Well, Syn thought, if I’m crazy so be it. So
much has happened since Philadelphia, this is just one more shock.
I always suspected she understood, so it shouldn’t come as such a
surprise she can communicate.
Syn took one more look around the small
cabin. The com, a cross between an iPad and a TV- and hologram
projector, told her that all of her belongings would be transported
separately to her destination. She grabbed her purse, slung it over
her shoulder, and took hold of the basket handle where Duchess had
settled herself.
Thank the stars she isn’t as heavy as
Tigger.
With her free hand she rubbed the nape of her neck. The
headache and accompanying buzz in her ears had intensified over the
last day or two. As a clinical psychologist, she diagnosed her
condition as stress. When she finally met up with Anya, she was
going to ask for some aspirin. She opened the cabin door and found
the yeoman on guard. She sat down on the bunk and waited.
Syn knew that she would have to face Madelyn
Dixon-Howard and it was enough to turn her stomach. Duchess jumped
from the basket onto the bunk alongside of her and curled up in her
lap.
I wouldn’t be so calm if it weren’t for the cat.
She
thought back…
* * * *
The night before the tribunal, Elder TeZaron
brought both Anya and Tigger to her room. Her room was a double,
but she was lucky, her former roommate had bonded and she slept
alone.
She studied TeZaron. She knew he was an
Elder. He looked about forty though he was reputed to be younger;
rumors said he had six or seven years on her own twenty-nine.
His hair was long and straight, a true golden
blond. His cheekbones loomed high on his face and his skin tone
hinted at the olive of the Mediterranean. His blue eyes reminded
her of the color of the sky off the Irish Coast. They also had an
imperceptible slant. She wondered at the time if he were Fire or
Light clan. If he came from FireClan, Syn remembered, dry ice can
burn. He showed them the automatic courtesy a Sarran Warrior shows
a fem but without their characteristic warmth. Syn hadn’t been able
to stop thinking about him.
Well, he was the reason I met Anya along
with Tigger and both Duchess and I found ourselves true
friends.
She remembered their conversation very well. Syn
blushed; her defensive greeting to Anya hadn’t been exactly polite.
“Syn Sinclair, clinical psychologist and former prostitute from the
Philly gutter…”
Anya didn’t so much as twitch an eyelash. She
smiled and said, “I might be mistaken but White Persians don’t
generally populate the gutters of Philadelphia.”
I began to laugh and that was that. She asked
me my story and I tried to tell her, making it short and sweet.
“Caught me, huh? You don’t seem to be one of
those snots, but I couldn’t be sure,” She said a bit too causally.
“I needed to let you know the facts up front.” The violet eyes with
lashes that swept her cheeks, looked down, as if she waited for
Anya’s recriminations.
“How did it happen?” Anya asked
compassionately.
“Like most things—accidentally. I came from
one of the Main Line families, over bred and trained to shut up,
look good, and marry well. I didn’t fit the mold of country club
princess.” She looked down disparagingly at her lush curves.
“This is not Ralph Lauren or Talbots. It’s
Fredericks of Hollywood, and no matter how prim and proper I
dressed, I still looked like a hooker. Platinum hair with dark
lashes and brows, combined with D+ cups, don’t equal Main Line
chic. From the time I turned ten, they told me to tone it down.
Marilyn Monroe is not the right look for Main Line
Philadelphia.”
Syn shrugged, her breasts pushed against the
plain white blouse, the buttons ready to pop. She spoke to Anya as
she moved around the room, efficiently unpacking the few things
Anya took from quarters.
“Nothing ever fit me, top too big, waist too
small, ass too round. My hair is fine, wispy, and refused to be
properly constrained. When I dressed up, I looked like a high-class
whore. When I dressed down, I looked like a streetwalker. In my
freshman year one of my father’s friends cornered me in the study
and started feeling me up. My father walked in and that was that.
They named me an official slut.” Syn sighed while putting Anya’s
things in the wardrobe.
“Surely one of his country club cronies
couldn’t be a child molester. Father started to smack me around. He
called me an embarrassment to the family and to the community. That
gave him justification and permission to come home after a Sunday
golf outing with the boys, eighteen holes and seven vodka martinis,
to take me into his study, try to fondle my breasts, and finger my
cunt, then beat the living shit out of me when I resisted because
he said I provoked him.”
Anya sat down on one of the bunks.
“I got sick of using thick pancake makeup to
hide the bruises I got while he blamed me for his own perversions;
accusing me of whoring around. Of course, I received most of my
bruises defending myself from his efforts at making me into the
whore he swore I’d become. Technically, I still had a hymen when I
left the house.”
“What a horrible and unjust experience!” Anya
cried, jumping up to hug Syn.
Syn hugged her back then continued her story,
mouth set in a hard line.
“In my sophomore year I decided, why bother,
might as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb. I booked with this
guy, Osco, my dealer. I became a user to get through it, you know?
I went to Philly and disappeared. Started out with a chicken shit
habit and ended up with King Kong.” Syn pulled away from Anya and
sat on the bunk.
“I’m familiar with the term,” Anya said.
“I forgot you’re a doc.” Syn’s voice
chilled.
Yeah, a doctor, but also, an orphan…I didn’t
use, but had friends who did. I even helped a few detox outside of
the approved system,” Anya replied, as if just stating the facts
but placing them back on a semi-level playing field. Anya put her
arm around Syn.
“After a while, Osco said I needed to earn my
keep. So, I hooked for a bit, but didn’t like it. I told him if he
loved me he wouldn’t make me do it.” Syn looked down, ill at
ease.
“I’ve observed that Earthen men have a funny
way of showing love. In my ER rotation I noticed that some shared
their love with their fists.” Anya took her hand.
“Yes, exactly, he told me to shut the fuck
up. Cunts like me personified white trash, only good for pushing
pussy and floating until they died on the street from overdose or
the fist of a pissed off john.”
Anya watched her as she continued the story
and giggled a bit because Syn’s vocabulary was a weird mixture of
Philly Street Kid and the cultured accent of the Main Line.
She finished her story lamely, “…wound up
dumped in the street. I found a shelter and did the deal cold. They
helped me get on my feet. They called my parents, who’d already
declared me dead. They signed the certificate all made out, nice
and neat, and bribed the coroner to let them bury an empty casket.”
Anya let go and pulled Syn close for another hug.
“Damn,” Anya said, as she shook her head.
“Goddamn, what did you do?” Syn shook her head.
“Jonesy, a social worker at the shelter saw
to it that I had a DNA test and got a court order. I signed an
agreement that, in return for living expenses, college, and a small
settlement, I wouldn’t darken their door or file charges of abuse
or fraud. I also insisted that they give me the things my grandma
left me in her will.”
Syn’s mouth straightened in a hard line. “I
stayed on at the shelter, went to Temple, and wound up with a
degree in social work and clinical psychology. I ran the shelter,
until all of this.”
“Sounds like you got it pretty much together.
Why the fuss now?” Anya’s brow and the bridge of her nose crinkled
in distaste.
“One of the bitches on board is the daughter
of my father’s friend, the one who started it all. He told his
family in confidence that I was a whore who attempted to seduce
him. He warned them so that his own daughter wouldn’t be tainted in
my company. The word spread here as well as home,” Syn finished,
shrugging her shoulders. She gave Anya a long look, expecting to
see rejection in her eyes.
Anya rose and held out her arms and Syn flew
into them.
Anya stroked Syn’s hair. “That bitch is not
going to get away with this. Don’t worry about her. I have a little
pull around here. Jonal and Tonas are not happy if I’m not
happy.”
And with that enigmatic statement, Anya’s
face took on a whole new personality. She was scheming.
“Why? Why would you help me? Why would they?”
Violet eyes filled with tears, staring at ice blue ones. She begged
whatever gods there were that she understood what Anya said.
“Because I’m theirs; I’m also an empath.
Don’t panic. I don’t read minds, I just sense feelings. It’s
stronger now, since I mated. If you lied, I’d know.” Anya
smiled.
“You are a cat person. Sarrans consider cats
special. The cats protect us, ergo, we’re special. Besides, cats
are picky. They don’t stay with bitches; they smell too much like
dogs.”
Syn giggled in response; and the two Beasts
jumped into their owners’ laps and purred. A tentative friendship
and alliance forged…
The yeoman interrupted her reverie.
“I’m to take you through to the
disembarkation area. As soon as you are processed, the princess and
the admirals will meet up with you. May I carry the little
beauty?”
Syn gave over Duchess’ basket and followed
the yeoman down the corridor.
* * * *
Syn Sinclair and about
four-thousand-five-hundred other women stood in long line upon
disembarking from the Sarran Starship
Brightstar
. She held
Duchess lightly in her arms, the basket at her feet. The women
already claimed by their WarriorPairs were hustled through a
separate line, presumably on their way to their new homes. Syn and
the others snaked through a queue branching off to ten counters
where the Sarran WarriorPairs processed paperwork, assigned
housing, and checked the cargo bays to make sure each fem was
reunited with her household goods. From Anya, Syn learned that
Jonal and Tonas, Anya’s BondMates and the Admirals of the
Brightstar
Fleet, decided that the Earthen fems would be
more comfortable with their possessions around them. Surprisingly,
two cats made it up to the ship, her Duchess and Anya’s Tigger. In
her less logical moments, she thought that both Duchess and Tigger
put themselves in a position to make the trip. Something about
those two felines together made the hair stand up on the back of
her neck.
After learning the extent of her cat’s
intelligence and abilities, Syn wondered who took care of whom.
::I take care of you,::
Duchess
replied with a sniff. Syn giggled, gave her white beauty a kiss on
the nose, and leaned down to place her back in the basket.
The line moved quickly. It seemed to Syn that
the line served the purpose of exposing the women to as many
WarriorPairs as possible, as if they were on display. She thought
the Sarrans used the queue to give the WarriorPairs who stayed
planetside the opportunity to pick up the telepathic signal of a
potential BondMate.
They stood in accordance with their assigned
geographical boarding unit. She guessed that the Sarrans felt the
Earthen fem would be more comfortable with those whose culture and
mores most closely resembled their own. In her case, they got it
dead wrong.
It meant that somewhere either ahead or
behind her lurked Madeline Dixon-Howard, once a fellow resident of
Philadelphia’s Main Line and a friend of Syn’s in a big sisterly
sort of way. After the abuse began Maddy shunned her. When she ran
away, her reputation became as tarnished as the family silver after
the butler quit.
Maddy made it extremely uncomfortable for Syn
on board, pointedly telling anyone who would listen that Syn was a
fallen woman
and worse still, a former prostitute. She
couldn’t defend herself because in part, the accusation was true.
She spotted Maddy about twenty yards in front of her. Syn possessed
very sharp hearing, sharper still since surviving the plague.
Unfortunately, she could hear the vitriol Maddy spouted.
“Yes, she does resemble a sluttish version of
Marilyn Monroe with that platinum hair. Even in a prim navy suit,
she can’t hide the fact she is a slut.”
The young woman next to Maddy attempted to
change the subject but Maddy continued determinedly.
“She has violet eyes, can you believe that? I
used to think she used contacts, but they’re real. Poor thing
always was top heavy. In eighth grade, she wore a size thirty-two
D, even though she is only five foot six, and she didn’t attempt to
hide her pulchritude.” Syn imagined the vicious look in Maddy’s
eyes.
Of course she had more to say, “She even wore
cashmere sweaters, which called more attention to her figure. She
had to wear one of those bras, you know—over shoulder boulder
holders? No matter what she wore, she resembled white trash or a
high-class hooker. Surely makes the case for what’s outside being a
portent of what hides within.”
Syn closed her eyes, hoping that if she
couldn’t see Maddy she would be unable to hear her. However, it
seemed to Syn that the WarriorPairs in the line of Sarran men
leered at her while listening to Maddy’s monologue.
“During the attack before landing, Admiral
Jonal put her in charge of our section. He claimed her to be a
friend of his bonded. I attempted to tell him what kind of trash he
put in charge, but he had no time to listen. That association will
be short lived once they find out she trolled as a street
whore.”
Syn saw Maddy’s audience shrug their
shoulders. Again Syn’s mind drifted to her night with Anya.