Journey of Rick Heiden Ch. 11

"Svend has been a tailor in that shop for a couple of hundred jears; he has a passion for and loves what he does so much, the only payment he needs is a friendly face, a kind word, enthusiasm about his work from the people who shop there, and a thank you. When the shop closes for the day, he goes home to his mate, and they enjoy their time together in a life well-lived. It's the same for all the other people who do what they do on Jiyū. Do you understand?"

Honestly, I had a tough time with it. I readily agreed with Socialism on many things, like healthcare, but the experience with the tailor went beyond Socialism. I couldn't even call it Communism; they had no state to control the means of production. The indoctrination we received to think and feel about the monetary value of virtually everything provided a lifelong immersive paradigm so pervasive that to reason otherwise felt like grinding gears. It would have to take time, but it worked on Jiyū, and it sounded like a beautiful idea.

The cobbler scanned our feet and legs from the knees down so we could have shoes made for us. In the meantime, however, we acquired pre-made shoes--including gym shoes--to get some exercise.

We dropped by a local training center. It resembled many gyms on Earth and had more equipment than I figured we would ever use. A diner that David used on occasion sat right next door for an after work out meal. We went in and started a routine that evening and put our names down for some gym time a few hours before the last meal of the day. David assured us that the foundational enhancement had primed our bodies to pack on some muscle. We just needed the tension of the weights to make that happen, and I knew I needed the exercise.

We sat on the grand balcony after eating last meal, just before sundown. We had an eventful day, and I felt good. I saw signs the new enhancements began working as I had begun losing body hair profusely in various locations. I looked forward to having the connection with Iris and whatever else the next day might bring, but when Aiden excused himself to shower for beddo, I thought David and I would have a chat. "Tell me about the Trust."

"Okay," he said, "it's a bit paramilitary. It has no real power structure, apart from Amaré, who isn't the leader, but he is considered Prime. That's why he carries the gold sword. It's his function to declare a student ready for full membership and perform the ceremony honoring them with the responsibility of the Trust. Dmitry used to interpret for him, but I guess that's unnecessary now."

"How does it function if there's no hierarchy?"

"That comes down to the actual purpose of the Trust. The Trust exists as a defensive last resort. If all else fails, we have the Trust to kill invaders. I know that sounds harsh, but there comes the point where someone may give you no other viable option. You kill them, or they will kill you. The members receive training for that purpose. We have an armory of energy weapons, and we practice with them for proficiency. We also know hand-to-hand combat, and the use of the sword. The Trust has four kinds of swords. The inductee has a sword of weighted wood, dulled, and blunted. Once they demonstrate to the satisfaction of a full member some suitability, they move to the next level, and that's where I am."

"I remember you said at Facility3 that you wished to join the Trust."

"Yes, it's also why I spent ten years on Earth," he said. "We perform service to the community. I had many things I could have done, but I chose that when Odette, who had the London post, ended her ten-year stint about the same time."

"So, you have a sword. May I see it?"

We entered the house and descended the stairs to the living room where a case lay on the mantle of the white marble fireplace. He brought it down, placing it on the sofa table.

"I couldn't take it with me to London," he said, "so I put it here to protect it."

I could tell this meant a great deal to him. He treated it with a kind of reverence, and why not? People earn trust, and on Jiyū, having that trust, honored them with the responsibility of protecting the community.

The three-foot-long box of dark wood had carefully inlaid gold filigree. When he opened it, a sword lay before me resembling the others I had seen, but in niobium blue like the pistol David carried. The blade looked razor-sharp. The pommel contained the insert left empty on the front, with his name and the motto Scientia nos Defendit on the back.

"It's beautiful. When will the ceremony take place?" I asked.

"The morning before we leave, I expect." He placed the sword back into the box.

"Will you wear your sword on your back too?" I asked.

"I will," he said, holding me to him, "but not on every occasion."

"Well, I should think not," I said.

In Aiden's absence, and a brazen disregard for whether he would walk in on us. David kissed me and laid me down on the couch. We kissed me for several minutes.

"Fuck me right here," I said.

He smiled. "Alright." He unbuckled my pants and pulled them down to my knees. He did the same to his. He picked up my legs and leaned over to rub his cock on my hole. His enhanced cock started making a lot of precum (something it wouldn't do before), and he squeezed out enough to lube me up. He pushed his cock into me, and after a couple of tries, he held his cock balls-deep in my ass. Shoving my knees up to my chest, he rammed my hole. That position allowed him to have maximum thrusting power and he fucked me as hard as he could.

I asked him, "Do you enjoy servicing me?"

"I am your mate. I live to service you, whenever, wherever." He focused his attention on me the whole time he fucked me, watching for any sign I needed him to stop, but I never gave him that sign. I knew he had the strength to continue fucking me into the night, and I would never have asked him to stop. I didn't want his cock taken from my ass, if he could leave it there forever, it would have pleased me.

The sensations he caused, made me quiver and he had me close to cumming all over myself. When the spray began, I came all over my face and my chest. He laughed when it happened, but he didn't stop.

When my orgasm stopped, I laughed using my fingers to get the cum out of my eyes, but his thrusting never stopped pleasing me.

"Let's see you do that again," he said in amusement, fucking me faster.

I began scooping the cum off my face and putting it into my mouth. There must have been a big blob of it on my cheek that he found too tempting because David tipped my legs to the side and leaned over to lick it off my face.

He fucked me for another fifteen minutes, the big head of his cock stroked my prostate enough to trigger another orgasm. When I felt ready to cum again, I told David. He rammed me a few more times, and we both came. I came all over myself once again. He kept sliding in and out of me ensuring I had the most enjoyable orgasm he could give me. He leaned over and licked my face clean and kissed me.

"I love you," he said.

Afterward, we got ready for bed, and I slept with my head on David's shoulder and his cock in my hand.

The morning of the second day, after sunrise at second meal, David declared himself ready to visit his parents. We had invited Aiden, but he declined, and I couldn't blame him. Aiden intended to go to the college to help with the device for a while, then drop by the beach later.

Humans evolved in a dynamic where the parents' age maintained a constant chronobiological distance to that of the child. However, that didn't always happen on Jiyū. They had an unusual parent/child familial structure, and I found it fascinating to witness through David's experience with his adoptive parents.

David's parents lived on the opposite side of the city, and we strolled to the train station. On that beautiful, comfortable day, a light breeze from the sea came in through the buildings and funneled through the tunnels that provided easy access to the other side of the mountain.

I had thought it odd that they used a single rail maglev. I figured Jiyū would have advanced far beyond a maglev train.

"They thought to build an anti-gravity train long ago," said David, "but realized it would require more power than the maglev."

"Yes, but why a train?"

"For human beings, some things are optimal like a mirror above a bathroom sink, for example. Sure, the kind of mirror and sink may differ, but the idea is the same. It's the same with the train. People will always need basic types of transportation."

"What about teleportation?" I asked.

"That's what the portal seems to do. If you can duplicate it, we'll appreciate it if you let us know. I've read some hypotheses on the topic. Someone thought it had to do with quantum entanglement. When the spheres at both ends form simultaneously, entangled as they are, the objects inside somehow exist in a different state, both here and there simultaneously in a state of quantum flux. The portal somehow knows to let the contents come into existence as matter in the opposite sphere, but we can't imagine how that happens. Then again, the evidence one day may point to some other explanation.

"Have you tried experimenting?" I asked.

"Yes, we've taken sensors through, and they provided no readable data at all. First, you're here, and then you're there. We can detect no time in between of any duration. So, while Jiyū is deep in the quantum era, the portal remains beyond our knowledge."

The train had a quiet, smooth ride, but unlike public transportation on Earth, it seemed safe, clean, and lacked any graffiti or advertising. It stood well above ground level, providing a better view of the sea. Sailboats and college rowing teams raced across the water, while indistinct images of the beach flickered into view between the buildings, which gave me a thought.

"Do you think Aiden will enjoy himself at the beach?" I asked.

"I predict he'll have a problem," said David.

"What problem?"

"No one has subjected our people or beaches to puritanical prudery, or for that matter, a Victorian-era sense of modesty."

I burst out laughing. "Oh, how bad of you! It's hard to say how he'll react."

"I know which part of him will react," David said with impish delight. "I look forward to the time that he stops inspecting the ceiling because someone isn't clothed. Nudity is not a morally heinous crime, and adults should know the difference between nudity and sex. But on Earth, factors beyond their control have prevented most of them from ever obtaining that level of maturity."

"If I know human beings," I said, "and I believe I do, things should change when he realizes how much better he already looks. Have you noticed the change in diet has already made him lose a great deal of excess water weight? He looks thinner already, especially his face."

"He's not the only one," David said, patting his stomach.

"Oh, I know," I said, "I feel it too."

On the way to David's parents, we made a short walk through a lovely arbor canopied park from the train station. They lived in the picturesque gothic district, and their home had pointed arches and windows. They had planted several exotic trees in the front and side yard, but the lawn did not contain grass. However, the low-growing plant there did look as if it had the benefit of never needing a trim.

David knocked, and I took the man of twenty-five who answered the door as David's father. At my height with curly, brown hair, long enough that it covered his ears, he seemed handsome. He wore a blue pullover and a pair of tan pull-on pants.

"Oh, hello," David said, "I don't think I know you."

"I'm Damek. You must be David," he said, smiling. Then over his shoulder, "Mother, David's here!"

I recognized David's shock, and I could see he didn't know how to deal with it. Damek invited us inside, but David's discomfort made me nervous. His adoptive parents had been together for several hundred jears with no children. They ended up with David. David grew up, and during his time on Earth, they suddenly decided to have a child of their own...apparently. They had the freedom to do so, of course, and even David would acknowledge that, but his mother didn't mention Damek at the temple. It seemed cruel to leave him as a surprise.

I could see into a living area, and it showed like many houses, with tired decorations. David's parents had settled in quite obviously. One might find the setting right at home somewhere in New England.

I came from a family of huggers. Like many people who know these things, I considered human contact essential to psychological and emotional health, and I also knew it as the healthiest southern tradition that the American South ever had. I have never had a problem with hugging. David loved to hug and hugged me all the time, but he acted as if he didn't expect one from his mother. She greeted us, and still did not hug David, which made me wonder why they didn't have that custom.

"Hello, David," Siona said. "Rick, welcome to our home. Please come through."

They didn't seem to utilize Hestia. She led us to a kitchen where she prepared for the next meal manually. The kitchen looked closer to what I would recognize as a kitchen. Fruit and vegetables lay on the counters, they stored dishes in glass-fronted cupboards, and a sink sat beneath the window with a view of the back yard.

David's mother introduced us to Damek, and we sat at the kitchen counter, watching her chop vegetables.

"Did you enjoy Earth?" Damek asked.

"I considered it a job, but it had its moments," David said. "Have you gotten a place yet?"

"Oh yes, I'm thirty-two," Damek laughed at the clumsy attempt to know his age. "I visit the parents on occasion. I was helping Dad with his latest project. He tinkers on an old transport that Venn retired twenty jears ago. It's junk."

David's father came in through the back door. He resembled David's mother; they both appeared out of chronological step with the position of parenting a forty-year-old. I had difficulty wrapping my mind around it. His features looked much like Damek, and he wore some old clothing while he worked in his shop out the back.

"David? Where have you been? We were expecting you to visit when you first returned," he said with a voice that held an authority his appearance couldn't reflect.

"It's complicated," David said. "Father, this is Rick, my mate. Rick, this is my father, Liander."

His father nodded in my direction and greeted me, although it seemed perfunctory. I found myself feeling as if some unsaid thing was happening, and it disturbed me. I was missing something crucial. I sensed nothing adverse with Damek, so it was just the parents. I studied Siona's face, and I saw something, but I couldn't make it out.

Liander took a glass from the cupboard and filled it with water from the tap. He turned to David and paused just before he took a drink. "I've heard you're going back to Earth to fix the mess you left there."

David had his eyes fixed at something out the window, either he refused to react to such provocation, or he felt numb, having heard such things from him so often. His mother said his father had changed; I couldn't imagine how. Siona eyed David with an odd expression, had I seen pity or something else?

Damek then made the timely decision to leave --not even he could take the tense atmosphere. He said goodbye to us, then to his parents, and that's when it happened; they both hugged Damek before he left. At that point, I had had enough. Once Damek passed the threshold, I let David's parents have it with both barrels.

"I don't know what's going on here, but how the two of you treat David is disgraceful," I said. "You hold him, not just at arm's length, but a world away. He's not really your son, is that it?" --David tried to stop me-- "Oh no, I'm not finished. I know this is your home, and I respect that so long as civility reigns here, but that's not happening. David is my mate, and I love him. So, it will be a snowy day in hell before I let anyone treat him as disrespectful and cruel as the two of you. David, let's leave."

That's when I took David's hand --to drag him away from those horrible people if I had to-- and against what I thought he might, he didn't stop me. We walked toward the station.

It upset me terribly; I was shaking. I have a mild temperament, and I would never do what I had just done. Once we reached the middle of the park, David pulled to my arm and stopped me. He wrapped his arms around me, holding me tightly as I shook.

"Thank you for what you said and did. I've never dared to say anything to my parents, but there's something you need to know. When I tell you this, please keep in mind that I'm not their biological son.

"As a teenager, I grew up all hormones and pheromones, which I suspect precipitated the incident that happened after I turned nineteen. Siona became inordinately and inappropriately attached to me. As an oblivious and inexperienced nineteen-year-old, I didn't recognize it. One day, she cornered me in the hallway, and she kissed me, but Liander saw. I then realized what had happened, and made Liander believe the fault was mine, so the repercussions would not fall on the only mother I had ever known. We kept the incident between the three of us, but things were never the same. I'm not making excuses for their behavior, but know, that's why it's happening."

"Oh, David, how awful for you." I had felt aghast over the situation, but it explained things beyond the scope of the incident with his parents. However, understanding why in no way lessened my dislike for them. If anything, it intensified it for its injustice. I wouldn't stop David from seeing them when he chose, but I saw no plans to grace their home with my presence again anytime in the future.