“Wife,” he said, remembering the archaic word Byron had used. From before he had evolved. Sapiens still practiced this ritual, it seemed. “You would be a wife.”
“Yeah,” Cali said, looking at him strangely. “I mean, someone could split us up any time, but I could, if I wanted, get married.”
“Are you allowed to do this, then?”
“Of course. No one cares if I do or not.”
“Why would you do this, become a wife?”
“To be with someone. To have someone. I don’t know. It’s risky, and I don’t want to do it. My mother never did, either.”
“It’s strange to talk to a sapien like this. I’ve never talked to one of you so much. It’s almost like you’re a…person.” He paused, not sure if he heard a noise outside. From inside the bedroom, he couldn’t say. “Tell me, little sap. Do you know what caramel is?”
“Yeah, it’s, um…a kind of…” Her eyes had a faraway look, dreamy, and she smiled a bit. “It’s a buttery, sweet kind of treat,” she said slowly. “I had one, once, when I was very small. Someone gave me one, when she bought my sister and I was crying.”
“I keep thinking that you remind me of that.”
“Of caramel?”
“Yes. I do not know why. Perhaps I had it once as well. Perhaps your sap reminds me of it. Or perhaps it’s your color. Your eyes.”
“Oh…I’m not sure.”
“Your hair is that color as well. You know, my dog was just this exact color,” Draven said, picking up a lock of her hair absently. He didn’t know how people treated their saps, where they kept them, if they talked to them. But he didn’t imagine this was the normal thing to do. He found her fascinating, though, in her ability to reason and comprehend and communicate. She didn’t seem animalistic, aside from the tiny cries she made when he took her by surprise.
“Are you in need of more food?”
“I’d eat some, if you have any. I can get it myself.”
“I do not. I’ll go down to the store.”
“You will?”
“How else would you get food?”
“I don’t know…”
He shook his head. Perhaps she wasn’t so smart after all. He snagged his cards, then turned back and grabbed his sunshades. Just in case. He returned long before he needed them. The sky was barely bluing in the east like the beginning of a bruise. Draven brought the food into his apartment and found Cali wiping the table with a wet cloth.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Cleaning up a little.”
“Why?”
“I guess I’m used to doing that during the day.”
“That is what you do when we’re sleeping?”
She shrugged. “Yeah. In the restaurants, that’s what they usually have us do.”
He had never imagined what saps did all day. In his time, they had worked, but now they didn’t have so much to do. He knew that they stayed awake, but he had an idea that they didn’t do anything. Just as he was pondering this, a knock sounded at the door. He grabbed Cali and lifted her, crossed the room in seconds, and shoved her through the bedroom door. She made a cry of protest. He cursed her and closed the door.
After straightening his shirt, he shoved the bag of human food in a small space under the counter and opened the door. “Hello, Lira.”
“Hi, Draven. I came by earlier and knocked. How come you didn’t answer the door? I saw your car outside. I know you were home.”
He gave her a little smirk. “I didn’t imagine I’d see you again so soon.”
She looked around, taking in everything. Her nostrils flared. “The sap is still here.” She glared at him.
He closed the door behind her. “Quiet,” he whispered, barely audible. “I took her back. She was not well.”
“I smell it. I heard it make a noise before you opened the door.”
“She’s not here. Just her scent.”
Lira glanced into the trash can and wrinkled her nose. “This is human food waste.”
“You were here last night. I fed her, and took her back.”
Lira was quiet again. “I can smell it still here. What are you doing with it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, giving in. Women always pushed and bullied until they got their way. Easier to give in before the fight. “I might have drawn from her. Just once. Or twice.”
As Lira studied him, he wondered if he should have kept quiet. He didn’t know Lira too well, really. They were neighbors who occasionally kept company, that was all.
After a thoughtful moment Lira smiled. “Can I have some?”
Draven had an almost irrepressible urge to say no. The thought of someone else drawing from Cali bothered him. He wanted her all to himself. But Lira was looking at him, expectant, her eyes sparkling with excitement. Something about it, about doing something forbidden with her, made her more interesting.
He smiled back at her, only a little, and they stood facing each other for a moment. He’d rather she left him in peace, but she wasn’t that sort. “All right,” he said slowly. “She’s in the bedroom.”
They opened the door to find Cali sitting on the edge of the bed. Lira turned to Draven. “It’s on your bed.”
“I know. It’s all right. I like the her scent.”
Lira wrinkled her nose. “Maybe at the table, but not in the bed.”
“I do not mind. Would you like to try it?”
Lira bit her lip and smiled, still uncertain. He took her hand. “Come. Not much, though. She is still weak. But you can take a ration. I just did so I don’t want to overdraw her again.”
“You’re not going to do it with me?”
“I might just taste her again.”
Cali watched this exchange, her face placid. She had been drawn from many times a night for years. Surely she would not think it strange if he shared her. And she didn’t appear scared by his offer to the neighbor. He didn’t know how long it took saps to heal, but he recalled it being a slow process. Still, perhaps the day and night of sleep had given her strength. She had barely been touched since he brought her back to his apartment.
“Cali. I have not hurt you, and this woman won’t either. You can trust me. Don’t be scared. We’re not going to hurt you,” Draven said as he approached. She seemed reasonable, but sometimes saps were unpredictable, like when she’d pulled his hair. That had hurt, too. He could heal a wound with his tongue, but he couldn’t keep his hair from hurting when pulled. It didn’t seem very evolved.
“She worked in a restaurant. She’s quite calm,” he told Lira. “Do not take from this arm. Her vein is collapsing. Here, on this one.” They knelt on the floor beside the bed to draw from Cali.
He rested his lips against Cali’s wrist and pierced her vein carefully at the same time as Lira. He let the small trickle of warmth flow slowly along his tongue and down his throat. The rapid pulse of her heartbeat fluttered against his lips. Lira’s cheek almost touched his, and her fingers massaged up and down his thigh. He pulled away from Cali after only a minute, distracted by Lira’s caresses. After another minute he nudged her. “Come, it is time to go to bed.”
Lira stopped, closed the marks efficiently and turned to Draven. She smiled, delighted in her small act of lawlessness. Her teeth were outlined in red. Draven grabbed her with a suddenness that was almost violent and brought his mouth to hers, sucking at the taste of Cali in her mouth. Lira responded to his unusually passionate advance. After a moment, he pulled away. He had Cali’s hand gripped in his, squeezing back. “Get out,” he said, pointing to the door. “We will sleep. I will take you back later.”
“I don’t—,” Cali began, but he cut her off.
“Go. Do whatever you want, just stay inside.”
She looked down at him with her caramel eyes and then stood and walked out. He closed the door and turned back to Lira with singular intention. She had barely gotten to her feet from where they had knelt beside the bed when he fell on her, knocking her backwards on
to the bed in his haste.
16
Cali stood in the living area of the Man with Soft Hair and looked around for a few minutes. He had been gone the night before, but she had slept off her weakness most of the time, too tired and sick for curiosity.
Now she used the facilities and went back to the kitchen. She could remember being in a Superior’s house, once, a very long time ago. She had been bought and sold that same night. She shuddered at the memory of going to the blood bank afterwards. This house was very different from the one she vaguely remembered. That one had been big and open and had lots of windows, and she had gone there in a car that wound around a hill many times before reaching the top. This man’s home was small, and many others lived close to him in other rooms, under and above and beside him. He was surrounded by Superiors. That meant she was surrounded by Superiors, too.
She glanced at the door. Would more come? Would he let them suck on her arms until she passed out again? Yesterday she had felt awfully calm and peaceful in the dark space of his bedroom. Today she didn’t feel as secure.
His home was poorly lit, with only one window in the side of the kitchen that looked out on the side of the next building, identical to this one. Like most Superiors, the man who lived here slept during the daytime and fed at night. He had left for most of the night, and she guessed he was working at whatever he did. She didn’t know his name. It wasn’t important.
When she had first worked at the restaurants, she had tried to find out the names of the Superiors who came in. She had even thought at first she could remember everyone who bit her. But that proved impossible. After a few months in the restaurants, she’d heard too many names to count. So she remembered only her regulars, and since they didn’t introduce themselves anyway, she gave them names based on identifying traits. That worked out pretty well, although she had to amend the names sometimes when they got too long. She used to call the Man with Soft Hair something else, the way she remembered him—The Snarky Man Who Bit Her For the First Time. But that was too long to say every time.
At least all he wanted was to bite her.
She guessed Superiors liked her for whatever reason they preferred any human. She had been lucky that, so far, none had found her to their liking for any reason besides nourishment. She knew it happened, especially in the restaurants. And in the one she worked at now, it was only a matter of time. When she woke in this Superior’s apartment, she had thought he bought her. It would be nice to find a home with a Superior, but once one bought her, he could do whatever he wanted with her. Most humans were happy to take that chance, since many got treated well and had their own space and, eventually, a family in the new home. But not all humans got so lucky.
Cali was wary of being bought, although she didn’t think it could be much worse than the restaurant that now owned her. The Confinement was safest. If only she could get back there.
She shook herself from her musings and turned away from the window. She glanced around, looking for the bag of food the Superior had brought her. It wasn’t anywhere in sight, so she went back to his living area. She sat down, tired after just a few minutes of walking around. Gathering any strength she could seemed like a good idea. She knew she had to go back tonight, and she might die soon if she was already weak when they set in on her again.
If only she could stay here, even. Her captor hadn’t fed too much, although she didn’t know if it was just because he didn’t want her to die on his hands. He had obviously never owned a human. She didn’t know exactly what he wanted from her, but she distrusted his reasons as much as any of them. For all she knew he had some horrible things planned before he took her back. But she somewhat doubted it. He looked pretty harmless with his soft hair and warm eyes. Like most Superiors, he didn’t seem all that superior to her. He only thought he was, with his snarky smiles, always talking to her like she couldn’t understand the most basic things.
The best, most superior thing about his home was the set of shelves filled with real paper books. Holding her breath, Cali glanced at the bedroom door. Then, tentatively, she reached out and touched them. She ran her fingers over the spines, some shiny and smooth, some creased and broken in multiple sections, some rough and textured. One of them had ridges on the thick spine, along with intricate gold patterns. She had never seen anything so incredible.
Again she glanced at the bedroom door, but her captor hadn’t come out yet. He was probably sleeping, anyway. Cali turned back to the books. She took a deep breath, wiped her hands on her shift, made sure no sound came from the bedroom, then poked a finger into the small space above the marvelous book, hooked it in the soft leather binding, and pulled. The book slid out and the one next to it relaxed into the empty space.
She stood holding the wonderful thing, just looking at it and feeling the weight of it, the thickness and density of it, the feel of the leather in her hands, the thrill of it. She opened the book and touched the delicate pages, filled with lines of the tiniest symbols covering every page. Well, not every page. A few at the beginning had little or nothing at all on them—a shocking wastefulness. Paper. She wanted to say the wondrous word aloud. She’d heard of it, but she had never touched it or even seen it.
Though she’d never seen a real-life book, she’d heard stories. Probably only legends, but that didn’t make her awe any less when she found the thing she’d heard of—the thing that could teach a human how to live without Superiors. Now she held one of the sacred things in her hands. She looked at the print, wondered how long it took to learn this, to learn the millions and millions of symbols covering the pages. She wondered what could be said that required so much paper and so many symbols. Was it really so hard to live out there?
But then, a Superior wouldn’t have a book on human survival. What could they want to know? They already knew everything.
She marveled at how it was possible to know so much. Everything she knew from her whole life would fit in less than one page of symbols. She wondered if all Superiors had read this, if all of them were really this smart. Maybe they were Superior after all, and she just didn’t usually see the ways that they were.
Just as she was about to close the book, a page rose up by itself. Something stiff had pushed it open. She flipped the page and took out the square of hard white paper that had lifted the thin page. When she turned it over, she found a picture. She’d seen lots of pictures, of course, on the sides of buildings and on all the cars. But why would anyone need a picture on paper, especially one inside a book where no one could see it? It didn’t even have the little symbols to read on the side without a picture—just a blank white paper. What was the purpose? It was about the length of her finger in each direction, and on the front, the Man with Soft Hair and someone who looked almost the same as him had their faces side by side. They both had sad, serious eyes. The man she didn’t know didn’t have good hair, though.
Cali didn’t understand what the picture meant, what it was for. It wasn’t a picture of anything someone could buy. Just two faces. She held it for a minute, again listening for sounds from behind the bedroom door. Hearing none, she gave in to the crazy impulse to take the picture. She could show it to someone at the restaurant and ask its purpose. Some of those girls knew an awful lot, had gone home with Superiors before. Cali paused another moment, then lifted her shift and slid the picture down the front of her underpants. She checked the Superior’s bedroom door again. Her heart was beating so hard.
She pushed the book back into the space on the shelf. Her hands shook. She had done something, touched something, taken something she shouldn’t. She’d stolen from a Superior. If he found out what she’d done, he might be awfully angry. Maybe he’d hurt her if he knew she’d touched his things, and not just to clean. She had touched his personal, private thing.
She hurried into the kitchen and found a ragged cloth, wet it in the sink, and began cleaning the surfaces in the kitchen. Most of them were clean enough, but everything had collected a thin layer of dust,
so Cali cleaned that first. When she had finished, Lady Who Visits came out of the bedroom and cast a hungry look in Cali’s direction before turning back to Man with Soft Hair, who stood in the bedroom doorway. They both squinted in the bright morning light that streamed through the kitchen window.
Cali’s heart started racing. She was sure they knew she’d stolen. They probably had some way to tell, some way beyond her ability to imagine. Some people said they could read minds. Cali tried to think of something else, but all she could think about was the picture.
“Do you need shades?” Man with Soft Hair asked, retreating into his room and emerging with a pair of sunshades. He handed them to Lady Who Visits, who smiled and thanked him and put on the glasses.
“I’ll bring them back tonight,” she said, and Cali wondered at what she had missed, because it seemed the woman meant more than she said.
“I’ll be gone tonight,” the man answered. “I have plans. If you would like to return them tomorrow morning, you may.”
“I might just do that.”
“If you’d rather leave them outside my door while I’m gone, that would be fine, too. I have to return the sapien and I have a long night after that, so I need some sleep now.”
“Oh, yeah, of course.”
The man walked the woman to the door and opened it and they brushed their cheeks together before parting. When he turned back to Cali, she had the instinctive urge to step backwards away from him, no matter how harmless he looked. She knew he was not.
“As you heard, I must sleep. Have you everything you need?”
“Maybe some food?”
“Of course.” He came to her then, and she did step back. She stepped back until she bumped against the window and she had to stop. The man took a bag from a cabinet and put it on the counter. Again she noted again how strange it was to see a Superior in only sleep shorts. She had never seen one without clothes before this one. He looked just about like all the men she’d seen in the Confinement—on the small side, and more tightly packaged, but otherwise normal. There was nothing Superior about his looks at all—he looked just like a human with great hair and awfully sharp teeth. If he’d been human, he would have been an awfully nice-looking man. But he wasn’t human.
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