Cockerelles & Posies

Not that I couldn't gain the same effect from delivering my seed to a posy. Yes, they do have charms for cockerelles which provide such effects to the wearer. But there is something about the hunt for attention I like. Something in me yearns to gather seed for my garden rather than spreading it.

How it rides back and forth on my tongue fascinates me. I work it around side to side as Ms. Pendry gets her steam on. She makes a sound of delight when my hand caresses her leg.

Certainly, the jewelry box side of intercourse with its prettying of myself the way I like is something I could learn to enjoy. Maybe from being raised among so many posies and so few of my own kind, I am able to so easily let go of that build-a-taller-skyscraper mentality that prep school tried to drive into my consciousness. I just want to enjoy being a pretty posy. I could make a statement about the kind of person I really am inside. I'm not just a cockerelle. I see value in the things of the flower, things that are being kept from me by societies strict rules.

Ms. Pendry's eyes meet mine and her expression brightens when she sees how happy I am.

It is simple really. All a posy has to do is put it in her mouth and drink it and she can change. In my mind the act of getting the seed out is not so much a chore in that light as it is a sprint into freedom.

I hear much joy in the exchange from Ms. Pendry as she lets me take her first of the morning stiffness deeper into my throat. I caress the base of her branch with my lips and tongue to help draw out that reward which will prove beneficial to the both of us. My mouth waters instinctively at the thought of it flowing down into my tummy for the profit of a good lusty feeling the rest of the day.

#7

Neea is neither amused nor disgusted. I think it must seem to her like walking in on one's parents making love in the cloistered mind of a child. Her face shows confusion, certainly, but not in a way that says she finds my situation calamitous as I was brought up to believe by all the messages whispered to me through society.

Neea's eyes open wide with mine as I take more of Ms. Pendry's shaft in my mouth; thankfully the cockerelle's reflex to gag is numbed by thoughts of sexual indulgence in our species.

Ms. Pendry's hands latch to my crown, steadying the transfer of energy from her hips. But I think this is nonsense. I am the one in the position of least difficulty, and I am the one who is to benefit the most from the exchange. So, I take up the work as my part of the bargain using my own muscle and enthusiasm to show my respect for the other's station above mine in terms of experience.

When Glory's first batch of the morning comes rushing into my mouth, I find it to be a pleasant kind of go-gurt experience. One in which you squeeze the creaminess out in a big gush if it pleases you to have it that way. Her seed fills my cheeks so quickly, I find it best to pause my breathing to allow its speedy passage into my stomach. There it can do its magic, as that is how I believe the high sciences work in my limited understanding of the universe. Better than letting it make a mess all over my fine skirt and her tailored suit. Wouldn't that be a shameful morning for us all?

There's a series of two or three jabs in my mouth as Ms. Pendry is pleased to finish the contract under her own steam and with her own sense of satisfied vigor. I imagine it makes it appear to poor Neea that I am being handled in a cruel way.

At the end of my pleasant polishing demonstration Ms. Pendry is cupping the back of my head with both hands so that my lips land softly around the base of her tall timber. The surge of fluid is aimed like a firehose blasting at the core of the flame which tries to incinerate me from within.

"Such enthusiasm," says Ms. Pendry. "I can say I've never met a posy so committed to her cause on the first day. And with such a lovely attitude. I hope we meet again, though it won't be till much later in the day."

"Why so?" I ask, extracting the last bit of seed from her tip with my tongue.

"That is why," she says, taking out a wipe to finish the job for me. "Your eagerness is direct from your heart to my hickory. It plays a game with we cockerelle when a posy identifies with our root in such a way."

"And what sort of way is that?" I ask.

"We were talking before about whiskey and coffee and even medicine. This tartness gives my imagination something to toy with as I make my exchange with a new girl. I think it will be unpleasant for her. I will take what I need and leave. But this coolness of mine turns into joy in my fantasy and helps close my part of the transaction. Like teasing a younger posy might give you a laugh, for example.

"But your young enthusiasm has me quite confused, and I like that feeling even better. That you wanted the act itself so desperately as though we were trying to plant a seedling between your lips. What can possibly compare to the pleasure we find in bringing new life into the world? That was the fantasy you gave me. It was quite wonderful."

"It's a pure kind of passion I have. Is that what you're saying?" I ask as I make certain to clean things up between us. I don't want strands of seed all over her nice pants or on my preppy top. Besides, it wouldn't look good for me, a cockerelle, to have a line of moisture stretched across my shirt, making me look like a confused girl in front of all the new kids later. The thought of this shame delights me.

"Don't judge me if I keep you my little secret, is all," she says. "I won't be spreading word of you around if that makes sense. I doubt my neglect will hinder you though, as I'm sure your demeanor will draw cockerelles to you like ants to their love of industry."

Neea slips away during the conversation between myself and Ms. Pendry. I don't get a chance to talk to her again, though I am under the impression that she was getting her courage up watching us. There isn't the slightest fear within me that she might go and tell on me for breaking societies rules. Then again, this too might be the cause of some of the butterflies I feel in my belly as I consider it.

"You found me unique?" I ask.

"Yes," she agrees, "And I was a person who came to believe there wasn't an original thought in the world to be considered until just now. Your attitude has enhanced my own sense of purpose in life. There isn't a charm made for that sort of thing.

"My only fear is that like most posies it will turn into a drudgery for you. Even if you do go around wearing that neckband all the time, it would be disastrous for us all if that commitment you feel to your lot in life were taken from the world."

Her encouragement has given me wings.

"I will cherish and protect it then," I say. "I will nurture it into a cornucopia that all might share it with you."

Ms. Pendry shines with such glee as she makes her exit, giving me her calling card should I ever want to see her again.

A posy needs time to pursue her other interests in life, I think to myself. I imagine a road out ahead sharing my uniqueness with the world.

Still, I put her card in my purse as a token to remind me of the sea change I have witnessed in myself today.

#8

My imagination goes from examining the details of changes both physical and mental I would like to try if my fantasy to become a posy were to happen, to considering the likelihood of a true metamorphosis. Could it even be possible? Luckily, I know the real Becka Sharp, a girl whose mind is quite agile when it comes to the science of things.

"What's wrong with Margot?" is the question that pops out of my sister's lips as we make our way home at the end of the day.

"Why aren't you talking about your day, dear?" Olive asks me, throwing a bit of her red fluff over the seat back when she looks at me in the rear-view mirror. "Did you find a professor?"

Mother's aren't pressing questions. The two aren't trying to get to the bottom of anything. But in my mind, I have this secret that is naughty, and I think it best to keep the truth to myself.

"I went all over the place listening to professors talk about what they were interested in and where their research was focused, or how they engineered this building or that bridge. I didn't really find any kind of standout thing, though I am slightly interested in design."

"Fashion?" Becka asks mocking the confused rambling in my reply.

"Yes, something like that," I say. "Probably go in to see some of the clothing designers. Or maybe I could use fabric to create a better decor for our home. I might want to change the drapes in my room, Mother."

Olive gives a snort, and I don't see what's funny.

Becka hisses a tee he.

"What?" I ask.

"Nothing," says Mother with a tinge of apology in her word. "You just reminded me of this woman I know when you said, 'changing drapes.' She was such a silly posy. I loved hearing her go on and on about color and contrast, and a fabric's stretch over a window if you pinned it up just right."

"Me too," says Becka who shows a bit of snark on the end of her smile. "You should really think about going down the designer road. Could lead you to some pretty interesting combinations. Maddie is all about design. You do take after her. She's all about putting flowers and crowns and such things in her hair and on the kitchen settings and on the bathroom sinks and tubs."

"Yes, Maddie does enjoy her flowers," says a cheery mom. "She knows the rightest sets of color combinations, how she works diligently in that art shop on Main showing off her talented eye. She's got the touch of an artist in her perception. You too with all that effort you put into your hair and dressing. Perhaps you could become a fashion personality."

The rest of the ride home is strangely quiet. I'm in my head thinking about my day of wily tricks. My tummy is so full, and my mind is thinking how wonderful it would be to get another mouthful of seed to make my desire go even higher.

Then I'm in Becka's room and she's pulling my collar off. Moments later I'm back in my right mind.

"You put on a root scoop, sis," she says, waving the green charm my friend Ms. Pendry gave me that morning in my face.

The door to her room is closed. The house is quiet. It's as though she's just woke me up. I'm surrounded by the scientific world of my sister's passion in all the décor and practical accoutrements of her room. One might even call it a laboratory away from the laboratory if she were a professional.

Becka's demeanor is that of a detective solving a crime at first.

"What?" I ask.

"It's called a root scoop, you dummy. It makes sucking a root a lot easier for a newbie at Fission. The second and third time around at least. Why were you wearing one?"

"I don't know," I say, but the moment has indeed changed. I cannot deny that I was under its influence. I am more awake. I am more aware. Becka and I are alone. I'm pleased there is no hangover from the collar. It's more like you were feeling all full of fun and wanting more, and then suddenly, click, you're back in your first-hour-of-the-morning mindset wondering what you're going to do the rest of the day.

Now Becka's more like that scientist she truly is at heart trying to unravel some mystery hidden in the webs of dark matter and energy in my brain.

"Posies put these on to them help get through the nervousness in their gut their first day at Fission. Why would you want to put something like this on your neck? You're a cockerelle."

That last word resonates in my head more loudly than ever.

"I wasn't coerced if that's your angle," I say.

I touch my throat in amazement at the effects the charm delivered and then took away with such rapidity when it was removed.

Becka slaps me ever so softly on my cheeks.

"Do you want to be a posy?"

I draw back at first. I wait for the steering committee to start shouting in my head that I'm all against it, I have my career to think of, and I need to train so I can be a runner on track team and compete in events. But I don't hear that at all. I hear instead that I may be unique in that I crave the attention that occurs during the exchange of seed between a posy and a cockerelle. Of course, in my case I crave it on the opposite side of the exchange I was born to be on, the other side of the fence. It beckons me 'climb over,' as though I know already the exact nature of a reward I see approaching in the distance. My anticipation is like that which I expressed to Neea concerning my mother Olive. I wish for it in my deepest places though I have never had a taste of its expression.

I see Becka's eyes, and she looks so much like Ms. Pendry did that morning. And for a moment Becka isn't my sister. She's Ms. Pendry offering me an opportunity to open up about my real feelings on the matter.

"Maybe," I whisper.

"Grandmother Tamera," she says, and I don't understand her meaning until she gives me the look.

Grandmother Tamera Song is the lovely lady who planted her seed in my mother's garden to give Mother Olive Sharp a family of tall, smart ladies. She sired me and gave me her last name as I was born a cockerelle. At the midpoint of my second decade of life she went away as planters often do. It wasn't a sad goodbye, as there was a new adventure for Tamera across the sea with those wily Brits, or whatever they are over there. I'm assured I'll see her again and soon along the cycles of meetings which turn eternal in our universe.

What is important is the way Becka says grandmother's name with the look. Grandmother Song was born a posy. And through a great effort at Fission found a way to change herself into a cockerelle. Then she moved up in the business world, got her things together, and started our family with Mother Olive. They parted ways so they could each have the space they needed to explore other possibilities in the world of Heartseed. It is a common practice for cockerelles once their brood has come of age.

I will always remember grandmother being a very kind and lovely lady with the tautest cockerelle body ever seen. We were close, and I really wished to stay with her always, but nature must take its course.

"You realize what Josie went through, don't you?" says Becka unfurling her long black hair from the complex braid she put it in that morning. "Josie wore one of these things around her neck too if you recall for three years at Fission. It's what got her acting so crazy all those years ago before you had even entered prep school. My tween years were spent trying to convince her to abandon the idea. At my age then I could see she had simply become addicted to it. She'd become engrossed by the very methods she hoped would deliver her ambition."

Now that she mentions it, I do see a picture of Josie wearing one on her first day at Fission and most of the days thereafter. I also recall a little Becka shaking a finger at her senior more than once, trying to convince oldest sis that her method was folly.

"That's what you two were arguing about? You always have had a knack for spotting a paradox out of balance. Well, I must have slipped it on accidentally," says me, as the gears in my head start grinding. I'm not certain whether or not my argument is for or against the current topic. "It's just that I had an experience this morning, and it was pretty cool."

Becka senses I've gone past the tipping point, and it turns her heart sympathetic right to the core, I can tell.

"Really?" A bit of a smile forms on one side of her mouth. "If you want to be a posy, I can show you how to do it."

This statement is miraculous to me because no one has ever said such a thing like it to me before. I'm thrilled and a little nervous anticipating what it is she's going to describe to me. My imagination has, in the past, presented pictures of doctors chopping off flesh and sewing this on here and there and back again. It was messy and terrible and not too fun to think about at all.

"I never really asked the question before," I say.

"Because no one ever does, you goof ball," she assures me with what becomes a sharp turn toward scientific curiosity. "What cockerelle would want to give up their inherent station in society? The arm twisting comes from the other direction, naturally. Why someone would let that power go is beyond me."

"I think it is far more queer that I live in a society where posies do not recognize their own power from within and use it shape the world the way they would like to see it."

"You see it as a power struggle then?" she exclaims with all the fascination of a person discovering a paradox they were unaware of before.

"Mother does argue her points," I say. "We've heard them many a time."

"I have to agree with you there," she says, fetching a computer tablet to take notes. "I would like to observe your condition if that is alright with you. Nothing intrusive if you don't like it. But I do hear the science of psychology beckoning me in the sounds of these ideas you've gotten in your head."

Becka takes her seat on a rolling chair to ask me her next question.

"What lengths are you willing to go to? How far do you want to try and take this?"

I am enticed by her willingness to discuss this thing openly with me. She does have the advantage of pursuing studies quite vigorously in her pass time. Since I've known her she has always been serious about discovering the science behind things.

"To the end. And perhaps there I can prove to you that a person needn't be a posy or a cockerelle to achieve her dreams."

This pronouncement excites her quite spectacularly. She claps her hands together beneath her chin.

"Well, if anyone deserves to become a cockerelle it's Josie. She put in all those years of hard work not accepting she wasn't getting anywhere. Mother recognized the futility of stopping her rebellion considering Josie's age at the time, and it didn't help that Grandmother Tamera found it all so funny. You know how people can be with their secrets and paranoia. Josie's hormones all aflutter at that tender age of transition into adulthood. I can see why planters might leave for a cycle or two considering the age of maturity one has as a parent in our sire's case around that critical stage in Josie's development."

"I don't understand," I say looking around as if someone might be listening in on us.

"They're gone, Margot," she says helping me up from my seat. "They went out for wine tasting. They should be back later."

"They'll be tipsy when they get home," I reply.

Becka looks me squarely in the eyes. She's oh so serious.

"Margot, if you want to be a posy, I can help you. And you could help Josie become a cockerelle like she's always dreamed of becoming."

"Just tell me what to do," I say with all the sincerity I can express with such short notice.