Page 50 of Xel: Broken Bond
On bare feet, I padded to the kitchen, spooned instant coffee into a cup and boiled the kettle. Then I took the steaming cup outside, going around the side of the house to sit on one of the cushioned chairs that was on the porch outside the kitchen. The distant sky was just beginning to lighten to blue, while stars were still clearly visible overhead. And I sat, feeling the cool morning air against my bare skin, and sipped my coffee, and contemplated the world.
Acolonyof Vangravians. In so many ways, the idea was preposterous. One tiny leak of information, and according to Rohinavon, the entire Vangravian space fleet would descent upon us, ready to go to war. But if we succeeded, we were looking at the possibility of rewriting the future of huge chunks of the known galaxy – not only the Vangravians and Eumadians, but every species who bought the dimari and fuelled the slave trade. With no more slaves, all of their cultures would have to make adjustments as well. It was a heady feeling, to think that we could influence so many lives, and I felt bolstered by the fact that both Xel and Kade had been firmly in favour of the plan. If the slaves themselves thought the galaxy would be better off without the slave trade, then I couldn’t think of a single argument against our attempt to tear it down.
Yesterday, I’d tried to look up some information about Vangravian culture, but it had been noticeably lacking amongst all the interspecies discussions on the grid. There were a few notes to the effect that it was a strictly matriarchal society, and that the women had been selling their male offspring for hundreds of years, but that was about as much as I could find.
But the thing that had really given me something to think about had been the fact that yesterday afternoon, I’d finallymanaged to finish reading the rest of Aiden’s instructions about how to care for a dimari. And what I’d learned had been both fascinating and daunting. First and foremost, I now understood all the ways in which sex was an absolutely non-negotiable requirement for a happy, healthy dimari.
As the booklet had explained at length, dimari’s brains didn’t function like ordinary people’s brains did. Their neurological processes had been altered to such an extent that they were no longer capable of independent decision making. They gave the appearance of it, because of the multitude of small decisions they made on a daily basis – what to cook for dinner, what clothes to wear, which parts of the house to clean – but all of those decisions were made within a framework of their master’s overall goals and desires. A dimari learned which foods their master liked to eat, and then went about preparing those dishes. They learned what type of clothing their master liked them to wear, and on which occasions, and then made appropriate selections. And sex was a fundamental process by which their masters communicated that they were satisfied with the choices the dimari had made. A vigorous sex life meant a pleased master. A sexual drought meant that the dimari was failing at their most fundamental purpose in life, and if that failure continued for too long, the dimari would succumb to depression and despair.
But the other thing that had really hit home, after reading an extensive essay on a dimari’s perceptions of the world, was that they were fundamentally incapable of thinking ill of their master. No matter how mean or generous, no matter how cruel or kind, no matter how beautiful or ugly, a dimari would believe that their master was the epitome of desirability, and furthermore, that anyone who thought otherwise was clearly just influenced by unreasonable bias. The twisted logic was actually a little frightening… but then I supposed that was the whole pointabout brainwashing them. They were manufactured to be loyal subjects, not rational people.
And that’s what had brought about last night’s little brain-snap. It had been an entirely impulsive move to ask Xel to sleep in my bed with me, but one that was driven by an almost desperate curiosity about how he would react, and whether Aiden was, in fact, accurate in his descriptions of a dimari’s mind – the fact that I wasn’t Xel’s true master notwithstanding. Xel had been concerned that I was upset about something, and then declared that he would throw down with anyone who gave me a hard time about my appearance. And that had made me wonder how he would react to seeing all of the scars that were usually covered by my clothing. He knew about my face and my right arm, but not the rest of it.
So I’d taken off my clothes. And he hadn’t even blinked. He’d stripped down and crawled into bed beside me, more concerned about keeping Mr Beans happy than he was about touching my scars. He’d snuggled into me, but then tensed, and it had been hard to know the cause; the fact that I was touching him, or the rest of the events that had thrown the day into complete chaos. But then he’d drifted off to sleep, my body wrapped around him, and I’d spent the next twenty minutes doing my best to hold back tears, until I’d eventually fallen asleep as well.
I heard a faint creak, and then the front door opened and closed. A moment later, Xel came around the corner, Bribie at his heels. The munsend trotted off to sniff at the grass, searching for the perfect spot for an early morning pee, while Xel smiled as he saw me.
“I wondered where you were,” he said, as he lowered himself into the chair beside me. “I thought it was too early to be checking on the animals.” He kept his voice low, lest he disturb Rohinavon.
“I was too awake to go back to sleep,” I said, moving to take another sip of my coffee before realising that the cup was empty. I set it aside on the garden table. “I was just thinking about all the stuff about the Vangravians yesterday.”
“It’s a big project,” Xel said, sitting back in his chair. “It’ll take a lot of work to get it up and running. Assuming the Parliament even approves it.” He stretched his long legs out in front of him, and that was when I noticed the detail I’d missed before, paying too much attention to Bribie, and with the light still dim around us. But now that I’d noticed it, I couldn’t help but stare, albeit that I was trying to do it out of the corner of my eye. Xel had an erection. And as I’d noted in previous encounters with him, he waslarge. He was doing nothing to disguise it, and I tried to tell myself that it was a perfectly natural reaction for a male at this time of the morning. I’d woken up with an erection myself, though it had faded within a few minutes of waking up. Xel himself seemed to be completely oblivious to it… but at the same time, he seemed to have chosen a sitting position that emphasised the bulge in his pants. Was that deliberate, or just a concession to comfort? Having that thing pressed tightly against his thigh couldn’t be terribly comfortable.
The longer I sat there, the more I managed to convince myself that he was putting on the show deliberately. He was anerotic companion, for heaven’s sake. He’d been trained to be sexually enticing; one more snippet that I’d learned from Aiden’s manual. When Aiden had said he was coming over yesterday, it had occurred to me to try and talk to him some more about Xel. But with Rohinavon’s revelation about starting acolony, I’d quickly abandoned that idea in favour of more urgent matters. Aiden had hidden it well, but both he and Kade had looked noticeably tired, and in the end, it had seemed more appropriate to limit the number of concerns I was dropping on his doorstep.
Except that now, I was sitting on my porch with Xel, a headful of questions, and Xel’s impressive erection.
Finishing his business, Bribie came lolloping over, managing about three steps at a run before he slowed to his usual plod. But then he sat down beside me and put his head on my leg. I reached out to rub his ears automatically. On my loneliest nights over the last year, after Bo had gone home, and when there were none of the casual staff staying the night, I’d sometimes let him come and stay in the cottage with me. Breaking my own rules, yes, but some nights, the silence had just become unbearable. With Xel here, that was looking to get a hell of a lot better, and if we managed to get this Vangravian colony up and running, I’d more likely end up craving some peace and quiet, rather than being desperate for company. But Bribie had seen me through some dark days. He looked up at me now with big, soulful eyes, perfectly satisfied to simply be by my side. There was a part of me that knew why I’d tried so hard to keep him at a distance. If he’d passed away on one of the nights when I was barely holding myself together, I think it would have broken me. And he was so old that I knew he could be going any day now. Maybe I’d get a day or two’s warning, with Bribie refusing to eat or unable to stand up on his wobbly legs. Or maybe I’d just wake up one morning to find him already gone. I wasn’t looking forward to that day, but I already knew it would be a lot easier to cope with now that Xel was here.
The sound of the front door opening again got my attention, and I looked around to see Rohinavon padding quietly outside, barefoot, like both Xel and me. She was still wearing the makeshift clothing I’d found for her yesterday.
“Morning,” I greeted her, then hastily said, “We can get onto the grid today and order you some more clothes.” I’d washed her set from the day before, but noticed at the same time that the skirt was torn, which made me wonder where exactly hersmuggler friend had dropped her off, and what she’d had to go through to make it to my old barn.
“Thank you,” she said. She came around to my other side, taking the third chair on the porch. And then she pointedly leaned over to give my scars a quick once-over. “It’s none of my business,” she said, with a wry twist of her lips. “But if you wouldn’t mind me asking?”
“I was caught in a house fire,” I said, answering the question she hadn’t quite asked. “Electrical fault.”
“Ah,” she said, when it became clear that was all I was going to say on the matter. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Ironically, her brusque attitude was reassuring. Most people were curious, I understood that. And Rohinavon had managed to ask what had happened at the same time as admitting that she was being rude by doing so. Self awareness was an admirable trait. But then, that had been the end of it. I’d known far too many people who had tried to give me advice on how to get on with my life, or listed all the things I should be grateful for, or even worse, had tried to tell me that everything happened for a reason, and there was some great good that was going to come out of the fact that my sister had died an agonising death that I’d been helpless to prevent. Rohinavon’s response was far more like my own perspective on the whole thing; sometimes shitty things happened, and that sucked, but in the end, we had no choice but to move on.
“Is there anything I can do to be useful today?” Rohinavon asked. “I have a feeling you’re going to end up doing a hell of a lot for me, whether or not we get this colony up and running, so I’d prefer it if I didn’t make things any more of a strain than they have to be.”
I considered that for a moment, then shook my head. “Honestly, the best thing you can do for me is stay near the house and keep relatively out of sight. Bo will be around, andshe knows not to let any visitors anywhere near the cottage, but until we get some idea from Aiden about security and long-term plans, I mostly just need you to stay out of sight.”
“Understood,” Rohinavon said, taking no offence at my reply. I waited… but she said nothing more, and I once again admired her awareness of the situation. There were so many people in the world who wanted to ‘help’, not because they genuinely wanted to be helpful, but to assuage their own guilt about sitting around idly. But today, with all the risks inherent in Rohinavon being here, asking her to do literally anything else would only increase the chances of something going wrong.
We all sat quietly as we watched the sky brighten and the sun rise above the horizon, glinting through the leaves of the trees across the paddock. Then finally, I stood up, stretching my arms over my head. The scars down my right side protested, the skin not nearly as flexible there, but I’d got used to the sensation, and mostly managed to ignore it. “I’ll go and do the early check of the animals,” I said, and predictably, Xel was on his feet a moment later.
“Would you like me to take care of the barn?” he volunteered.
“Yeah, that would be great. I’ll meet you back here for breakfast.”
It didn’t take long to get the checks done – even less time, now that Mr Beans wasn’t there to knock his water dish over, and Bribie seemed content to sit beside Rohinavon on the porch, rather than following us around the property. He knew the routine well enough to know that he’d have plenty of time outside later.
While I wandered up the aisles and cooed reassuring nonsense at the animals, another part of my mind was wondering what to do about Xel. On an intellectual level, it was simple. He needed sex, he’d proven that he had no aversion to my scars, and he’d demonstrated the ability to say no, if he didn’tlike what I was asking him to do. So there was no ethical reason that I couldn’t meet his needs for him.
But at the same time, actually taking the leap of getting intimate with him seemed like… I wasn’t sure what. But it was somethingbig. Something filled withmeaningandcommitment, something that made me feel shaky inside, like the world was being turned inside out and I couldn’t figure out which way was up. I’d spent the last five years expecting not much at all from the world. I’d given up on any real career, I avoided people, and though I’d toyed with the idea of turning the old barn into a laboratory, I’d found every excuse under the sun to delay the process of actually cleaning it out.