by H. E. Trent
The tickle on the arch of her bare foot made her jolt upright, and instinctively pull her leg in, but the tickle soon gave way to a caress. Murk gripped her foot and pulled it across the seat, then the other, displacing Jerry from his comfortable spot between them.
His gaze was searching, though not apologetic.
She was coming to think she should never expect an apology from him. Trig certainly didn’t seem to. He surfed Murk’s inscrutable moods with the skill acquired through years of experience Court could only envy. She wanted to trust—didn’t want to be so skeptical where the two men were concerned, but she kept trying to understand them using a human lens, and doing so only added to the discord. Some things were—simply—her fault.
Maybe understanding that is the first step to accepting it.
Her tense body relaxed in inches as he stroked his thumbs over her arches atop his lap. She put her head back against the wall and let out a slow exhalation as the flyer dipped and rocked at low altitude. Probably, the only reason she hadn’t thrown up during the turbulent ride was because she’d chewed some bitter handful of herbs back in the desert at Ruth’s insistence. She’d pointed to Court’s belly and pantomimed barfing. Trig had said they were all right, and she’d taken his word for it, if not Ruth’s. She had to admit the persisting underlying feeling of nausea had decreased almost to nothing in the time since. She missed her nausea, though. Nausea meant the kid was raising hell and doing okay.
“Distract me,” she said to no one in particular.
“I’ll try to make the travel smoother,” Trig said, “but if I fly much higher up, I’m going to use a lot more fuel than I’m comfortable with.”
“No, the turbulence isn’t bothering me. Other things.”
“Is your mind running away again?”
“Yes. Tell me…tell me about how you knew Murk was the one.”
That made Trig bark with laughter.
Murk growled.
“I don’t know what to tell you except that he informed me that he was,” Trig said.
Court grunted. “From what I’m learning, that sounds a lot like him.”
“He’s used to having his way. I guess that included acquiring me.”
Murk cleared his throat—an I’m sitting right here sound if Court had ever heard one.
Court ignored him. “You’d been living under the same roof for some time before that happened?”
“Yes. Honestly, it was a relief for me. Murk’s older, and the older male is almost always first mate. I didn’t want to be a first mate.”
“Why not?”
He navigated them through an air pocket before answering. “There’s just a lot of social pressures that go along with being first, and I’m not cut out for all the posturing. I’d rather follow than lead most of the time.”
“But you’ll lead if you have to.”
“Yes,” he said after a few seconds. “If I have to.”
“Help me understand where a woman is supposed to fit into a Jekhan household.”
“That’s hard to explain. She’s…both within it and outside it. She’s more or less…um…” He snapped his fingers as if trying to grab the right words out of thin air.
Murk leaned over and picked up his tablet from the floor. He scribbled.
“Autonomous?” she read.
“Yes. I think that’s the word.” Trig pushed the engines a little harder as they neared the end of the windy corridor. “Autonomous. She’s a necessity, but sometimes chooses not to include herself in the day-to-day concerns of the household. I know of many households where men wouldn’t see their woman until bedtime, if then.”
“And that’s fine with you? I mean, with the men here?”
“That’s the way things have been for ages.”
Murk wrote, “It is the Tyneali. Much of our cultural structures are modeled on theirs, and for the most part they suit our social and biological needs.”
“For the most part,” she muttered.
Murk huffed. “You could choose to be separate. Our homes accommodate such.”
“Your homes have separate spaces for women?”
“Separation is a necessity at times,” Trig said. “Jekhan women, like Tyneali women, tend to be intolerant of males who’ve been…uh…made fathers.”
“Too much testosterone?”
“Yes. Many partnerships fall off after the children are old enough to care for themselves, though many Jekhans do remain together as couples or trios.”
“I can’t imagine being in such an intense relationship with an expiration date twenty years out.”
“That’s the Tyneali way.”
Court enjoyed her solitude as much as the next girl, but she’d grown up with a heap of siblings in very cramped quarters. She was more used to togetherness than solitude. Living on her own had taken some getting used to. In fact, before she’d started the transfer process to Jekh, she’d considered moving out of her apartment at the end of its lease and rooming with Erin.
“I have a lot to learn about Jekhan society, I guess.” She fidgeted her com, wishing she’d tried one more time to get in touch with Erin before they’d left Buinet. Communication was probably going to be unreliable where they were going, and she didn’t want her sister to think she’d fallen off the planet. Sighing, she rotated the com around her wrist.
“It’s complicated.” Trig cranked the flyer into high speed, and Court sat up to watch the landscape retreat in a blur beneath them. “Be patient with us.”
“I can only ask the same of you. I suppose I’ll have to balance my expectations of a relationship with what’s actually possible.”
Murk wrote, “Why do you assume those things are so disparate?”
She opened her mouth to respond, but she didn’t really know how to verbalize all the thoughts into something sensible. “Um…polyamorous relationships exist on Earth, though they certainly aren’t the standard. And it sounds like what exists on Jekh isn’t the same thing.”
On Jekh, they formed trios out of necessity, and love didn’t have to be a factor. Just tolerance. She wanted a little more than tolerance—a little more than to keep a separate room in which she could isolate herself. Isolation may have been the Jekhan way, but she sure as shit didn’t want it to be hers.
She fidgeted her com band some more and, disconcerted, slowly tapped out a message to Erin. She knew there was a chance that Erin might never receive the missive, but at least that niggling, compulsive voice in Court’s brain would shut up for a while.
___
Trig had feared slowing as he neared Little Gitano. He didn’t want to look down to see if the town was still there, but had to in order to verify his reckoning. He was flying lower, using landmarks and familiar sights to steer instead of the computer’s programming.
Little Gitano seemed even…littler than he remembered. Just three roads and a couple of cross streets. It hardly even rated being called a town, but the prospect of visiting when he’d been a kid had always filled him with great anticipation.
He didn’t see any lights or any movement, but the hour was late and farmers always turned in early and got up early. There’d be no way of knowing if Little Gitano had been spared the onslaught of Terran settlement until daylight. Maybe it was good he didn’t know yet.
“Just a couple more minutes.” He stole a glance into the backseat. Court was still staring out her window, studiously avoiding Murk. Murk had Jerry’s head on his lap and was casting Court unreadable looks, except they weren’t so inscrutable for Trig. He knew what they meant. He kept an encyclopedia of the man’s expressions in his brain and could tell in an instant if Murk was confused or pissed or horny. Court might have looked at Murk and thought he was instigating another fight, but Trig knew that was Murk’s thinking face. Murk didn’t know what to do with her, which was just as well because the affliction seemed to be shared all the way around.
He set the flyer closer to the road to avoid disturbing crops, if there were any worth conside
ring.
He hadn’t been understating things when he’d told Court that Jekhan relationships were complicated. They were practical things. Sometimes, love came along with them, but from what Trig had witnessed, the affection wouldn’t exist in equal parts on all three sides of the triangle. Murk’s family had been of the practical sort. His parents rarely ever saw each other, which suited Murk fine. Their absence allowed him and Trig to get into all kinds of delicious trouble. Trig’s parents, however, had been somewhat more amorous. His mother spent much of her time in the main house amongst her men and children, although she more often slept with her needy children than with her men. She wasn’t unusual for Little Gitano, though. The people there were just…different than the ones in the cities. More human, maybe. He would prefer Court to be in the house with them, but that was his particular upbringing nagging at him. She might prefer the other custom, and he couldn’t deprive her of her right to engage in it.
A thin creek passing beneath an old bridge marked the southwest corner of the farm and, seeing no claims posted on the fence posts, he let out a breath. According to Court, there’d be one on each corner if a settler had moved in. He could do a more complete examination in the morning. The property was too large to walk on foot in a reasonable amount of time, and even flying would take the better part of a morning if he were being thorough.
As he piloted toward the storage building where his fathers had kept farm equipment, he took stock of the shapes, counting the dwelling structures to see if they were all there.
He thought they were. Kitchen. Bathhouse. Communal area with the rest spaces branching off.
The lady’s house that so often went unused.
He kept the headlights on as he deployed the landing pegs and set the flyer on the barn floor.
The big machines they’d used to till and plow were caked with grime and dust, but otherwise seemed no worse for the wear. They looked exactly like the last time his father had put them away.
Sighing, he let the doors rise up on their hydraulic hinges. “Be it ever so humble, as your saying goes.”
“Everything look okay?” Court asked.
“So far. I can go out into the power house in the morning and get the electricity going, but for now, I don’t want to risk turning the power on.”
“I agree. Not until we know how much traffic the area gets.” She put her hands on the small of her back and stretched, thrusting her bountiful breasts forward.
His cock gave a pathetic twitch, and he sighed. Who knows when I’ll get to touch her again?
By Jekhan custom, that could be a year or more. Pregnant women liked their space, and new mothers weren’t so tolerant of company, either.
“Let’s get a flashlight and a couple of guns and go take a look at where we’re sleeping,” she said, scattering his thoughts.
Murk scoffed and pointed to the seat. Stay, he was saying.
Court rolled her eyes and got out.
Trig shook his head at him. “You should know better.”
Murk put up his hands and grunted.
“She’s trained for this. She’s a cop.” Trig’s words may have been placating, but he wasn’t sure if he even believed them himself. Court had been taking care of herself for a long time, but he was vested in her ongoing safety now. She wasn’t replaceable, and his belief wasn’t based solely on the fact that she was carrying Murk’s baby. Trig wanted her, too, even if she never gave him a baby of his own. He wasn’t normal.
He was coming to accept that.
“Cop,” Murk eked out. He gave his head a shake and nudged Jerry out of the flyer.
Court handed the heavy flashlight to Trig along with his backpack. “We can get the rest of this stuff out in the morning. I just need something clean to sleep in. I feel like I’m swimming in this dress.”
“You’ll probably get used to the flowiness.” Trig closed the flyer hatch. “Our women seem to tolerate them well enough.”
“But how does anyone get any work done in them? Pants would be so much more convenient on a farm.”
“Probably. You can wear what you like. No one’s going to fault you for preferring trousers.”
“Wouldn’t fault me, no, but you have a preference, I bet.”
He winced. “I’d be lying if I said I didn’t like the way you looked in that dress. It isn’t simply because the garb feminizes you”—she didn’t need any help in that department—“but that it…shows all of your assets to their best advantages.” He added that last part in a mutter.
The fact he knew what everything beneath all those layers of fabric looked like… A shudder rolled through him, and he started walking to distract his tingling cock.
Murk and Court followed closely behind him. He kept his light on the path, shining left and right to reorient himself with the landscape, and gently pushed open the detached kitchen’s door when they approached.
Unoccupied. Things were as they’d been when he and his siblings were taken away, including that overturned wooden bowl on the counter.
He moved them along, stopping again at the lady’s house. As he put his fingers on the door handle, he cleared his throat. “This was my mother’s space. You may be able to tailor some of her clothes to fit you. She had several maternity garments.”
Court shifted her weight. “If it’s not awkward for you. Seeing me wear them, I mean.”
“Of course not. Jekhans are too practical to let material things go to waste.” He pushed the door and she grabbed his wrist.
“Listen, there may be some point where I want a little space, but right now, I’m not interested in being alone. And isolation isn’t the safest thing.”
“Oh.” He nodded. Her logic was sound, but he was glad she’d stated the objection and not him. He was too low on emotional energy to get scolded. “Um. We’ll check the others quickly and settle into the main quarters for the night.”
“Fine.”
There was no evidence anyone had been there since the Merridons left. No trash, no footprints. Just a lot of dust and cobwebs.
Trig didn’t know whether to be gleeful at that or depressed at the abandonment. His family had maintained that farm for generations and it was nothing but weeds and a few quiet buildings. No production, no life, no warmth. His homecoming was bittersweet, indeed.
“Where did you sleep?” Court asked.
They stood in the middle of the communal family area where the Merridons spent hours decompressing after long days and where the children did their lessons. The room was circular, with steps down to the middle all the way around like a miniature amphitheater. There was no hiding in such a room, and that was the way Jekhan men and children preferred.
Trig indicated the hallway beyond the heavy wooden cabinet. “My siblings and I slept in the rooms off to the left. My fathers had rooms to the right.”
“Your fathers kept separate rooms as well?”
“They didn’t build the house. We’d had the land in the Merridon family for many generations. Perhaps the extra room had been required in the past when there were three or more generations here, but I can’t recall a time when my fathers didn’t share.”
“Oh.” She seemed to be pondering that as she rocked back on her heels. He could never tell what she was thinking the way Murk could, but he hoped to get better at reading her. Every little misunderstanding between them made him panic more than a grown man should have.
“Is there bedding in any of those rooms?” she asked.
“Should be, if they haven’t disintegrated in the past twenty years.”
Court walked confidently to the right, her pulse weapon locked in her grip as she went.
Trig followed with Murk, and shone the light ahead of her. “The second room,” he said. “First was always used for storage.” He danced the light beam into the spare room as they passed to confirm that was a true memory.
His fathers’ room was as disorderly as they’d left it. The large, low bed was made, but barely, as the covers were all
still piled on a chair waiting for attention. They’d been laundered and never put back on.
He handed the light to Murk and picked up the heavy blanket. He gave it a shake and freed the dust. No holes that he could see. Smelled okay, though a bit musty. “This will do for a night, I think.”
Court sat and pulled off her boots. “Pain from my little spill is kicking back in. Sitting still in the flyer for so long probably didn’t help any.”
“If the bath is functional, we’ll try to get the heaters on so you can have a soak tomorrow.”
She waved a dismissive hand. “Too many other things to do than to worry about my sore muscles.”
“Did you pack any medicines?”
“I don’t know. I might have. I don’t remember much about what happened before we left Buinet. So much was a blur.”
She crawled onto the bed, belly-down, and let out a long, indulgent sigh. “Going to miss being able to sleep on my face. I’ve never been much for back sleeping, and sleeping on my sides hurts my hips.”
“We’ll get you lots of cushions. I know there are numerous pillows around here. They’ll likely need to be taken outside and beaten.”
Her giggle was soft, but definite. Sounded a bit loopy—not like Court at all. She must have been drunk off exhaustion.
“Add that to the list of things to do. You know, I’ve never been on a farm before. Not even a Christmas tree farm.”
Jerry jumped on to the bed and wedged himself at Court’s right side.
Trig grimaced. He knew where that would put him—at the far left edge. He wouldn’t dare move the dog. Jerry always went to whomever he thought needed comfort the most. Sure enough, Murk climbed in next to her, let down his hair, and patted the empty spot next to him.
Trig climbed in. “What sort of products do Christmas trees make? Fruit or just wood?”
“Oh. Neither. They’re not a species of tree, but a kind of decoration. They can be spruce or pine or fir. Trimming trees is a pagan custom adapted by Christians. Some folks put trees—which can be between three and ten feet—in their living rooms during the dead of winter and decorate them with lights, tinsels, and ornaments. On December twenty-fifth, we put gifts under them to either celebrate the birth of Christ or else to show off our amassed wealth. I think most folks forget at this point why they even do it.”