Touched Ch. 08

"I can see why you protected this secret so dearly," Taran said, clearing his throat after the piece ended.

"We have music, much of it very beautiful—my sister plays the mandolin—but none of it is quite like that," Jacob told us.

"I would love to hear some of your music," I replied. "We also have music in the city, but all of it sounds very similar. It's intended to inspire loyalty to the government, but I find it more frightening than inspiring."

"I think we would all be in favor of listening to more of this music," Taran acknowledged, "but first, please show us what other kinds of information is contained in this device."

Grant flipped through a sample of artwork, photography and written passages. Some appeared to inspire awe, while others made our companions grin and snicker with amusement.

"There's an awful lot in here about sex," Nissa observed, winking at Grant as she shifted her body to accentuate her breasts. He blushed and looked away. "I bet the two of you learned everything you know from looking at these files."

"Present company excepted, as far as I know your people don't have sex, do they?" Taran asked, looking at me with a smile behind his eyes.

"No. People avoid touching at all, but when they must it is with gloved hands."

"How exactly do you reproduce if you don't have sex?" Roy wanted to know.

"They use artificial wombs," Taran told him. "Isn't that right?"

"Yes," I confirmed. "On the eighteenth anniversary of our emergence we report to the Center of Reproduction. They perform a procedure to obtain a genetic sample."

"What sort of procedure?" Roy asked.

"I don't know; they give us anesthesia. A few hours after I woke they sent me home." I went on. "Everyone's samples are kept on file but only those with the most desirable traits are used for reproductive purposes. Usually two to four fetuses are brought to term, where they are then transferred into the custody of a caretaker who is responsible for their growth, development and training for the next eighteen years."

"Do you have any way of knowing if your sample has been chosen?"

"No," Grant answered, "but very few are selected. It's strange; there are far fewer pods today than when I was a boy. The government says they're trying to prevent a population explosion since people are living longer, but we've had negative growth for as long as I can remember."

"How...how do you reproduce?" I asked. "Don't you use artificial wombs?"

"No. We have sex, and then the woman becomes pregnant and has a baby nine months later," Kuri replied.

I gasped and stared at Grant, my eyes and mouth wide. "You mean I'm going to have a baby in three months?"

"I don't know; are you pregnant? You don't look like it," Roy observed.

"I started having sexual intercourse with Grant six months ago. I must be."

"It's...not that simple," Nissa assured me. "You don't get pregnant every time you have sex. Otherwise women would be pregnant all of the time. It only happens sometimes, when a man and a woman have sex at just the right time of the month."

"When is that?" I asked, alarmed as ever.

"It-it's different for everyone. It depends on where you are during your menstrual cycle."

"Menstrual cycle? Is that the same thing as menses?"

"Yes."

"Oh." I sighed with relief. "Grant and I never have sexual intercourse during my menses. I must be safe then."

"Uhh." Nissa looked at her companions. "Come on, help me out here."

She and the others answered my many questions one by one. When we finished, I turned to Grant, who had remained strangely quiet during the entire discussion.

"Did you know about all this? Did you know I might get pregnant if we had sexual intercourse?"

Grant swallowed. "Not exactly. I mean, I knew that people used to—well, apparently still do—reproduce like that. I've never seen a pregnant woman in my lifetime, and since we use artificial wombs now I...I guess I assumed our reproductive organs were like...appendixes and no longer served their original purpose."

"That is so wrong." Jacob shook his head, chuckling. "How can you compare your cock to an appendix?"

I sat wringing my hands in my lap. "Grant, I was really hoping to have sexual intercourse with you tonight but now I don't think that we should."

The others coughed.

"You know, Astrid," Taran commented, clearing his throat, "it's possible your scientists have found a way to switch off normal reproductive processes for your people."

"But we don't know that for sure."

"True. But there are plenty of other things you can do where the risk of pregnancy is little to none."

"Like pleasuring each other with our hands and mouths?"

He smiled. "That's right. Among other things."

"Like what?"

The hunters chuckled, then proceeded to educate us about the wonders of anal intercourse. The description of the act triggered in me a lifetime of indoctrination on the dangers of contamination, but Grant seemed to find the idea intriguing and asked more questions than I.

"I might consider it, if Grant is interested in trying," I conceded. The glint in his eye when he smiled at me confirmed that he was. "It makes me sad, though, to think of not feeling his penis inside my vagina. It feels so good when we join bodies. I feel complete, like we were made to fit together."

Grant lifted my chin, and for the first time he openly kissed me in front of other people. I felt self-conscious at first, embarrassed even. But when the kiss ended and I realized the others were smiling back at us, I glowed with the warmth of happiness. These people were strange, rough, even crude, but in a few short hours I felt more accepted by them than I had with anyone other than Grant. Even Oliver, much as I loved him dearly, had a gruffness which made it difficult to get too close.

"You don't have to give up sexual intercourse," Nissa said. "One of our doctors could test you to make sure you aren't pregnant, and if you're not she can give one or both of you some medicine that will allow you to have sex any day you want, without worrying about getting pregnant."

"Really?" Grant and I replied in unison, leaning forward.

"Nissa may have spoken too hastily," Taran cut in, giving the young woman a harsh look. "It's clear you aren't like other City Dwellers. But the fact of the matter is our people forbid outsiders from entering our settlement, or even knowing of its location."

I slumped, crestfallen. Then I remembered something. "But the coordinates Raja provided. Didn't Roy say they were correct?"

The dark-skinned man shook his head. "No. I meant only that you were telling the truth about coordinates being provided to you. The location she gave you was not of our settlement, but of the place where your people came this summer, to dig up artifacts on the outskirts of the city."

Grant sat up. "The archeology team."

"That's right. They come once a year, digging around in the ruins for a few weeks. They keep to themselves and don't venture far, so we've been inclined to leave them be."

"We may not like your kind," Kuri said, "but we do try to avoid open conflict. We're aware very few know of our existence, and we'd prefer to keep it that way. There are far more of you than us."

"Wait," Nissa interrupted. "Didn't you say that woman who helped you escape gave you something; a data chip?"

Grant picked up the tiny chip still lying with the rest of the bundle from the secret box. "This chip, we were told, contains a message from Raja. She wanted us to give it to Zarek and to him alone, but she didn't tell us why. She didn't tell us the content of the message either, only that it was important we deliver it."

"She did mention something about there being 'only a few days before the solstice'," I added.

The blue-eyed man wrinkled his brow. "Please, play it."

Grant inserted it into the pad and clicked on the file.

Hello. My name is Raja Das. I work for the Ministry of Science, Center of Reproduction. I direct this message to Zarek Wolfe. He holds the key to unlocking the heart of its contents. In the hope that you will deliver this chip, I provide, as a gesture of good will, the following information about the identities and whereabouts of some of the children who were stolen from your people.

The seven of us listened, dumbfounded as the black-haired woman revealed her secret. My heart pounded so hard I feared it would burst from the strain. I clung to Grant, and he to me, his face pale, hands as cold as mine.

"Gather your things, quickly," Taran instructed, rising to his feet once the message had ended. "We must get back to the settlement at once."

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