning a bodyslave?” Imani asked.
He nodded. “As I said, she always hoped some kind Mistress would fall in love with me and Claim me. She even had a special room built in her home for that exact purpose. It simulated the environment of my home world exactly. You can even watch and see the three moons converge in the sky to simulate the Night of Claiming and the Night of Bonding.”
“Wow, she really thought of everything!” Imani exclaimed.
“Everything but the fact that no Mistress actually wanted to Claim me and let me Claim her in return,” J’are said ruefully. “Since bonding with a Nightwalker means being immediately impregnated with his child, which has a 95% chance of being male…” He shook his head. “No self-respecting Mistress was willing to take a chance on that—not even to inherit all of Mother Hownow’s money and property.”
“Because having a male child here is a big no-no, right?” Imani asked.
“It’s a sign that you’ve been penetrated by a male,” J’are said grimly. “Which is pretty much the worst crime you can commit here on Yonnie Six. It’s also social suicide if anyone finds out.”
Imani thought of the Mistress with the pink hair who’d been caught with her bodyslave on top of her when the tray bomb had exploded back at the Luxx. Clearly penetration between bodyslaves and Mistresses did happen—it just wasn’t admitted to in polite society.
“Pardon me, Mistress—what will you be having today?”
She looked up to see a male server standing behind her shoulder with a pad in one hand and a stylus in the other. He was wearing a long black apron which covered him from neck to heels and an expectant expression on his face.
“Oh, uh…”
Belatedly she fumbled with the paper menu—another sign this place was more casual than the Luxx—and looked down at the listed dishes. Just like the night before, a daunting list of foreign-sounding words met her eyes—none of which meant anything to Imani.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “I’m not from here so I don’t really know what any of this is. Maybe I should just get some fruit.”
“You can do better than that,” J’are objected. “Unless you really just want fruit?” he added, raising an eyebrow.
“Well, I mean, I’d like to try something else but everything I ordered from room service last night was just awful.” Imani shivered when she remembered the decapitated, roasted pigacorn head and the screaming, bleeding cheese.
“Let me try ordering for you,” J’are suggested. “I bet we can find something you enjoy. And we can get some fruit for a backup, just in case you don’t like what I pick.”
“Okay.” Imani smiled and passed the menu to him. “Go for it.”
“All right. We’ll have the terkle cutlet, a bundum salad and some w’resh bread to share. Oh, and a bowl of fresh fruit,” J’are told the server. “With sparkling fresha to drink.”
“Very good.” The server noted everything down. “Everything will be up in a minute.”
“Thanks.” J’are nodded at him as he sauntered off. “This is one of the few places in the city where free males can work,” he told Imani. “I think it was another reason Mother Hownow liked to bring me here—she wanted to show me that not all males are bodyslaves.”
“I can’t wait to see what you ordered us,” Imani told him. “I don’t know how much you remember about last night, but it seemed like every single thing I’d ordered from the room service menu was terrible.”
“If you ordered from the Luxx’s menu, you were probably being served premium fare—that’s much fancier than everyday food,” J’are told her. “I have a vague memory of you getting upset—what did you order?”
“Well, let’s see…” Imani counted things off on her fingers. “One thing I got turned out to be a bowl of bugs. And then there was the decapitated, roasted head. And the screaming, bleeding cheese…” She shivered. “Ugh—all of it was just disgusting.”
“Mother Hownow never liked fancy food either,” J’are told her comfortingly. “I promise what I ordered is very plain. Oh, and none of it is still alive.”
“Thank you,” Imani said gratefully. She really was beginning to get hungry by now. It had been a long time since dinner the night before—which had only consisted of two pieces of fruit, at least for her.
Luckily, it didn’t take long for the server to bring the items J’are had ordered. They were served on bright green plates, that matched the tables and chairs, which made the food itself really stand out.
The cutlet was a deep red with grill marks. It tasted a little bit like a spicy hamburger steak, which was nice—Imani didn’t like things too bland. There was also a kind of bread that reminded her of the zucchini bread her grandmother used to make from the fresh zucchini she grew in her own garden. It was studded with crunchy turquoise nuts and had a sweet, moist texture that melted in her mouth the moment she took a bite. The salad looked a little bit like purple kale but had the flavor of broccoli and cheese, which Imani loved. And the sparkling drink was pale blue and tasted delicious.
“This is wonderful!” she exclaimed, after she’d tried all of it. “So much better than all that weird stuff they served at the Luxx. I’m beginning to be glad we were kicked out!”
Speaking of which, she really needed to send a report about everything that was happening to Commander Sylvan. He would be expecting to hear from her, Imani knew.
Pulling her tablet out of her carryall cube, she typed him a quick message detailing their second court appearance and sent it off. She didn’t put in anyth
ing about the two assassination attempts because she felt that now that she and J’are were in a public place, they were safe.
She didn’t want Commander Sylvan to worry and think he had to send in some kind of extraction squad, which she knew would complicate the Kindred’s political relations with Yonnie Six. So she only said there had been some “complications” and that she hoped she would be finished and ready to leave Yonnie Six very soon.
“How long do we have until our court time?” J’are asked, as she finished sending the message and put away her tablet.
“Um…” Imani looked at her watch. “Plenty of time still—four and a half hours before we have to be there.” She looked around the restaurant. “I don’t really want to sit here for that long but I think it’s better to stay in a public place so I guess we’re stuck.”
“But we’re not stuck in the restaurant,” J’are objected. “Why don’t we go swimming?”
“Swimming?” Imani asked. “In the, uh, the anti-grav pool thing you were talking about?”
“Of course. Haven’t you ever been in an anti-grav pool before?” J’are asked, raising an eyebrow.
Imani shook her head.
“Nope. All our pools on Earth most definitely have gravity—that’s what keeps the water in the pool. Why—is it hard to swim in a pool with no gravity?”
“It’s fun.” J’are’s eyes glowed with excitement. “I haven’t been since I was a young one. Do you want to try it?”
“Well sure—why not?” Imani smiled. It had been a long time since she’d been swimming herself. “Oh, but I don’t have a bathing suit,” she added, frowning. “And neither do you.”
“That’s all right—we can buy them in the changing room. They have a bot that specializes in fittings.”
Imani wasn’t sure about that, but the swimming did sound fun.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s try it.”
“Okay then—come on.” J’are grinned. “I think you’re really going to like it.”
Twenty-Four
They rented a locker and two changing rooms—which turned out to be wooden booths in a long row of identical stalls. But of course, before they could use the stalls, they had to have something to change into.
“This is the suit bot,” J’are said, taking Imani to the front of the locker area where a silvery droid sat. It appeared to consist of three parts—a round, bulbous head, two long, skinny silver arms, and a squat rectangular box, all sitting on a wide counter and connected by long wires.
“Um…how does it work?” Imani eyed the droid uncertainly. The bulbous head had glaring red eyes which made it look kind of scary in her opinion.
“You just let it scan you and then it prints out the perfect sized suit,” J’are told her. “Watch—I’ll go first.”
He stepped directly in front of the bot and said, “Scan,” in an authoritative voice.
The round red eyes lit up at once, shooting out twin beams of red light which scanned J’are completely, starting at the top of his head and ending at his feet.
“Male, extra, extra, extra large,” the bot said in a mechanical voice. “Working.”
The rectangular box sitting beside it began to chug and after a moment, it spat out a white piece of cloth. Before the cloth could fall to the ground, the skinny arms with their skeletal silver hands caught it in long fingers and presented it to J’are.
“Please enjoy your anti-grav bathing attire,” the bot said. “And please do not forget to wear a mask for your safety.”
“A mask?” Imani frowned. “What’s that all about?”
“It’s just a device you put on so you can swim safely in the anti-grav environment,” J’are explained. “Once you’re in the middle of the pool and entirely surrounded by liquid, you couldn’t breathe without one—because of course you’ll die if you inhale too much water. So it would be really foolish not to wear one.”
“That makes sense.” Imani nodded. “Where do we get the masks?”
“They have them as you’re entering the pool,” J’are told her. “But first we have to get you some bathing attire.” He smiled at her. “Your turn.”
“Okay, I got it.”
Heart thumping, Imani stood directly in front of the suit bot, just as J’are had done and said, “Scan,” loudly.
The twin beams of light shot out of the bot’s red eyes. Imani halfway expected to be incinerated, they looked so much like evil laser beams from a scifi movie. But she didn’t feel a thing as the red light passed harmlessly over her, scanning her from top to bottom just as it had scanned J’are.
The moment the scan was finished, the bot said, “Female, petite but full-figured. Working.”
The rectangular box whirred and chugged and after a moment two pieces of white fabric were spit out. The two skeletal silver hands caught them with no problem and presented them to Imani.
“Please enjoy your anti-grav bathing attire,” the bot said, just as it had to J’are. “And please do not forget to wear a mask for your safety.”
“Okay. Um, thanks.” Imani clutched the two-piece suit to her chest and nodded nervously. The bot seemed harmless enough but so had the huge pink praying mantis when it had first checked her in at the Luxx and later it had tried to kill her.
“Come on—let’s go change.” J’are’s pale green eyes were glowing with anticipation. “I haven’t been anti-grav swimming since I was a kid,” he told Imani. “But I used to love it.”
She couldn’t help smiling at his excitement.
“Okay, let’s go.”
Back in her dressing stall, she took off her Yonnie Six dress of the day—which was bright pink with panties to match—and prepared to put on the white two-piece suit the bot had made for her.
But there was one problem—the suite was way too small.
“This can’t be right,” Imani muttered as she surveyed herself in the tarnished 3-D viewing panel which was located on one wall of her stall. “I mean look at this thing—it’s worse than my Yonnite clothes!”
It really was.
The top consisted of two tiny triangles connected by strings that barely covered her nipples and left the wide, berry-dark bands of her areolas bare. The bottom was another triangle which didn’t even cover her entire pussy. If she pulled it up high enough to hide the top of her slit, it clearly showed her outer lips. But if she pulled it down to cover her lips, the top of her slit was visible.
Imani thought about complaining and trying to get the creepy suit bot to make her another suit. But then she considered where she was. Here on Yonnie Six, it was no big deal for a woman to wear skimpy clothing—in fact, it was expected. Though she didn’t love it, she was going to just have to live with it.
But that didn’t make her any less embarrassed when she finally stepped outside the changing booth.
“Gods…” J’are sucked in a breath when he saw her. “So gorgeous,” he murmured, eyeing Imani appreciatively.
“You look pretty good yourself,” Imani said lightly.
He did, too. The tight white speedo-like suit the bot had made him wouldn’t have looked good on most of the men Imani knew. But it looked fabulous on J’are, emphasizing his toned torso and long, muscular legs. Not to mention the thick ridge of his shaft, which she tried not to notice pressing against the thin white material.
“The new suit really does you justice,” J’are murmured, clearly still admiring her.
“Thank you.” Imani smiled at him, trying not to feel self-conscious. She certainly would never have worn anything so revealing back home, but at least J’are seemed to think she looked good in it—that helped a lot.
Not that she ought to care what he thought, since he was only her client, she reminded herself hastily as they locked up their things in the locker they had rented and headed for the pool. But somehow knowing that such a big, handsome warrior thought she looked beautiful when she showed her curves gave her a boost.
The pool itself took up the five middle floors of the
tall white building and the changing rooms were in the floor directly above it. After walking down a steep ramp, they came to a broad platform overlooking what appeared to be a clear pink ocean with swirls of blue and purple and green running through it.
Looking down, Imani felt like she was on a high dive. She could see people swimming through the pink liquid—a lot of them kids—while their mothers lounged on chairs around the perimeter of the pool and watched them, as they chatted with their friends and bodyslaves.
“Here’s your mask,” J’are said, handing her what appeared to be a scuba mask that fitted over her eyes and nose. “There’s an oxygen filtration unit inside,” he explained, as he helped Imani put it on. “You breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth.”
He put on a mask as well and then turned to her.
“Well? Are you ready to go?”
Imani hesitated, looking down into the pink water which was about fifteen feet below.
“I thought this was supposed to be an anti-gravity pool,” she objected. “But I’m not floating or anything.”
“Oh, the anti-grav field is only around the water itself,” J’are explained. “So when you jump in, gravity pulls you down into it and then you swim through it.”
“What happens when you want to get out?” Imani asked.
“You swim to the bottom and drop down to the bounce floor,” J’are told her. “Then you take the lift back up to the changing rooms—or the spa if you want a treatment. Or you can just take the ramp back to here and dive in again.” He nodded at the pink ocean below them. “Are you ready?”
Imani wanted to point out that it seemed awfully high up but just then two little girls ran past them, holding hands and giggling. They poised on the edge of the ledge for a moment and chanted in unison,
“One, two, three!”
With a peal of laughter, the two of them launched themselves out as far as they could into midair. Imani watched, her heart in her throat, as they dropped into the swirling pink water below.
Unleashed by the Defender: A Kindred Tales Novel Page 12
