For His Love

by Nya Rayne

  “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He pulled her close to him. “I can’t worry about what has already happened,” he finished. “I have to make sure that what happened to Jarvis doesn’t happen to anyone else.”

  Phia relaxed against him. The more she learned about the Zoo, the more certain she became that it was up to her to put a stop to it. “Donté, is it like a prison?”

  “Now that I know what’s it’s like out here, I’d say yeah. We were never allowed to go outside for any reason. Hell, we didn’t even know an outside existed. We all ate at the same time, got up at the same time, and went to bed at the same time. The only things we did privately were our classes.”

  She’d heard enough about the classes from Dr. Lobush, so she asked in hopes of lightening up the conversation, “Did you watch casts or listen to music discs? What did you do for entertainment?”

  “What’s entertainment?” he asked, his tone laced with sarcasm, and then went on, “We had four large teletrons posted in the corner of the mess hall, but all they played were images of Utopia. The same images over, and over and over again. We had music sometimes during our classes, but it was instrumental stuff, nothing like what you listen to out here. How’s that for entertainment?”

  “So what did you all do for fun? I mean, I know you couldn’t do what normal people do, but you had to do something.”

  “Well, we talked and studied most of the day. Some of the guys wrote poems, or made up stories about Utopia, some played instruments and others painted or drew. We even had a couple of guys in the bay that sang and made up these cadences.” He stared off into space, as if his mind was lost in the past. “We made up stuff to do, I guess.”

  “Which one did you do?”

  He glanced down at her, a deep blush creeping over his cheeks. “You don’t want to know.”

  Pushing up to her elbows, she gazed down at him. “I want to know everything about you. So spill it, mister.”

  Frowning, Donté looked at her and then away, as if weighing whether he should tell her or not. “I drew and sometimes I painted.”

  “You played piano too,” she added.

  “Only during class because we all had to be able to play an instrument. Painting, however, is what I did for the pleasure of it.”

  “What did you paint?”

  “Well, I can see a person or a scene once and only for a split second and I can remember everything, down to the very last detail.”

  “You have a photographic memory?”

  “I guess. Anyway, at first I drew the instructors or the other nurturers doing different things and then I started making up my own pictures of what I thought real birds would look like mid-flight or what trees looked like with the wind rustling their leaves. That type of stuff.”

  Phia leaned down and kissed him. “So, you could draw me?”

  He smiled at her as he rolled toward her and pushed up so he was balanced on his elbow. Reaching out, Donté traced the contours of her face. “I’ve drawn you a million times in my mind, but I can’t seem to capture how beautiful you truly are.” He ran his hand down the curve of her neck. “I snuck into your room one night while you were mad at me, and I drew you. I thought if you traded me in or tried to get rid of me, then at least I’d have something to remember you by. I couldn’t capture the essence of who you are. So I threw it away and decided I’d keep the real thing, even if she didn’t want to keep me.”

  “Silly, I’d never get rid you.” Phia leaned into him, her nose rubbing against his. “That’s so sweet, but you’re going to draw me, right?”

  He pulled her into his arms. “I could draw you every second of the day and never get tired of it.” Rolling her so she was on her back, lying beneath him, Donté added, “You know how I want to draw you?” Desire filled his eyes as he pulled the covers from between them and shifted to the side so every inch of her naked body was visible. “Just like this.” His hand ran the length of her. “Naked as the day you were born.” His hands caressed her breasts. “With these perfect mounds—” his hand dipped down to her hairless lips “—and this beautiful, insatiable, delicious—did I say scrumptious?”

  Phia shivered against him as she nodded her head, his words lulling her mind and her body, exciting her very soul and enticing her loins. “Anything you want, Lover.”

  His lips melted into hers as his hands cupped her dripping canal. Phia moaned into his mouth, hardly able to believe what a touch from this man could do to her body. His lips traveled down the length of her neck as his fingers parted her and slipped deep within her, igniting every nerve of her body. As the first traces of reality began to slip away, she rocked against him and whispered, “I love you, Xavier Donté.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Phia woke to the sound of someone pounding on the door. “Go away,” she muttered, and tried to bury herself beneath the man beside her.

  “Phia! Donté,” Dr. Lobush called through the door.

  Phia groaned. If I ignore her long enough, she’ll eventually get the hint.

  “Please open the door! I have to speak with the two of you!”

  Nothing was registering except the need for sleep and a deep-seated desire to choke the woman. Phia rolled, slapped at the holo-clock, and groaned. Dr. Lobush had to be losing her mind. It was barely six in the morning, for heaven’s sake.

  Donté moved, an incoherent murmur leaving his lips before he asked, his voice laced with slumber, “Who’s at the door?”

  “The doctor.” Phia shifted her head to his shoulder and encircled his waist, preparing to settle in for the duration.

  The pounding came again. “Don’t make me get the conductor!”

  Donté growled and set up. “This better be life or death,” he murmured as he leaned over and kissed her temple. “I’ll see what she wants.”

  “Okay, but hurry back. It’s cold without you.” She heard him moving around the small room, no doubt getting dressed, before there was a beep and the door slid to the side.

  “I’ve been knocking for ten minutes,” the doctor said a moment later, her irritation apparent.

  “Sorry, we had a late night,” Donté offered.

  “We should get off at the next stop,” the doctor advised. “No, no, we have to get off at the next stop.”

  There was something wrong with the doctor’s tone. She was normally soft-spoken and reserved, but now she seemed anxious and even frightened.

  Phia rubbed at her eyes and sat up, pulling the blankets up to cover her breasts. “What’s wrong? Did something happen?”

  Dr. Lobush stepped farther into the room, allowing the door to slide closed behind her. She fidgeted and began pacing back and forth. It was apparent whatever she had to tell them was definitely serious.

  “What’s going on?” Donté asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she began, “I tried, but I didn’t think she would find out this soon.”

  Phia asked, “Who find out what?”

  “No,” Donté breathed, as he stepped back and sat at the foot of the bed.

  Phia’s stomach roiled. “No,” she whispered, reaching for him. “She can’t have him.”

  Donté grasped her hand, pulled her and the covers into his lap. “I won’t go,” he growled. “I’ll never be anyone’s possession ever again!”

  The doctor paced the length of the room. “If she finds us, you won’t have a choice.” She ran her hands through her disheveled blonde hair. “Jesus, I tried and I failed. How could I have failed? How could I have so underestimated her?”

  Phia shivered against Donté.

  “She knows we’re on this train. If we hope to have any chance of getting you to safety, then we need to get off at the next stop.”

  Donté looked askance, “How do you know this?”

  “A friend I didn’t know I had called,” she said. “I still don’t know who she is or how she got my number. She said if we didn’t want to be caught, we needed to get you off the train immediately because the Higher Highness i
s setting up personomale checks at all of the stops with the exception of the very next one.”

  “Why not include the very next one?” Phia asked, her voice laced with skepticism. “Seems a little too convenient, doesn’t it?”

  The doctor shrugged. “I thought the same thing at first. Hell, I thought it was a joke, but there was something in the way the woman spoke. It didn’t seem as though she was trying to trick me. She sounded trustworthy and…and terrified.”

  The room was silent for a brief moment before Donté spoke dourly. “So, let’s say we take this ‘friend’ at her word and we get off the train. What happens from there? Where do we go?”

  “Well, I called my friend—my other friend, the one we’re supposed to meet—as soon as I found out the news. I told him to meet us in Jacksonville. He’s on his way.” Dr. Lobush paced the room a few more times and began nibbling on her thumb.

  “Can we trust this friend of yours?” Donté’s growing agitation was apparent in every syllable which fell from his lips. “I’ve noticed you never say a name, just friend, and now you say, he. What is he, some kind of PAP or FAP? I won’t trust my freedom or Phia’s to some damn machine. Who is he or, should I say what is he?”

  The doctor paused in her pacing. She looked the two of them over. “You have to trust me, Donté. I would never put you or Phia in any danger.”

  “All of that is fine and good, but you still aren’t telling me who this friend of yours is,” he snapped back.

  Phia glanced up at Donté and took note of the determination glinting in his eyes. She turned to the doctor. “Tell us who he is. You can’t expect us to trust a person we know nothing about.” She sighed, wrapping the sheets tighter around her, and finished, “We’ve trusted you thus far with everything. Trust us now.”

  A flurry of emotions swept over the doctor’s face, and she stilled, leaning back against the wall nearest the door. “He’s—he’s—” She groaned, raking her fingers through her hair before continuing, “I’ve never told anyone about him, for his safety and my own.” She turned her attention to the ceiling. “He’s…my husband.”

  Stunned silence filled the room. Phia found it hard to breathe. What the doctor said made very little sense. Marriage hadn’t been practiced for as long as she could remember; albeit, there were still heads of churches that could carry out the binding. There was no true purpose in it anymore. It just wasn’t something that women did any longer.

  In the days of old, couples got married for various reasons, such as to show their love, for credits, to rear children together, or for medical benefits, but in this day and age, none of those were reason enough. Every woman living in the Uterlined States made a decent living and had health care. There was certainly no need to tie oneself to a PAP or a FAP. Even if he wanted to leave his mistress, he couldn’t. And being machines, outside of manual labor and sex, what did they have to offer?

  “You married a personomale?” Phia asked in disbelief. “Why would you do such a silly thing?”

  Donté made a sound low in his throat that resembled a growl.

  “He’s not a personomale. He’s like Donté, a human with no restraints,” the doctor clarified.

  There was a soft gasp, and Phia had to wonder if it came from her or Donté. She stared at the doctor in amazement. Had she heard her right? Did she say she was married to a real man? How could she be when she’d told her Donté was one of a kind and all the other males like him were either locked up in Zoos or at the mercy of one of the Elites?

  “How is that…” Phia began.

  “…Possible?” Donté finished.

  “Darius was a throwaway,” the doctor told them with reluctance. “He was used by one of the Elites and sent to the facility where I worked to be destroyed when she was done with him. I wasn’t the doctor who converted him, but I was on call when he came in. He was perfect in every way, not a bruise or a visible blemish on his skin. He seemed untouched. There was no reason for him to be destroyed.” She sighed. “I don’t know what compelled me to do it, but I woke him up and I talked to him. He was so soft-spoken and shy, almost like a frightened, abused animal.” The doctor slid down the wall into a seated position as she continued, “We talked all night, he and I, and when my shift was over, I put him back into stasis and stored him away so the other doctors wouldn’t find him. Afterward, I found myself thinking about him constantly, wanting him to share in my days and my nights. I found myself needing to hear his soft laughter.”

  “You fell in love with him,” Phia confirmed.

  Dr. Lobush nodded. “I did. I kept him hidden in the facility for roughly three months before I finally accepted I couldn’t destroy him as I’d been ordered to. After that, it was just a matter of coming up with a plan to get him out of there. I made sure the breakout coincided with my vacation, and I brought him down to Florida, where I have a second home and land out in Loxahatchee.”

  “He has his memories of the Zoo?” Donté asked as his arms tightened around Phia.

  “He does. I made sure he remembered everything as I didn’t want there to ever be any lies between us. It wasn’t easy at first, but he soon forgave me for things I had no control over, and he grew to love me as I loved him.” She sighed sadly. “He still hates my job, but he understands it is a necessity if we are to ever bring about a change.”

  Phia was seeing the doctor in a new light. “That’s why you helped me. You knew how it was to crave something everyone said you couldn’t have.”

  “Yes and no. I didn’t know what that craving was until I met Darius, and afterward, all I saw walking through the doors of Manco were selfish, self-absorbed women, who were no more deserving of a real man than they were of a FAP. And then you came in. As you spoke to me, I knew you were different from the rest.”

  Phia wanted to cry, but instead nuzzled her head into Donté’s shoulder and sighed.

  “How does he do it?” Donté asked, “How does he live among the pets and pet owners without being discovered?”

  “Our home sits on eight acres of sprawling land in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but a large lake and miles and miles of palm, mango, sapodilla, and lemon trees. It’s rare that anyone comes to the house, but if someone does, he acts the part of a PAP. If they ask for his mistress, he bites his tongue, grits his teeth, and says I’m off on business. Then he calls me to make sure I understand how humiliating it is for him to have to pretend to be something he’s not.” She smiled. “When he needs to go into town for anything, he’s very careful of his actions and the things he says.”

  “How long have the two of you been together?” Phia asked.

  “This November will make six wonderful years,” Dr. Lobush stood to her feet. “I try to go home twice a month for a few days and four times a year for two weeks, but I seem to miss him more and more after every visit. The time apart is hard on both of us, but we know it must go on if we ever plan on stopping the Elites and destroying all the Zoos.”

  “You two aren’t in fact married, are you?” Phia knew she was being a little too nosy, but how else was she supposed to be when faced with the exact same situation she hoped she and Donté would find themselves in six years from now?

  “We’re married in our hearts. Mine belongs to Darius, and his belongs to me.”

  Donté snorted, but said nothing as Phia continued with her interrogation. “I’m sorry to be so nosy, but do you two have kids?”

  The doctor’s face fell, her entire body stiffened, and Phia could feel the comfortable ease of the conversation they were having turn. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. I was—”

  The doctor cut her off, her voice low. “It’s fine. I’ve told you two so much already. I might as well tell you the rest.” She glanced at Donté before stepping over to the small nightstand. “I had never wanted a child, until I met Darius. If I had known I was going to meet him and fall in love with him, I would’ve never gotten into this profession. But I suppose if I hadn’t, he’d be dead and I would be livi
ng with a machine,” she said as she turned back to face them. “When I chose to work with personomales, I gave up any chance of ever bringing a child into this world.”

  Phia gasped.

  “It’s okay. It has to be okay. You see, any woman working with or around personomales and especially at the Zoo, which is where I started in my early years, must undergo a hysterectomy.” She coughed out something caught between a laugh and a snort and turned away from them, her hands running quickly across her eyes. “The Elites can’t have any of us turning up pregnant, you know,” she said in a mocking tone. “What would that mean for their claim that an approved application and a syringe full of sperm is the only way to procreate?”

  Phia’s heart went out to the doctor. These women, who ran this country she loved, were truly heartless monsters. How could anyone take something so precious from someone? How could they wake up in the morning and look at themselves in the mirror?

  She started to rise to go to the doctor, but Donté held her tighter to him and growled in her ear, “If you move, I think I might break something.”

  The doctor laughed, and Phia knew it was forced as she stepped back over to the door and said too happily, “Well, Darius is very happy about meeting you, Donté. He’s excited to finally have another man who will be able to appreciate his toys.”

  “I’m looking forward to meeting him as well,” Donté said, and Phia knew from the grip he had on her, it was taking everything in him to not “maddox,” as Ice had described it.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The doctor dove back into the problem at hand as though she hadn’t just bared her soul to them. Phia couldn’t help but to admire the woman’s strength and courage. In a world where heterosexual love was a myth, to find the man of your dreams but never be able to bear his children? Phia knew if it were her, she would not be nearly as strong or as sane as the good doctor was.

  She shook off her thoughts and directed her attention to the doctor, who was talking to Donté.

  “There’s one thing on our side. She won’t want to make a scene. If she does, she runs the risk of the world finding out about the Zoos. But the bad thing about it is, even if she gets you back, she’s going to have to find some way of silencing Phia.”