Touching Amani

This is where the dream gets hazy, blurry, broken. Something happened, but she can't remember. There is a moment of sparks and darkness, of something lost and just beyond reach. . .

Amani was kneeling, begging as she does so well; it was very dark. There were cries and whispers, but a girl was bound tightly. There are people moving in the dark. . .

It is dark and close. Somewhere a girl is crying. Not crying/scared, but crying/hurt, alone in the dark. This girl can't move, or a girl would share skin with her . . .

There is too much blood everywhere! The air is raw, smoke is in the air and figures in body armor rushing by in the gloom of emergency lighting. . .

I feel soft, soft and squishy like marshmallow. I am being hurried to a shuttle. The pain of liftoff puts white stars in my vision and a sense of something straining, and then there is blackness.

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She awakens in a plastic cast. Clear, hard plastic moulds to her from above her knees to her shoulders. It is less dark, but blurry. Nothing has any definition, just blobs of light and shadow.

"Memory is like the gums after a tooth has been pulled. The absence will register until the gums have knit and healed, and then she won't remember that anything ever happened. There will be a hazy place where something, maybe perhaps happened."

The Voice says other things, some she remembered, some she did not. Some things she remembers but cannot understand.

Mistress is standing next to the bed wearing her impenetrable diplomatic face, that face she wears when she commands, and those she addresses have no clue to the depth of her skill.

Mistress is whispering close, "Dearest, you know amani was damaged. You were damaged yourself. Amani is beyond touch darling; amani is gone."

"I love amani! Amani was from this body! I love her! " she shrieks, sobbing. "I love amani" she whispers to herself, "I love amani."

Mistress suppresses a fond grin, "Silly girl, we can clone you another friend."

There is a blackness.

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Mistress gives a girl recovery time, so she went to the Hutch to share skin with rachel. Rachel's jewel was shining in her door and she was stretched out watching a vid when the door admitted a girl.

This girl flopped next to her honey-colored body and rachel turned to this girl, our arms twined, our legs locked, and we curled around each other like puppies. "Slave-sister, a girl is pleased to share your warmth. " the customary greeting slipped out almost without thought.

"Your life is this life, sister." rachel replies. "Mistress is elsewhere; I am free for a moment." she whispers in this ear.

"Look at this back; are there marks?" a girl breathes. Mistress gives a girl recovery time. She does not like a girl marked overmuch.

Rachel's warm palm drifts down this back, making this girl shiver. "Smooth, white and lovely dearest." She says, "You are white jade, milk glass, perfect. "

"Amani is gone! There is no trace of her." When I say these words, the hole in my life expands. "You might as well say the sun does not radiate, that it does not pull us all sunward every minute! I love amani!"

Rachel's mouth finds mine and stops it with kisses. "Share your life with mine dear one," she whispers against this chest. Her hands creep to each side of this head and pull a girl into a long deep kiss. The feel of amani rises out of touching rachel. Amani is standing in her room, weight on one hip, hands holding the ends of her braids -- grinning, brown and bare.

Rachel releases my head and snuggles her head against my shoulder. Her hands seek these hips and pull me against her, hip to hip. This girl rests her head on a shoulder and the room is silent, there is nothing to say.

For a nameless time we soak up each other's warmth, the simple pleasure of skin on skin, the physical presence of another, like body. While this girl is lost in memories of amani, rachel stiffens and turns to me, "My Mistress calls me."