Enhanced: Brides of the Kindred 12 (The Brides of the Kindred) (21 page)

“More time for what?” Six frowned. “Surely
you are not disappointed to have to spend less time rather than more on my
planet?”

“It’s not the
amount
of time,”
Mei-Li said. “It’s the fact that we’re suddenly up to week two. The…the bathing
week.”

He frowned. “Do you not enjoy bathing? I
was under the impression that you found it a relaxing and refreshing activity
as I do myself.”

“Of
course
I like bathing,” Mei-Li
hissed, irritated by his obtuseness. “What I
don’t
like is having
someone else bathing me!”

“You do not desire my hands on your skin?”
Six persisted, still apparently confused. “But back on the med barge, you
appeared to enjoy it greatly when I touched you. When I—”

“Right, just like you
appeared
to
enjoy it,” she snapped, remembering the words of the man with the metal teeth.
“But I guess that was just an
act
you were putting on. Were you just
trying to be polite, pretending you gave a damn about me and how I felt when I
kissed you? Was that it?”

Six’s frown deepened. “Certainly not. In
fact…” he cleared his throat. “The reason I went to Yipper was to have him
check my emotion damper because my…reaction to you was so…extreme.”

“Then why did you just now tell your boss
that you felt absolutely nothing for me?”

Mei-Li knew she was being unreasonable.
They hadn’t known each other that long—certainly not long enough to make any
kind of commitment. And even if he
had
had feelings for her—which he
clearly didn’t—it wasn’t like he would be able to admit it to his superior. If
he did, he would probably be taken in for reconditioning or whatever it was
they did here on good old Z4 to people who committed “Feel-crime.” Still, the
words she’d heard before she stopped eavesdropping had hurt. And she had no desire
to have any further sexual encounters with a man who absolutely didn’t care
about her—even if he
did
have the body of a Greek god.

“I told him the truth—that I have great
admiration for your indomitable will and warrior’s spirit but no…” He cleared
his throat. “No emotional attachment.”

“No emotional attachment. That’s great.
But you expect me to get naked with you tonight and do…do whatever it is that
damn contract says we’re supposed to do.” She could feel her cheeks getting red
as she tried not to remember exactly what was entailed in the “bathing week” of
the Claiming Period.

Six shook his head. “I don’t see why you
are so upset. We will simply be doing as the contract says—”

“Oh yeah? Well, you can do it by yourself,
you big
jerk.”
Mei-Li spun on her heel and marched off into the crowd of
strange half-robot/half-people pedestrians.

There were tears in her eyes which made it
hard to see, despite her snazzy new lenses and she went blindly, pushing her
way through much larger beings who towered over her in all directions like the
rows of sun-blocking skyscrapers. She tried to tell herself she was being
foolish—Six was right, they were only going to be following a contract. It
wasn’t like either of them
liked
the other or cared how they felt.

But if he doesn’t
care, why did he heal my knee so gently? Why did he carry me to bed in his arms
and cradle me all night to make me feel warm and comforted? Why did he kiss me
back and touch me like…like I haven’t been touched in so long?

Maybe he really
was
just pretending,
like Mr. Metal Teeth had said. Just being polite to the stupid little Feeler.
After all, how dumb could she be to let herself feel anything at all for the
big Kindred? He was the very definition of emotionally unavailable. She would
have to be the stupidest—

Suddenly she looked up and saw a huge
creature bearing down on her. At first she thought it was a man driving a tank
with his top half sticking out. Then she realized he was
part
of the
tank—that he was only human or Kindred or whatever from the waist up. The rest
of him was the body of the tank whose huge, merciless treads were getting
closer and closer.

Like a centaur,
Mei-Li thought numbly, frozen in place as the monstrosity
rolled on and on.
Only instead of having the bottom half of a horse he’s got
the bottom of a machine. He’s a cen-tank. Or a tank-aur. Or maybe just a
man-tank—

“What in the Seven Hells is wrong with
you?” Six growled in her ear. A muscular arm swept her out of the way just as
the massive tank-man rolled over the place she had just been standing. He
hadn’t seen Mei-Li at all—she could tell by the blank, impassive look on his
face. Or maybe he had seen her and just didn’t care. Either way, he wouldn’t
have stopped and she would have been crushed to strawberry jam if Six hadn’t
pulled her out of the way.

Which didn’t really make her any less
irritated with him.

“Let me go.” She pushed against the
muscular arm wrapped around her waist.

“I don’t think so,” he said, changing his
grip so that he was cradling her in his arms like a baby. “We need to get back
to my domicile before you get crushed by a wheeler or mobbed by the sniffers.”

“Wheeler? Sniffers?” She stopped
struggling because he clearly wasn’t going to put her down. But she held
herself stiff in his grip, refusing to put her arms around his neck for balance
or to let herself lean against him.

Clearly, Six didn’t care about her
nonverbal display of irritation.

“Never mind. I will explain later,” he
said, still holding her firmly.

With long strides that ate up the dull, silvery-gray
pavement, he strode along, holding her in his arms until they turned down a
slightly less busy side-street. He turned again and they were in a long block
of metal doors identical to the one she’d seen on his boss’s house—or apartment
or whatever you called the living areas here. Domiciles, she supposed.

Six put her down at last after giving her
a stern look to make certain she wasn’t going to run away. With an inward sign
of defeat, Mei-Li admitted to herself that she probably wouldn’t. The half seen
sky overhead was starting to grow even darker and she had no wish to be trapped
outside after nightfall on this strange planet with no protection from the
weird, half-robot people who roamed the streets.

“This is my domicile,” Six said, stepping
back as the metal door slid open and motioning her to precede him. “And yours
as well for the duration of our Claiming Period. Welcome.”

“Thanks,” Mei-Li muttered, walking into
the long, narrow metal hall which looked a lot like One’s. She wondered if all
the houses looked alike here. It wouldn’t have surprised her a bit it they did.
After all, what was the point of individuality or decoration if there was no
one who had the capacity to appreciate it?

“Greetings, Six,” came the same mechanical
voice she’d heard issuing from his watch aboard the med barge. “It is good to
have you home.”

“Greetings, Ter,” Six said aloud,
addressing the disembodied voice. “This is Mei-Li who will be staying with me
for the next nine solar days. During her visit, you will extend the same
courtesies to her that you do to me.”

“All courtesies? What about command
sequences?” Ter demanded.

“
All
courtesies,” Six repeated
firmly. “I wish her to feel as much at home as she can while staying here.”

“Affirmative. But I must state that I do not
believe it is a good idea to allow a Feeler to have access to command
sequences. She may make illogical decisions.” The voice sounded cranky now, as
much as a robotic voice could.

“Don’t worry,” Mei-Li said aloud, joining
the weird conversation. “I have no intention of setting off your self-destruct
sequence or anything like that. I’m just here to do my time and then get back
to my normal life on my own planet.” She looked at Six when she said it and he
frowned back in return.

“Ter would not destruct the domicile even
if you did order it,” he said. “It is an illogical command and Ter is a
thinking, intelligent system, not a mindless drone who will do anything you may
dream up in the heat of the moment.”

“Oh, good for you—you got it right that
time.” Mei-Li favored him with a slow clap. “So what you’re saying is that
I
would do something stupid and illogical like try to blow up your house
because I have emotions but Ter wouldn’t follow my irrational orders because he
doesn’t have emotions.”

“This is becoming tiresome,” Six growled.
“I have never called you stupid—to the contrary, I have a high regard for your
intelligence or I would not have spoken to Ter and told him to allow you free
access to all commands. But since you bring it up, I will say that you are
acting most illogical now.”

“Oh, and why is that?” Mei-Li put a hand
on her hip. They were through the narrow metal hallway and in what she supposed
was his living room now. It had one large blue-gray couch and plain gray
plastic flooring. One wall was taken up by a massive screen bigger than any
wide-screen TV she’d ever seen on Earth and there was some kind of huge black
cube that looked like electronic equipment in the corner, though it didn’t seem
to have any apparent use. Probably it was to play the Z4 equivalent of video
games or some other perpetual bachelor hobby.

“I say you are being illogical because
plainly you have allowed yourself to grow an emotional attachment to me—hence
your current state of anger and unhappiness that I have no such attachment to
you.”

“Why, you…you egomaniacal, misogynistic—”

“Furthermore,” he continued, while she was
trying to think up even worse things to call him. “You are afraid if we
continue to follow the Claiming Contract—as we must—that your emotional
attachment will grow and you will have considerable difficulty leaving me at
the end of our Claiming Period.”

“Oh, no… No, I can’t believe you just said
that!” Mei-Li was so pissed off now, she was literally seeing red through her
fancy new lenses. “You think I can’t be just as detached as you?” she demanded,
stalking over to him and reaching up to poke a finger at his broad chest. His
exoskeleton hurt her fingertip but she didn’t even care.

Six folded his arms over his broad chest,
his face impassive.

“Honestly? No, I do not. I have heard from
reliable sources that a female Feeler cannot give her body without also giving
her heart, as the saying goes. I do not believe you will be an exception to
this.”

“So you think I don’t want to do
the…contract sex things with you because I’m afraid I’ll fall in love with
you?”

He frowned. “Falling in love? Is that what
Feelers call it? Falling seems an odd way to describe an emotional attachment.”

“Listen, you big jerk,” Mei-Li snarled.
“The point is, I can be just as cold and unfeeling and uncaring as you can—even
colder!”

He raised an eyebrow at her. “Meaning you
can follow through with the Claiming Contract without forming an emotional
attachment? Without ‘falling in love?’”

“Absolutely—I can hit it and quit it with
the best of them,” Mei-Li declared, lifting her chin. “And to prove it, I think
we need a little modification in this contract.”

He frowned. “We must follow it to the
letter, you know that. There is no legal room for leeway.”

“I’m not saying we should leave anything out—I’m
saying we should put some things in,” Mei-Li snapped. In the back of her mind,
a little voice was trying to tell her she was being rash—that her mouth was
writing checks her ass would eventually be legally required to cash and that
wasn’t
what she wanted. But she was so angry she couldn’t seem to stop.

“Add some things in? What do you mean?”
Six asked.

“I mean that stupid contract is all about
what
you
can do to
me.
It’s the most misogynistic piece of crap
I’ve ever seen and I wish to God I would have read it over before I signed it,”
she said, glaring up at him.

“Your point being?” He raised an eyebrow
again.

“My point being that anything
you
can do to
me, I
ought to get to do to
you.
All this…this bathing
and oiling and rubbing and, uh…and tasting…” Her voice trailed off for a moment
as she realized exactly what she was saying. But it was too late, Six had
already taken the bait.

“All right,” he said nodding. “I believe
you have a valid point. I will agree to your demands.”

“Um, you…you will?” she asked, weakly.

“Most certainly,” he said mildly. “And
further, I will apologize for saying that you would be unable to complete the
contract with me without forming an emotional attachment. Your determination to
follow through on our legal obligations without becoming emotionally
involved—without ‘falling in love’—is clearly an extension of that spirit which
I so admire in you.”

“Uh…thank you.” Mei-Li tried to feel
triumphant but instead all she felt was sick. What had she just agreed to do?
Had she really just doubled her sexy-times ratio with the big Kindred out of a
stupid, misplaced sense of pride?

You idiot!
screamed the little voice in her head which had been
trying to get her attention before.
You just agreed to do all kinds of
crazy, kinky sex and you put it in the form of a challenge so neither one of
you can back down. Take it back—take it back
right now
before it’s too
late!