The Province Ch. 02

The Ismail's Tea House uniform consisted of white flats, green-and-white striped knee-high socks, a pleated green micro-miniskirt, and a tie-front white cotton t-shirt with a sperm whale logo embroidered near the right lapel. Daphne's shirt was still tied together in front, but the knot was lifted above her firm breasts. They were being fondled by Derek, one of her co-workers. Each boob fit nicely in each of his cupped hands. Just then, he was pulling his especially wide cock from her ass, spreading her sphincter with its head. He had done this twenty-two times already, by his own count. He let go of her boobs and leaned back. He smiled broadly as he watched her anus struggle to return to its natural shape. The aperture took a minute to close fully, at which point he plunged himself back inside, giving no relief to the tired ring muscle. He fondled her boobs once more.

"Oof!" she said. Derek wasn't worried that she wanted him to stop. Her exhortation came out neutrally, and from experience -- he had done this to her many times -- she never complained about having her butthole spread open in this manner.

Another co-worker, Jon, was beneath Daphne. His long, narrow cock was buried deep inside her, about three quarters of its length. He wasn't moving much, as the other man was being so active, it was easier just to stay still. In any case, Jon was more interested in kissing Daphne, and was looking up at her face adoringly. She spent most of the time staring blankly to the side, seemingly more interested in the water cooler than him. When she did glance down, from time to time, her expression was flat and discouraging. No kiss was forthcoming.

The door to the break room opened, and then shut. "Jon, I need you out front," said the smooth voice of the store manager, Katelyn.

"Okay, boss!" Jon said, with a brightness he didn't actually feel. He wanted to stay inside Daphne. He wasn't about to push his luck with Katelyn, however, so he began to thrust his long dick in and out of Daphne's pussy. Within a minute, he felt his cock spasm inside of her, disgorging a healthy load of semen. Then he scooted down and crawled out from under his co-worker.

"I'll clean you out," Katelyn said.

"Oof... Sure," Daphne said, shrugging. Derek, tired of gaping her, had begun, at last, to fuck her ass continuously, no longer pulling out on every backstroke.

Katelyn grabbed a long back cushion off of the break room couch and slid it under Daphne, who had gotten onto all fours once Jon had left. Katelyn lay down on her back, licked a drop of cum that was hanging from one of Daphne's labia, then stopped.

"Derek, would you mind moving to her mouth? Your balls'r slappin' on me."

"No prob, boss," Derek said. He pulled his fat cock out of Daphne's ass, and watched for a while as it slowly closed for a final time. Then he walked around to her front, knelt down, and shoved his cock in her mouth. He knew from experience she could take his whole length, so put pressure on the back of her head until her gag reflex relented, and his dick pushed into her esophagus. After a few thrusts, he felt a familiar boiling sensation in his testes, pulled back, and came onto Daphne's tongue. She swallowed with a noisy gulping sound.

"Thanks, Daph," Derek said, politely.

Daphne's only response was to shrug her shoulders. Katelyn finished eating Daphne's creampie, then tried to get her off. After five minutes, which produced little obvious effect, she got frustrated and instead had Daphne eat her out. Daphne put in just enough effort to finish the job.

"You know, Daph, Jon is totally into you," Katelyn told her, as they lay next to each other on the couch. Her hand rested on Daphne's mons, and she idly swiped a finger across her clitoris for time to time.

"Naw," Daphne replied.

"No, seriously! Have you seen how he looks at you?" Katelyn asked.

"I haven't. But that would require paying attention to him. Which is too much effort."

"Are you sure you're a purpgirl? Ya don't seem all that interested in boys. I've at least see a few girls get you off."

"I'm sure," Daphne said, dispassionately. "There are boys I like."

"Name one!" Katelyn challenged.

Daphne had to think for a while. There had been a fellow grad student named Ezra Cooper. Like Daphne, he was a scholar of Johann Joyce, the Kingdom of Ireland's most critically-acclaimed author of all time. Ezra was tall, skinny and bespectacled. Although physically not her type, the way he could hold forth on "Finn's Awake" -- Joyce's magnum opus -- made her wet between the thighs. She wanted to kiss him, too, but was beaten to the punch by another English major, a nerdy-looking girl named Simone. Last Daphne had heard, the couple were still happily married and Simone was pregnant with her third.

"Ezra," Daphne said.

"That took you way too long to think of, honey," Katelyn said. "When was this?"

"Grad school," Daphne admitted.

Katelyn sighed, removing her hand from the other woman's vagina.

Daphne shrugged again. "So maybe you have a point. But it's not like I like chicks any more than dudes. I just haven't felt... interested, for a while. In anyone, really."

X X X X

The bus that Marcus and Sylvie were riding on stopped a few times, but their exit door didn't open until about two hours had passed. Then a monitor mounted on the ceiling began flashing "Pueblo South." They alighted, and he was momentarily blinded by bright afternoon sunlight. When his vision returned, his immediate impression was of being in one of those iconic Schweitzerland towns. Although as packed with people as any street in Philly, there was no litter to be seen, and the road and sidewalks looked freshly washed. They had been let out in the middle of what appeared to be a shopping district, filled with pristine Tyrolean-themed storefronts. Adding to the quaintness was the fact that, like himself and Sylvie, the people around him were wearing old-fashioned black-and-white clothing.

"So everyone dresses like this?"

"On the South Side, yes, sweetie," his aunt explained. "Fashion's very different on the North Side. Come, let's find some bikes."

"Don't you have to rent them or something?" Marcus asked. After a minute's search, they'd located two bicycles, both of which looked like "girls' bikes" to his mind. He supposed it was to allow women -- he had yet to see a female not wearing a long, Amish-looking dress -- to ride them easily.

"You can just use 'em whenever you want," his aunt explained, looking mystified. "It's mostly how we get around in the South."

They pedaled together for half an hour. Marcus quickly lost any sense of direction, as they turned often down narrow, twisty streets. He did not see any cars, or indeed any other kind of motorized vehicle, on the entire trip to his new home. After crossing a tiny, wooden bridge, they came out onto a frontage road that ran along a canal. As far as he could see, in either direction, were tall apartment buildings; they looked to be twenty or thirty stories high, to his eye, and were the only parts of the city that didn't look like a ski village. Running between each of them was a high wall, similar to the one he'd gone through when he entered The Province.

"What's the wall for?" he asked.

"That's the North on the other side. Most families live in condominiums that are right on the border."

"Why?"

"Convenience; adults need to be able to get back and forth easily, you know. Just go down to the lobby and cross the border!"

By this point, they had arrived in front of one of the buildings. They parked their bikes in a rack, then entered through sliding glass doors. On their way to an elevator bank, Marcus noted that, on the far side of the lobby, there was a thick metal door framed in black and yellow stripes. As with the door to the bus, it had a square black area next to it; presumably it opened in the same fashion.

"Is that the, uh, border?" Marcus asked, now intensely curious about what this whole North business was all about.

"Mmm-hmm," his aunt said, absently.

Her family's condo was on the twenty-fourth floor. The front door opened when she swiped the bracelet on her right wrist against another of those black scanners.

"We're home!" Sylvie shouted, as they entered the foyer. Two people approached. One was a tall, handsome man. Like Marcus, he had light brown skin.

"This is my husband, Lawrence," Sylvie said, smiling.

"Pleasure," Lawrence said, as he shook Marcus' hand firmly. His tone was pleasant, although his face was a mask of neutrality.

Behind him was a red-faced girl wearing a full-length dress, styled identically to her mom's. She seemed to be fixated on something on the ground.

"And this is Celeste, your cousin," Sylvie said brightly. "Say 'hi', honey!"

Celeste raised her glance momentarily. "Uh, hi," she said, as she raised a limp hand, palm facing out, then looked down once more. Her face had taken on a deeper shade of red. Marcus noted that her skin, which showed faint signs of a battle with acne, was even paler than her mom's. Lawrence was clearly her adoptive, rather than biological, father.

"Hi," Marcus said. He was starting to worry that fitting in with the rest of the family might be hard.

Celeste, gaze still fixed on the floor, began to turn around.

"Cel," Sylvie said, "can I have a word?" Celeste dragged herself over to her mom, who began, in a barely concealed whisper, to remind her daughter that Marcus had just lost his mother. After the guilt trip was complete, Sylvie said, in a normal tone, "Celeste will show you around, Marcus; why don't you start with his room, honey?"

"Sorry," Celeste mumbled as she showed her cousin down a hallway, then opened the door to his room. She gestured inside, without explaining the -- admittedly -- obvious fact that it was his to be his bedroom. Next she gave him a tour of the condominium. It was spacious, bright, and had, to Marcus' eyes, more expensive furniture than he'd grown up with. Every room was bigger than he expected, and the hallways were unusually wide. It soon became evident that the reason for all the extra space was that a number of rooms seemed to be missing altogether.

"Where's the bathroom?" he asked.

Her pale, round face still flushed, albeit less than before, Celeste ducked her head and gestured for him to follow. To his surprise, they went out the front door of the apartment. About fifty paces down the hallway, to the left, were a series of doors featuring the familiar circular indicator one might see on public restrooms, with green indicating unoccupied and red indicating the opposite.

"'Scuse me a sec," he said, ducking into one of the empty stalls and locking it behind him. There didn't appear to be any gender, so he just chose the first one with a green indicator. The door was, thankfully, full-length, and so thick as to be utterly soundproof. Once he'd finished, and carefully washed his hand in a small sink, he found his cousin waiting outside. Something was niggling at the back of his mind, and he finally realized what is was. "Are the showers somewhere else?"

"D'you need one?" she asked him. It was the most words she'd said since they met. He nodded his head, and, after getting a change of clothes, and a bag to carry them, from his aunt, his cousin took him to the bath house. Getting there required leaving the building, as the large brick building was a block away. Inside, Marcus was expecting a separate area for men and women, as he had seen in Nihonese animation. Instead, the inside of the facility consisted of a number of long hallways, each with ten private baths, five to a side.

The cousins each took a separate room, and Marcus was surprised by how luxurious and spacious it was. It had a generous tiled shower, a soaking tub, and a changing area with a heated wooden floor.

"Why not just have a shower in your apartment?" Marcus asked, later. Having finished, they had met up in front of the bathhouse in the warm summer night.

"Dunno," Celeste shrugged. Marcus noted that, despite having just taken a shower, her skin was now pale white. "It's more environmental or something? Never really thought about it though. D'you wanna play Rum Runner?"

"Okay!" Marcus said, relieved to be having what felt like a normal conversation, at last.

Rum Runner turned out to be a card game, played with the standard 52-card deck. As far as Marcus could tell, the only difference from Gin Runner, a game he had played many times with his mom and his friends, was in how points were counted at the end of each round, plus the fact that rounds were played until someone hit 500, rather than the customary 100, points.

"I'll go easy on ya'" Marcus joked. He usually won. Celeste smiled cryptically. Twenty minutes later, red-faced, he was eating his words. The score sheet read 503-219. He hadn't even won a single round.

"Suck it, my bitch," Celeste said, now having fully warmed up to her cousin. He had handsome, open features, and she was finding him easier to talk to than any of her schoolmates.

Marcus was used to trash-talking -- after all, it constituted the bulk of his conversations with his male friends -- and did not take offense. "I let you win that time," he said, with entirely false confidence.

The next game went worse than the first. Although Marcus managed to, at last, win a single round, in the end Celeste beat him 513-196.

"You were sayin' somethin', dude?" Celeste crowed, holding a cupped hand up to her right ear.

"Are you memorizing the cards or something?" Marcus asked. She so rarely played the wrong card, he was having trouble coming up with any other explanation.

"A girl doesn't give away her secrets, bruh," Celeste said coyly. He had, in fact, guessed correctly, though; she had a nearly photographic memory and, with some practice, had developed the ability to count cards.

"Whatever! Do you got Mortal Kombattants? I'll kick your ass for real."

"What's that?"

"You know, the video game?"

"What's a video game?"

"Don't you have a Segga?"

"No."

"Nantendo?"

"Dude, what are you even talking about?"

"You know, games you can play on your TV or computer?"

"I've never heard of that. Plus, we don't have a TV. I mean, nobody does."

"Yeah you do!" Marcus said, hotly. He pointed at the wide, ultra high-resolution monitor mounted above the couch. "That's one right there."

"That ain't no TV, homes, it's a painting."

"You're using it that way, but it could show TV; it's the same thing!"

"I guess so," Celeste said, looking thoughtful. "I'd never thought about that. But there's no way to watch TV on that, all you can do is have it display, I dunno, outdoor scenes or famous paintings and shit." At the moment, it was depicting a lush, grassy meadow, with the sun setting in the distance.

"So you don't have Netflicks?" Marcus considered that he might never find out how Games of Thrones ended.

Celeste shook her head. She didn't know what "Netflicks" was, but she guessed it had something to do with TV. The closest TVs were in a public square two blocks from their condo building, and she rarely watched, as the content was predictably dull, mostly consisting of either city or enclave news, or else patently censored news from the outside world.

Instead, the cousins played two board games until dinnertime. The family had a large collection of games to choose from, some familiar, some not. Celeste proved as unbeatable in this arena as she had with Rum Runner. She won handily at Settlers of Qatan and Parcheggio. When Sylvie called the kids for dinner, Marcus was reminded that another room was missing from the apartment: the kitchen. Or rather, what passed for a kitchen was so small as to barely deserve that name. It looked like a closet off of one of the hallways, and consisted of a sink, an ice maker, and a cabinet for glasses.

There wasn't a dining room either, so, instead, the family made their way to a communal kitchen on another floor of the building. Sylvie began to prepare a meal using some shared ingredients from a communal store in the center of the large room, plus a few items from a refrigerator, one of many stainless steel units lined up along one of the walls. Each had a number on the door. Marcus, who was helping out, noticed that a section of this particular fridge had a separate compartment labeled "Jerez", the family name she'd taken on when marrying Lawrence.

"I'm not going to get fat eating this food," Marcus thought to himself, some time later. The meal was nutritious, to be sure, involving whole grains, vegetables and lean protein. It was also plain, with little spice. Marcus was used to spicy hot foods, like his mom had preferred. For dessert was citrus-flavored yogurt that was barely sweetened at all. Portions were small, too, and when he brought up the idea of seconds he was met with blank stares.

X X X X

The following day Marcus had to get up early to meet with a counselor, Dr. Elena Doucette. She was to have two roles: one role was to help him assimilate into Provincial culture, and the other was to act as a grief counselor. Marcus was, unsurprisingly, feeling down most of the time, and thought often of his mom. Dr. Doucette spent the first hour listening to him talk about her, and how he was feeling. It resembled, although Marcus didn't have any way of knowing this, a typical therapy session.

The second hour, by contrast, was unusual. It started with the therapist having Marcus sit in a comfortable chair, which had a TV mounted on an armature that could swing into view. She attached electrodes around his temples, his sternum, and a bracelet around his left wrist.

"I'm going to play two videos for the next hour. Please just relax, there's no need to do anything except watch."

"Will there be a quiz at the end?" Marcus joked.

Dr. Doucette laughed briefly. "No, Marcus, you really don't have to do anything at all." She sat down at her desk and flipped up a screen. On the bottom edge she could see the same video he was watching, except shrunk down so as not to take up too much space. The remaining, larger area depicted graphs of Marcus' vital signs and brain activity.

The first video took up about half the time. It was an abbreviated, animated version of "White Snow and the Six Dwarves." Marcus hadn't seen the movie, or read the story, for many years, but as it played out the plot came back to him. At first, the only obvious difference was that the dwarfs were much taller than in the movie, only slightly shorter than White Snow herself. They more resembled swarthy men than actual dwarfs. The plot, however, was familiar up until the final quarter of the story, when White Snow was awoken by the kisses of two Princes, rather than one. Then, at the very end, an entirely unfamiliar scene was tacked on. White Snow, visibly pregnant, was standing among the two princes and six dwarfs.

"Let's just hope it's not Sneezy's," one of the princes said, clapping the barrel-chested man on the back.

"You'll run out of tissues!" the other prince joked.

"You just want it to be yours, dear," White Snow chided. She had a big smile on her face, and her eponymous pale skin had a flushed, red glow.

"Guilty," the second prince admitted.

During these final scenes, the doctor paid careful attention to the graphs updating in real time on her screen. She was pleased to see that, although Marcus had certainly reacted to the unexpected plot twists, his cerebral and cardiac reactions had registered in 30th percentile, when normalized for age, gender, and background. She breathed out a sigh of relief.

Next, Marcus was shown another abridged fairy tale. Although there was no title screen, he soon recognized the plot of Belle and the Beast. Except that Belle wound up marrying two beasts, and, as before, the story ended with a gratuitous scene making it clear that the characters couldn't be sure which beast was the father of the baby that one of them was dandling on a burly knee. Belle, visibly pregnant with her second, pointed out that they had no way of knowing who was responsible for the child on the way, either.