by Rebecca York
“I should go out and check the stock,” he said.
“I could fix dinner. If you tell me where things are.”
“Right.” He turned toward the prep area. “I keep fresh food in the cold box. Some meat is in the freeze unit. You can thaw it fast in the micro. My labels are like hen scratches, though. Maybe I should get you out a kilo of ground beef.”
“Okay,” she agreed.
He pulled one from the freezer and set it on the counter.
“Packaged goods from off world are in the storage unit. The pots and pans are in the lower cabinet. Don’t try to do anything fancy until you get to know the place. If you don’t want to use the meat, eggs would be fine.”
“Meat will be a treat after the rations on the trip over.”
“They were bad?”
“Not horrible but boring.”
He opened drawers and cabinets, showing her where to find equipment.
“There’s running water,” he said, turning on the tap. “And in the bathroom, too.”
“Good.” She cleared her throat. “You don’t have incineration units, do you?”
“No.”
“Then I probably need a trash can in the bathroom. I mean . . .”
He cut her off. “I already put one in there.” Switching back to the kitchen, he said, “The cooker is a little temperamental. You turn on the gas.” He demonstrated. “Then light it with a match. If the flame is off, you got to make sure the gas is off too.”
He pulled a match from a canister on the counter, struck it against the side, and touched it to the jet. When the flame sprang up, he turned it down. “I’ll leave it on for you.”
“Thanks.”
“Anything else you need to know right now?”
“I don’t think so.”
He started to exit the house, then turned abruptly and went into the bedroom. When he came back, he was wearing a clean shirt.
“The burned one?” she asked.
“Throw it in the rag bin.” He showed her where that was, then exited the house quickly. When he was gone, she breathed out a little sigh, glad to be alone for the moment. Probably he was, too.
oOo
Caleb headed for the barn, annoyed that he needed to escape from his own house—and from the woman standing in his food prep area. Sagan’s balls, what an idiot. It had taken him a couple of minutes to figure out what she was trying to tell him about her physical condition.
He’d read about menstruation in the instruction manual. He just hadn’t known it was called “having my period.” But yeah, you had to figure women would have a way to talk about it that wasn’t clinical. And, of course, he hadn’t been thinking they’d jump right in to that time of the month. But maybe it was an advantage. He wasn’t going to have to . . .
He cut that thought off and started again. It wasn’t “have to.” He “wanted to.” He just didn’t know much about it. Yeah, he had seen porn vids with naked men and women doing it. All the guys on Palomar had, unless they were homers. And there was porn for them, too.
You could make the 3-D images so large that it was like you were practically in bed with the flipping couple. But was what they showed in a flip vid the way real people did stuff in real life? Well, the guy was going to end up putting his pump handle inside the gal’s furrow. That was pretty clear. But what about the touching and kissing part? How much of that did you do first? He’d read something in the book about a man needing to arouse a woman so it would be good for her. But in the vids, the gals were always rarin’ to go. And they always came, although he’d heard guys say that a gal could fake it.
And then there was the way the guys in the pornos always pulled out so you could see them pump off. That couldn’t be right. Not if you wanted to have a baby.
He cursed under his breath, wishing he weren’t getting hard thinking about this stuff. And wishing he knew more about what to do in bed. His new wife had grown up in a normal place where men and women were available to each other. Probably she knew a lot more than he did. What was she going to think when he started fumbling around?
He fed the stock, then checked on Silla, the mare who was due to foal soon. She seemed a little restless, and he figured he’d have to keep an eye on her.
Next he stepped into the garden house and checked the temperature, the humidity and the nutrients. When there wasn’t anything more to do outside, he went back in.
As soon as he opened the door, the aroma of food curled around him. When he crossed rapidly to the kitchen, he found Beka stirring something in a skillet.
“I found vegetables in the cold box and made sort of a stir fry with the ground beef.”
“It smells good.”
“I hope it tastes good.”
She’d set the table with plates, cutlery and mugs.
“I didn’t know what you drink.”
“Water’s fine. Or I could make coffee.”
“No. The water here tastes good. Not like when they put in a lot of chemicals.”
“It’s from my well.”
While he washed his hands, she scooped meat and vegetables onto his plate, then served herself.
They sat across from each other, both of them forking up food and eating it.
“This is good.”
“Thank you. I put in onions. I could tell you which spices would give it more flavor.”
“Okay. We can add them to the supply list.”
The conversation died, and he scrambled for something to say.
“The planet where you were living.”
“Elmen.”
“What was it like?”
She pushed at a piece of carrot on her plate. “Does it matter? I mean I’m here now.”
The answer told him something. She didn’t want to talk about her past life. Because this was a fresh start? Or because she was trying to hide her background?
He wanted to ask if she’d lived with her family. Or lived with a man. And if she had, why had she left? But he thought it might be better to leave that for the time being.
Instead, he said, “The colonists had a travel allowance for household goods, and we came here with some of the furniture from our old house on Centorus. The bed’s from there and also a couple of chests of drawers in the bedroom. I cleared out the one on the right for you.”
“Thank you.”
“You could unpack after dinner.”
“The dishes . . .”
“You cooked. I can clean up.”
“Thanks.” She lifted her face. “You’re not one of those guys who makes a distinction between men and women’s work?”
He laughed. “All the work here was my work. I’m glad to have someone to share it.”
“Right.”
He carried her crate into the bedroom and set it near the dresser that his father had used. “Any of the drawers in here.”
“You’re sure you don’t need them?”
“No.”
He was about to leave when she said, “Is it all right for me to take a shower?”
“Of course. You don’t have to ask permission. This is your home.”
“Yes,” she murmured. “I didn’t know if you had hot water restrictions.”
“No. I left a towel for you. It’s on the rack to the right when you step inside.” He stayed where he was, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “I could sleep on the couch.”
She answered immediately. “No. I don’t want to start off that way. I want us to feel comfortable with each other.”
Yeah, sure. What he said was, “Okay.”
She stayed where she was. “You were going to show me how to communicate with Listerville if I needed to.”
He snapped his fingers. “Slat. I mean, uh . . .” He stopped and sighed, wondering how he was going to break the habit of a lifetime.
Starting again, he said, “Let me show you my comms unit.”
He pulled a flat box about ten centimeters by fifteen out of his pocket.
When he
said, “open,” a cube appeared in the air beside the thing.
“You have these on Elmen, right?”
“Actually, no.”
“Why not? I thought you were more advanced than we are.”
“Yeah, but we aren’t as isolated. It’s not as critical for us.” She flapped her hand. “I mean it wasn’t. On Elmen they have units that are a little bigger, but the picture’s on the screen.”
He nodded. “Okay, here you’re always online with Listerville,” he told her. “And notice that the input and output are separate from the device itself. You can get the various functions with hand gestures.”
“Which I don’t know,” she murmured.
“You’ll learn them. But you can also use voice commands like I did to open it. In a nutshell, it’s got everything. News feed. Personal communications.” He moved his fingers in front of the cube, expanding it. When it was about half a meter on a side, he flicked his fingers and brought up a holio image of a man giving a weather report.
“Can I just ask for weather?” she asked.
“Yes. And news. And entertainment. And if you want to talk in real time to someone, you ask for the address book. And you call SOS for emergencies.” He laughed. “I think SOS has been around for centuries. Since old Earth.”
“Yes.”
“And how fast can they get here if we need help?”
“It will take as long as it took for us to fly over from Listerville. Unless there are no units available.”
“So we’re on our own for an hour.”
“Yeah.”
“I made a friend while we were on the bride ship. Kenna O’Brien. Well that’s not her name now. Would it be okay for me to call her sometime?”
“Sure. Who did she marry?”
“Mack Logan.”
“He’s a good, steady guy.”
“I’m glad of that.”
“You’d use his homestead address to get her.” He pulled up a directory on the screen. “Mlogan.”
She nodded.
“Let me show you some of the other features.” He used another hand gesture, and she saw an ensemble of men and women with instruments—accompanied by twangy pop music.
“Okay. Thanks.”
He reached into the drawer of the desk and brought out a device that was like the one in his hand and held it out to her. “This one was my dad’s.”
“What happened to him?”
“He died.”
“How?”
“In a mine cave-in.”
She winced.
“I saved his unit,” he said, changing the subject. “No reason to pitch it.”
She took it, weighing it in her hand, looking reluctant. “It’s complicated.”
“I know it seems that way, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Do you have something that shows the hand gestures?”
He flicked his fingers at the screen, and a three-dimensional picture of a hand appeared. When he said “on,” the hand moved. When he said “news” and made another gesture, a small figure of a man appeared. He looked like he was standing at the spaceport where they’d been earlier, and he was giving an account of her abduction, complete with a vid of the hostage scene.
She caught her breath when she saw herself being held by the luggage jockey—and then her and Caleb working together to free her. “Did they have to show that?”
“It’s big news on Palomar.”
“I’d rather not be the news.”
“Agreed.” He flicked off the broadcast.
“How often are they going to show me?”
“Probably every hour for a day or two.”
“Too bad.”
“You’ll be famous.”
“I don’t want to be.”
“I think we’ve had enough lessons for tonight. Tomorrow we’ll open a private channel so the two of us can use the units when we’re not together. You can do some unpacking. Or, if you’re tired, go to bed.”
“Yes.”
Yes, what, he wondered. Unpack or go to bed? And then what?
Chapter Four
Caleb hurried back to the prep area, cleared the table, drew hot water into a pan, and added the dishes. Then he put away the leftover food. By the time he was finished with the cleanup and looked into the bedroom, he saw that Beka’s storage crate was sitting against the wall, the bathroom door was closed, and he could hear water running. Should he get into bed? No, he should shower, too. And then what? Did he get in bed naked like he usually did? Maybe that was going too far, under the circumstances.
He went out and unloaded some of the supplies, then came back to see she’d turned out the overhead lights. The bedroom was dark, except for light from one of the oil lamps he’d left on in the front room. He strode past the bed to the bathroom, used the commode, and then took a quick shower, keeping his wounded arm out of the water. When he’d dried off, he put on a fresh pair of briefs, turned off the bathroom light, and walked to the bedroom, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the darkness before he approached the bed. She had taken the side farthest from the bathroom—the right. He took the left, hearing her drag in a breath and let it out as he settled down beside her.
It had been years since he’d slept in a bed with anyone else. At first he’d slept with his dad, until he’d gotten his own small room, which was now used for storage. He knew there were guys who had tried things out together. Sexual things. He knew some of them had thought of their partners as a substitute for a gal. And he knew other guys who had been seriously into the homer thing. Some of them had even moved in together. He hadn’t been one of them—in either case. He had wanted a woman, and now he had one in his bed.
He lay beside Beka for long moments in the darkness. She’d said she wanted them to be comfortable with each other. Would she be comfortable if he touched her? Nothing sexual. Just a touch. Slowly, he moved his arm toward her, feeling the sleeve of her gown. The fabric felt thick and practical. He slid his arm farther toward her until the back of his hand was pressed lightly to hers.
He felt her stiffen, then relax.
Nothing sexual, he’d told himself, again. But just the contact of her soft skin against his hand sent a wave of arousal through him. Could it be having the same effect on her? Or was he just so far gone that the merest touch was going to charge him up?
For long minutes she didn’t move. Then she turned toward him, slinging her arm across his chest and resting her head on his shoulder. Slowly he brought his arm up, clasping her.
“I told you we can’t . . .”
“I know,” he said quickly.
After a moment, she whispered, “But we can get to know each other a little better.”
“Like how?”
She raised up, then brought her mouth to his, the light contact almost knocking the breath from his lungs. In all his life, he had never kissed anyone on the mouth, and he’d never felt anything that affected him more, not in this lifetime. When she moved her lips against his, he thought he would go up in flames.
His arm tightened on her shoulder as she nibbled at him. Then he felt her tongue exploring the seam of his lips. He’d seen tongue action on the vids. He supposed it was meant to be arousing, but it always looked slimy. He wasn’t sure he wanted to try it.
But when she said, “Caleb, open for me,” he did as she asked.
Her tongue slipped inside his mouth, playing with the inside of his lips, the ridges of his teeth. It wasn’t bad at all. In fact, he caught his breath as he absorbed the erotic wonder of that contact.
“Caleb.” She whispered his name again, this time against his lips.
“Beka.”
This was nothing like the dueling tongues or hard, frantic kisses he’d seen in the pornos. Nothing at all.
It was soft and sweet, and he had never experienced anything close to what they were doing now. Probably on a normal planet, teenagers slipped off to do this kind of thing all the time. But he hadn’t grown up on a normal planet. He’d been he
re on Palomar where there were no women.
The kisses made him dizzy with the need for her. He clenched and unclenched his fist, ordering himself not to grab her and pull her body against his aching cock.
She stayed where she was for long moments, but when she eased away, he felt the loss like a dagger in his gut.
“Maybe we should stop,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Because we can’t make love.” He heard her swallow in the darkness. “And both of us want to.”
Both of us.
Was she telling the truth? He knew he wanted to. But how did you know a woman was charged up?
He lay beside her, wondering what would happen if he reached for her and pulled her back against himself. But he didn’t do it because he had no idea where to put his feelings or his passion.
He lay beside her in the darkness for a long time. But sometime during the night he finally fell asleep.
oOo
Beka breathed out a little sigh when he drifted off. He’d let her take the lead, but she’d felt his passion ramping up. Maybe she was testing him when she told him they should stop. He’d done it, although she knew he’d wanted more. She could tell from his breathing and the heat coming off him.
But that was good. He hadn’t tried to force her. Maybe he hadn’t for a couple of reasons.
He had to be inexperienced, living on this world that had been colonized only by men. He could have gone off Palomar, to a pleasure world. But would he have spent the credits for that?
And maybe, if he’d never been with a woman, he was worried that he’d make some strategic mistake. In that situation, some guys would plow ahead and blunder their way to completion. But hopefully, he was the kind of man who wouldn’t take a woman against her will.
Let this work out the way I want it, she murmured inside her head, asking the fates for more than she ever had in her life.
oOo
When Caleb woke, he was disoriented for a moment. Someone was in bed beside him. He was reaching for the beamer in the bedside table when he realized who was there.
Beka.
He turned his head and looked at her, hardly able to believe she was really there, and the events of the day before weren’t simply a dream.
When he’d climbed into bed, it had been dark. Now a stream of sunlight warmed the edge of the blinds, and Beka was watching him. Luckily he was still under the covers because a hard-on strained at the front of his briefs.