Terra Nova: An Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Science Fiction (8 page)

“
Of course I will. Deva is
my best friend. But what does this have to do with my
sister?”

“
Kesha never had anyone
like Deva. She never had a connection with any other girl. She was
too suspicious, too anxious. … In the end, she was too bright, too
clever to let herself be fooled by the rest of the girls and
eventually she asked questions that no one else had ever asked … or
had ever wanted to ask. And when she realized that men saw better
with her and constantly chose her, she thought she was special and
had the right to chose.”

“
Strange. That’s not what
I’ve learned. From what I understand, the problem was that she fell
in love. I don’t know what that means, but …”

“
To fall in love means
having two feelings that are opposite to the philosophy of balance
of Ksatrya women: selfishness and pride. Selfishness is harmful but
treatable, but pride is completely intolerable. It’s already so
hard to deal with in men that we can’t allow a woman to develop it.
To fall in love with a woman is perfectly normal, and it can be
tolerated because in spite of involving those two feelings, it
doesn’t upset the balance. To fall in love with a man is treason.
Period.”

“
I … I don’t
understand.”

“
A woman who falls in love
with a man is selfish and will do everything she can to make sure
that he only spills information in her. But the information belongs
to everyone, and that is beyond discussion or debate. On the other
hand, a woman who falls in love believes she’s better than any
other woman in general, so she has the right to chose only one man
to spill in her and will do everything she can to make sure other
men can’t spill in her. That is unacceptable. We’re all equal, and
the same things happen to all of us, without exception. In short,
to fall in love means being selfish enough to refuse to share a
man’s information and at the same time to be so proud that you
think you’re special and won’t let other men have access to your
information.”

“
But how does something
like this start? How can it be avoided?” Charni began to feel
nervous. She felt her stomach in her mouth.

“
To begin with, don’t have
conversations with men, don’t talk to them as if they were a woman
who you’d feel satisfied with sharing experiences. But above all,
never, never ask them why about whatever they decide to tell you,
because that might make them interested in your opinions. A Ksatrya
woman never has an opinion or discussion with a man, never talks
with him and even less if he’s spilled three times with her in a
short period of time. If that happens, you obligation is to let us
know so that we can make sure that you won’t coincide with him in
the next turn for spilling. Have you textured that
well?”

Charni agreed while she tried to keep her
body from trembling up and down. Was it true then? She was
crazy?

“
What’s the matter?” her
mother asked.

It was hard for her to speak, to organize
her thoughts. She felt more afraid than she ever had before. Afraid
for herself and for what her mother might think.

“
What is it?” her mother
asked again, worried.

“
Mama … I … I think I’m in
love.”

“
With who?”

“
With Qjem. But it’s not
my fault! You told me to get close to him, to attend to him, to
make him interested in being my assistant in the ritual. And I did
this. Not only did I serve him and help him in his tasks, I talked
with him. I did everything that you said I shouldn’t do. I had
opinions.”

To Charni’s surprise, her
mother broke into laughter. Then she hugged her tight and comforted
her with caresses and kisses.

“
Oh Charni, Charni … I
doubt you’ve done anything like that. If you have, we won’t have
the ritual on the first hunger of the coming term. Let’s sit down.
I’m going to ask you three questions. If you answer ‘no’ to all
three sincerely, you’re not in love. Ready? First question: does it
bother you when Qjem spills information in me or another
woman?”

“
No. That’s
normal.”

“
Aha. Second question:
Would it bother you if someone who wasn’t Qjem served as your
assistant?”

“
No. I know that whoever
you chose for me would be the best. I don’t doubt that at
all.”

“
Good. Third question. Has
Qjem emptied information in you and did you enjoy it?”

“
Of course not. We haven’t
even had the ritual yet, so how am I going to know
that?”

“
Then you’re not in love.
When you’re with a man and the answer to these three questions is
no, things are fine.”

“
But … although … I only
used sounds, I’ve had conversations with him. And I’ve asked him
‘why’ more than once. I like to talk with him. He uses interesting
words and expressions. And he doesn’t call me girl anymore like the
other men. He uses my name. And …”

“
That’s good.” She
caressed her again to calm her. “There should be trust between the
ritualist and the assistant. That’s essential to minimize the
trauma. Once the ritual is finished, there will be a little
remaining feeling, but that’s all. I assure you. Qjem won’t be much
different from the elderly man my mother chose for me. You’ll find
out. And while it’s true that trust creates care, it’s not bad to
hold this feeling for one man in particular, as long as it doesn’t
keep you from your obligations as a Ksatrya woman. The rule of
three questions. Right?”

Charni hugged her mother harder. She needed
to feel her next to her, to feel the sensation of protection and
peace that she always managed to inspire.

She was nervous. Why deny it? The ritual
would take place the next term.

According to her mother,
with a little luck, the spill would be satisfactory and produce a
new existence and then finally she’d be a full and complete Ksatrya
woman —a very important step. But that was not what worried her,
but the fact that her mother had assured her that, no matter how
mentally prepared she was, her body would react with pain. No
matter how strong the connection with her assistant, it could not
be avoided.

She tried not to think about it, to convince
herself that a Ksatrya did not fear pain, and yet …

She could not stop crying. She cried from
the pain, she cried from the shame of being unable to withstand it.
Seated over Qjem, she embraced him as if her life were in him,
while her legs did not stop trembling and she felt a terrible panic
that the throbbing member inside her would start to move again and
tear her apart.

She heard him murmur
again. “It’s all right, its over,” he said again and again while he
held her tenderly and stroked her head.

Charni felt she could not let him go. And in
spite of what she had just experienced, what he had just done,
Qjem, as on that day when she put her hand on his back and
perceived that strange sensation of protection, was managing little
by little to comfort her. His whispers, his caresses, his enormous
size surrounding her body …

Finally she managed to
relax enough to regain her self-control. Her tears stopped flowing
down her cheeks. The fear of pain was still there, waiting, curled
up, but with Qjem’s help she had managed to corner it.

With great care, the elderly man separated
from her, laid her on the bed, and lay down next to her without
stopping to caress her and murmur to her, until aching and tired,
Charni fell asleep.

She awoke with a strange
pleasurable sensation in her breasts and genitals, like what Nanji
had given her during their practice sessions. Then she perceived
the weight of the old man on her and his member throbbing inside
her again. This time, the mix of her blood and fluids made it less
painful. And while Qjem groaned and kept whispering, “Come on
Charni, come on, little girl, one more time, papa won’t do you any
harm,” she thought as hard as she could about Deva. She recalled
her aroma, her flavor, her touch, the sound of her voice, her
comforting embrace.

And then all the rest ceased to be
important.

Six alarms later, after
verifying that the spill of information had not resulted in the
production of a new existence (which to Charni’s surprise left her
mother not disappointed but strangely sad), she began to do her
scheduled turns, which she combined with her classes and special
studies. That was how it would be until she was sixteen cycles old,
whether or not during that time she had produced an
existence.

When school was done, she
would probably already have a daughter under her charge to train,
either her own or the child of someone else’s close to her. The
rest of her life would remain planned like that, with no big
surprises.

After she began to take her turn, it only
took two sessions to understand why it was so important for the
initiation ritual to be assisted by an elderly man. It relaxed her
once she knew it. …

Until then she had thought it was a merely
practical consideration. The information of an elderly man was
valuable, and with it the woman in the ritual was granted the honor
of a spilling that might produce a strong man. And while that was
true, reality involved something more, much more important, in
fact.

On one hand, elderly men assumed they would
never see again, so they did not have the same urgency to satisfy
their member as a man who could still see, and they did not use all
their energy to do so. On the other hand, they felt a certain
concern for the girls aspiring to adulthood, which in some way made
the act seem more satisfactory … or less painful.

From what Charni had been
able to learn asking other women, just as had happened in her own
case, the elderly men had treated them with certain fondness —just
like mothers who made their daughters do something they did not
want to, but in their words and gestures they could perceive care
and protection.

Just the opposite happened with men who
could see. They were impetuous, at times aggressive, and it did not
matter if they placed the woman in an uncomfortable or painful
position to make the spilling, and some men even ignored the cries
of pain from women who had been so clumsy as to be unprepared and
not moisten themselves correctly.

In general there were no
murmurs, no caresses, not a simple “thank you for helping me see.”
Nothing. No cares, no connection, no worries.

They weren’t all like
that, of course. Some were timid, clumsy, or indecisive and Charni
had to help them spill. She also discovered that when she imitated
the moans that her mother made during a spilling and moved her hips
instead of remaining still, she could accelerate the process. Which
was appreciated … except by those who were not satisfied with just
one spilling.

And, of course, whenever
she began to perceive pleasure in any way, she thought about Deva
or went over the lesson from class in her mind. She did not want to
leave open the possibility of falling in love. Although … who would
want to fall in love with a man just because at some moment his
spilling could have provided pleasure? They did not talk, and when
they did, nothing they said made sense. They were not interested in
her, what she thought, what she felt, and in general they had
nothing in common with her. With so many women in her world who
were tender, affectionate, understanding, fun, or strong, like Deva
—despite being smaller, she still defended Charni with all the
conclusiveness needed at any moment— who in their right mind would
exchange them for a man?

No. Men were a bother, a routine that she
had to put up with and little more. Now she knew beyond any doubt
that her older sister had truly gone crazy and that she herself did
not have that kind of information inside her.

She did not need to worry.
Above all because of the existence that was finally developing
inside her. Within three cycles she was going to be an adult —to
the joy of her mother, the queen.

Producing an existence had its good and bad
aspects. The bad things were an imbalance in her urine; pain in her
legs, chest and back; and sudden changes in her mood that not only
affected her but also the women around her, no matter how hard
Charni tried to keep this from happening.

The good things were that once her state was
confirmed, she no longer had to do her turn and would not have to
resume them until she had produced the existence inside her and her
bleeds had returned to normal. In all, almost a cycle without any
obligation to satisfy the member of any man.

With a little luck, when her turns started
again, she would repeat what she had done with the last men she had
been with before her production, and, once she had achieved a
successful spilling, she would be retired from taking turns
again.

But it was still early to think about this,
of course. Besides, her mother had told her that the first
production was the most difficult and since her body was not yet
fully developed, there was a high risk of complications from the
process, which could be disastrous for her. In fact, she might
become one of those woman who wound up exercising the noble but
extremely difficult role of peacemaker due to a production that had
destroyed her from inside. So it was best not to plan too far
ahead.

Charni submitted herself
to her mother’s advice without spending too much time thinking
about it. She preferred to invest her time in classes, being with
Deva, or caring for her younger sister as practice in case she
produced a girl. Now that she had time without extra studies, she
wanted to take advantage of it.