My Beautiful Boy
by Jodi Lee
H |
is views on logic did not interest me. My lack of desire to listen to his ramblings had allowed my brain to wander, and I kept myself amused by mentally ripping the skin from his jowly face.
In fact I didn’t hear more than five words during his whole twenty-eight minute monologue. When he asked my thoughts, I’d coo about how wonderful it was, how everyone at the conference tomorrow would find him the most interesting and knowledgeable speaker there.
I glared at the back of his head as he faced the window and gazed out on the rotund piece of rock floating beneath us; my mind saw him floating out there beyond the glass, blood pulling away from his body in little drops to freeze in the lack of atmosphere.
If thumbprint ID wasn’t required to open doors in this section of the station, I’d have been gone long since. As it was, he and his cronies watched my every move.
I could not stand his continual droning on and on in that snotty monotone. Fantasies of debris from the launch pad smashing through the window and slicing through his pencil-thin neck, severing that constantly babbling mouth from the body that fed it energized me. I closed my eyes and savored the details.
The boy wearing a torn shirt and jeans pulled the cart across the deck in front of the small office building. As he trudged it through the door he thought about the rewards he would receive after the hard labor today. Never in his life had he seen so much treasure in one spot; the Outsider would be ecstatic on his return to the compound. No one had found this before, even though it should have been one of the first places they’d searched.
The old floorboards squeaked. He knew they were barely holding his weight combined with that of the cart, let alone the return trip being double that. This would be the final time he crossed the floor in this building, the final time he would have to be frightened for his very life.
Echoes of the past rebounded in the old mine. He had ventured several miles below the surface, seeking the treasure. Whispers of the long-forgotten ocean roared and swirled in the tunnels and caves; a Goddess’ cries dying in the dark. The Outsider had once told him that his whole compound was once beach-front property, and that all the sand for miles outside the walls was actually the sea-bed.
The young man couldn’t even imagine that much water everywhere. Water was a treasure to be hunted for, just like the precious metals and stones that the Outsider hoarded within the stronghold of the compound.
And he had found a rich supply, the Goddess had blessed him with so much treasure!
Perhaps he could get permission to leave and visit his sisters where they lived on the Station. To leave the dusty rock of existence and visit the sparkling object that hovered just outside of the atmosphere tickled his mind and fired him on. To leave and do anything, anywhere he chose, even if it was just for a few days. With all of his hard work, the Outsider was sure to be pleased, and pleasing his Outsider was one of the great joys in his life.
He grimaced slightly as he hefted the giant container onto the cart. Another one, and still another; added to the others he’d removed earlier, that made nine all together. Enough to last the Outsider and the household at least a half-year.
The boy wasn’t really a boy after all, as could be seen once he was out of the shadows, under the spotlights. Although small in stature, he was indeed a young man. At least two decades in age, when he stood tall he was only just barely over five and a half feet in height; his build lent to the illusion of youth. Slender but well-muscled, tanned a deep bronze from being out in the sun most of the day, his eyes were a washed out shade of blue as were most of the men.
Too much genetic preferencing in the old days had resulted in men that looked alike - dirty blond, pale blue eyes, short. It had become quite rare to see a man with dark features. The Raiders, though, they were dark.
He often wondered what it would be like, to be like the Raiders. All well over six feet, dark and muscled like oxen, the Raiders went from station to station, compound to compound, planet to planet - trading, selling and thieving whenever they had a chance. Raiders didn’t believe in a Goddess, any Goddess. They didn’t even believe in a God. Just themselves.
He thought of the fickle way in which they used the women of the stations and outposts. Often, the women were left with child. On their next trip through the area, if the men remembered which woman he’d been with, he’d visit again. If the child was dark and heavily built, the Raider would take it when he left again. If the child was pale and small, it was left behind. As he himself had been, only to live with the shame his mother reminded him of every day while she was around. She’d even named him Raize, a common slang term for Raider. Since the women were not allowed to abandon, sell or give away boy-children, his mother had sold herself into service to an Outsider in order to support her little family and avoid prison.
The next time the Raiders visited, she managed to escape with one, leaving her children behind. The girls had long-since left the Rock, seeking their own way in the ‘verse.
Leaving Raize behind.
Oh, blessed silence – finally! How I have longed for your touch.
I couldn’t stop staring at my hands. The blood that had covered them, though having been washed away long since, still seemed to stain the skin. I was sure there were rings of dried gore under the edges of my nails - I was constantly picking at them as though to remove it.
Perhaps no one else would see it. Could see it. My bent head only lent validation to my ruse; I was a grieving half-wife, the remaining concubine after the death of my Outsider master. I was finally free at least. Nobody seemed to suspect that I had done him in, I played my part well.
I believed I had everyone convinced that I did in fact love the droning lump of narcissistic flesh that had bought and paid for my services.
There I sat, picking at my nails while the station accountant crunched his numbers. My portion of the assets remaining after the station had taken its chunk could not be reckoned in dollar amounts. Rather, the accountant was telling me I’d be given a set amount to live on, each month, via tix at the station warehouse. The room we’d lived in for two years had been paid for in full, all amenities included.
But, should I show any resistance to staying on the station and continuing my life as his ‘widow,’ everything would be forfeit.
“Madeline, you can have as many lovers or as few, as you choose. You can never marry, and you can never bear a child. Should you wish to leave the station for any length of time beyond that of a months’ visit to the City, you forfeit your claim. It will then become station property to do with as the Leaders see fit.”
I had a week to make up my mind. I didn’t need a week.
I knew what would happen if I returned to the City without a means to support myself. They’d put me back up on the block to be sold as concubine to yet another Outsider. I didn’t want that…
I wanted to be able to pick and choose my lovers from the wandering, random flocks of human men that I’d seen on the station.
Yes, the chances of my conceiving would be higher with a human, but I’d never had the pleasures of intimacy with one of my own kind. I’d always been for sale to the highest bidder, and those bidders were always Outsiders. Besides, there were ways around conception.
Below, on the human home planet - once lush and green, now an overheated sand dune – there were men who could use that very heat to keep me from conception. There were no codicils stating I could not use sterility as a form of contraception.
I continued to stare at my hands while I considered my position. I was heartily sick of Outsiders, the main tenants of the station. Rarely did humans come and when they did, they didn’t stay long. They traded, they drank in the bar, and they left - in a trail of dust and disaster that some Outsider low-rank would then clean up. Even the Raiders didn’t stay long here.
If I stayed here, in these rooms where I had finally rid myself of he that owned me, I would be treated as Outsider upper-rank. I could freely walk the station at any time, visiting the bar or docks without reprimand.
I could troll for a human man.
I glanced up at the accountant. For an Outsider, he was actually rather handsome. “Are there any stipulations in regards to birth control?” I smiled as I’d been trained; doe-eyed and innocent, yet the knowledge of the worlds apparent in the slow grin.
“None. He was advised to put one in, but he ignored it, knowing you wouldn’t leave the station as long as there were funds at your disposal here.”
I nodded. Glancing out the window to my left, I observed the planet of my birth. I could not remember anything other than constant, unforgiving heat searing through the atmosphere and literally baking the surface. The Station was cool, maintained at a constant temperature just below comfortable for humans.
Down there, a hack could burn the lining from my uterus. Anesthesia was no longer an option down there, not for humans. I could live with the pain, so long as I remembered the freedom. It was the smell of my own burning flesh that would get to me.
Not to mention the smell on the planet itself. Earth One in the old dog days of summer was not a healthy place. Outsider refuse and bio-waste was barely contained all over the planet. Thus, when it really began to heat up – it really began to smell.
I sighed. Freedom and money outweighed the cons.
“I’ll stay, but first I must visit Earth One.”
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