Every Man's Fantasy Ch. 28

Sorry for the long delay. It was due to work and life problems. Now that my work problems are postponed thanks to the virus panic, I have managed to finish chapter 28 of Every Man's Fantasy: Treading water. I hope you enjoy it.

I won't predict when chapters 29 and 30 will come out, but I'm working on them, and on another short story, which I hope to finish in time for the Geek Pride event (but no promises).

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Chapter 28, Treading water

1 Winter on Celetaris

Winter in the northern hemisphere of Celetaris came in wet and cold. It lasted three months. The middle month was the bitterest, when snow fell almost daily and the wind blew, massing large drifts against the roadside hedges, while ice-crystal fingers glistened on every branch and windowsill.

The crisp snow delighted those visitors from Samothea who had never before left the hot tropical plain of their birth to hike in the White Mountains, as had Wildchild and Yael. It especially delighted Freya and Tahnee, who screamed for joy as they chased Edgar Fanshaw's mad dog, Charlie, around the park. Barking wildly, Charlie leaped into the snowdrifts and shook out his shaggy fur over the girls.

Sometimes a thick fog blew in from the Central Ocean and hung damply over the parks, suburbs and Science Institute. Then Arts City took on a mellow humour, as the yellow lights of the street-lamps cast soft purple shadows into doorways: an image of warmth that belied the freezing weather.

Sometimes the valiant sun broke through the gloom after a sharp mid-day wind brushed away the hanging threads of cloud. The fields and houses glistened with a happy portend of the nascent spring, when a thaw would wash the first green buds clean of their milky blanket.

Mostly, however, a mist clung to the city for days on end, its cold fingers penetrating every crevice, dampening the moods of those who trudged through the dark morning streets to their jobs.

There had been dank mist over the city for a week now, yet Yael Eloisesdaughter Woodlander, the vibrantly happy visitor from Samothea, a slender blonde girl made for sunshine and joy, had grown to love winter on Celetaris. No bad weather kept her from an early morning run in Fanshaw Park, even when her friends were away or too busy to join her. Every day she sprinted across the sports fields, through the half-light and icy fog.

One morning, when it was still dark and a frost sealed the windows shut, Yael leapt out of bed in her attic room of Student House on the eastern edge of the park. She quickly dressed in a short skirt and thin top (characteristically inappropriate attire for the climate), hopped down the stairs three at a time and stepped into the shoe jellies by the front door.

The shoes were a gift from Doctor Danielle Goldrick. Unlike the thin leather sandals that Yael brought from home, which she wore only when she could not go barefooted, the shoe jellies took on the shape and colour of a dozen different styles of footwear. With kicks to the heels, they moulded themselves to Yael's feet as comfortable white trainers with stylish pink flashes.

She checked the door was shut and jogged out of the yard along the cold dark misty street. Having taken to heart Danielle's lecture about the dangers of moving vehicles, Yael looked both ways before carefully crossing the silent road. She took off along the grass verge, making for the entrance gate to the park.

It was here that she, Hazel and Wildchild usually met Danielle and Cassie Leighton so they could run together. Annela also used to run, before she became too vastly pregnant to keep up.

Yael jogged on the spot for a minute in the hope that Danielle or Cassie might join her, but neither woman appeared. She turned toward the park and set off in earnest.

Blood pumping, feet crunching on the frosty ground, no time to feel cold, Yael leapt the gate and sprinted across the sports fields toward the dark wood, grey in misty shadow against a starless sky.

Fog clung to her thin legs and arms as she ran and became ice crystals in her hair. Her breath came out as steam. She leaned forward and ran faster, arms pumping, legs stretching.

It was warmer in the woods, shielded from the cold mist. Yael dodged between the trees, heading for the lake, did a half-circuit, and turned out of the woods for a downhill sprint to the Science Park, aiming for its two towers, bright silver streaks in the grey twilight. Skirting the children's play area, she took in the hill of the landscape garden, putting effort into its steeply twisting path. Not lingering for the view of the ocean (a sea of fog indistinguishable from the misty park) she turned her back on the towers and took the long straight valley past the medical centre toward Arts City.

Yael ran for an hour before it was time to jog home and start the day. She turned north, but seeing the lights of the residential area where Danielle and Roger lived, where Ezra and his bedmates shared an apartment, she had an idea.

Yael was an affectionate girl, like all the women of Samothea, only more so. If she did not hug and kiss her friends many times a day, she would mope and become a nuisance. She needed the company of someone who understood that the only thing missing from her life at the moment was someone to talk to about the things missing from her life. She knew where to seek that someone.

She jogged east along one of the main thoroughfares into suburban Arts City, where tall houses and shops lined the silent bitter streets.

Two blocks into the sleeping suburb was a terrace of four-storey grey-brick town houses, with basements, white sash windows and steps up to their front doors. The handsome double-fronted houses surrounded a small wooded garden with green iron railings. Built in imitation of a posh London square, most of the houses were given over to student accommodation.

Yael leapt up the steps to a blue front door and rapped at the knocker. She jogged on the spot to stay warm while she waited for an answer.

No one came to the door.

She jogged down the steps to look up to see if any lights were on. The house was silent and dark.

Yael leapt up the stairs again and rapped on the knocker. This time she put her mouth to the letter box, pushed open the flap and shouted:

"Hey! Open up! It's cold out here!"

She peered through the letter box in the hope of seeing some movement, but there was none.

Yael rapped once more. There was a noise from upstairs. It was a thump, as if someone had been rudely awakened from blissful sleep, reached for his watch and fallen out of bed.

She pushed her ear to the door and heard footsteps down the stairs and along the hallway. The door opened and there was Wildchild's boyfriend, Rod, half-awake, bleary-eyed and naked except for his boxers.

Yael rushed into the house like a whirlwind and leapt on him, hugging him as tightly as she could.

"Yael! You're freezing."

"You're warm."

"I was. ... 'Homebot'," Rod said, addressing the house computer, "give us some heat."

Ceramic heating tracks in the floor and walls began to radiate, almost instantly bringing the house to a comfortable temperature.

"It's kind of you to rescue me from a comfortable bed and a beautiful dream ..."

"Were you dreaming of Wildchild?"

"I always do."

"I thought so."

"... but it's barely seven o'clock, so tell me how I can help and let me go back to bed."

"Back to bed? The morning's half-gone. You should be up and doing."

"Did you come all this way to complain about my indolence?"

"No, I'm lonely."

"You can't possibly be lonely. You're the friendliest girl in the galaxy. You've been on Celetaris only a few months ..."

"Nearly ten months. It was spring when I arrived."

".. and you've made a hundred friends."

"But all my closest friends are away. Ryan has gone to a camp to study with his classmates. Wildchild and Hazel are with Tatiana on a prospecting mission for Viktor Bogdanov. Ezra's exhausted from trying to get Kalyndra and Ash pregnant. He's also looking after Ciashara, his new daughter with Solanj. He's keeping Annela happy in her last few weeks of pregnancy, and he's pursuing secret business schemes he won't tell me about, even when I sit on his lap and ask nicely.

"Annela's also spending time at the school, doing a hand-over to a new part-time teacher.

"Danielle, Rosa and Herman are preparing for the spring semester at the Institute, when there'll be a big new intake of students. Kelly's studying with her friends for her mock exams. Joan and Peter (they're Ryan and Kelly's mum and dad) are busy with work. So are Cassie and Paul. I guess that's why Cassie hasn't been running in the park for days."

"What about Roger?"

"He's gone to New Exeter for a meeting with Mayor Esther Grandley. They're hatching a plan to get Samothea admitted to the Anglosphere as a member of the Outworld League, like Celetaris, but there are problems because we have polygamy on Samothea, but also because Earth wants to send all its wastrels and ne'er-do-wells to the Outworld planets. The Outworld planets want only the best immigrants, so there's going to be a big argument. That's what I heard anyway."

"What about Freya and Tahnee?"

"Roger calls them the little pests, but they're not really pests. It's Danielle's fault. The girls always nag her to give them chores, but most things are self-cleaning, so she teases Roger by saying: 'Ask your uncle Roger, he'll find something for you to do.' So they go and pester him instead.

"Poor old Roger got his own back. When he went away, he left Freya and Tahnee a present. It's a robot snake that slithers along, flicking out its tongue and rattling its tail. They chase it around the apartment and when they catch its tail, it rears up and hisses at them. They scream and let go, so it slithers away and they repeat the whole adventure. It's driving Danielle potty, so another reason she's staying in her office is to upgrade her computer.

"I offered to help her but I don't know enough about programming yet and Danielle needs to concentrate, so I'd just be in the way."

Rod smiled to himself, thinking how convenient Danielle's 'upgrade' was.

"Anyone else you miss?" he asked.

"All my sisters on Samothea, my two mums and my bedmate, Carlin. She's the sweetest, gentlest, kindest, most beautiful girl in the whole galaxy, and I long for her so, so much!"

"It's a sad predicament. How can I help?"

"You miss Wildchild as much as me. If we talk about her, it will make us both feel better."

"That's true. ... How about breakfast?"

"Oh, yes, please!"

"Give me ten minutes to shower, shave and dress, then I'll take you to a café and we'll talk about our friends."

Yael smiled to herself. She liked Rod for his charm and good looks, but she knew he would take as long in the bathroom as a woman.

She left her shoe jellies in the hall and looked around the house that Hazel's boyfriend, Ed, and two other blokes shared with Rod. She marvelled at the mess that unsupervised men could make.

The kitchen was the victim of a hurricane, with used plates, cutlery, glasses, pots and pans everywhere. Yael filled the sink with water, found the detergent and gloves, and set about doing the washing up. All the girls from Samothea loved chores.

For the first time in years, Yael sang a Herder work-song as she scrubbed.

"Lass lasso

Lass lasso.

"Mount the horse

Drive the herd

Munch the grass

Chew the cud.

"Lass lasso

Lass lasso.

"Fetch the pail

Pull the teats

Churn the milk

Salt the cheese.

"Lass lasso

Lass lasso.

"Mind the lambs

Watch the eagles

Shear the sheep

Spin the wool.

"Lass lasso

Lass lasso."

Yael added a verse from her own life:

"Hunt the doves

Smoke the meat

Weave the basket

Girl the pumps!

"Lass lasso

Lass lasso."

As she worked, Yael splashed foam over the surfaces and onto the floor.

With flashing lights and tinny beeps, a robot cleaner emerged from under one of the cupboards. Six inches high and about two feet in diameter, the cleaner wiped up the splashes around Yael's bare feet, brushing against her legs.

"Hey!" Yael protested. "Go away until I'm finished."

The machine retreated a few inches and waited, flashing and beeping. But when Yael dripped more suds on the floor, it was soon back, nudging her out of the way so it could vacuum up the spills.

She finished and was rearranging the furniture in the living room when Rod appeared in the doorway, clean-shaven, dressed, brushed hair, smelling of soap. He looked into the kitchen.

"Why thank you, Yael. That's a good job, though I was going to do it myself later."

She smiled her disbelief.

"Here, put these on," he said.

He held out a pair of trousers and a woollen jumper.

"They're your clothes," she said.

"They're to keep you warm on the way to the café."

Yael loosened her short white skirt and lowered it to the floor with a wiggle. She bent over double to pick it up, showing Rod her pert little buttocks over long thin legs with shapely thighs and calf muscles.

"I could wait outside while you dress," Rod chivalrously offered.

"Why should you? You Celetarans are such prudes."

"At least you're wearing knickers,"

"Only because it's my period."

She wriggled easily into his jeans. They looked good on her, especially when she wrapped his belt twice around her slender waist and pulled it tight; but they were too long. They went four inches over her toes, which she showed by wiggling a foot.

Rod grabbed her by the waist, lifted her up and plonked her on the coffee table.

"Eek!" she exclaimed.

"'Eek' Did you really say 'Eek'?"

"I didn't 'say' eek. It's not a word. It's an ejaculation caused by surprise or shock."

"Ejaculation? That sounds fun." He tapped her on the knee. "Lift your hind leg."

Pouting in disapproval of his smuttiness, she lifted her leg so he could fold the end of the trouser leg up past her ankle. He fastened it with a staple.

"Next one," he said.

Yael balanced perfectly on her other leg and lifted her knee. He sorted her trousers out and lifted her down from the coffee table by her waist.

"Eek!" she said, though she was neither shocked nor surprised.

The jumper he lent her was thick, warm and shapeless. It went down below her cute bottom like a short dress.

"Come on, let's feed you," he said opening the front door onto a wet and cold street. The drizzle that followed Yael on her run through the park had evolved into persistent rain, making the pavement shine under the street lamps.

There were levitating ground cars out now, taking passengers in the warm and dry to their jobs. Water dripped in streams from the roofs of their passenger pods. Some delivery vehicles were out as well, running on the road-surface for the convenience of their stop-start routes. A milkman with a wide-brimmed hat to deflect the rain carried baskets of groceries to dark front doors.

Rod picked up an umbrella and held it for Yael, who kicked her shoe jellies into neat little ankle boots with two-inch heels before joining him on the pavement. He offered her his arm to escort her in the proper gentlemanly fashion, taking the roadside position to protect her from the splash of the passing vehicles.

"Are Ed and the other blokes still in bed?" Yael asked.

"They're all away at the moment."

"You mean you're responsible for all that mess in the kitchen yourself?"

"I'm afraid so," he said, amused by the motherly disappointment in her voice.

"Where's Ed?"

"His parents are visiting from Earth. He's showing them around the planet."

It was two blocks to the café, whose bay windows and striped awning offered light and warmth. There were a few breakfasters at their tables, with steaming mugs of tea, reading newspapers or tucking into big plates of food.

A big buttery woman, who loved food and customers, smiled at them from behind the counter. She had on a blue check dress with a white apron and a white waitress cap on her thick yellow hair.

"Good morning, Mrs Hubbard," Rod said.

"Morning, lad. Morning, miss. What can I make you?"

The list of breakfast foods on the wall behind her was a long and detailed one. Yael was nonplussed.

"Why don't you have the full English breakfast?" Rod suggested.

"What's in it?" Yael asked.

"Everything," Mrs Hubbard said, leaning her meaty forearms on the counter. "Fried, poached or scrambled eggs, bacon, baked beans, fried bread, mushrooms, black pudding and as many sausages as you can eat."

"What kind of sausages?"

"Pork, beef, lamb, vegetarian ..."

Yael made sour face at the sound of vegetarian sausages, which Mrs Hubbard noticed.

"Yael's a carnivore." Rod explained.

"... and venison," Mrs Hubbard finished.

"What's venison?" Yael asked.

"It comes from deer," Mrs Hubbard said.

"Deer? The shy animals that hide in the woods beyond the lake? They're beautiful!"

"Maybe not the venison sausages, either," Rod suggested.

"Oh, no! I want venison sausages," Yael insisted. "I want to know what deer taste like."

Mrs Hubbard smiled, pleased to feed someone without the popular food fads of her age and sex.

With Rod's scrambled eggs on toast and two mugs of tea on their way, they found seats and got comfortable.

"At home, I've eaten beef, lamb, chicken, pigeon, fish, pheasant, duck and even swan," Yael said. "At Danielle's, I've eaten lots of different meats, including pork, but I can't remember eating deer."

"Strictly speaking, you may have eaten beef, lamb and pork at Danielle's but you've never eaten cow, sheep or pig there."

Yael tilted her head on one side and frowned to think through Rod's peculiar statement. She loved puzzles and was keen to solve this one.

"You mean I've eaten beef that didn't come from a cow and pork that didn't come from a pig?"

"Exactly."

"How's that possible?"

"Because most of the meat we eat on Celetaris is synthesised. It's grown in vats or produced by organic versions of those industrial holoprinters we use to make most of our consumer goods."

"Please explain. Does synthetic meat taste better? Is it healthier or cheaper? Is it kinder to animals?"

"Synthetic meat is pretty indistinguishable from natural meat. It can be healthier, depending on how it's made (and what the latest fads say about how much fat, salt and red meat you should have in your diet). It's cheaper because the organic holoprinters need to make only muscle protein, not the bones, brains, skin, vessels and entrails that cows are made of."

"How does a holoprinter make beef?"

"Do you know how a cow works?"

"No. And that's a funny way of putting it. Cows grow."

"Quite right, but that's how economists think: how does this or that factor of production work to produce this or that consumer good?"

"So how does a cow work?"

"It eats grass, which is mostly cellulose; but cows themselves can't digest cellulose. Instead, bacteria in the cow's four stomachs break the cellulose down into starches and sugars, which the bacteria eat. Then the cow eats the bacteria to make its muscles and to produce milk."

"Aren't the bacteria part of the cow, like its tissues and organs?"

"You can think of it that way, in which case a cow is mostly bacteria because there are many more bacterial cells than other cells in a cow. Or you can think of the cow as the host and the bacteria as paying guests who benefit the host. Both points of view work."

"I see. Does an organic holoprinter use bacteria to turn cellulose into meat or milk?"

"Not exactly. It uses nanobots that mimic the performance of the bacteria. They produce meat and milk as by-products."

"Now I understand why making synthetic meat is kinder to animals."

"It's kinder to animals on Celetaris, but it wasn't always kinder to animals on Earth. When synthetic meat first became profitable, there was a large-scale slaughter of farm animals that were no longer economically viable."