Cockerelles & Posies Pt. 04

I proudly refuse her protection as I feel the rebel's rhythm beating in my heart. And here I thought cream and kumquats was a sign that my days of needing to prove myself were behind me.

#2

My formal interview with Miss Brushnique is scheduled for the next morning. I would have taken the inquisitor into my private suites on that first day she presented herself if she had not been called away suddenly to meet with the local order of the Sisterhood of Light. The visitor's foreign accent coming across the sea with its stiff requirements of respect and attention enchanted me. A posy who posed as a proud cockerelle. She was particular in her dress. The careful attention to the press of her blouse, that every wrinkle from neck to cuff had been eradicated from appearance with a hot, steamy iron. I could see her running her garments beneath that archaic tool of clothing preparation, pressing and rubbing every nook and cranny with its dangerously hot demands for uniformity and clarity. I suppose I saw a little of myself in her the way I required the appearance of my flesh and wardrobe to obey me in the most beautiful ways I could find to subdue them. Perhaps she could help me tame the misbehaviors of my own wily features.

"So, this is your suite in this magnificent mansion," she says as I take her into my most sacred of places. "Tell me, how was it that you were subdued into a skirt?"

"I always spring at the chance to wear frilly things. Pretty flowers knit into the designs of fabrics lift my heart and carry me to them buoyant. I think of a skirt with stockings as seductive and never constricting. It definitely makes things convenient when you feel like having a playful party."

"Convenient for whom?" she asks.

"For whomever it pleases me."

"It sounds as though your sexual identity is something always sensual, as if arousal were some kind of thing to be lived rather than saved for special occasions. Has your mother had you checked for nymphomania?"

I show her the flower speckled dress that Maddie gave me to celebrate my decision to pass on my heritage. "Eager Posy, is what she calls it."

"Yes, seems it was inspired by you. I recall some talk of anonymity in the fashion blurbs seeking to discover who was given this winning piece designed by your sister Maddie. Quite a few attempts were made to part her lips and spill the truth. That your sister was able to achieve such a feat as a posy must have inspired you."

"I think it was I who inspired her," I say. "That I didn't dress cockerelle and demand the rights that society grants to one of that position when I had the chance. I became aware as a small child of the inequality that is felt between the sexes in our society. My outlook requires a shared existence between wood and stem, not two separate teams with their own sets of rules and requirements. My willingness to be who I am inspired her to bravery. I see this dress as a symbol of unity, Miss Brushnique."

"Please, call me Tora," she says, her look turning to a softer one for a moment before reverting again to the professional one her opinion of her work demands. "Have you considered allowing me to have a look at your flower. For the sake of the investigation only. Not that the nanos can be fooled."

I shush her before she goes any further to excuse her desire to see what I have become.

"Certainly. It's quite lovely I think. I like the look of it on me more every day." With that I unsnap my skirt and set it aside on a convenient hook. "Would you like to see me standing, or would you rather I sit for a medical exam?"

"Let's not have images of such institutional sterility in our minds as we discuss your change, Miss Song. I would rather think on you warmly if you don't mind, and not with ideas like cold ceramic tile or the impersonal impressions given by stainless steel, all ready to pinch and maim in clumsy hands."

I find her theme to my liking, and I take us over to the daybed I keep under windows where early sunlight comes in from the east when I dress in the morning.

"You slide onto that mattress as though you expect me to climb into bed with you," she says, stopping short to clasp her hands in front of her waist in much the same way a conductor might pose before her chorus of singers.

"Sorry," I say. "How would you like to me to sit?"

Her look is not one of disapproval, I am certain, so I wait patiently as she searchers for the right words to express her intentions.

"Was there a sense of duty in your behavior just now? Or are you so quick to scuttle up like that in your undies because you have a desire to please my curiosity?"

"What an interesting set of questions," I answer. "I hadn't thought about it until now. But my first reaction is to say that I'm hoping to learn your intentions in this interview today, so that I may learn the true nature of your coming here. Not that I am calling you a liar or saying you have misrepresented yourself. It's just that you seem to be interested in knowing what is happening underneath my hood beyond that which your job requires. Or are all woody posies the same as you are, on the brink of fanaticism?"

"You could just suspect I like my job. I am fond of posies as our kind are encouraged to think and do for ourselves as we want on the Elder Continent unlike this rock across the sea. Here in Havens Slip your people tend to frown on such blurred relationships between the sexes."

"Yes, we do have our Mount Hush here in the Ascending Heir's region, and every city must have at minimum a little hideaway for the open minded to gather."

"So, we get to the root of my suspicions about you. You see, you were a cockerelle, and now you are a posy. So, did you consider yourself a wood-hungry bird as a cockerelle? Or were you a flower trapped in an animal's body?"

"I hadn't really thought about it that way," I answer. "It is strange that we use birds to describe one sex and flowers for another. They are species incompatible for mating. Oh, and think on this. Birds prefer seeds, not wood for digestion. I don't find a mouthful of our seed tasting like medicine or coffee or beer as others sometimes describe the experience. Of course, now that I am a posy, I wonder why a flower would need to eat seeds or stomach wood. Blooms would see a tree's seed as a potential neighbor, and the wood of their neighbor's branches as something to shade them in the heat of the day."

"Your mind does seem to have a way of turning crude things into lovelier ideas," she says. "Do you mind if I touch you to get these panties out of the way?"

I'm not at all disturbed by the idea, and Miss Brushnique does me the service of removing them with much grace and practiced precision.

"I must admit I haven't spent a lot of time getting to know my new parts," I say. "I've been very hands off not wanting to spoil myself with too much stimulation or ruin my memories with my own clumsiness. I am a klutz at it still. Seems all the practice I had pulling my root doesn't translate to the more delicate approach needed for pleasing petals."

Tora returns my comments the most humorous of looks.

"I can't tell if you're trying to temp me or catch me in an act of foolish stupidity. Do you suggest that posy-to-posy love is some condition that causes flowers to toss all sense of caution aside when they are alone in the presence of someone they might desire? Have you placed cameras in the room to catch me overstepping my official boundaries so you can dispose of me in the courtroom? I don't believe for a second some gremlin whacked you on the head as a child to lead you to make such a tempting offer. Do I look like some hungry, misguided creature who will fall for such obvious baiting?

I giggle.

"I give you my full consent for whatever exam you wish to do or how you wish to do it, warm and sensual or otherwise. I only wonder if there truly are posies who see pretty paisleys on one of their own and become aroused in the same way as the woodiest of cockerelle. It is after all the mechanics of shape appreciated with their eyes that dominates the timber-drive to mate far more than the matters of heart that woo the petalkind like yourself. Or are you too caught within the paradox of passions, Miss Brushnique?"

She wads my panties in her hands like she might stuff them in my mouth to silence me so she can prepare a much better rebuttal.

"You talk of touching your own flower as though you've only just put yourself through the arduous task of transformation a few days ago. Surely you've been years at deciding whether or not you wished to remain a posy before going through with the registration."

"Can your people's link to the machines of creation read the part of my mind that makes decisions and determine at which moment my choice was made to change? If you could see the truth like that, it would appear as though my decision lacked any forethought, at least to a person who didn't know me my whole life. I only came of age recently to make such a choice responsibly, according to the laws of the land. But I do believe the decision is something that has been at the front of my mind since I discovered I was a cockerelle as a child. Why I hadn't moved to transition sooner would be the question any close friend of the family would ask if I were to come out of the closet with swapped anatomy today - if those laws of ours had never existed. No, this person who gave away her heritage was acting out her desires her entire life. I did not ride down the rails of inevitability. I walked along the paths of logic as I saw best. And I did all of this without knowing I was some sign from the stars watched by your people as if on a stage. How does your organization perceive the events of my evolution?"

I spread my legs just enough that Tora does not find me resistant in her estimation of my willingness.

"I imagine you'll want to check me thoroughly," I say, offering her a packet of sanitary wipes to clean her hands. "Perhaps you could teach me a few things about myself."

"Most astounding," she says, taking the packet and removing three sheets to do a good job of making her fingers ready. "I had hoped at best to twist your arm into letting me glance under your skirt. That you don't mind a stranger, and a posy, rooting through your new treasure is not at all what one expects from the country where self-determination is so ardently professed."

Her fingers find me ready for exploration.

"Please, at least pull up a chair so that you don't have to hunch yourself over like that to touch me," I say. "You seem so open to the idea of posy-to-posy the way you talk. Why not treat it like I believe your heart feels on the matter."

"And how does my heart feel on the matter?"

"I would think a kind of joy. Maybe not lusty, but certainly a friendly kind of excitement to see your eyelids so heavy with delight in your heart. We are civil here on the Imperium Slip. It won't bite you."

I slide further back on the mattress so she can find a place to rest on her side to do the rest of her inspection. It makes me giddy seeing her struggle to keep a look of dignity on what is all too clearly a hungry creature.

"Do you mind if I wet my fingers?" she asks, placing her tips already moist from their initial investigation to her lips.

I agree with a nod.

Her next gentle touches give her the need to draw in deeply to oxygenate her lungs properly.

"How does this make you feel?" she asks. "Are you still businesslike in your thinking?"

"I think as I am always thinking," I answer. "I believe it is very brave of you to come in here and touch me with so little exchange of personal details between the two of us. It's practically scandalous in the eyes of posykind in our culture."

"You find my behavior shocking then?"

"No, I find it rewarding if you find it rewarding. Why wouldn't I?"

"Are you just crazy or something?"

"No, Miss Brushnique, I suppose the truth is that I see your beauty. I see nothing repulsive about you at all. The gods made us this way for a reason."

Her cheeks turn a pleasant rouge though she does not show a smile as I had hoped.

"Perhaps I could show you a few techniques while I'm with you."

A message flashes on my phone from Josie wondering where I am. I feel for a moment that I am betraying her somehow, giving myself over to a stranger so soon after she took away my initial anxieties under the bars of her pleasant bird cage seat she built for me in her wing of the house.

I tap the busy response on the screen and smile at Tora Brushnique.

"I would appreciate that," I say. "Take your time."

#3

Miss Brushnique is demonstrating a most courageous technique which involves turning her inquisitive tongue towards a more direct research through the sensitive parts of my new posy when the sound of footsteps interrupts our pleasant review session.

Tora cautiously retreats from her oral demonstration just moments before Josie knocks at the entranceway's white maple frame.

"Purely professional," says Tora when Josie's expression turns unpleasant at seeing the state of my affairs.

"How is this professional?" she requires.

"Educational," I say in her defense. "I am new to my situation."

Tora rubs her wet fingers over her lips.

"Her desire to keep her transformation under wraps brought out my tendency to mentor," says my new teacher. "It is quite the mystery that she doesn't have anyone outside of you Sharps as her confidants in the matter. If my powers of deduction where given free rein here, I think I would become more probing in making my estimation of what has brought about the current situation."

"And what is this situation exactly that you are insinuating?" asks Josie who seems ready to test the new potency of her talons since the arrival of her hormonal transition.

"That the four cockerelles living at this address have also acquired the status of their sexuality only recently. I do recognize the pendant you wear around your throat when you are on the premises and on the premises only, Ms. Sharp. That is the famous Eager Sacrifice pendant around your neck, is it not?"

"Only famous to those who dwell on events which transpired two decades ago," Josie answers. "I would call it more a flash in the pan kind of fame."

"I gave it to her as a gift to celebrate her accomplishment," I say.

"But this fact of your change of ownership does raise eyebrows in my organization," says Brushnique. "The people I hold allegiance to are very interested in understanding the reasons behind the appearance of such an impossibly rare trinket. That the creation of your cockerelle pendants is tied to the movements of machines which take their inspiration from the powers of the higher sciences compels us to continue our work at any and all risk to life and limb. That she chose to pass her pendant to you, Ms. Sharp, is most fascinating in our quest to understand the motivations of the Toiler Incarnate and how her mind and spirit may be wired together."

"No legal cause in this world allows you to take our Margot from us even if she were proven to be an incarnation of this mythical toiler class your organization seeks to propagate throughout Heartseed. My feelings for Margot will remain a mystery you, I promise you that. The exchange of this cockerelle pendant holds a different meaning between us than any you could ever imagine."

"Yes, but is not what your society has sought to accomplish, essentially, in the treatment of posies born on these shores consistent with what my people seek to discover? Your currencies are designed to steer the weaker sex into toiling to pay with excessive servitude all for the sake of pleasuring the cockerelle. It speaks plainly of your own quest to create such a creature from the impossible paradoxes which underlie all aspects of creation."

"And what kind of creature would I be if I were this toiler incarnate?" I ask.

Miss Brushnique looks at me as though she feels pity.

"That you would pursue the extraction of seed from the opposite sex without want of equal compensation. The value your craft coins put into a cockerelle's d-bill greatly outweighs the amount of effort they put into the exchange for the pleasure you give them on your knees. Your service pays for their education, girl. All you get in return is modifications to your carnal desires and your relative desirability in their eyes. Does this not concern you?"

"I would hardly call what we do at Fission for seed labor," I say. "In fact, I do not believe there has been any labor expended in this room since your entering it with me a short time ago, Tora. Do you call what we've been doing a chore when you appear to do it so greedily? I'll recall our affair a time of lying and feasting on sunlight or some other beautiful way of saying all that we have exchanged was gracious and filling for the both of us."

Tora excuses herself, promising to return later that afternoon to continue her review.

I climb off my little bed and slip back into my things just as quickly as they came off.

"Was she making unwanted advances on you before I came in just now?" Josie asks. "I could throw her out if it would make you more comfortable, Sis."

"No," I say. "No need to make a fuss that might lead to her doing something rash in retaliation. I think she fancies me is all. What harm is there in having another posy show me the ropes in finding pleasure alone until the day comes I can have a real lover?"

"You know I would be happy to teach you whatever you want to know about such things. You have four cockerelles who've lived lives as posies until just recently living under the same roof. I'm sure we would all feel the same way about answering the requests of your curiosity."

"My closest kin all have their sights set on places far away from me," I respond. "How could I depend on them for guidance when they are all bent on abandoning the estate our grandmother won through her struggles to become the head of a house?"

Josie steps close and places a hand on my forehead to see if I'm running a temperature.

"It is the ways of all cockerelles to abandon the nest they construct around their mate after the young have grown. It is an exception for one to stay and create the traditions required for a legacy. That you aspire to make our name such a rarity in our society does harmonize with my own hopeless ambitions to turn this house into something great. Becka will be the last bird to fly away. Won't you be swept away someday soon as well by the call of motherhood?"

I shrug my shoulders.

"Not if I were given reason enough to stay here and plant our next generation in this home. Then mother would choose to keep the place for my sake, I think. Perhaps if my sisters were willing to start their families on the estate too, we could all be together to raise our children. Wouldn't that be the way to grow our dynasty?"

"If you are brave enough to plant your own roots firmly here, I might be swayed to consider doing the same," she answers. "But it would require the promise and presence of the rest of our little clan to keep up the maintenance of this house. The inheritance Grandmother Tamera left to keep us going won't last as long as it would take you and I to raise our families here, unless of course you were to catch a mate with the same savvy for business that your sire has."

"More of that 'my sire' talk as if Tamera is not the second source of love that brought you into this world. But I do like the challenge you present. You know how I like to think of myself. I feared my bath yesterday was the last triumph of individuality that my spirit would demand of my lifestyle."

"Does your desire to protect your frail anonymity come out of some game you are determined to play to the bitter ends in you r twisted imaginings, or do you wish to keep us all around for some higher purpose you believe hides beyond the horizon?"