Three things are exactly the same as with my wife: the taste of her lips, the scent of her sex, and the precise steps necessary to get her off. Still, there are enough differences to give it the feel of an affair. Rori prefers to be on top, where I can barely convince Aurora to roll off her back. Aurora has yet to be introduced to her climax potential and her appreciation is expressed in a variety of uninhibited screams and exultations, as opposed to the casual thanks offered by Rori. Rori feels cheated if I don’t spend some time on the rim, while Aurora makes clear she will tolerate nothing in that vicinity.
Afterward, I lie back on the clinic-provided bed, a soft round mattress with no blankets. There is no time for sleeping here. Aurora pulls her ribbon of underwear over the twin sparrows on her bony hips and tucks a plug of dip in her cheek. “Want one?”
I smile and refuse. In truth, I would sacrifice an arm for a pinch of what she’s offering, but I can’t start down that road again.
“So are we—” she cuts herself off, starts over, “Are you happy?” I don’t respond right away. “You know, with her?”
I scoot closer so I can feel the milky softness of her some more. I didn’t realize how much I missed the bony, youthful perfection of her young body. Silk over sharpened sticks. “We’re not supposed to talk about it,” I remind her, lifting an elbow toward the ever-seeing eye of the security monitor.
“I’m not asking for specifics,” she says, leaning across me, pressing the cold metal studs of her piercings into my sternum. She digs in the side table for something to spit into. It’s remarkable how comfortable we are with each other. Technically, we’re strangers. But it feels familiar, like inhaling the scent from a security blanket pulled from the back of a closet. “Just, in general.” She finds a plastic case for a sterile diaphragm, dumps the contents and shoots a jet of brown saliva into the empty case.
“Yeah,” I say, trying to be careful. “Yeah, I guess I am happy. I mean, they don’t let you do this if you’re in trouble, right?”
“I know,” she says, scooting her hip further into my side. “It’s just—”
A full minute passes while she struggles to weigh the impact of her next statement. She’s not choosing her words, I know that from experience. She’s trying to decide if saying them out loud will cause a problem.
“It’s okay, Ro— Aurora,” I say, almost slipping.
“It’s just, you said he— I mean, you; uh, you know, the other Travis?” I nod, crinkling my eyes in adoring understanding. It can be quite confusing. “You said the other Travis could ‘have her.’ Does that mean you don’t want her?”
“Not at all,” I say, adopting my most reassuring tones, the ones I’ve perfected as a father. “But you… God, look at you. I’ve missed you.”
“You don’t know me. Even if you could somehow stay here with me, eventually I’d be her. More or less.”
“Of course. You’re right.” She’s wrong. Ignoring the insanity-inducing nature of the clinic itself, I couldn’t stay here— or anywhere else— with her without filling the Travis-sized gap in the universe. Plus, she’d never be anything like my Rori. “It’s more than just that, though.”
“How so?”
I trace the tattoos on her tight, flat stomach. My finger runs along looping coils of black and green ink encircling her belly button, up to the dragon on the ribs under her left breast. My body stirs as she catches her breath and her eyelashes dance. “My wife only ever got two tattoos.”
“No kidding?” she breathes. “I wouldn’t know who I was without my ink.”
“A subtle difference in your pasts, I guess. She was so much less confident at your age, so unsure of herself and shy. I always chalked it up to her being a virgin.”
Aurora’s relaxed submission to my caress halts abruptly and she spins onto her side, placing a hand on my chest to push me back. She leans over my face and I smell the alluring tang of tobacco on her breath. “She was a virgin?” The question comes sharp as if she were holding it to my adam’s apple by the hilt.
“Yeah, that’s what she told me,” I say. “From my observations, it was true.”
“So there was no George O’Hare? No Philip Mollani?” I shake my head. “Not even Ollie Greene?”
“Ollie… You mean Oliver?”
“Yeah,” she says, stretching the word, insisting I elaborate.
“Oliver was Rori’s childhood pal. Everyone always teased them that they would get married.”
“And?”
“And nothing. He went away to college and got involved with someone out there. She’s still in touch with him, I think. I’ve actually never met the guy in person.”
“She didn’t mention anything about the night before he left?”
“Nope. Why? Did you sleep with him in your Parallel?”
Aurora slumps back, no longer hammering me like a vengeful lawyer on cross, now deep in her own past. After a considerable pause she says, “Yeah,” but I get the impression she’s not really talking to me. “We decided to say good-bye with a kiss. A kiss turned into more. It was my first time, and his.”
“Whoa, heavy,” I say, but if she hears me she makes no indication.
“I got this,” she taps her wrist on a faded tattoo of an emerald droplet, “to remember the moment, and to remember him. I thought maybe we were falling in love. I considered waiting for him to come back.” She stops again, lost in reverie. “Hey,” she says, practically startling me, “the person Ollie— Oliver— hooked up with in college. Was it a girl?”
I snort. “Yeah— uh. Actually.” I try to remember. “Huh. You know, come to think of it, I’m not positive about that.” Old conversations flip-book in my mind, awkward intentional gender-neutral pronouns standing out. At the time, I had been disinterested enough to dismiss them. “I can’t be sure that it was a girl, now that you mention it. Why, was he gay?”
“He is gay,” Aurora says, looking over her shoulder, anywhere but at me. “I guess I helped him realize.”
“Ouch.” I want to get back to banter, to sexy lightness, to appreciating the unspoiled vibrancy of her spirit. This conversation is making her real, just as real as Rori. How much of her is pre-determined? I find myself wondering if the clinic could arrange a meeting with a 40 year-old Aurora, to compare. Of course that’s ridiculous. There are two infinities worth of 40-something Auroras, starting with those who chose to sign up for the clinic and those who passed on the experience. It seems like a bad idea to wonder why this version of her agreed to the switch. I’m still not clear what made Rori acquiesce.
I settle on changing the subject. “So. What are you going to tell Travis about me?”
She smiles, but her eyes are far away. “I’m going to tell him I’m lucky to have a guy who will age gracefully.”
“You know how to butter up an old man. But thank you. I was worried about the hair.”
“You are the epitome of the silver fox. Sexy. And you get good,” her eyes are still distracted but her grin turns wicked, “I wish I could take you home to teach yourself how to do some of that tongue stuff.” I blush for probably the first time since college. I decide the price of admission was worth having a twenty-three year-old compliment my bedroom prowess.
Pretending to nibble on her ear by way of thanks, I whisper, “If you want him to make it to the silver fox stage, try to get him off the snuff as soon as possible.” I hope the clinic’s microphone system isn’t hyper-sensitive.
She nods and drops the rest of her plug into her makeshift spitoon. It snaps closed as she sets it on the side table, takes my face in her hands and kisses me in full. I tremble both from the thrill of her being real and from the tobacco residue I suck greedily off her tongue. “Can you go again?” she asks, breathless, after a while. I nod. She doesn’t bother to remove the perdu underwear.
By the time her hoarse rasps of ecstasy fade, the red warning light has been glowing for several minutes. Time is almost up. She re-dresses with an enigmatic smile on her lips. Like an exp
osed schoolboy I ask, “What are you thinking?”
She laughs. “Are you going to be the stereotype when you get back?”
“What, you mean am I going to start hitting the gym and sending you—I mean her—bad poetry again?” We both laugh. “Am I going to pick up long-abandoned pastimes from my youth and start dressing ten years younger?”
“Yeah, that.”
I consider. “If Rori decides to start getting inked and can work on ditching her crème brûlée addiction, then yeah, I can meet her in the middle.” She tilts her head for a minute, doing the consider-the-consequences thing again.
“No. You’ll do it either way,” she says.
Sighing, I try to keep the smile on my face. I want this to end on a high note. “I wish I could see you again.”
“You can. In seventeen more years.”
“Oh, yeah. I guess so. My fifty-seven year-old self and your forty year-old. We can talk about our bunions.” She laughs, but we’re both considering how awkward that sounds, wondering if it’s that much different from what we’ve just done. “I just mean I wish this wasn’t a one-time thing for us.”
“What else could we do?”
“I dunno. Wouldn’t you like to meet your future children?”
She gives a phony, nervous laugh. “You have kids?”
I nod, confused. “Yeah, a boy and twin girls.”
She stops buttoning her jeans and stares at me until I get uncomfortable. A burst of busy fussing with her hair and clothes fails to cover her feigned nonchalance. “Wow. I guess that’s why they tell you not to talk about stuff.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Sorry. It’s nothing. I just—” she pulls the tin of snuff out of her pocket and spins it in her lithe fingers. “I’d make a really bad mom, that’s all.”
This doesn’t wash with me. Rori is an amazing mother. The thought of her without that part of her life, the notion of my kids never existing, sends a shiver creeping down my back. I decide it’s time for another subject change.
“Forget that I brought it up. I guess I just wish we had more time right now.” Without thinking I add, “I don’t want to go back.” I’m not entirely sure this is true.
She rests a comforting hand on my chest. “Give her a chance. Somewhere inside her there’s me. Or close enough. You know what I mean.”
“Yeah,” I say, “I do.” We lean in for one more kiss good-bye but are interrupted when the alarm pierces the quiet of the room. A honking, high pitched buzz crackles my eardrums painfully. Aurora claps her hands to the sides of her head.
“What’s that?” she screams, barely audible over the racket.
I mouth, “I don’t know” and try the door. I understood they were supposed to be unlocked as part of the Anytime Opt-Out clause found in the Mutual Permission Agreement. But the door is sealed tight.
After a minute of trading expressions of commiseration with Aurora, the alert signal cuts off as abruptly as it started. Aurora and I tentatively release the grips on our ears. “Jesus,” she says, louder than necessary. “What was that all about?”
“I wish I knew.” I try the door again and this time it budges. Aurora and I slip out. We make it a step or two down the hall when we hear the sharp bang of our door slamming shut, followed by the heavy thunk of the doors re-locking. The hallway is clean and bright, lined with identical red doors that reflect in the white tiled floor.
A blast of static hits the intercom and is replaced by the clipped, accented voice of the clinic director, Ms. Wilcox. “Attention, valued patrons. We apologize for the inconvenience and disruption. We are experiencing a minor security event. Please accept, as a token of our apology, an appointment extension lasting the duration of the incident at no additional charge to you. We will also be happy to reimburse any dissatisfied customers following your sessions. We value your business and normal operations will resume momentarily.”
Aurora and I exchange puzzled glances as I take her hand. Rapid decision-making spares me from having to decide if I’m disappointed or relieved that we’re locked out of our room. I drag her behind me, trying not to stare back over my shoulder at the way her piercings protrude through the material of her shirt, a tiny detail I had forgotten once drew me to Rori in the first place. At the T-intersection of hallways I hear the heavy thud of boots on tile, moving quickly. I have a sense that we’re not supposed to be here, so I usher Aurora back into the closest doorway and we squeeze ourselves as flat as possible against the red steel. If the security team turns down our corridor, they’ll find us for sure; mercifully they continue in a straight line. After their footfalls fade, I beckon to Aurora and head down to the right, in the direction the guards came.
“Where are you going?” Aurora whispers after a couple of turns.
“To the director’s office,” I say. “I want to know what’s going on.” She seems to accept this and I notice she left her shoes back in the room. Or maybe she never wore any. I can’t remember, but I catch myself staring at her beautiful toes, another thing I loved about Rori back at the beginning. I realize that, like her hands, Rori’s feet haven’t changed much over the years. Aurora’s bare soles slap against the cold flooring as I drag her faster, following my innate sense of direction. A couple of hours ago I walked this path with a clinic handler. Even though the handler was chatting and distracting me the whole trip, I still remember every turn.
Finally the identical passages give way to the wider, carpeted open spaces that mark the offices and cubicle farms of the clinic. In the far corner is the director’s office, surrounded by a dozen concerned-looking employees in khakis and polo shirts, plus a handful of uniformed security personnel. They seem to be clustered around an individual, which I gather to be the director. Wilcox is an incredibly short woman, so the gathered attendants block her from view, but her authoritative voice carries.
“…Into the Delta stream? Keegin, what the hell is wrong with your egress team? How could they let them slip past?”
One of the uniforms replies, “It won’t happen again, ma’am.”
“You’re damn right it—” as Aurora and I approach, the crowd begins to divert their attention from Director Wilcox to us. Their expressions are bizarre, a mix of sympathy and suspicion. “What are you all looking at?” Wilcox barks. “Step aside, let me see.” She pushes her way through and stops, frozen, the moment she sees us.
Aurora and I look at Wilcox, then at each other, then back at the group. Her hand finds mine. I try to speak, but my throat is barren. I swallow and manage to croak out, “What’s going on?”
For a moment, I wonder if anyone is going to answer. Then Wilcox tugs on her suit jacket and adopts a practiced, authoritative air. “Well, you aren’t supposed to be out of your room, but I suppose it’s good that you’re both here. We have a problem. Your fiancé,” she nods at Aurora, “and your wife,” she looks at me, “have left the clinic.”
“They… left?” Aurora says, not comprehending. But I understand. This wasn’t a departure, it was an escape.
“Well go get them,” I say, assuming the air of the indignant customer. Wilcox and several of her underlings glance at each other. “Or tell me where they went and I’ll go find them and talk some sense into her.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible, Mr. Jakoby,” Wilcox says, “they’ve slipped back into your stream.” She says it with cool detachment. Strict professionalism. She destroys me with heartless finality.
“Whose stream? His stream?” Aurora is baffled. She never tried to comprehend the clinic, didn’t read the fine print or listen to the orientation details. But I did. She looks to me for answers, the fear on her face is token, an unease born from uncertainty.
My voice sounds like it’s been compacted into a wafer. “He’s taken my place. I can never go back.” Tears rim Aurora’s beautiful eyes. “They have each other now.”
TELLER
by Maureen Bowden
They call me Teller. I ’ad another name once, Alit or
Alis or summat. It’s been so long, dunno really. But I know what I was telled by the last Teller. Now I gorra pass it on to the little ’n’s, so’s they knows not to cock things up again. Haz’ll be the next Teller. He’s a quick one: questions he asks!
We sit on Erth’s bones at the edge of Otter’s Pool. “Teller,” he sez, “why ‘s this water called Otter’s Pool? Who’s Otter?”
I shake my head. “Even the dead Tellers dint remember. Some said maybe the water was hot before The Freeze came, an’ it was called ‘Hot Pool.’ Some said maybe otters were beasts what lived in the water. I’m sayin’ if the Tellers don’t know then that’s that. No point askin’, lad.”
We spread the net and catch us a fine salmon fish while we’s sittin’ there. “Why we get fish here, Teller? Traveller says the folk who live by the Black Ocean got no fish.”
“Fish can’t live in the Black Ocean, lad. Nuffin’ lives there now. These here fish swims up the Mercy River to us on their way to make babies in the stream where they was born. Without old Mercy we be eatin’ nowt but fruit an’ cats.”
It’s time for a new clutch o’ little ’n’s to get telled their first lesson. Haz’s gorra listen how I tell it. We sit in Parkland. There’s still trees here, but no birds no more. Them’s all been ate.
I begins. “There was once a lorra people all over Erth’s body. She gave ’em plants an’ animals to eat, an’ sweet, clean rain to drink an’ make things grow. She let ’em use bits of her bones to build fine houses, an’ the sun shone warm. But they got too clever an’ they hurt Erth bad.”
Kzine Issue 9 Page 6