Letters to an Android

by Wendy Rathbone

  Cobalt took the chip staring at it, wide-eyed. “These are my ownership papers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I suppose I could keep them for you.”

  “No. I wanted to surprise you and now’s the time. I made Pel put your name on them. Not mine.”

  His eyebrows rose. “It’s illegal. By law I am always to be owned.”

  “What is loved can never be owned.”

  Cobalt’s eyes glistened, damp lashes quivering. “That statement would be rejected by a court.”

  Liyan shook his head. “What transpires between you and me is all that matters to me. I put your name on them. It’s done. This is between us. For us. Of course I’d never abandon you to all the sticky legalities of it, but between you and me…it’s done.”

  Liyan watched as Cobalt’s fingers closed over the tiny disk. His hand was shaking.

  How loyal Cobalt had been. All this time. And now, the fact that he could return the favor was a bigger event to him than even going to space and getting his own ship.

  In his homeless, wanderlust heart, it made sense to Liyan now that with the ever-changing circumstances of his career and long before he had grown to love Lark and Tiri, he might instinctively and ultimately connect to the one being he could find who would accept him unconditionally and still love him whether or not he ever returned from the addictive, cold arms of galactic reaches.

  And now that he’d freed him, Cobalt was truly his.

  He felt shaken, like crying again. The lights through the triangle window shed tears of pink, orange, star-white and green. They were the colors of his ship, his memory, his travels.

  He couldn’t speak.

  Cobalt said, “You bought my contract so you could give it me.”

  “Yes.” He took a breath. “Yes,” he repeated. The third time he said it, he nearly yelled the word. “I want you with me. Always. But only if you want it, too. I knew that only if you were free to make your choice would it be real between us.”

  Liyan stared past the curtains to the intermittent flashings of the spaceport and the even more beautiful darkness between those flashes. All that he was, warmth and blood, longing and human, sat recently so broken and still adrift. For the moment.

  Horns. Whistles. Shouts. The noise increased. A fine scent of ozone tinged the air.

  Midnight celebrations crystallized the man-made skies and strobe-lit the high room.

  “Thank you,” Cobalt said, mouth gracefully curving into a smile, as if he had never been free to do so. “I accept ownership of myself.” He took a long breath. “You figured it out. And yes. I want it. Always. To be with you.” He leaned down. His first kiss pressed Liyan’s cheek. His second brought a gentle breath to Liyan’s lips, all velvet and salt.

  The thirteen year old ache in Liyan’s chest turned to pleasure. He reached up to cup the other man’s shoulders.

  The fireworks had become falling stars reflecting endlessly the force-field that kept the abyss safely contained. Through all that dark and night, Liyan had navigated himself right back to where it all began.

  The kiss turned warm, more urgent. Liyan pulled back. “Come to bed with me, please.”

  “But Lark? And Tiri…?”

  “We had a lot of time to talk during my healing. And then while coming here. They want me to be with you tonight. Tomorrow the four of us will talk. Together. As a team.”

  “I’d like that,” Cobalt said. “I’d like that so much.”

  “I was hoping you’d say that. I don’t expect you to accept them as…part of me…right away…”

  “They accept me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I accept. In fact, I always have since you first introduced them in your waves. I was so grateful you had such loyal, good people in your life.”

  “I know you always told me that. But it’s different when you’re face to face.”

  “Everything is different now. Better now. Because of you, Liyan. I never dreamed when I first met you, that young boy with all those stars in his eyes, asking me for a glass of ice water, that it would be him who changed my entire destiny. That you would be the one.”

  Liyan laughed and felt the entire room vibrate with the sound. All his emotions felt contained in that laugh. He almost couldn’t catch his breath.

  “Please,” Liyan said. “Help me up.”

  Cobalt put his forearms under Liyan’s shoulders. “Ready?” he asked.

  Liyan nodded, felt himself easily lifted so that he stood as if on new legs. Cobalt turned him and put one arm under his shoulders and led him to the bed. Liyan sat on the edge, then slowly lifted his legs up and leaned back on the thick, springy, covers and pillows of the best bed the Grand Aurora Hotel provided.

  Cobalt arranged the pillows for comfort, then took off his long-tailed coat and got into the bed beside him fully clothed. He pulled Liyan onto his side until they faced each other and said, “I lived thirteen years without you, with letters and gifts that were amazing and wonderful, but nothing like this. And now that you’re here, I know I could never live thirteen more years or even one more day without you. Thank you, Liyan. For my freedom. For your love.”

  His throat tightened. He held his breath. He couldn’t see through the tears for many seconds. Such an insidious habit it was, this thing with the tears he couldn’t control. He said, trying to breathe, “Damn it, quit talking.” He leaned in and pressed his forehead to Cobalt’s. Their lips met again, tight, determined, then loosened and opened into a sinking caress of mouth, tongue, breath.

  With the soft pink light, the diminishing outside revels, and Cobalt’s supportive arms around him, he could finally relax for the first time after the accident. In Cobalt’s arms, his body turned liquid and hot. There was no more holding back. No more suppression of love.

  Cobalt’s hand cupped his face, his fingers tangling in his hair. Lavender eyes, soap scent, the fine taste of his lover’s mouth edged with faint champagne encompassed Liyan. All the words and confessions and letters that had flown between them through deepest shadows and coldest stars now gathered in one place for this moment, this reason for being.

  *

  Long after Cobalt had fallen into a restful sleep, Liyan lay awake staring at the carved ceiling as the candles burned low. The distant rumble of the ships shook the sky, that old, familiar background noise he’d grown used to so long ago.

  He reached for the hand screen at the bedside table and brought it into the bed. Silently, he turned it on and began to write his final letter to an android.

  Dear Cobalt:

  I am home. Wherever you are, whenever we are together, that is the only real home I have ever known.

  Love,

  Liyan

  *****

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR...

  Wendy Rathbone has had dozens of stories published in anthologies such as: Hot Blood, Writers of the Future (second place,) Bending the Landscape, Mutation Nation, A Darke Phantastique, and more. The book "Dreams of Decadence Presents: Wendy Rathbone and Tippi Blevins" contains a large collection of her vampire stories and poems. Over 500 of her poems have been published in various anthologies and magazines. She won first place in the Anamnesis Press poetry chapbook contest with her book "Scrying the River Styx." Her poems have been nominated for the Science Fiction Poetry Association's Rhysling award at least a dozen times.

  Her recent books include:

  "Pale Zenith," science fiction novel

  "The Foundling," male/male romance novel

  "None Can Hold the Dark," sequel to "The Foundling"

  "The Secret Sharer," science fiction romance novella

  "Unearthly," omnibus collection of 7 out-of-print poetry booklets

  "The Vampire Diaries: The Myth," available from Kindle Worlds

  "The Vampire Dairies: Deep In the Virginia Woods," available from Kindle Worlds

  "My House Is Full of Whispers," erotica short story collection

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p; "Letters To An Android," science fiction novel

  She lives in Yucca Valley, CA with her partner of 32 years, Della Van Hise.

  The Foundling

  by Wendy Rathbone

  Diego is a powerful man with a tragic past. Out on the expansive ocean in his private yacht, he discovers a beautiful and mysterious man adrift on a raft, near death. The bond that forms between them in the aftermath of Alec's rescue is one of fierce passion, though lacking in trust. Can they make it work, or will Alec's amnesia bring forth secrets so disturbing as to tear them apart? A passionately erotic love story of desire and darkness, exquisite and explicit.

  _____________

  I can see his struggle between gratitude and uneasiness. He is buffeted by all things new and strange. He does not know where he is from, who he is or what happened to him. He does not know me. There has not been enough time to transition between strangers and friendship.

  This isolation of his is something I can identify with, but it is also a feeling no one can help him with until or unless he gets his own life back. And his memory.

  If that doesn’t happen, then it will take time for him to build a new life. He is polite to me, even friendly, but even a night together during a storm with his arms wrapped tight around my waist doesn’t calm the surge I see inside him, the emptiness, the loss, possibly even panic. That night may have reinforced some trust in me, but so far not enough for him to completely relax.

  He seeks me out, though. That’s something. He sits by me at dinner when he can have any seat of his choosing. I watch him closely when he does not realize it. At dinner the following night after we had only ‘slept’ together, and before we go to bed again in separate rooms, I notice everything about him, how he moves, the way the air warms when he is closer to me, the dry sheen of his lips as they part for more air when he is reacting to something, or speaking, or eating.

  His hands still shake. Anyone else might not notice because he keeps them clasped into fists at his sides or, while sitting, pressed tight to his lap.

  I spend another fretful night alone. I dream restlessly, wild, loud and colorful visions I cannot recall at all as soon as my eyes open. All I know is the dreams leave me unfulfilled, impatient.

  None Can Hold the Dark

  Wendy Rathbone

  Now Available!

  The long-awaited sequel to THE FOUNDLING!

  In the eagerly-awaited sequel to Wendy Rathbone’s homoerotic romance “The Foundling,” Diego and Alec meet new challenges in private and from the outside world. Diego is being investigated by the local police for murder. Meanwhile, Alec’s amnesia and the trauma of his kidnapping by white slavers continue to plague him. And the danger to Alec is not yet over.

  Distracted by their new love, both men fail to see certain threats until it is almost too late.

  ________________

  "Why do you keep doing this illegal business?” Now Alec’s gaze turned toward him, open as the day and lit with a sad frenzy, a challenge. “You could go anywhere, do anything, be anyone.”

  Diego had asked himself that question on rare occasions. In truth, he got used to what he was, what he did. Even a dangerous known was perhaps preferable to the unknown. “People depend on me.”

  Alec shook his head, but smiled a little as he said, “That’s so weak.” He leaned forward, over the arm of the chair, and put his shaking hand on the back of Diego’s head. The kiss was cool, lingering, moist with salt. When Alec pulled back, he said almost matter of factly, “It’s like there’s sharks and there’s goldfish and one can’t decide to become the other.”

  Diego was still stunned by the kiss. But the words hit him hard. In them was the unfair conjecture of a locked fate. He believed in making his own fate…or luck. Did Alec think only one kind of man lived inside him and that was all there was to it? To life? It hurt. Badly.

  Diego sat back on his heels, catching himself with his hands on the smooth, plank floor. “So, Alec, which am I?”

  Alec frowned.

  Diego said, “I made choices in my life. I made them No one made them for me. If I need to be strong I’m strong. If I need to be vicious I can be that too. So what? I’m stuck there? In a pattern, a role…with no free will?”

  Alec watched him inquisitively now.

  “Because,” Diego went on, “I’m solely responsible for my actions. Me. Could you say the same of the shark?”

  They both waited, the silence covering them in muggy discomfort.

  “You think you understand me?” Diego finally asked.

  My House Is Full of Whispers

  Wendy Rathbone

  Ten erotica short stories by Wendy Rathbone - former winner of the prestigious WRITERS OF THE FUTURE contest!

  Leda has not one beautiful man, but two. Kale enters a secret world in a wealthy man’s basement. Noah is in love with a man who hates sex. Dina lives next door to a famous Hollywood director she secretly loves. Dorian has a sixteen year old female student coming onto him. Tara is haunted by an erotic ghost. Young Dimitri is kidnapped by lecherous men. And more.

  _____________________

  Author’s Preface

  When I wrote these stories, I deliberately set out to gently break down certain barriers, and I’ve certainly broken taboos. Do I care? No. This is fantasy at its purest level. The stories are never meant to be political statements, nor do they make any attempt at political correctness, and there is little consideration for safe sex. While I definitely condone safe sex, my stories come from fictional realities in my head where safe sex is not much of a concern because, well, it’s imaginary and it’s fiction!

  For me, these stories are meant as little poetic erotic ramblings merely to stir the flames of desire, nothing more. They are pure fantasy and therefore to be enjoyed as such. Every story is erotic in nature, meant to titillate, some more explicit than others. Some of the stories are light, some are darker. I invite the reader to a feast of diversity and delight.

  Heterotica * Male/Male * Menage

  ___________________

  One reader commented: "...some of the most beautifully written erotica since Anais Nin!"

  UNEARTHLY

  by Wendy Rathbone

  A Collection of

  Award-Winning Poetry

  Intro by the Author: This book contains all my out of print chapbooks (mini-collections of an author’s work usually published by smaller presses.)

  The chapbooks published within include:

  Moon Canoes, published by Dark Regions Press, 1994

  (Im)mortal, published by Shadowfire Press, 1996

  Scrying The River Styx, published by Anamnesis Press, 1999

  Autumn Phantoms, published by Flesh and Blood Press, 2000

  Dreams of Decadence Presents: Wendy Rathbone, published by DNA Publications 2002

  Dancing in the Haunted Woodlands, published by Yellow Bat Review, 2003

  Vampyria, published by Eye Scry Publications, 2005

  She Sleeps With Vampires

  She sleeps with vampires

  courting velvet breaths

  poem-dreams

  chill-stopped hearts

  Wrapped in her arms

  like teddy bear thoughts

  purple lips trembling

  at her quiet throat

  they love her more than

  somber rain

  more than autumn

  more than ash-soft hearths of night.

  PALE ZENITH

  Wendy Rathbone

  A Science Fiction Novel

  On a far-flung “Earth” in a parallel universe, two factions are fighting a decades-long psychic war. Young talented psychics are being temporarily kidnapped from present day Earth, seemingly at random, to serve as part of one side’s psychic army. They are put under the control of spychiatrists, mysterious machines with many limbs that have a programmed ability to travel time and space and universes to kidnap and control carefully selected
humans. The humans never know they are being used; when their missions are completed they are brought back to their universe through time and placed back in their beds, their memories wiped.

  ______________

  The shadows wound the tall corridor in muted gold, varnished brown. It seemed as though they were in the bowels of a giant serpent coiled outside time, outside space.

  When they left the palace, a familiar sun flourished in a clear, blue sky. But this wasn’t their sun. Not Zack’s sun. It was an alien star burning within a different galaxy in an all too distant universe. Zack looked up squinting, trying to see if he could peer beyond the sky, beyond the pale of midday and into his own timespace, but there was nothing. Only sunlight. Only the thin atmosphere of an Earth not his own.

  His back knotted again. Leo’s presence was a gelid space inside his chest, empty. Always before he’d felt a warmth there, a sort of pressure like someone’s hand pressed gently to his heart. He’d taken Leo for granted knowing, the way a shadow falls when you block the sun, that he was there around him, inside him: blood, air, salt, brain, soul. They were genetic duplicates, twins, spiritual halves. Without him, Zack knew the first icy tugs of panic.

  RAGGED ANGELS

  Della Van Hise

  Set against a backdrop of contemporary culture, Ragged Angels explores the universal questions of life & death, sex & love... through the eyes of the immortal vampire.

  _________________

  "Perhaps there's no such thing as true immortality, for even the sun will burn out one day," Miquel conceded. "But there are other worlds, other quantum dimensions. When we're done searching through the rubble of this universe, we'll go someplace else."