Authors: Renae Jones
The soft snick of her pruning was lost beneath the drone of Rasmus’s vid player.
She worked her way across the rear of her garden, cutting branch tips and dropping them into the waste bag hanging from her wrist. As she snipped and shuffled, her attention was caught by the tinny voice of a Federation announcer.
He spoke Xanian with REM-trained precision, but a heavy accent marked him as foreign. His words were fast and clipped, foregoing adjectives nearly entirely. She found herself listening curiously, comparing his inferior diction to that of the voice actors on her preferred channels.
She never watched the new Federation-run daily feed, sticking to her old favorites. It made sense that an off-worlder would, though. It would be news like what he enjoyed at home.
“The woman was kept for a total of four hours before a concerned partygoer called for emergency medical care. A total of eight men were arrested at the scene. Despite admitted violations of both Federation and Xanian law, three men are publicly protesting their arrests, pointing to the fact that the woman was paid more than once in the night, after being taken from her home next door. Interim spokespeople of the now-disbanded Temple of Flesh have condemned the attacks, pointing to the lack of consent, contract and safety as primary concerns in Xanian law.”
How awful for that woman. Fedni found herself staring at the fence, no longer gardening. Horrible things happened, sometimes, to acolytes of both the Temple of Flesh and the higher-caste Temple of Passion. And now without the protections of the temples, things were getting worse, not better. The Federation had claimed women’s safety as a reason for its laws outlawing prostitution, but this was the second rape of former courtesans she’d heard of in a week.
She looked up to see Rasmus standing at the thick plastic fence, which barely reached his upper thighs. He was watching her curiously.
His presence was a surprise intrusion on her unpleasant thoughts. She bristled.
He shook his head. “It’s awful, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it is. It is awful. The Federation vid channel always is... My vid channels don’t dwell on the awful things. They do not say the details, the private things. I think your channel cares just for scaring people,” she accused.
“The Federation has laws governing the accuracy of news broadcasts. Your world does not. I think that affects the tone of the broadcasts very much.”
“They don’t lie. They are not lying, they are just not saying all these things the Federation channels are obsessed with.”
He looked at her with pity in his eyes. “There are forms of silence which are their own lie.”
“The Federation laws don’t prevent silence, anyway.”
“No, they don’t,” he allowed.
Now she could taste the pity, it was so strong. What did he pity? Did he think she was stupid, misled, pathetic? She felt like a house cat, her fur already rubbed the wrong way, now with cold water dumped on her. She wanted to be a house cat, so she could hiss.
“And it is not silence if they talk of other things. Some vid channels talk about the things that make Xana great. Just not the Federation vid channel. It is obsessed with how horrible Xana is. There are no travel shows, are there? Or cooking? No, it is all crime. No wonder you are homesick.”
To her surprise, he nodded slowly. Fedni’s words were spoken in anger, but he seemed to be giving them a fair consideration.
She tied off her bag of branch snippets. She was no longer in the mood for all this fresh air and toil; she would finish it another day.
As she stripped off her gloves, Rasmus spoke again. “What vid channel do you watch?”
She shrugged. There were a dozen different vid channels with a healthy rounding of current events, information and lessons presented by a team of personalities to fit each caste’s tastes. “I like Diacor mostly, or Relblen.”
“Luxury caste?”
“Yes,” she snapped. “Yes, I am luxury caste.”
Of course she was luxury caste. This neighborhood was luxury caste. The off-worlder wouldn’t even have been able to buy here until the Federation dissolved those laws.
He nodded, and smiled. “I thought maybe, based on your gorgeous clothes.”
It was reconciliatory, but she just wasn’t in the mood. “Thank you. I will return, perhaps, to talk at another time.”
Then she dropped her shears and her gloves and her bag and furiously glided into her house, though she had already half forgotten why she was angry.
* * *
Fedni spent a frustrating afternoon window-shopping in the diamond district, staring at fashions she could barely afford even back when she was listed in “The Fifty Most Expensive Courtesans in the World” fluff pieces. Now, she would never be able to afford them again. Her favorite midweek outing had lost all satisfaction, but still she went.
On her way home, she was passed by Rasmus on the path from the train.
His long stride faltered when he recognized her, and he started to speak. Then he hesitated, his body language a parody of a man torn. She pretended not to see him, though she had memorized him in a short flick of her gaze.
He was wearing the deep purple collarless and sleeveless uniform of a doctor, and today he was clean shaven. She missed his scruff.
He turned back to walking, able to cover ground at an amazing pace.
She knew then he would be coming by her house. He would not want to leave their relationship at a loose end, floating in harsh words and confusion.
At home, instead of changing to something more comfortable, she changed into something less. She picked out delicate lingerie with corset, stockings, a lace bustle and a house gown. She recurled her hair, arranging it around her shoulders in an auburn fall, and reapplied her lip color.
She saw no point in making this conversation easy on him, whatever it was going to be.
Thus armored, Fedni settled in to watch a drama.
Rasmus knocked a sliver after sunset, a few minutes before the intrusion would be insufferably rude. She had started to give up on his appearance.
She answered the door with feigned disinterest. “Oh, hello.”
He blinked at her outfit, then glanced behind him. “I’m sorry. Were you expecting someone?”
She was surprised into laughing. “Did you wish to speak to me?”
“Ah, yes. I feel I owe you an apology.”
Ah, an apology. She would let him in for an apology.
She held the door wide. “Would you like to come in?”
He glanced again at her lacy lack of clothing, covering everything but leaving it all visible. She refused to acknowledge his look.
“Please. I won’t keep you long.” If anything, he was more polite when addressing a scantily clad woman. Her mother would approve.
“Don’t worry on it. I have no plans for tonight.”
The smart of yesterday’s words, aimed not at her but at her world’s media, had faded. She’d accept the apology, but it was hardly necessary.
Rasmus followed her to the kitchen. He watched her back with longing, and she watched him in the mirrored tiles set in a single line against the ceiling.
“As I said, I wanted to apologize. I mean, I do apologize. I think you are right that, as a Federation citizen, I expect the news to carry the worst of the day’s events. I do not entirely approve of the local news sources, I won’t lie about that. I do find it horrifying that no one speaks of some of the worst effects of your caste system, but I am sorry that that segment scared you, and I am sorry that the Federation channel omits positive segments on Xana so offensively.”
That was a far more thorough apology than she’d expected, or perhaps deserved. The man was a good apologizer.
She stood a moment, sorting her thoughts, idly running a finger along her bottom lip.
The fruit-sweet taste of amusement and the heavier honey of attraction distracted her in turn. She knew that taste well. He thought she was being cute.
She eyed him suspiciously.
No hint of his thoughts was on his face. He was watching her, yes, but with no inappropriate expression.
“I, too, overreacted,” she allowed. “I will apologize to you. I do still feel that off-worlders do not appreciate the many beauties of Xana, and this is a sore spot for me. But I think my anger in this case comes from the increasing prevalence of these awful stories, which is perhaps partially due to an increase in these incidents. So lashing out at the stories was childish. So that is my apology.”
She took a moment to be surprised at herself. Her, apologizing?
He smiled at her. “That is an important distinction, I think. A wise one.”
She glared at him, certain she was being mocked. She was many things, but none of them was wise.
His eyes widened slightly. She must look quite fierce, to inspire wariness. She needed to remember this expression for future use.
He changed the subject. “And, I guess you are right that I don’t appreciate the beauties of Xana as I should. I work as a doctor with the service caste. There are awful things on every planet, but here, I see the most awful, every day. I’ve decided to take time every week to learn something beautiful.”
“You have?”
“Yes, I have.”
It was obvious he’d decided that just as he was speaking. It seemed men and their grand proclamations were a universal phenomenon.
“What beauty shall you learn first?”
“What? I, um... Actually, I was hoping you could help me. Perhaps you have ideas? You seem to know much about beauty.”
Oh, that was brilliant. She was tempted to applaud for him.
Instead, she considered. There were waterfalls near Vetni, which he would be amazed by. Everyone was.
But nature was too easy. She didn’t think he’d understand the beauty of fashion, and works of art might suffer in translation, so she dismissed them, for now. What she would really like was an acknowledgment from him, from the New Earth Federation, that Xana had a beautiful culture, that there was much good even in the traditions they were dismantling. She wanted them to mourn the loss of the castes, the temples, her life, a fraction as much as she did.
She walked closer to him, taking his hand in hers. “I will show you, then, something beautiful.”
He smiled, and she tasted an odd blandness, like protein powder or cornstarch. He was placating her. “Yes, okay, please.”
“A courtship ceremony, then.”
He was surprised. “Really?”
Her lip twitched. “Yes, they are beautiful.”
“Of course,” he said, though his tone made it more a disagreement. “I’ll believe you, but I’ve never liked nightclubs. And I won’t do the drugs.”
She sighed. It made sense that he would know the ceremonies by the clubs―places where total strangers would be placed in a room together, high on aphrodisiacs and inhibition reducers. It was a recipe for cheap and easy sex, increasingly popular in a harsh economy and with the closing of the Temple of Flesh.
“Those clubs are an abomination. The ceremonies are hundreds of years old, brought to Xana by the first settlers. They’re an important part of our culture, and beautiful. They’re not all about sex, you know.”
He relaxed a bit.
“And after you learn this, when someone asks you about our culture, maybe you can come up with better than, ‘Xana is very colorful.’”
His lip curved. “I also said it’s busy.”
“I was not convinced.”
A thrill of pride teased her. This was her skill, her craft. Not the ceremony, of course—courtship was not something you bought in the overt negotiation of a liaison contract. But her beauty, her aesthetically pleasing grace, her careful memory, her knowledge of pleasure and her intuition of how to please him all had been honed by years in her trade. Learning the ceremonies had been a personal pleasure, and she was proud to be a rare person who knew all of them.
She could do things in a ceremony that would melt an off-worlder’s mind—and he would love every second of it.
“Please, have a seat.” She indicated a long chaise in her reception area.
“Now?”
“Yes. Unless you need to be elsewhere? I don’t see why not.”
He sat obediently.
“I need to prepare. I wasn’t expecting to do this.”
“Of course. Who would be?”
“And take off your clothes,” she instructed on her way out.
He blinked. “Is that necessary?”
She ignored his question and continued down the hall.
Fedni headed for her bedroom, pulling an expensive wooden box from her armoire. It was carved with flowers, lilies and daydragons and blue belltubes. Inside were exactly one hundred silk veils, each dyed in a slightly different color and pattern. Also in the box was a pot of honey glue, its heater and a set of delicate brushes.
Then she detoured for her kitchen. She filled the bowl of the small heater with water to keep the honey glue at the perfect slightly warm temperature.
Back in her receiving room, Rasmus sat tall and gangly, but somehow dignified. He carried himself gracefully, even in stillness. Where he sat in front of the amethyst paisley of her wallpaper, he looked like an immortalized Sky Lord. His repose was casual, his features aristocratic and his long body deliciously bare.
He smiled at her return.
“I will show you the ceremony of one hundred veils.”
“I don’t know the ceremony,” he confessed.
“That’s fine. Few do. I know it well, though.”
She lay out her box on a low table, neatly organizing silks by length and heft. She opened the jar of honey glue, as well, and broke the wax seal. When exposed to air, it slowly turned from a solid to a thick, velvety paste. Once it heated it would have the consistency of honey, as well as the taste, but would dry quickly with a strong bond.
While it heated, she talked.
“On my planet, long ago, arranged marriage fell out of favor. The temples had formed, and were taking over many of the roles of a family. And when marriage started to gain popularity again, courtship ceremonies were adopted as a way for couples to learn each other, and themselves. To understand if they would be a good match, without the assistance of their parents in the choosing process. Only a few were about sex, by the way.
“The beautiful part is in learning someone else, knowing them so well, and the way Xanian society encourages that sort of strong bond to other people. Procreation can happen without love, or even contact, but a permanent tie is good for everyone when between compatible couples. The process of finding those ties is a treasure, and beautiful.”