by Rizer, Bibi
After about ten minutes of counting my breaths, the door opens and a stream of women exits, heads bowed, shuffling along in black dresses like ghosts. The door to the outside clicks as they approach and a young man holds it open for them. I can just see a bus outside.
The young man enters the house as the women begin to board the bus.
“They’re silent wives,” he says as he approaches me. He slumps into the settee beside me. I can see that he’s quite young, probably still a teenager. “One of them is my mother. But she’s an idiot.”
I swallow. Something about the way he looks at me is unnerving. And though it is not unusual for men and boys to speak disrespectfully of women, usually their mothers are afforded a little credit. “What’s a silent wife?”
“You’re not married?” the boy says. “If you were married you would know that. It’s in the harem wife contract. Or do you prefer women?”
“I’m not married.” I’m not going to tell him about my preferences. It’s not his business.
“A silent wife is one who has displeased her husband so much that she has lost privileges. If she wants to remain married, she gives up her voice, and other things.”
“What things?” I try to keep the horror out of my voice. I have heard that the harem wife contract is a troubling document, but I had no idea. Harem wives aren’t allowed to talk about it.
“The right to say no, mainly,” the boy says. “Well, the right to say anything at all, really. But the no thing is key.” He actually smiles. He smiles as he explains that his own mother has lost her right to not consent to sex.
I look down at my hands. They’re shaking. I press them into my skirt.
“One of my wives has been silenced already,” the boy continues. He leans back, looking at me expectantly.
I don’t take his bait. “I...I’m O’Mara Tanner, a journalist with the News,” I say instead, extending my hand. “And you are?”
“I know who you are.” His smile is oily. “Don’t you want to know why I silenced my wife?”
“Not really.” My heart is pounding now. I’m surprised my implant alarm hasn’t gone off.
“She asked too many questions,” the boy says. “And my name is Hamel Portero. The Chairman is my father.”
“Don’t the Chairman’s children go by other names? I thought they were all incognito.”
“You don’t mind asking questions do you, O’Mara? I earned the right to use his name.”
“Asking questions is my job,” I say. Though I don’t ask him how he earned his name. I don’t want to know.
“I don’t think women should have jobs,” he says.
I bite back a laugh. Until I see he’s not smiling. “How…” I clear my throat as my words catch. “How would anything get done if women didn’t work? There aren’t enough men. And they, I mean you’re all so busy with your families.”
“Bots,” Hamel Portero says. “Bots can do most things. Bots and lesbians.”
“Lesbians are women.”
“If you say so.” He huffs. “We’ll get slaves from the mainland, then. We can do it, you know. My father talks about invading all the time. The embargo has controlled us for long enough.”
His eyes drift down my body. When I was in high school, the few boys I ever encountered out in the city would sometimes do this. Sometimes it was lustful, but sometimes it was possessive, acquisitive, as though I was something they could simply purchase and take home to own. Many boys are raised to think this way, not only to view women as a product to acquire but themselves as consumers, with a duty to buy, to keep the economy healthy. The marriage economy. Men don’t naturally want more than a few wives any more than someone wants a vast collection of expensive wrist passes or shoes. They have to learn this consumerist desire.
Hamel Portero’s eyes make me shiver. There’s lust in them, and avarice. But there’s also something else, something hostile. And now that I look at him closely I see a little bit of Tully in him. But he’s more like the hateful Tully in the nightmares, the one inclined to malice and murder.
“Another one of my wives is about to get silenced.” Hamel says, turning his eyes towards a portrait on the wall.
“Why doesn’t she just divorce you?”
He seems surprised at this suggestion. “I don’t have to agree to that. I could have her status taken away if she insists. Then where would she go? The Pleasures?”
I make a conscious effort to tilt my chin up, reminding myself that this will all be worth it in the end. “Maybe that might be better. To her anyway. Why do you want to silence her?”
He slips his hand along the back of the settee and wraps his fingers around a handful of my hair. “She won’t let me fuck her in the ass.”
I stand so quickly my hair wrenches out of his hand, but not without making my scalp burn. I step away, crossing my arms, edging a few steps closer to the exit door. “Maybe if you like anal sex, you should fuck men,” I say.
His eyes blaze momentarily, but he recovers. “You’ve got a mouth on you O’Mara Tanner,” he says, standing up. “I wonder what it would feel like wrapped around my cock.”
I turn and take three steps away, stopping by a wall terminal. “Sentinel,” I say. Nothing happens. “A man is harassing me. Please send a guard.”
Hamel chuckles. “Do you think our security system is connected to the Authority mainframe? That wouldn’t do at all. This system only responds to voices of residents and staff.”
I ignore him, covering the distance to the exterior door in two seconds. “Open.” Nothing happens. “Open! Let me out.”
“That only responds to residents and staff, too.”
I press my hands on the heavy door as I hear him slither up behind me. This is what comes from never getting to know a man or boy, not in the years since my brother and father died anyway. Nothing has prepared me to deal with someone like this. Girls are told how men can be, but there are so few around that it’s not really a fear. And once you’re married, well, they say everything will be fine once you’re married. A husband protects you from everyone but himself.
No wonder so many people, so many women, prefer the Pleasures. At least there they have some control.
Hamel presses his body against mine, pulling down on my hair again. “Do you know why my father chose you to do the interview?”
“Let go of me.”
He pulls me by my hair, making me lose my balance and fall back on my ass. Before I can squirm away, he straddles me, his hands wrapped around my neck.
“I think Dad wants me to marry you,” he says as I tug at his fingers. He slides his hips forward towards my face. I can see his erection bulging in the front of his trousers. “But you don’t seem very obedient. I only want obedient wives.”
I dig my fingernails into his wrist and hand. He glares down at me, but I know I’m hurting him. When he finally flinches, his grip weakens momentarily and I manage to wrest his hands away and flip over.
There’s a weird cracking noise and then I’m seeing stars and feeling pain exploding in the back of my head. Blood drips from my nose onto the expensive carpet.
“Hamel!”
I look up through watering eyes. Trenoweth Portero stands at the end of the hallway in the open doorway.
“Get off her, boy. That’s very undignified.”
I feel his weight move and roll away from him, scrambling back for the door, slamming it with my palm. “Help,” It comes out as a blood-bubbled whimper. “Help me…”
I don’t turn as the Chairman’s footsteps approach behind me. “Even if they can hear you, they won’t do anything except on my order.”
“What do you want from me?” I speak into the wood of the door.
He holds out a white handkerchief. After a moment, I take it, holding it over my nose as I turn.
Trenoweth Portero is not a tall man, but he looms above me, his dark eyes studying me with a glint of pleasure. His son stands deferentially behind him, a salacious grin on his face. A
t a glance I can see he still has an erection. I look back down at the carpet. “What do you want?” I repeat.
The Chairman squats down so he can speak to me at eye level. “I want you to consider the level of surveillance that is required to maintain a position such as my own.” He raises his eyebrows, expectantly.
“I don’t know what you are talking about. You asked me to interview you.” I’m fighting not to sob. This is much more frightening than I expected. I’m more frightened that I expected to be, even though I planned for this. I hoped for it. “I just came to interview you. I mean you no harm. I’m just an intern. I’m no one.”
He reaches forward, stroking my bloody face.
“Don’t say that O’Mara. You matter to someone, don’t you?”
“No. No one. My family are all dead.” Like I’m likely to be soon. What was I thinking, that I could take down the government single-handedly? That I could get the Chairman to confess to all his many and various crimes and corruptions? That anyone would care?
“I, on the other hand, have a very large family,” he says, as behind him, his son cracks his knuckles. “But you know that.”
“All men have large families.” I drop his handkerchief on the floor. My nose seems to have stopped bleeding.
Trenoweth Portero stands and takes a step back from me. “Guards,” he says calmly. The terminal on the wall beeps three times before the door at the end of the hall bursts open and four male armed guards appear, running. They form a protective circle around the Chairman and his son, their weapons pointed at me. I’ve never seen male guards before. In contrast to the slender sternness typical of female guards, they’re large and brutish looking, their eyes covered by protective goggles. The effect is terrifying.
“I’m not armed,” I say weakly. “I’m no—”
“Take her.”
Two guards break away, grabbing me by the arms and hauling me upright. One of them holds me while the other binds my hands behind my back. They drag me behind the chairman and his son as they stride along the hallway, back through the heavy door.
We emerge into a large and opulent reception hall. Several passageways and doorways lead in various directions. I twist my head around, trying to memorize details. I need to figure out a way out of here. I could get lost in the massive house and never be heard from again.
“The blue room, I think,” the Chairman says. Hamel chuckles thickly as the guards pull me across the slippery marble floor and through another set of doors.
As my eyes adjust to the light I see we’re in a bedroom, though where the hallway and reception room were ornate and grand, this room seems purely functional. Almost like a doctor’s office – a white sheeted bed, a couple of chairs, a simple dresser. The floor is dark wood, the walls grey.
The guards push me face forward onto the bed. I roll over quickly and curl into a protective ball, keeping my eyes on the men.
“Do you know what loyalty is, O’Mara?” The chairman asks as the guards take their places by the door, two on each side. “What absolute obedience is?”
I don’t answer. This isn’t going how I thought it might. This is something I never thought of even in my worst nightmares.
“No? You don’t?” the Chairman takes a seat in a plain, straight-backed chair. “Let me demonstrate. Gentlemen?”
The guards jump to attention.
“My son is going to fuck this woman while we watch. And when he is done with her, each of you can have a turn if you wish. After that I’m going to choose one of you to take her to the humming ruins and kill her. Any questions?”
I search the guards’ faces below their goggles. Their lips are still, set as stone. Not one of them reacts.
“I have a question!” I say, clutching at the one thing I know. Finish the interview.
The Chairman turns to me, an amused expression on his face. “Go ahead.”
“Why are you doing this?”
He leans back in his chair, crossing his legs in front of him. “Remember what I said earlier, about surveillance? About how much it takes to maintain a position as much as mine? It takes time also. Time and patience.” He pauses, looking up at his son, who watches me like a predator. For a moment he seems to get lost in thought. “Loyalty…” he says.
I squirm on the bed, rolling up into a kneeling position.
“You’re loyal, aren’t you, my son?”
“Yes,” Hamel says without hesitation.
“Tell Miss Tanner what you did to earn the right to use my name.”
“I killed your third wife, Father.”
“And when did you do that?”
“Yesterday morning. Shall I tell her how I did it?”
I’m gasping, my heart beating against my ribs like a hammer. “Help!” I say desperately, searching the guards’ faces against for any sign of emotion. “Help me!” None of them move.
Trenoweth makes a gesture and one of the guards approaches me with a gag.
“No….no!” I try to get away but only succeed in falling off the bed, cracking my chin painfully on the floor. The guard lands on top of me, wrenching my head back as he pries my jaws apart and ties the thick gag into my mouth.
“That’s fucking hot,” Hamel says, licking his lips.
No one bothers to lift me off the floor. I struggle to my feet, intending to charge someone, but the guard deftly cuffs one of my ankles to the leg of the bed.
“I don’t think she needs the details, son,” the Chairman says. “But perhaps you’d like to tell her the name of the first child my dead third wife gave me. The worthless and disloyal traitor I’ve waited all this time to punish for his betrayal.”
Hamel snorts out a cruel laugh. “Tully,” he says. “Tully Portero.”
I try to scream behind the gag, tugging at the cuff on my leg, but I lose my balance and end up on the floor again.
“Tully Portero,” the Chairman says. “I gave him my name because I loved him. And how did he thank me? Do you know, O’Mara? Do you know what my own son did?”
I shake my head frantically, wishing with my whole self that Tully had killed this monster instead of whatever it was he did.
“My sweet, handsome fifteen year old son seduced one of his stepmothers.”
I flinch. He must be lying.
“Oh…interesting.” Trenoweth leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “I would have thought Tully might have shared that bit of information with you. Since the two of you are so close.” He turns and looks at his guards. “Which one of you wants to undress her?”
After a moment, one of them steps forward, removing a small knife from his belt. I curl up again, pressing myself against the bed.
“Hold still,” the guard says in a low voice. “If you struggle, I could cut you,”
Is it defeat that makes me go slack? Or self-preservation? Maybe I wouldn’t recognize the difference. Maybe, in our damaged world, there no longer is a difference. The guard tears the button of my skirt open, cutting it to get around the shackle. Then he shreds my shirt, tossing it away, leaving me in bra and panties. He leans back for a moment, looking at me, then, almost as an afterthought, he slips off my sandals and tucks them neatly under the bed beside me.
I see my reflection in his goggles – a pale, thin, almost naked girl cowering like an animal. I avert my eyes and focus instead on his chin, noting how smooth it is. He must be quite young. Or he’s a Cull. The thought makes me feel like gagging.
“Sentinel, create a time decay video and audio recording of the next hour and upload it to the secure encrypted file.” The chairman smiles as the wall terminal beeps. Several camera on-lights flare up around the room, like glowing red eyes. “My lost son will enjoy watching this, I’m sure. As I’ve enjoyed watching his suffering all these years. I’d almost given up ever finding anyone he cared about enough to make my complete retribution worthwhile.” He stands and walks over to me, reaching down and grabbing my hair, pulling my head back to look up at him. “But look at you. I can see
why he fell for you. She’s lovely, isn’t she Hamel?”
Hamel steps forward and stands beside his father, looking down on me appraisingly.
“I prefer my meat bloody,” he says.
I turn from his fists.
Death is darkness. Darkness and pain, with a soundtrack of inconsolable sobbing. Maybe that’s the angels. Angels are supposed to cry; I’ve seen them in the ancient graveyard at the edges of the city.
Angels…
“Tully?” It comes out wrong. There’s something askew with my mouth. It feels bloated and fat, like a fevered dream. “Tully…”
“I can’t do it…” his voice is deep and cavernous. The wrong shape, the wrong texture. Everything is wrong.
“Tully…?”
“I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”
He is sobbing. His voice is too heavy for an angel. Too rough. Like the jagged branches of a fallen tree. I don’t think it is Tully either.
“He’ll kill my children…I can’t…”
Lucidity flows through me like an electrical current. All free men have large families. Men with children they love are easier to control. My father died trying to save my brother’s life. Fathers will do that. They will do almost anything.
One eye opens. There’s something wrong with the other one.
He’s kneeling a few feet away, his hands on his knees, his head hanging, tears dripping onto the rubble beneath us. A high pitched humming starts, pulsing louder, though it doesn’t become painful to me. The guard lifts his black gloved hands and covers his ears. He must be only seventeen or eighteen then. The sound in the humming ruins becomes harder to hear the older you get. I can still hear it but it’s not painful like it was when I was a teenager.
“How many…?” I slur, he turns his head towards me as I struggle to speak. “Children?”
“Three,” he says. “And two more on the way.”
I close my eye. Sleep seems preferable to being awake for my own murder.
“I love my wives,” he says in the darkness. And then he sobs. “I’m sorry.” He sobs and sobs. It’s a pitiful, heartbreaking sound.