My cheeks burned hotter, but I refused to
break eye contact. I refused to let him bully me. “That’s not why I
came for him. I wanted to help—”
“Peace, Misha.” He smiled and held up his hand
as if to appease me. “I believe your intentions were pure, but I’m
not so naive as to think there’s nothing else going on between the
two of you.” He turned away. I was surprised to see that he was the
one blushing now. “I know more than you probably realize about the
times you had together.”
That took me by surprise. “You do?”
“Yes.” He laughed softly. “Well, I’m the only
friend he’s ever had, and he was desperate for somebody to talk
to.”
“Oh.” The news didn’t embarrass me. If
anything, I was glad to know Ayo had been able to count on
somebody. “Exactly how much did he tell you?”
“Probably less than you fear, but more than
you’d like. I know how much you risked to show him a bit of
affection, when having Donato find out could have meant your death.
I know you must have gone to great lengths to learn his trigger
word. I know how he begged you to use it, hoping it would kill him.
I know how devastated you were when you thought you
had.”
“How could you know that?” Because certainly
Ayo hadn’t been able to tell him.
“I saw for myself. You were mostly unconscious
when we took you from the room, but you were still talking, asking
for him, saying he was dead.”
I shuddered at the memory, and Jenko went
on.
“And more important than any of that, I know
how he feels about you. You are his friend, and his lover, and his
hero, all rolled into one. And now, here we are.” He turned to
gesture at the boat, and the closed door to the cabin. “Close
quarters, with only one bed between you. It doesn’t take a genius
to imagine what comes next.”
I concentrated on my hands, still clutching
the railing. “Are you saying I shouldn’t sleep with him? That you
disapprove?”
“No,” he said, his voice gentle. “Not at all.
As I said, he’s not a child — not when it comes to sex, at any rate
— and neither are you. But you haven’t seen him. You don’t know how
he is. You haven’t seen the full extent of the
programming.”
I thought of our times together in the
bedroom, when Donato had found such pleasure in abusing him. He’d
caused him pain, thereby making him feel pleasure, all so he could
revel in making Ayo ashamed. “I’ve seen enough.”
“In the bedroom, yes. I have no doubt you’ve
seen plenty. But that’s only part of it. His whole life — the part
of his life they’ve allowed him to remember, at any rate — has been
sex, pain, and humiliation. And when he wasn’t being called on to
entertain his master, he was alone. And when that happens, he goes
away. He’s like the lightbulbs in the upper city. He simply
switches off. He can sit in an empty room for hours, not moving,
not speaking. Just waiting to be summoned.”
I shuddered. “It sounds unnatural.”
“It’s how they made him.”
I squeezed the railing tighter, wishing it was
the neck of whoever had conceived of the Dollhouse. “He’s a human
being. I have to believe he’s more than his program.”
“Is he?”
“You don’t think so?”
“I’m not sure.” He stopped, and rubbed his
forehead roughly with his hand. “When I first began working for
Donato, I felt it was my duty to befriend the boy. After all, he
had nobody else in the world. Only a man who occasionally used him
and beat him, but not a single person to actually talk to. So one
day, I took him a cup of hot chocolate. He smiled at me. He took
the cup, and he set it aside. And then, he started to undo my
pants, because the idea of simply saying thank you wasn’t
programmed into him.”
I swore under my breath, my chest tight at the
thought.
“I stopped him,” Jenko hastened to add. “I was
horrified. I’m not attracted to men, and he looked so young. I
acted on pure instinct. I slapped his hand away. And that…” He
shook his head, laughing sadly at the memory. I could picture it.
The pain would have triggered Ayo’s own arousal.
“I imagine it made the situation
worse.”
“Infinitely. But when I tried to explain that
I didn’t want sex, he took that to mean that I didn’t like him. It
took months for him to understand that we could be friends. That I
could value him without wanting to fuck him. Do you understand now
what I’m telling you?”
“I think so.”
“You care about him, I think. For more than
sex.”
“I do. But I’d be lying if I said I didn’t
want him too.” But I’d never be like Donato. I didn’t want to cause
Ayo pain, or play on his programming. I wanted to show him that
pleasure didn’t have to be coupled with shame.
“That’s what I thought.” Jenko turned to me
and laid a warm hand on my shoulder. “You are his whole life now,
Misha. He was already smitten, but now, with Donato dead,
everything the Dollhouse put into him will tell him to give himself
to you, body and soul. He’ll be trying to learn what it means to be
free from slavery, while being told by his programming to subject
himself to your every whim. He’s going to be confused, and devoted,
and completely vulnerable. So whatever you decide, whatever you
choose to make of the situation, just…be kind. That’s all. Be
careful. Because he may know an awful lot about sex, but this is
the first he’s ever known of love.”
***
Ayo slept late into the morning.
Jenko brought out bread, jerked fish, and a
small jug of fresh water.
“You shouldn’t be waiting on me,” I said, as
he set it on the table between us. “You’re not the butler anymore.”
And I was no longer a whore. I was surprised at how much weight
seemed to disappear from my shoulders at the thought.
He shrugged and sat across from me. “I know
where everything is. Donato had me prepare for as much as two weeks
at sea, although we’d have to ration our supplies carefully.
Especially the water.”
“Let’s not tempt fate.”
“I agree. I guess the question that needs to
be answered is, where will we go?”
“Home.”
He shook his head. “I’d advise against it. For
now, at least.”
“Then where?”
“Deliphine.”
I tore off a hunk of bread and chewed it
slowly as I considered this. I’d spent half my life dreaming of
being able to escape Davlova, but now, I was strangely reluctant to
leave it behind. “I’d like to find out if my friends are
alive.”
“I understand, but we have no idea what’s
happening right now. The city’s undoubtedly in chaos. The rebels
will be trying to take power. People who were on their side at the
beginning of the fight will consider turning on them now, wondering
if they shouldn’t be the ones in charge. And don’t forget the
remnants of the old regime. Some of them may still be there, nobles
still holed up in their houses or the justice buildings. And after
the fire, the whole city will be in ruin. Dead and dying
everywhere. Food will be scarce, even more than it was before.
It’ll be dangerous, Misha.”
He had a point. There was some wisdom to
waiting for the dust to settle, but Davlova was my home. As much as
I hated her, she was a beast with which I was familiar. She
couldn’t be tamed, but I knew how to tiptoe in her presence without
waking her. I knew her alleys and her darkest secrets. I knew how
to survive there. I knew nothing of Deliphine.
“Let’s not forget, Ayo’s with us too,” I said.
“His vote should count as well.”
Jenko laughed. “True, although I suspect he’ll
side with you in all things.” He said it lightly, without malice,
and yet I was reminded again of our earlier conversation. I’d been
assuming all along that wherever I went, Ayo would go too. I didn’t
know what the future would bring, but whatever it was, I’d pictured
facing it with Ayo at my side.
What if I was wrong?
I didn’t have to wonder for long. Only a few
minutes later, Ayo emerged from the cabin, his hair rumpled, his
pale cheek lined from being pressed against the linens as he slept.
There were only two seats on the deck, so I stood in order to let
him have mine, but he didn’t seem to notice. He turned to check the
sun, riding high in the clear blue sky.
“You let me sleep late.”
“There was no reason not to,” Jenko
replied.
“But we have to go,” Ayo said, turning back to
face us both.
“Misha and I were just discussing that.
There’s no point in going back to Davlova so soon—”
“Davlova?” Ayo blinked, looking back and forth
between us in confusion. “Not Davlova. Deliphine. I need to go to
Deliphine.”
There was no urgency in his tone. It was said
in a matter-of-fact tone, as if he were saying, “I don’t like
bananas,” or, “I have to go to the market.” Jenko and I glanced at
one another, then back at Ayo.
“Why?” I asked, at last.
Ayo’s strange, pale eyes were surprisingly
empty. “I have to.”
“And what will you do once we get there?”
Jenko asked.
Ayo pursed his soft lips into a frown. “I
don’t know.”
“I see.” Jenko peered at me, obviously
troubled by this, although whether it was at Ayo’s inexplicable
insistence, or because he was worried I’d react poorly to having
Ayo disagree with me, I didn’t know. “Misha, what do you want to
do?”
“I’m outvoted, it seems,” I conceded.
“Deliphine it is.”
“There may be some benefit in arriving before
news of Davlova has reached them,” Jenko said. “I might still be
able to draw on Donato’s credit. Once they hear of his death,
they’ll seize his assets, but until then?” He shrugged. “They’re
used to me doing business for him.”
I wondered what parts of Donato’s business
Jenko had dealt with. Did it include selling Davlova’s citizens on
the Deliphine slave market? But it seemed like a lousy time to pick
a fight. “Makes sense.”
Jenko nodded and pushed himself to his feet.
“I’ll warm up the engine. If we start now, we can be there by
tomorrow evening. Sooner, if I drove all night, but I’d rather
not.”
“I don’t see any reason why you should.” I
glanced at Ayo. After all, he was the one who wanted to go to
Deliphine, but was eating the last of the bread, seemingly
unconcerned by our conversation.
Jenko went only a few steps before turning to
me. “You may as well come with me, Misha. You’ll need to know how
it all works if you intend to take the yacht back to
Davlova.”
“Why? What about you?”
He laughed. “There’s not enough money in the
world to make me return to that backwater, stinkhole of a
city.”
The mechanics of the yacht overwhelmed me. I’d
always been a fast learner, but I’d never dealt with machines or
engines.
“There’s a small fuel tank here,” Jenko told
me. “And if that gets low, you can burn coal here. That’ll produce
the steam that makes it move.” He went on to explain the functions
of a ridiculous number of valves and gages, but finished by saying,
“But you only need to worry about those if something goes
wrong.”
“That’s not exactly reassuring.”
He shrugged. “We’ve never had any problems
with her. And it’s not like you plan on boating around the world,
right? Just back to Davlova?”
“Right.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“And if we’re not?”
“I’ll show you how to activate the emergency
beacon.”
“All right. But let’s go over it all one more
time.”
An hour later, we left the engine room. I
didn’t fully understood how the yacht operated, but I thought I
knew enough to get her home. I couldn’t help but think how excited
Frey would have been to be in my place. Of course, that led to me
wonder whether or not Frey still lived.
I didn’t have time to dwell on it.
The next couple of hours were spent learning
the basics of navigation. Jenko was clearly impressed by my ability
to pick things up quickly, but I wasn’t as confident as he was in
my ability to get us home.
“Show me the emergency beacon,” I told
him.
“It’s here. You just flick this switch, and
then hope somebody sees it.”
I gazed around us, across the open sea. We
hadn’t seen a single other boat since we’d left Davlova.
Jenko apparently guessed my thoughts, because
he said, “It’s not a high-traffic area.”
It made sense. Davlova had been founded
centuries earlier by a stray contingent of priestesses and their
followers. They’d specifically chosen the island because it was
remote, and over the years, their vision of peace and community had
been lost in the general hubbub and greed of humanity. Still, it
hadn’t ever occurred to me just how far removed we were from the
rest of the world. “Aren’t there shipping lanes or
something?”
“The only thing Davlova is on the way to is
Davlova,” Jenko said. “You might see an occasional merchant vessel
headed her way, I suppose, but the profit they make is hardly worth
the travel.”