“Aspen,” he said. After a second she looked up and met his eyes. “I’m a Superior and you’re a human. All I will ever want from you is food. You understand, yes?”
They stood in the small, steamy room regarding each other until she nodded and dropped her gaze. Her pale shoulders, warm and beaded with water from the shower, and hunched inwards. He took her wet hair in his hand and bent her head back to reveal her long white neck. Her vein pulsed softly under the skin. His mouth found her throat, and his teeth entered her skin. As he sucked at her gently, the scent and taste of her rushed into him. He hadn’t realized just how badly he’d wanted her all the time he’d been gone. Now that he had her here with no one to answer to, he wanted to keep going, to bite her all over and suck her dry as a husk.
He might have, if she hadn’t let out a moan and slumped against him. He withdrew and gathered her into his arms, startled. What had he done? She had already been overdrawn and weak, too weak to draw from. He carried her into his bedroom, his thoughts racing. What if he’d killed her? He hadn’t meant to harm her, but he had.
He laid her on his bed and listened to her heartbeat for a few minutes to convince himself she wouldn’t die. The towel had come loose in the process of transferring her, so Draven tucked it around her lower half. Looking her over, he noticed many unclosed wounds sprouting along her arms. Each would leave a pebble-like scars under her skin when it healed. He ran his hands behind her knees and found more already formed in the soft flesh. Just then he spotted the mark he’d left on her neck, and he pressed his tongue to it again, since he’d been distracted when he pulled out.
Only when her eyes fluttered open met his did he realize he’d put her in his bed. But what would it hurt? He liked the scent of her anyhow, and he’d be gone all night while she perfumed his bed with her tantalizing scent. And she looked quite pale. It couldn’t hurt her to sleep in a soft bed.
She crossed her arms over her bare breasts. “I’m cold.”
“I see that.” Draven stood and pulled the blanket over her. He had no idea if it provided accurate warmth for a sapien, but he had only one. He didn’t know why he still used it—he didn’t need it and it did nothing useful. But he enjoyed its comfort, perhaps a remnant from his own days as a sap that he had retained without awareness.
“Thank you,” Cali said from the bed. Her eyes closed and she sounded half asleep already. “And thank you for not killing me or…doing other stuff to me.”
“If you wake while I’m gone, are you going to run away?”
“No.”
“Good. Because I know your scent quite well, and I will find you wherever you go. But I won’t be as soft-hearted if you make trouble for me by running away.”
“Is this really your bed?”
“Yes.”
“You sleep here every night?”
“Most days, yes.”
“It’s like…heaven.”
He smiled. “Do you know what heaven is?”
“It’s the best thing possible. And this is the most wonderful thing I’ve ever felt in my entire life.”
Draven laughed to himself. She was the most wonderful thing he’d ever felt in his life. Filling himself with her sap, her life. No wonder he wanted all of her, didn’t want to stop. If his bed felt anything like that to her, she could have it.
“You may stay here while I’m gone,” he said. “Two cans of food are on the table. I will bring you more when I come home, before I bring you back.”
Her eyes flew open. “No! You can’t bring me back there. It hurts so bad. Please don’t make me go back.” She started crying, fear rolling off her, tainting the wonderful bouquet of her natural scent.
“I would rather keep you all for myself, believe me. But I can’t buy you. I will see if I can rent you for another night or two.” He didn’t know how long he could keep her or what things she needed besides a toilet and food. He didn’t remember needing anything else when he’d been a sap.
Draven left then, wondering again how he had gotten himself into such a mess. Even if he wasn’t mistreating her, he shouldn’t have her at all. That evening he reset his ration card with a small amount of guilt. It seemed fair though, since he had traded his own rations for her food, that she fed him. And he had paid enough for her that he’d better get something out of it. He didn’t want anything else from her. Her bodily functions had odors he found distasteful, and her body’s strange combination of familiar and foreign aspects reminded him of pictures he’d seen of cavemen.
14
Draven worked at Estrella’s that night, and after only half a shift he remembered why he hated the job and had quit his other bouncing jobs. He had to watch people eat and eat and eat all night, and even if he was full, it made him want more.
After his shift, he ate from one of the saps at his tables and stayed to visit with Byron. Byron selected backgammon from the menu on the table top and they began playing, but thoughts of Cali distracted Draven. He wanted to go home and check on his illegal boarder, see if she’d attempted escape or made noise to call attention to his apartment. He could be arrested for any number of reasons if someone discovered her presence, and he did not know if Lira would keep quiet. She might come and check to see that he’d returned the sapien. And although he didn’t think a human could open the door, he didn’t want to take the chance. Cali did not seem brainless. He could track her if she ran, but if she had died, he would have trouble explaining to the authorities why he’d had her in his possession at all. That thought nagged at his mind as he sat with Byron.
He considered hinting at it to Byron, asking a hypothetical question, but he held his tongue. The last thing he needed was to arouse an Enforcer’s suspicion. His fidgeting brought Byron’s attention after a while, anyhow.
“Have you eaten?” Byron asked, scooting his can to the edge of the table.
“Yes, sir.”
“Getting your favorite sap on a regular basis now that you work here?”
Draven almost told Byron she had left, but paranoia about having her in his apartment made him hesitate. If he just agreed, Byron would ask no further questions. “Yes, it is nice.”
“Which one?” Byron asked, rolling the dice.
“Her,” Draven said, pointing to the sap he’d drawn from tonight and once before when Cali’s rations had already been used. The sap was ordinary in every way.
“This is a nice place. They usually keep the saps on the menu for a while, don’t they?”
“I don’t know. I have not been coming for long.”
“Do you have somewhere to go after this? You seem anxious.” Byron studied Draven more closely. Of course an Enforcer would notice something amiss. That was his job.
“The hostess is not very happy with me,” Draven said. “I was thinking of making it up to her somehow.”
Byron smiled. “What did you do?”
“I told her we would meet, and I forgot.”
“Then why don’t you go on and meet her now.”
“Are you sure you will not take offense?”
“Of course not,” Byron said, shaking his head. “I forget sometimes what it was like not having a wife. Go right ahead.”
Draven slipped around to the front, but the hostess had already gone. On the way out, he spotted her leaning on her electric scooter, smoking a long cigarette. He stopped, surprised, and watched her for a minute before approaching. How she could afford something so expensive on a hostess salary puzzled him, but he found he liked her better for it.
“May I apologize again for my inexcusably rude behavior?”
“You can try,” she said, looking sideways at him from her narrow eyes.
“I am Draven.”
“Yes, I know.”
“And you are…?”
“Hyoki.”
“How long have you worked here, Hyoki?”
“Long enough.”
“And what do you do when you’re not working?”
She looked at him and then smiled,
seeming to soften when she did. Her cheeks rose when she smiled, and he very much liked the shiny pinkness of them. “Maybe you find out sometime.”
“I’d like to. I’m not working three nights from now. I have an appointment in the last hours, but I would like to see you before that if I may.”
“You may.”
“What time shall I meet you then?”
After arranging the meeting, Draven got in his car and drove away into the darkest hour. He had to call Sap Heaven while he drove, and he kept one eye on the road, not wanting to get into any trouble tonight. The face that appeared on his screen blurred so he could hardly tell if it was male or female, but after a few seconds he recognized the boy from the night before.
“Hello. I came in last night, and I borrowed your sap, Cali Youngblood. I’m keeping her one more night.”
“She ain’t for rent.”
“I already have her.”
“You do? Um, okay. Same rate as last night?”
“Yes.”
“She ain’t dead, is she?”
“I will bring her back much improved.”
“Yeah, I bet,” the boy said, sneering into the screen. “But you better bring her back. That one guy was a real prick about it.”
“I will return her.”
Draven hung up and pulled into his apartment complex. As he hurried up the stairs, he glanced about him, hoping he wouldn’t see any of his neighbors, but he ran into one in the hallway. “Hey, Draven,” the neighbor greeted him. “Haven’t seen you in a while. How was your trip?”
“Quite well, thank you. Anything new with you?” Draven glanced at his door while the neighbor talked. He wanted to listen for signs of life behind the door, but he couldn’t hear with the man talking about his job and his new partner.
Finally the neighbor finished talking and they parted. Draven waited until the man had pushed open the door to the stairs and descended before he approached his own door. He heard neither a heartbeat nor breathing from within—only silence. Before entering, he checked the hall again, in case Cali lay in wait to run when he opened the door, and then he placed his hand on the panel, slid the door open, stepped through and slid it closed in one motion. Again he stood listening, certain he heard Cali, though perhaps he imagined it.
He scanned the kitchen and found the bag with the five sapien food cans in it, all empty. It had begun to stink. He cursed himself for having forgotten to bring her more food. He didn’t know saps ate so much. Five cans seemed a lot. A glance around the living area told him what he already knew—she wasn’t there. Her obvious heartbeat, her scent, would have permeated the room. After checking the bathroom, he stopped at the bedroom door. She had to be inside. The other rooms had an open enough layout that he would have sensed her immediately. Only the bedroom had soundproof, light-tight walls. He turned the knob and opened the door.
15
Draven inhaled, almost giddy with the wonder of her fragrance, contained and undiluted in the small room all night. His mouth watered at the scent. He stepped into the room and closed the door. Cali slept sprawled on her back. Her shift had ridden up, exposing a white hour-glass shape of her underpants between her legs. Her head lay turned to the side, her tawny hair spread on his pillow in tangles. He went to the bed and knelt beside it, unable to contain himself, but he slowed when he saw the rash of wounds inside her arm.
Was there a right place, a place that would scare her less or hurt her less? He always used the arm because of convenience, and restaurants preferred it. Other Superiors favored legs or wrists, and those with their own saps could draw from anywhere. Draven had never had the luxury of so much choice. He let his nose lead him, lingering over the scent and sound of sap pulsing under his breath, pulsing with so much life.
A knock at the door interrupted his sensual exploration, but he ignored it. After a while it went away, and he bent over Cali’s sleeping body again. His lips brushed the skin on her collarbone and he felt her skin prickle, but she didn’t move. Her heart beat so loud, so blood-pumpingly full and rich. The veins in her chest lay close to the surface, so near the hub of life and so irresistible. Without thinking, without even meaning to, he let his teeth slide into her.
She started awake in the complete darkness and cried out, gripping a handful of his hair.-` While she wrenched at his hair, she began to struggle under him. He pinned her body with his own, turning so he could restrain her. She cried out again, kicking in a futile attempt to free herself. He had trouble keeping his teeth in her chest at such an awkward angle, the surface too hard and flat to get good purchase on the surrounding area. She continued tugging his hair until he covered her mouth and pulled out.
“Make no sound,” he said softly. “I do not wish to hurt you. Just be still, little sap, and you’ll hardly feel it.” His mouth went down on her again and he let his lips rest against her, feeling the throb of her skin with every beat of her heart.
She released his hair and lay still, stomach shaking, until he closed the entry point. He rolled from the bed, suddenly aware of the heat of her body under his now that he had appeased his hunger and could think more clearly.
He rubbed his head. “You’re strong again.”
“You scared me to death.”
“I did not mean to frighten you. I was only hungry.”
“Are you taking me back?”
“Do not be afraid. I have rented you for one more night.”
“Are you going to hurt me?”
“No more than I have to.”
He switched on the lamp when he saw her eyes roving blindly in the darkness. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, sitting up and pulling her shift down over her thighs.
“I have told you how much I enjoy the taste of you.”
“That’s all?”
“What else would there be?”
“I don’t know.” She regarded him and then shook her head. “You’re just…I mean, it’s nice of you to do that. To get me out of there just so you can feed off me a couple times a day. You could do that when I was at the restaurant.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. “I do not like to see animals suffer. It makes me a bit sick.”
For once she kept her eyes averted in the polite custom. “Do you do this a lot?”
“No. Never.” She glanced up at him and a strange thought flashed through his mind. Caramel.
“So why’d you do it now?”
“I have told you. Now you tell me, Cali. Why are you at this establishment? Did you run away again, from Estrella’s?”
“No. My vein is collapsing.”
“Your vein…is…collapsing?”
“Yes. From all the times I’ve been bitten in this same place,” she said, holding out her arm for him to see. Her vein only looked darker, bruised.
“Have I bitten you here?”
“Yeah, sometimes.”
“Does it cause you much pain?”
“Not that much.”
“Is there anything I’m not providing that a master should get for a sap? I’ve never had one of you before.”
“Shouldn’t you know that?”
“I should not have you here. If you would like to tell me, I might get what you wish for. If not, I will sleep soon.”
“Why do you sleep in the daytime?”
“Why do you at night?”
“That’s when I’m tired.”
“So we are different. You know this. I will be tired soon. You are well for today? You won’t run away?”
“What if I do? Why are you so worried?”
“I would be in some trouble, with the authorities and your place of employment. I could lose my job if they found out I rented a human. They would think it was for…carnal purposes.”
“For what?”
“To…mate with you.”
“Oh.” She looked down and pulled her shift further down her thighs.
“Have you mated with other humans yet? Do you have offspring?”
“What? No.
”
“You’re of the correct age.”
“I’ve been working in the restaurants for a few years.”
“And if you go back to the Confinement, you will find a suitable mate.”
“I don’t know. I guess I could.”
“If someone were to buy you, they would have to procure a mate for you, then,” Draven mused. Or get her bred from someone else’s livestock so that she could reproduce, and then he’d have a sapling around, and they weren’t even good to drink from. They were completely pointless, a waste of resources. Or he could sell the offspring and get her bred again, but not until the sapling had enough years to live away from the mother. The whole thing seemed quite complicated. No wonder he’d never looked into it. He could continue going to the restaurants or the Confinement and keep life simple.
“I don’t want a mate. I don’t want to have…offspring.”
“Why not?” he asked, again surprised by her directness.
“Then I’d have to worry about the baby, and if it was okay, and if someone was mistreating it, and listen to it screaming when one of you bit it. And someone could buy it and I’d never see it again, or someone could buy me without it, and someone else would have to take care of it.”
“You have thought this over.”
He thought humans didn’t bond that way. Everyone said they did not become attached to their offspring. They didn’t have emotions like Superiors anymore—they had been bred for docility and stupidity, to be simple brutes who wouldn’t try to escape or cause problems as they had in Draven’s time as a sap. They had instincts now, like animals. They had been animals, only they evolved. Just as he had evolved from a sap.
“It’s okay in the restaurants, but in the Confinement, it happens all the time,” Cali said.
“But you don’t get drawn from as much at the Confinement.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s true. I could have a job during the day instead of at night. I could have friends and see my family again, if any of them are still there. I could find a husband.”
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