Page 10 of Inceptive (Ingenious #3)

10

WILL

A fter hours of smokes and jerking off, Will’s rut had passed, leaving a sour film over his skin. His body looked and felt like a solid yellowing bruise. His tender nipples had flattened. His pits were dry, his dick was chapped, and his exhausted balls threatened to crawl up his ass.

He’d heated a pot of plain mush on the stove. Black root tea for colic steeped.

Phew. The cabin smelled like death had knocked on the door, taken a dump, then fled.

The cursing from the corner of the cabin had stopped hours ago. Poor Zach had reacted to the tea as if he’d ripped another asshole. He’d crawled to his sleeping mat, curled up, and slept an hour. Now, he’d awakened, skin chalky, his eyes sunken and bloodshot. He tottered to a rocker and sulked when handed a mug of tea.

“Has the arousal passed?” Will asked.

“Everything has passed. I think my teeth passed.”

“For a big man like you, I crushed three crapberries to be sure they worked.”

“Three berries serve a family’s blocked bowels.”

Will fought a smile. Treetop couldn’t swat a fly. “Sorry, but I had to defuse your firecracker before you tackled me and did things we’d regret. Just imagine the gasps in the steam lodge if anyone but you questioned me.”

“You could’ve sucked me off. Or told me to wank off. My ass is sore.”

“My ass isn’t. Which is why the three crapberries.”

“I don’t like men that way. I wouldn’t have fucked you.”

“You’d have let me suck you off, then you’d have thought, why not fuck if we’ve gone that far with each other. You’d have called me a dirty slut for begging.”

“Did Elliston call you a dirty slut?”

“A cum whore. A sweet hole craving a hard fucking. He swore to fill his boy with loving dick every night.” Will dished out mush. “So I staged my fall off the balcony.”

“Had you surrendered to me, I never would’ve treated you like an alley whore.”

Will sweetened the mush with sap. “We’ll never know.”

When Belle hadn’t returned after being gone three weeks, Zach finally convinced Will that she’d laid her clutch, surrounded by her flock, and with her contrite mate feeding her the right food. Motherhood was a strong drive. Will was not a papa bird, and Belle’s instinct had won the battle.

Every evening, fog shrouded the basin, then burned away by noon. The rain slackened, and the winds slowed—signs that the basin had entered the third month of its rainy season. As the cane soaked up the water, the fields would become muddy, and cane would be harvested in batches. But for now, the water was chest-high, and the cane rustled as hatching season began in tiers with fish, frogs, snakes, and fowl timing their young to feed.

With a plentiful supply of fish and rodents for the predators, walkways were safe. The cabin’s perimeter reeked of humans inside, and wildlife avoided it for easier meals. The cacophony from the swamp blended into white noise. The cannons had been silent the past week.

Will had discussed the possibility of bad smokes causing the younger servants to wander off, oblivious to danger, as they’d hooked up with others in rut, and Zach had agreed. The farmers and servants would’ve discovered the cause and stopped the losses by drugging and shackling a servant at the first hint of a rut. Farmers would’ve spread the word. That a group hadn’t visited Zach was because he lived by the swamp, and having arrived late with one servant meant he’d bought the last man auctioned. The last was always the oldest and free of ruts.

Zach rolled back the awning over the window box, declaring the winds were calmer, and they could grow herbs and vegetables.

Will joined him. “Hot damn. Growing plants in fresh dirt.”

“What else, spit and shit?”

“Virgin soil is as valuable as scrap metal on the Island. We use moss and synthetic mulch.” Will rolled up his sleeves. “What’re you planting? Can I help? When can we eat it? I’m sick of dried greens and noodles.”

“Turnips, tomatoes, peppers, and vine pods. From seed to table within two weeks.”

Will reverently poked holes for the seeds, cooing to each and naming them before smoothing dirt over their tiny cribs.

Zach stood back, looking amused by his enthusiasm. “If you name them like pets, you won’t eat them. I had a pet hare named Clarence. Wouldn’t let anyone skin and roast him. Then he got into the window box and ate the seedlings. Pa forced me to decide between freeing Clarence and letting the slinks eat him, or letting the crew roast him for supper.”

“So you freed him and heard him squeal when he was hunted down.”

“The crew ate roasted hare. I ate boiled greens.”

“I solemnly swear, Zach, that if you lose a coin toss, I’ll eat every morsel of your fine physique.”

Smiling, Zach rolled a rain barrel inside to fill the stove’s reservoir.

Will admired the ripple of muscle stretching the tight tee. “Compared to the other farmers, you’re as strong as a pony. You stick out like a sore thumb.”

“My pa was a big man, and my ma was a strapping woman full of work, but too plain-spoken for men, and her views irritated the women. Especially when she criticized the mothers for thrusting their daughters in my path. They had to get her consent to court me, so I reached twenty years without worrying about marriage.”

“Possessive of her baby boy?”

“Her mind was open to the darkness of the future. But without land votes, she had no voice in the council. After my first year of farming, my ma and pa loaned me credits to bid for a crew. Riley quit school when fifteen and farmed with me after my parents died. He’s big, too. Riley’s always dreamed of being a merchant and living in town with Myra, who lives next door to him. He’s built a nice trust fund from the bonuses I’ve paid him. This would’ve been our last year farming. A woodcarving merchant without heirs is selling his shop to me, and I planned to let Riley manage the business while I was mayor.”

They walked outside and sat on the bench. Will played his flute while Zach whittled lengths of hardened cane to make a pipe flute. After the rut, boundaries had whittled away like the pipes, and they had begun to share confidences.

Their talks often turned to sex, with Zach the initiator.

“What sort of man would you court, if you had a choice?” Zach asked.

“I don’t know. My music consumed my time.” Will showed off the calluses on the base of his fingers. “I’ve never had a boyfriend or girlfriend. Never hooked up with the same person twice. I wanted to see something besides lust in their eyes when we kissed. Which was a problem in a dark closet.”

Zach stopped whittling. “Girls have never seemed interested in kissing me, even though it would’ve meant an offer of marriage.”

“Probably because of your grungy beard.”

“My beard makes kissing awkward. I want to impress a girl with our first kiss. Because, well, if she told her parents, we’d have to get engaged, and I want her interested in more kisses instead of hankering for my land.”

“Practice kissing mouth puppets. I did.” Will demonstrated kissing a mouth made by touching his forefinger and thumb. “When she kisses back, add tongue.” He stuck his tongue through the gap and twirled it.

Zach laughed.

“Admit you’ve practiced,” Will teased.

Zach’s forefinger and thumb created a mouth like a fearsome fish. “I don’t want to kiss such a mouth.” When they stopped laughing at what Belle would have called fishy kissies , he said, “Riley and I practiced on plums, sucking the pulp until our stomachs cramped. Riley said sucking a girl’s lips would arouse her nethers.” Zach blushed hot enough to singe the ends of his whiskers.

Will snickered. “Your sweetheart’s nethers won’t be sweet and juicy as a plum unless you, um… venture lower, where sucking ripens the fruit.”

“What do you mean?”

Will explained, and Zach gagged. “Where did you learn such filthy practices?”

“Sexual awareness is taught in our academy. Surely Fort Hope teaches you the basics?”

“No!”

“There’s more to marriage than coitus.”

“What’s coitus?”

Will choked. “And now I understand the low birth rate. Coitus is an erect cock penetrating a woman’s birth channel.”

“Pffft. All children understand how babies are made by watching ponies breed.”

“There are more positions than with a woman on her hands and knees.”

“Riley got himself in trouble looking for more positions.”

“Islanders encourage self-pleasure for students entering puberty. There are toys, videos, and life-sized dolls. After eighteen, we use our knowledge of self-pleasure to pursue healthy sexual experimentation. Students go wild during their first year in the university’s residential tower. By the second year, they settle into relationships, short or long termed, while focusing on a major study.” His voice flattened. “But not me. I lived at home because my father’s strict housing regulations upset people, and kidnapping his son for ransom was a threat.”

“Were you kidnapped?”

“Once. It was big news. I’m surprised you asked.”

“Fort Hope doesn’t gossip about Islanders. Newsletters are delivered to the council.”

“It happened when I was six. The kidnappers sent my father a video of them thrashing me with a cane. When he rejected the ransom, they abandoned me in a trash bin. The police found me, and surgeons removed the scars. My father offered a reward for the capture of the kidnappers, and after the trial, guards lined them up on the bridge, and he pushed each one off.”

Zach stared, incredulous. “You mock my people and their laws, but we live peacefully, and never would we torture a child. I’m sorry I made you remember.”

“My engagement to Elliston was worse than the kidnapping. I told my father I’d rather endure another caning than marry the deputy viceroy.”

“How old is the man, in his sixties?”

“Elliston is forty, handsome, and divorced with one daughter in the university pursuing a political career. He’s bisexual. Meaning he likes sex with a man or a woman.”

Zach tsked , shaking his head. “Perverted Islander ways.”

“As if forcing marriage on young men and stripping them of votes and land isn’t perverted.”

Zach brushed shavings off his thighs. “Our men control the income they’ve earned and have a strong voice inside their family unit. All citizens over the age of eighteen can vote on the council’s proposals. Though a man must forfeit his land votes to his wife, he still manages the farm and earns an equal share of the harvest.”

Will digested that information. “As mayor, you could push through other proposals besides a hospital. Maybe men would like to vote for less restrictions on what’s taught in your school. My father is willing to open our archives for tours.”

“Why? Your knowledge has led to self-destruction and perversions. Place restrictions on your sexual desires, and perhaps my people will feel safe to tour your archives.”

Will quirked a brow. “You know… arguing at this rate, before the tunnel opens, one of us will likely have killed the other out of hot temper, not hunger.”

Zach stretched out his legs and folded his arms behind his head. “According to our legends, Fort Hope’s people descend from the survivors left behind in the sanctuary whose purpose was the survival of the human race. We share ancestors, yet you call us subhuman and yourselves true humans. You treat us like weeds that grew in your absence. Explain why you think yourself better than me.”

“First of all, pull your head out of your butt and listen to the truth, not the legends. When the alarms sounded that the destruction of Earth had begun, our ancestors launched a chain of oceanic domes housing two thousand genetically modified trainees, conditioned to accept a confined environment. Those chosen for the domes were terrified. They didn’t feel honored. They were treated like prisoners without rights. Any malfunction in a dome would kill them. The domes contained spirals that were designed to unfold into towers once the domes had anchored on the ocean floor. The plan was to surface after a thousand years or sooner if the sensors detected a breathable atmosphere. But when the sensors detected good air, barnacles and sludge prevented detachment from the anchors. They voted to blast free or die trying, so they warped the power grids by blasting all anchors. The corresponding grids and plates on a ten-mile, man-made barrier isle were designed to attract the domes like magnets, but the connections aligned like ill-fitting balls and sockets and churned the water. Boats couldn’t cross. Also, the entire coastline had changed. The barrier isle had divided into two isles that were a mile from the mainland, and the only bridge was on the smaller isle that would become known as the Trading Post. Worst of all, the people weren’t prepared for the transition to fresh air. They should’ve been quarantined on the Island while they transitioned instead of rushing to the mainland.”

Will paused and regarded Zach’s blank expression. “Did you understand any of that?”

“None.”

“Screw survivors, truths, myths, claims. Let’s talk about what’ll happen to me when we’re out of here. What’s wrong with hiring a music teacher for your school?”

“I like you, Will. I promise to send a proposal through to hire you to teach music to our young ones.”

“I like you, Treetop. I’ll do everything to persuade my father to sign a new trade deal for a surgical hospital.”

Zach chuckled. “The amazing Miss Glorianna. I wish I’d seen all the performances.”

“We were fabulous.”