Authors: Melisse Aires
The boys left before sundown and she set
a table of salad greens, cheese and eggs. Simple. Then they all bathed and it
was bed time for the girls. Polly sat with them in the loft as they settled to
sleep. Perhaps they weren’t like human children, but Polly could see not much
difference. They couldn’t speak, and their glowing eyes and shiny skin weren’t
human, but they were affectionate and capable of learning. They played with
small dolls and blocks, like other children. They liked a story and a song before
bed. The girls couldn’t speak, but they could sing, matching her pitch with
wordless
oos
and
ahhs
.
Polly enjoyed this time of day. The loft
in the crystiglass dome gave a panoramic view of her land, the garden, the
golden fields, painted in warm tones as the sun set. She’d often slept up
here, avoiding her drunken husband, and enjoyed the two moons of Celstar.
Later she tidied up in the kitchen and
put a pot of beans to soak for soup. There was a knock at her front door.
Fallon stood on the front stoop, wide
brimmed hat in hand, wearing a work shirt and dungarees. He carried a satchel,
and Polly realized that what they put their human clothes in when they
shimmered.
“Councilman.”
“Please call me Fallon. I came to rekey
your Synths. I thought it best not to wait. If something happened and they needed
doctoring, Dr. Ordes in town would refuse to treat them if you didn’t have
ownership.”
“Thank you. I hadn’t thought of that. They
are in bed in the loft.”
“Oh. Sorry to wake them.”
Polly smiled. “They are heavy sleepers,
so I don’t think you’ll wake them. You're using a scanner, right?”
“Yes.”
Fallon followed her to the narrow, steep
staircase that lead to the small loft. The loft had a low roof so he couldn’t
stand upright, and had to hunch over. He squatted down next to the beds. Both
little Synths were asleep, holding rag dolls.
“You treat them like children.”
Polly shrugged. “They seem like children
to me. Not that I am very familiar with children. Hoggart and I had none, so
the girls have become my family.”
“The law here encourages that. Family, or
life long servants…can’t be sold on Celstar.”
“Yes.”
Fallon pulled out his scanner while
Polly rolled the girls over so he could reach the back of their necks. He found
the microchips in the base of their necks and erased Hoggart’s data, then
pulled out a swab from the kit and handed it to her. She rubbed the inside of
her cheek and handed him the swab, feeling a tiny thrill when their fingers
brushed. He placed the swab in the scanner and it made a data chart of her DNA.
When the lights flashed green, Fallon beamed the new data to the chips, sealing
her ownership over the Synth girls. Satisfaction welled inside her. They were
hers now, no matter what.
“I’m a little surprised the territory has
rekeying tool.” She said a they went down the stairs.
“The Shimmer clans don’t own Synths, but a
few non-Shimmer families in the area have Synths. They treat them like family
or at least servants. The Celstar constitution bars selling, breeding or
warehousing, but not ownership.”
“That’s good. Hoggart bought them so I
wouldn’t be lonely.” Though now she suspected he’d bought them for a sideline
business in the sex trade. But Fallon didn’t need to know that. She walked him
to the door.
“The boys working out for you?”
“Oh yes! They are wonderful workers. We
got a third of the crop cut and loaded today!”
“So your grain will be cut in three to
four days. What else do you have to harvest?”
“Nothing so time sensitive as the grain.
I have a vegetable garden, which I can harvest over the next month or so and
fruit vines that will ripen until hard frost. Grain was my only cash crop.”
Polly walked him to the door, aware of
his tall lean body, the way the muscles in his thighs showed under his
dungarees, the breadth of his shoulders, nearly brushing hers. Should she
invite him to tea? No, that was too forward.
Widow. Grieving widow. Not a
sex starved ex-Cancan dancer.
“Would like to see my garden? I have a
wonderful fruit enclosure.”
“Love too.” He followed her around to the
back of her house. The garden was a quarter section, and she’d planned and planted
it all herself, Hoggart’s only concern being the grain crop that covered twenty
of their twenty five sections.
“I keep my fruit in this cage. Last year they
didn’t produce very much but this year I have tons of fruit. Some have already
ripened, so I have been picking a few at a time.
“I’ve never seen this before. What are
they called?”
“Persicherries. They are a vine, not like
the Terran cherry trees. Here, let me pick you some to take home.” They went
inside the cage. The aisles between the vines were narrow and the two of them squeezed
down the row until she found a grouping of ripe, red fruit. She pulled a small
basket from the shelf that ran along the row and began filling it.
“That basket is Skalzi.”
“Yes. We border the corridor. Sometimes
the Skalzi come to the garden. They are fascinated by the fruit. I set out a
bowl of fruit, and they returned it with the basket. I usually leave a full
basket outside the cage, it is gone by morning with an empty in its place, but
not always. So now I have quite a collection.”
“You can sell them in town for good
coin.”
“Oh.” She watched as he took a persicheri
and ate it slowly, savoring the sweet juicy flesh. His lips were full, not too
full. Just right.
“Are you saving the pits?” He asked. She
showed him the bucket she used to collect the pits. “I bought the vines as
cuttings before we moved here. They were dry roots, so I soaked them and
planted. Turns out my bundle was about twenty plants. I didn’t have much fruit
last year but I started the pits in the fall and kept them in the house. Those
have a bit of fruit, but my older plants are heavy with cherries.”
“I have new seedlings.” She beckoned him
to the back wall of the enclosure. “You should take some and try a fall
planting. I gave some seedlings to the Skazi, well I left them in a basket. I’m
not sure if they garden since they migrate. But maybe some would do all right
in the wild, especially if they fenced it.”
“Where did you get them? I’ve never heard
of them before.”
“I bought them at the trading market in
Kurvash, the big city on Jiang. There are lots of small booths full of unusual
garden varieties.”
Fallon grinned. “I’ve heard you can find
interesting things there, but I have never been. We moved here five years ago from
Sageterri. We’ve been ordering all our seed through the Celstar Collective,
but they don’t carry much variety.”
They left the enclosure and walked back
to the house.
“The clan has a fall festival, not this
month but next month on the first two moon night. Everyone is invited and
brings a dish to share. You should come, meet some neighbors,” Fallon said.
“Sounds lovely. But I can’t leave the
Synths…they are too young to leave alone.” She would not lock them up somewhere
like animals.
“Bring them. There will be children
everywhere.”
Polly smiled. “Then I will come and bring
persicherri pie.”
Fallon’s white teeth gleamed in the dim
light. “I do love a good pie. Not much pie on our Steading since Maureen
passed. None of us have the knack.”
Fallon took his leave and she wondered
briefly if the seedlings and the fruit would fit in his clothes satchel. She
was tempted for a moment to slip up to the loft and peak into the front yard,
to watch him disrobe and shimmer into horse shape. She restrained herself. Her interest
was mostly in seeing him nude again, and those kinds of thoughts lead to
nothing but trouble.
~**~
It was late, but the two bright moons
flooded the farm with light and Polly could not sleep. The grain harvest was
done, thanks to the Shimmer boys, and the Grain Collective had landed on her
dirt port this morning, weighed her grain, studied its purity and paid her a
nice sum. All the hours she’d spent weeding her crops had paid off, her
variable seed was under five percent. She was so excited about the extra
thousand credits she could not calm down.
Chortlers whistled their evening calls in
the brush land that bordered the garden and a sweet scent from her fruit vines,
was carried on the warm breeze. Contentment flooded her heart. She loved this
land, this home, fiercely, and it was hers now. Tonight she would pick fruit
until she felt able to sleep. The vines were heavy, she would be pitting and
canning for several days. She’d sent the boys home with two large bags of fruit
after the grain was loaded and she still had several hours of work ahead of her.
Polly picked for some time until her
arms and shoulders ached, when she heard a thud of horse hooves. Fallon! She
went to the front of the enclosure and looked for the Shimmer who was on her
land.
The large black stallion on the edge of
her harvested grain field came to a halt, head raised high, the nostrils wide,
testing the breeze.
“Fallon?” she called.
The horse cantered into her yard and
stopped at the enclosure. He shimmered into human form, naked in the moonlight.
Polly’s tiredness vanished, replaced by a deep awareness of his body. She
couldn’t help but stare, he was perfection, every hard muscle calling to her to
touch.
“Polly. I didn’t think you would be
awake. Or picking fruit this late.”
She dialed down the light in the
enclosure and grabbed the tub of fruit.
“I was just finishing. I need to get
these into the cooler. Tomorrow the girls will help me pit them. I’ll can most
of the but was thinking of drying some of them, for baked goods.” Her words
were rushed and breathy as she tried to disguise the sudden rush of heat that engulfed
her.
He came closer as she opened the door and
set the tub down, wiping her hands on her grubby apron.
“It is probably not safe for you to be
out here alone so late.”
Polly couldn’t help it. She couldn’t take
her eyes off his mouth, his eyes…
“I…I couldn’t sleep.” Looking deep into
his eyes, his face shadowed, with the glow from the double moon lighting his blue
eyes, deep pools that mesmerized her. Neither spoke, staring at each other in
the moonlight. His presence was overwhelming, and all her plans and decisions
fled. She raised her hands and slid them up his firm, hot chest to his shoulders,
reveling in the smooth skin and hard muscles under her hands.
His arms clamped around her and his mouth
found hers, tongue rushing to her, devouring her in a rush of electric passion.
“I wanted to see you.” His mouth nuzzled
down her neck, making tingle, making her knees weak. The heat of his hard flesh
pressed so tight against her, seeped through her clothes to her skin, making
her hot, making her want to be naked, skin to skin. She slid her arms around
his neck and he lifted her, setting her on the sturdy worktable by the door. She
pulled open her shirtwaist, kissing him with desperate hunger that he matched.
Then her apron was untied, her shirtwaist off and his mouth was at her breast.
He captured a nipple and sucked it deep, flicking her with a wet tongue, each
movement causing waves of delight that pulsed through her.
“So beautiful,” he murmured against her
neck, his long fingers exploring her breasts.
Polly wanted more, wanted him closer. She
yanked her skirt up and unbuttoned the center panel of her pantaloons, yanked, uncaring
of ripped buttonholes. His hand found hers as she worked her pantaloons open
and then his fingers found her wet swollen nub, and caressed her firmly.
“Can you get pregnant?” His raspy tone
thrilled her.
“No.” She almost paused her exploration
of the hard muscles of his stomach. Shimmers could have part-human children?
“In me,” she whispered reaching for his
hard length, gliding her hand up and down, circling the head testing so thickness
and strength.
“Yes.” And he was inside her, a deep
thick filling that suited her in every way. She wrapped her legs around his
hips and moved within him, seeking a fulfillment that swept though her in an
exquisite rush.
Afterward they rested together, breathing
hard, still joined. A rustle startled them. Polly flipped her skirt down and dragged
on her shirtwaist.
A Skalzi female, wrapped in along gauzy
robe and hood, and two Sklazi children lifted the tub of fruit Polly had left
outside the enclosure. The female looked at them, her reflective eyes lit by
the moonlight even through her gauze. She paused as though startled to see them
and pulled both children closer. The three froze.
“It-it’s all right. You may have the cherries,”
Polly said, pointing to the tub. She wasn’t sure the woman understood. The
woman stared at her, then bowed low. She lifted the tub and the three glided
away.
“That’s the first time I’ve seen one. I
know they visit, but… Hoggart had seen them before. They didn’t worry him.” Polly
bit her tongue for bringing up her deceased husband when she’d just been
intimate with Fallon.