At the moment, anything felt possible. Calden didn’t like the idea of lying to FATHER or the Mentats but they didn’t understand Madeline—or any female, for that matter. They didn’t know how to care for a female or cherish her, Calden told himself. He did—therefore he had to protect Madeline and keep her safe from their prying eyes.
Closing his own eyes, Calden dropped his head so that he could breathe in the aroma of her hair. Gods she was so sweet and tiny and perfect! He swore to himself that he would do everything in his power to protect her and assure her status at the station. Then, when he was sure she was safe and she had the self-termination unit removed, he would tell her the truth about her origins before asking her to bond with him. They would live out their lives together and never be alone again.
He was certain it would work.
Drawing Madeline closer, he dropped a soft kiss on the top of her head and at last allowed himself to drift off.
Eleven
Madeline caught herself humming a little tune as she attempted to twist her hair into a knot at the nape of her neck and made herself stop. She knew she ought to be grieving and miserable—sad about the loss of the other members of her crew and guilty that she was the only one who had survived—not to mention devastated about the loss of her late husband. But somehow she couldn’t make herself feel all that.
Instead she felt…happy. Which she knew was totally wrong, but she couldn’t seem to help it. She did know the reason for it though—it was Calden who was making her hum to herself and feel all warm and tingly inside. Every time she was near the big Kindred, her stomach turned to butterflies and her heart started to pound.
You’re falling in love, whispered a disapproving voice in her head. Falling for him even though you know you shouldn’t. Shame on you, Madeline!
But somehow she could scarcely even feel guilty.
Part of that was because she was always so busy. She and Calden had fallen into a kind of routine. They got up every morning and had First Meal—she was really beginning to like his Kindred food, though she was sometimes homesick for Earth cuisine—and then waited until all the Mentats were hard at work to go to the enzyme baths.
After their bath, it was straight to Calden’s lab where Maddy helped him catalogue and understand his new Earth specimens. He had cloned a calf, a lamb, a piglet, and a foal at this point—and they all seemed healthy so she had high hopes that they might live out a normal life-span instead of dying early, as some of Calden’s other clones had done.
They worked hard all morning—had a quick but satisfying lunch—then went back to work until it was time to knock off for the night and come back to Calden’s quarters. Once there they often skipped supper in favor of making long, leisurely love to each other.
Not that they were actually able to have penetrative sex—they had actually tried but there was no way Calden’s shaft could fit inside Maddy’s pussy, no matter how wet she was or how hard she tried.
“Stop, nieka,” he had murmured the night before, as Maddy straddled his lean hips and attempted to get him inside her. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”
“It should be possible,” Maddy argued, at last giving up in defeat. “Women’s bodies are built to have babies, after all—this part of me is meant to stretch.”
“Maybe in time you’ll be able to open enough to take me. Maybe…possibly, there will be a solution soon,” Calden had murmured.
“Oh, are you working on something in your lab?” Maddy had asked eagerly.
“Not exactly but there is something I have hopes for. No—please don’t ask me the details.” He shook his head mysteriously. “I don’t want you to be disappointed if this idea doesn’t, ah, bear fruit. But I have high hopes for it, right now.”
“I hope it’s something that will help us be together,” Maddy had murmured, snuggling close to his side and pillowing her head on his broad chest.
“I hope so too, nieka.” He had pulled her close and dropped a soft kiss on the top of her head as they cuddled together in the vast, Kindred-sized bed. “Now why don’t you let me taste you again? We know my tongue fits into your sweet little pussy just fine.”
“Mmm…yes it does,” Maddy had murmured and despite her disappointment at not being able to take his shaft inside her, they’d had a very pleasurable night after all.
She knew it was probably wrong and premature but more and more she found herself longing to be completely joined to the big Kindred. It was as though she had discovered a new hunger—the hunger to have him completely inside her, filling her, loving her…and bonding her to him forever. She wondered if they would really form the telepathic connection he had assured her all Kindred formed with their bonded mates and hoped they would.
Maddy caught herself humming again and shook her head. She was so head-over-heels for the big Kindred it was ridiculous—and probably shameless considering that it had been only a little less than a week since she’d awoken in the slimy green nutrient bath and he’d caught her climbing over the edge to try and get to freedom. But she couldn’t help herself somehow—no matter how often she told herself that they were going too fast and she needed to put on the brakes, she just couldn’t seem to do it.
Every time she was determined to start pulling away from Calden, he would come into the room or she would catch him watching her with a loving expression in those warm, topaz eyes and then, before she knew it she was in his arms and he was kissing her.
And then kissing led to other things… Maddy shivered with desire as she remembered exactly what things Calden liked to do to her. They had explored each other’s bodies thoroughly by now but he never seemed to get tired of learning her all over again and neither of them could get enough of the other.
The big Kindred especially seemed to love going down on her—he did it multiple times a night with such apparent enjoyment and enthusiasm that Maddy had completely lost all her earlier inhibitions about the act.
How could she feel that her pussy wasn’t pretty enough or that she made too much honey when Calden was constantly remarking on the beauty of her body and saying how good she tasted and how he loved bathing her pussy with his tongue? How could she feel that she was too big or not thin enough when he was always calling her “nieka” which meant “tiny one” and telling her how delicate and perfect she was?
He was so strong but always so careful of her that she had absolutely no fear of her gentle giant anymore. And since both of them loved studying animals—and Maddy enjoyed caring for them as well—it was almost a perfect life.
Well, perfect except for the Mentats, Maddy thought with a shiver as she tried again to get her hair into a bun. Though she and Calden attempted to stay away from the big, scaly aliens, there was no avoiding them completely. They would still pass some of them in the long, circular hallways of the station as they went from Calden’s quarters to his lab and they occasionally still saw one or two at the enzyme baths.
Grack-lor, especially was liable to be lurking around wherever they went. At least the big Mentat didn’t say anything to them anymore, Maddy thought to herself. He just stared—which was almost worse, in a way—but still better than him trying to start a fight or get one of the other Mentats to start a fight with Calden.
“Ignore him,” Calden had advised her. “He cannot do anything without FATHER’s permission and we have given FATHER no reason to censure us.”
“So you’re saying he’s harmless?” Maddy had asked.
Calden shook his head.
“No—don’t ever make the mistake of thinking that. The stories of things he has done to females from his home world…the things he brags about…” His stern features twisted in disgust. “Just the thought makes me ill. No—he’s not harmless. Whatever you do, don’t ever be alone with Grack-lor, Madeline. That would be a grave mistake.”
“I promise I’ll give him a wide berth,” Maddy said. “You don’t have to tell me twice that he’s bad news.”
But other than the silently
hostile Mentats, the only thing that brought her down was the fact that she knew that Snuffy, the littlest brantha, didn’t have much more time.
Madeline had tried not to get attached to the furry little guy but it was no good. Every time she came into the lab he ran to the edge of the enclosure and tried to climb over the side, trumpeting and burbling through his tiny trunk as he begged to be picked up and held.
Though she tried to hold out, Maddy caved every time and found herself holding and cuddling the sweet little animal. Snuffy was a little like a dog in his desire to be loved-on and she had always been a dog person. Though Maddy knew she was setting herself up for heartache, she couldn’t help getting attached.
Thinking of the little animal made her wonder anxiously if he was all right. Since it was getting close to a week since Snuffy and the rest of the brantha brood had been cloned, she had started getting anxious every time she went into the lab. What if they died during the night and she didn’t get to say goodbye? It was a terrible thought, although she wasn’t eager to have the little brantha die in her arms either, as Calden had told her had happened to him.
“How many times have you cloned them then—the branthas?” she’d asked, as they worked in the lab together.
He had frowned. “This is only the second time, although I have, on occasion cloned some subjects multiple times if I felt that I didn’t have enough information to complete my study of them.”
“Isn’t that cruel, though? Maddy had objected. “Bringing them to life only to watch them die every time?”
“It can be difficult, especially if you allow yourself to get emotionally attached to a specimen,” Calden had admitted. “But they do not die in pain—it is more like going to sleep and not waking up again. And while they live, I try to be certain they are well cared for and have as happy and complete a life as I can give them.” He had gotten that wistful look on his face again as he spoke. “Though I do wish I could keep some of them alive for their natural life spans—like your little Snuffy there.”
“I wish you could too.” Maddy had been holding the little brantha in her arms and a few tears had rolled down her cheeks and fallen on the animal’s soft, orangish-red fur. “Do you think you’ll ever figure out why your clones die so early?”
For some reason Calden had looked uncomfortable.
“It is an ongoing problem,” he admitted stiffly. “One I have been unable to rectify.”
His sudden stiffness had surprised Madeline but she’d thought that maybe he was touchy about the subject because he had been working on it for so long without success. She had let the matter drop and they had talked about something else instead.
As though thinking about Calden had called him to her, she heard a knock on the door of the bathroom—or the “fresher” as he called it.
“Madeline? Are you all right in there? You haven’t fallen in, have you?”
Maddy smiled to herself. It was a valid question, considering that his toilet was built for someone his size and not hers. She’d had several narrow misses back when her hands were nearly useless. But now, after nightly treatments with the “slime gloves” as Maddy thought of them, her hands were pretty much back to normal in terms of fine motor skills. She still lacked strength in her fingers and palms but that was coming along too. In fact, Calden estimated that one more night in the gloves might completely restore her back to where she’d been before she was injured in the wreck of the Kennedy.
“I’m okay,” she said, opening the door to let him in. “I’m just trying to get my hair up so it doesn’t get into the enzymes when we go to the baths—I think they’re drying it out too much.”
“Your hair looks beautiful to me,” Calden rumbled. “Do you need some help with it because of your hands?”
“No, it’s more because I can’t see what I’m doing,” Maddy grumbled. “I’ve never been in a bathroom without a mirror before. I would ask how you fix your own hair but I guess you just leave it in braids and let the enzymes clean it.” She smiled at him shyly. “Although I’d love to see it down sometime. I’ve always liked long hair on a man if he knows how to take care of it.”
“I will take it down for you tonight, if you like.” He smiled at her. “But as for seeing yourself, I have no mirror but will a 3-D viewer do?”
“A what?” Madeline frowned.
“This.” Reaching far above her head, he pressed a small, recessed button which was the same color as the scale-like tiles around it—no wonder she hadn’t seen it before, Maddy thought. As soon as the button was pressed, a soft humming sound began and a long, thin, horizontal strip of silver began to push out of the wall below it. Calden grasped the strip and pulled it down, revealing a mirror-like surface that showed Madeline from the waist up to the crown of her head. He pulled at the sides of the mirror and two more silver panels came out, at an angle to the first one. They showed Maddy from the sides and then, a third panel, which appeared at the top of the first one, showed her back.
“Wow…” She looked at herself from all angles. “I never knew you had such high-tech mirrors here. I just assumed…wait a minute.”
“What’s wrong?” Calden asked, looking anxious.
“My freckles…” Maddy leaned forward, taking a closer look at the girl she saw reflected in the mirror. It was the first time that she’d caught more than a fleeting glimpse of her reflection since she’d gotten out of the slime, she realized. It seemed funny to think of but there really weren’t any mirrors or many reflective surfaces at all at the Mentat station. Now that she was finally looking at herself, she wasn’t sure what to make of what she saw.
“What are you talking about?” Calden asked. “What do you mean ‘freckles’?”
“They’re little brown spots of pigmentation,” Maddy explained. “In most people they’re hereditary but with some—like me—they kind of pop out when you’re exposed to the sun too much. I was always outdoors walking my dogs when I lived on Earth so I had about a ton of them. Now…” She frowned and leaned forward again. “They’re just…gone.” She looked up at Calden. “What happened? Where did they go?”
He was getting that uncomfortable, tight-lipped expression on his face again.
“Madeline—” he began but just then a tinny, disembodied voice interrupted him.
“Calden,” it said, sounding like it was coming from somewhere near the ceiling. “You are requested to attend a conference with FATHER.”
“What, now?” Calden looked up in apparent irritation but was there also worry on his face? Maddy thought there was. “Can it wait until later?” he asked. “I have to go to my lab and check on my specimens.”
“Negative,” the disembodied voice declared. “Please report to FATHER immediately.”
Calden looked even more troubled but he only said, “Very well. I am on my way. Calden out.”
There was a crackle and then silence. Maddy looked at him uncertainly.
“Calden, is everything all right?”
“I’m sure it is.” But the set of his broad shoulders was tense and the corners of his mouth were tight. “I shouldn’t be long,” he told Maddy. “Please stay here and wait for me. When I get back, we’ll go to the baths together.”
“All right.” She nodded. “Do…do you think FATHER is upset with you?” she asked in a half-whisper, wondering if they were being spied on.
Calden frowned. “FATHER is an AI, Madeline—he has no emotions. He probably just wants to discuss my latest batch of specimens. I have made rather a lot of them lately which can be a strain on the station’s resources.”
“Oh. Okay.” She nodded. “Well, I’ll see you in a little while then.”
“See you soon.” Calden bent to kiss her briefly and then left, his white lab coat swishing around him as he walked.
Maddy watched him go and then turned to view to the silvery surface of the 3-D viewer uneasily. Looking at her reflection brought back her earlier unease. She couldn’t believe she didn’t have a single freckle left! W
here had they all gone? Her skin was as clear and pale as it had been back when she was a baby—not that she remembered that time but her mom had lots of pictures of her since she was the oldest of her sisters.
She had a sudden thought and moved her hair to one side to look at her back. The top panel of the 3-D viewer showed it easily and she was able to see that something else was missing.
“My Barbie scar,” she whispered, frowning. “Where is it?”
Back when she was eight and her sister, Tabitha was seven, the two of them had been playing with lit candles, fascinated with the wax and the way it dripped. Then Tabby had gotten the bright idea to try and melt other things with the candle flames besides wax. She had gotten her least favorite Barbie doll and started to melt her feet in the flames. Just as the Barbie’s feet were a mess of nearly liquid melted plastic, they had heard their parents coming back from shopping.
“Quick!” Maddy had whispered, “I’ll blow out the candles and you hide the Barbie.” She knew perfectly well if they got caught there would be hell to pay—her parents had told them again and again never to play with matches or fire of any kind.
Tabby had nodded in agreement, gripping the Barbie with the melted feet in one hand and jumping up to run behind Maddy, who was already bending over to blow out the candles.But in her haste, her little sister had gotten too close. A huge blob of melted plastic had fallen right down Maddy’s back—directly onto her right shoulder blade.
Maddy remembered how she had shrieked as the burning melted plastic had eaten its way through her t-shirt and branded her back like a hot coal. Her mother, who had just walked in the door, came rushing in and pulled off Maddy’s shirt at once. But it was too late—the molten plastic had burned into her skin.
What followed was a trip to the ER, a spanking for Tabby and a grounding for Maddy, as well as the promise that the two of them wouldn’t be left alone unsupervised for a long, long time. Indeed, Maddy didn’t think her mother had trusted her enough to leave her in the house alone—even if she was only going to run to the corner store for some milk or bread—until Maddy was nearly thirteen.
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