Clockwork Memories: Book Three in the Memory Thief Series Page 18

“Yes, so are you.” I meant it as a joke, but his smile vanished.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I am still learning your people’s ways.”

  He cleared his throat. “It would be very bad if you said such a thing like that in front of any high-nosed prinks. Those French privateers would do bad things to me if they thought I was a woman. And if they suspected I was a woman breaking their bloody laws, I’d be hung higher than Gilderoy’s kite. You follow?”

  “What law have you broken?” I drank the rest of my soup.

  He lowered his voice. “I didn’t break no laws. I’m just saying.”

  “If they were to think you had broken a law, which one would it be?”

  “If they thought I was female, I’d be in loads of trouble. A woman can’t dress as a man. She isn’t given a man’s portions in food or pay. She isn’t allowed to work as an engineer. If they knowed it, they would abuse her and put her in her place.”

  “Put her in her place?” I asked.

  His brow furrowed. “I don’t want to talk about it. And I don’t think you want to hear about it none, either, you being a spirited type who shouldn’t stop doing as you please on account of things that happened to someone else. You just be careful, miss. Some of them bootlickers can be animals.”

  “Animals,” I repeated, thinking. Yes, those French men we’d first encountered had been animals.

  There was such sorrow in Eli’s eyes I didn’t need to experience memory exchange to know his past. I had teased Faith that she wore her heart on her sleeve and her every expression gave her thoughts and feelings away. There had been truth to that jest. Even Captain Ford hadn’t been very good at his poker face. Perhaps all gaijoyjin were this way, keeping their emotions less hidden than my people.

  I felt sad thinking about my poker teacher. I hadn’t liked him at first, but he’d grown on me. He hadn’t deserved to die. Then again, most people didn’t deserve the bad things that happened to them. Meriwether hadn’t deserved to be burnt to a crisp. Michi didn’t deserve to live on a planet that was a ghost of what it once had been. My brother hadn’t deserved to be separated from his wife for so many years.

  I squeezed Eli’s hand, thinking of the bad things he’d been given that he hadn’t deserved. “They are filthy animals if they can’t control themselves,” I said. “Not all men are like that. I’m sorry those you’ve met have been so barbaric.”

  Eli didn’t meet my eyes. He looked as though he might cry. I didn’t want him to surrender control of his emotions and lose face, so I kept on talking to distract him. “My fighting teacher, Tomomi Sensei, is a woman. Or she is now, anyway.” I kept my gaze downward to show my respect. If he cried, I wouldn’t notice. “She is as tall as a tree and just as thick in her limbs. She is made of mountain rock and stronger than any man. This, and because she is very wise, is why she leads our hunting parties or heads warriors when there is need for battle. When the tribes on my planet were many, not all allowed women to fight or become nipa.” I glanced up to see Eli staring with rapt attention. “Tomomi Sensei told me once that in her first tribe, the Tatsujin, a woman was not permitted to fight. My teacher was looked down upon because she didn’t want to do woman’s work and was considered unnatural. But she told them she was not a woman. She gave up a woman’s way of dressing and bound her breasts. She took a woman as a wife and proved she was like many men.”

  Eli swallowed. “What did people do to her?”

  “Nothing outwardly. How could they when she could throw a man across a battle field or crush a man’s neck with her bare hands. She’s bigger than most men and stronger. Many snubbed her and treated her as a pariah. There was only one thing more… .” I considered the right word. “queer than a woman who thought she was a man, and that was a woman who lay with women. But no one argued she could do the job of a man better than most men did.

  “With time, people came to accept her because she was useful. If there is one quality about my people that prevails, it is our sense of practicality. Then the war broke out between my people and the gaiyojin. Many tribes were destroyed. Tomomi Sensei’s tribe came to an end and she joined the Tanukijin. Her new leader was very very wise. And very very old. Shiromainu Nipa.” I smiled, thinking of the kind old man who had been like a grandfather to me. “I must have been thirteen when I became his wife.”

  Eli sat back. “That’s disgusting! How could you stand it? An old man?”

  “I volunteered to be his bride. You can stand just about anything if the idea is yours and no one forces it on you. Shiromainu Nipa was very good to me. Better than a young man lacking wisdom might have been. But he is another story. I wish to tell you about Tomomi Sensei when she joined his tribe.

  “Among the Tanukijin, to be a woman who loved women is a worse crime than a woman who fights because two women cannot share memory moss and love one another in our manner of courtship.”

  “Memory moss?”

  “It’s an herb we use to share our memories with each other during courtship. But there are rules about its uses. One rule is that a woman cannot share it with a woman and a man cannot share it with a man. A parent does not share with their child, nor a sister with a brother. One does not force memories from others. That is the most important rule.

  “Shiromainu Nipa could see his tribe needed a warrior like Tomomi-san to keep them safe from gaijin. The Tanukijin had no such rules against women being warriors, but people were so prejudiced against Tomomi-san for her past of bedding another woman that they couldn’t accept her. Even when Shiromainu Nipa explained that the only reason Tomomi-san became a man was so that she could do as men did in her old tribe, and she had given up her former ways and was a woman again, not all welcomed her so readily.

  “I was a child when I met her.” I closed my eyes and remembered that first impression of Tomomi Sensei, big and burly. I’d thought her ugly with her crooked teeth and her upper lip tattooed like a man’s mustache. “Perhaps because I had no mother, or perhaps because she had no child, she was especially kind to me, in her gruff way. She taught me to be a fighter, and counseled me in many matters. I didn’t mind she was different or that she had broken rules and some disliked her for that. But she did warn me there would be consequences if I ever broke rules and she told me she wished better for me. Do you understand?”

  Eli nodded.

  I didn’t think he did yet. My heart thudded when I thought about what I wanted to say. I was a rule breaker too. I wasn’t quite ready to admit that much yet. “You don’t have to feel ashamed. You can be a woman around me.”

  He lifted his chin. “I’m not a woman. I’m a man.”

  I bowed my head. “As you wish. It makes no difference to me.” There was only one thing more to express.

  I leaned forward and kissed him.

  Chapter Twenty

  Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.

  —Napoleon Bonaparte

  Jomon didn’t kiss, but I knew what kissing was from Faith. I had always longed for a woman to kiss me. I wasn’t disappointed. Eli’s lips were soft and giving. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. I kissed him until I couldn’t breathe.

  When he pulled back, we both were panting for air.

  “Did I do it right?” I asked. “I don’t know if that was acceptable by gaijyojin standards.”

  He smiled and took my hand. “More than acceptable, love.” The kiss he planted on my wrist sent a shiver up my arm and down into my core. He pressed my hand against his smooth cheek.

  It was strange to see how pale I looked against the rich warmth of his skin. Always when I had held Faith’s hand I thought I had looked brown compared the pink of her flesh. Eli slid back my sleeved and kissed his way down my arm.

  I leaned away from him. The flash of hurt in his eyes was replaced by understanding when I pushed aside the red curtain and scooted behind it. I reclined against his bed of blankets and took him into my arms. He looked at me with such
reverence between kisses, it made my heart quiver like a baby chiramantep. I had always wanted someone to look at me this way. Never had I been able to speak or act freely with another woman. For the first time I felt no shame in being myself. He understood me as no one else.

  It took some work to untie the thick belt of my “kimono” as he called it, and then the smaller belt underneath. His every touch was so tender and loving it made me want him more. I wore a pair of loose yellow trousers under my kimono, the most practical thing about the clothes Meriwether had made me. Faith had called them Oriental and said people on Earth who looked like me wore them, but I doubted anyone wore such impractical clothes. I untied the drawstring belt and tossed the trousers aside. My belly fluttered with excitement.

  His eyes ate me up hungrily. Between kisses he undressed down to his nightshirt. I smoothed my fingers up his leg, almost reaching his crotch.

  He shook his head. “Would you let me have you like a man?”

  I tilted my head to the side, trying to figure out what he meant. “How is that possible?”

  “Does it disgust you? Do you find men and their, ahem, dangly bits repulsive?”

  I shook my head. I’d been with men. It just wasn’t my preference. Then again, I didn’t know if women were my preference. I only knew I had wanted what I couldn’t have.

  He sighed in relief. “Just you wait a minute then.” He rolled away and rummaged through a bag. Not finding what he wanted, he rushed out past the curtain.

  I leaned back, admiring his shapely backside as he rose. He pushed the curtain closed between us. On the other side of the curtain, fabric rustled. I peeked out. He was turned away, kneeling and doing something I couldn’t see. When he turned, the largest chin-chin I’d ever seen poked out from under the hem of his shirt.

  My eyes went wide. It didn’t look real. Of course, it couldn’t be real. The size of it alone made it absurd.

  He waved a hand at the chin-chin with a flourish. “Ta-da! See, I am a man. Got all the right parts for the job.”

  I giggled. I tried to stop so I wouldn’t hurt his feelings; men never liked it when they showed you their anatomy and the first thing you did was laugh.

  “You haven’t seen the best part yet.” He pressed a button and liquid flooded out the tip. “A happy machine needs lubrication, and what is the human body but a machine. Eh?”

  I fell back laughing.

  “Oi! What’s so funny?”

  I tried to stop, but I couldn’t. Tears rolled from my eyes. I shook my head.

  “No, really? Why are you laughing?” His brow crinkled up and he bit his lip.

  “It’s too big.” I wiped the tears from my eyes. “I don’t want that thing inside me.”

  “Right. I didn’t think about that. You are such a slip of a thing. Don’t want to break you in half.” He turned away.

  I heard the scraping of metal against metal. He set the chiramantep-sized chin-chin beside him and reached into his bag. I picked up the detached chin-chin. It was lighter than it looked. The base was metal and hollow. I couldn’t tell what the outside was. It was hard but had enough give I could squeeze it and it almost felt like flesh. It wasn’t fabric or leather. I squeezed it harder. Maybe it was some kind of plant. It didn’t smell exactly like a plant. I touched my tongue to it. There was no flavor. I considered tasting the fluid that still dripped from its edge but I was afraid it might actually taste like a man and then I would be sick.

  Eli stared at me curiously. He’d fitted a new appendage to the belted garment around his hips. This one was more reasonable in size. I wondered how many man parts he had in his bag. I lowered the chin-chin from my mouth and tried to smile, though in truth I felt a little awkward after being caught tasting detachable man parts.

  He laughed and dove into my arms. I fell back onto my bottom. Somehow the red curtain got tangled up in our legs and we nearly pulled it down. I didn’t want to stop kissing him long enough to let him fix it, but I did. I throbbed with yearning. Never had anyone aroused me this much before. There was so much slippery wetness between my legs I feared I would soak his blankets.

  He positioned himself between my legs and stroked me with the length of his chin-chin. I shuddered with anticipation.

  “Are you ready for me?” He made a little squirt of liquid come out from the tip.

  I bit my lip to keep from laughing and nodded with as serious face as I could muster.

  I closed my eyes when he entered me. Not because I was imagining Faith’s face or anyone else’s like I had in the past. I simply wanted to relish that first moment of him inside me. It had been a long time since I’d been with a man. My body welcomed him, my hips arching to meet him.

  For the briefest moment I felt guilty, as though I had betrayed Faith in some way. When I had taken a lover in the past I had always kept it hidden from her. I’d felt as though I were cheating on her, a silly thought considering she’d never wished to be desired by me. Now she was imprisoned in her room while I was free, enjoying myself.

  The moment of guilt passed. I deserved someone who loved me, even if this was an odd moment for such a thing to happen.

  Eli rocked into me. I helped adjust the angle and showed him the motion I liked. Soon we were both sweating. Eli’s arms shook with fatigue.

  “Perhaps a different position?” I asked.

  I sat on top and led the way. I wondered what old Shiromainu would have said to an erection that never deflated. Just about any of my village’s grandfathers would be jealous if they knew such a thing were possible. I exhausted myself before the tatsu did.

  I pulled away just enough to let it fall out of me. I fell back onto the blankets and snuggled into Eli’s arms. I kissed his cheek. “That was nice. Thank you.”

  “Did you… ? Ahem, I mean to say, blimey, I didn’t think you had, um… ?”

  Gaijin were all the same. There were so many words they couldn’t say. I didn’t know the right words in English, but I understood his meaning.

  I propped myself up on one elbow. “No, but I don’t need to.”

  “But I didn’t get to show you all the settings.”

  He rolled over and embraced me. The chin-chin slipped between my legs and rested along my slit. The rod began to vibrate.

  “It’s a machine?” I asked in astonishment.

  “Of course.”

  He tilted his hips this way and then that. I gasped when it pressed against the nub near the top of my slit. The sensation was like memory moss, a tiny pulse where he touched me. Warmth spread out from my core. A spasm made my insides contract, but only for a second.

  His eyebrows rose hopefully.

  “Kiss me,” I said.

  He did, covering my face and neck with his warmth. Pleasure built inside me. It felt like a storm gathering on a hot day of summer. The air turned thick and sweat beaded up on my skin. A flash of lightning surged through my body. My hips tilted up and I clutched him to me. The pulsing inside me crested higher and I cried out. He covered my mouth with his own. His tongue darted between my lips, tasting me. It was a few seconds longer before the ecstasy inside me faded away.

  I sank against him. “Iya! That machine has stolen my soul.”

  “You liked it all right then?”

  I moaned and hugged him tighter.

  “That was the first setting. Shall we try the next one?”

  “What?”

  He reached between his legs, twisted something and the vibration increased. He slid his chin-chin against me. Willingly, I arched my hips to allow him easier passage inside me. It was like a massage with memory moss, but inside me. My breath quickened. He pulled out and pressed against me and pushed inside again, a slow teasing path that filled me with new wanting. Grandmothers in the onsen asked new wives if they had experienced “double pleasure” or “two waves of the same storm.” I had always wondered about this, but never understood.

  Until now.

  He kissed me and
sent me over the edge. Afterward my insides continued throbbing pleasantly.

  “Iya,” I said. I would boast to the grandmothers when I got home that two storms had flashed inside me, one after the other.

  “Do you want to feel the third setting?” Eli asked. “Third times a charm, I always say.”

  “Blimey,” I said, adopting one of his words.

  Forget two storms. I would have triple the pleasure.

  After we were both spent, I fell into an exhausted heap. I was sweaty and should have washed. I was naked and should have dressed. I was vulnerable and exhausted and should have slept somewhere else. It would have been wise to go straight into the robotic maid passage before any more time passed. Yet I didn’t. All I wanted was to remain in my lover’s arms.

  Eli stroked my hair and lulled me into happy dreams. I don’t know how long I slept. I only know I could have slept longer.

  I woke to the sound of Commander Jacques Bleu’s laugh. “What have we here?” he said. “You have fallen into my trap, no?”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Meet me at these coordinates at the appointed time. We will bring your son. You know what I want.

  —hyperspeed message from Commander Jacques Bleu

  I sat up with a start.

  “If I don’t find you in one woman’s bed, is it a surprise I should find you in another?” Jacques chuckled.

  I eyed the laser pistol in his hand, knowing the damage it could do.

  Eli rubbed his eyes. Upon seeing Jacques, he tugged his blanket over his mechanical chin-chin. There was still a giant bulge in the blankets, try as he might to minimize it.

  “Good work. I knew you wouldn’t let me down.” Jacques dropped a bag onto the floor beside Eli. It jingled before settling into a thump.

  I knew what money was thanks to the late Captain Ford.

  Jacques gestured to the bag. “There you are, Judas. I have kept my word. I promised that any man able to catch this slippery creature would be handsomely rewarded.”