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Desire.
It started at my core and spread upwards, tightening my chest and heating my cheeks. All I could do was swallow. Try to take a deep breath.
She was a beautiful woman with a firm hand. I could still feel her arm across my middle, holding me flush against her front.
I’d been scared to death, but the memory of it held lingering moments of excitement in my otherwise boring life. Despite her gruff mannerism, I didn’t think Cedra had actually wanted to hurt me at all. Maybe just scare me a little so I’d tell her the truth.
And it had worked.
A brief glance at the old digital clock told me it was past three in the morning, standard time. I wondered if my studies were true—that starpeople awakened before dawn to work the land. If so, I only had a couple of hours until Cedra awoke.
Waking early certainly wasn’t the norm in Royal One. It was only customary for guests to call after noon, and was widely acknowledged that anything before noon was unacceptable due to the parties that carried on through the night, and some even after dawn.
I looked down at Cedra’s sleeping profile, her breathing deep and even but her forehead creased. I wondered what she worried about even in her sleep, and a small part of me yearned to wipe those worries away with a swipe of my thumb. Instead, I unwrapped the throw from around my shoulders and covered her sleeping form, tucking the edges under her chin.
Before I could move my fingers away, she tilted her head down just a little so that her cheek brushed the back of my arm—an adorable display of affection, though she probably had no idea she’d even done it. But it made me smile.
I padded around the room as quietly as I possibly could, straightening items that seemed out of place and clearing the tobacco from the pipe she’d been smoking earlier. The action felt second nature to me, after having watched Father do it several times a day since I could remember.
The scent of burnt tobacco only brought images of his worried face to mind—I couldn’t begin to imagine the panic he must be feeling. Had they already noticed I was missing? Or was everyone too deep into their cups to care?
As I found a cloth in the kitchen and started wiping down the furniture in the living room, I couldn’t help but sense a feeling of rightness settle over me. It wasn’t like I’d dreamed about cleaning others’ houses for a living, but I had always wanted to do something for myself. Something on my own. Now I finally was.
Things weren’t as I’d imagined them, but I really couldn’t complain.
Everyone had to start somewhere, and perhaps this would be my “how I made it on my own” story. Perhaps one day, I’d earn enough to start my own line of clothing or set up a little sewing school for girls. Fashion school. Design school. I could only dream.
I found a little bottle in the kitchen labeled “plasti-wood wax” that thankfully gave in-depth instructions on how to use it. I’d just sprayed a little of it on a clean cloth when the back door jiggled open. I froze, bottle and cloth in hand, as a heavily pregnant woman waddled into the kitchen with a little basket in her hand.
“Oh my!”
She almost dropped her basket when she spotted me, raising a hand to her heart. I couldn’t help but stare at her. She had a homely face and beautiful red hair that ran down her back in coiled tendrils, complementing the paleness of her skin perfectly.
But it was her rounded belly that caught my attention. I’d never seen a woman swollen with child before—it was a tradition that was still kept on peripheral Stars, but not on Royal One.
Artificial wombs had been invented centuries ago, and all Royals visited fertility centers when they were ready to have a baby. This removed the risks of childbirth, and over the years, geneticists had also developed selective procedures to eliminate what they deemed “negative” characteristics from children before they were even embryos, sparking a debate on the concept of designer DNA.
But that type of technology was constrained to Royal One and hadn’t become popular in smaller Stars, especially those occupied by modified people. Here, traditional reproduction was preferred without the benefit of cherry-picking a child’s genetic traits, letting nature take its course.
I, myself, was born in an artificial womb. Mother had shown me digital pictures when I was younger. I’d looked like a dark blob in a blue tank, floating in thick, viscous liquid.
Mother had been very proud of the geneticist they’d used—the best on Royal One, guaranteed to birth the perfect offspring. Perhaps she should have asked the geneticist to insert the “obedience” gene into me, then perhaps I would still be home, sipping champagne in a corner of the gardens and meekly accepting best wishes from strangers.
I blinked, clearing the image of my mother and taking in the woman standing in the doorway, staring at me just as hard as I was staring at her.
So I said the only thing that came to mind.
“I am Servana, your personal service bot. How can I be of service?”
“Oh. Oh!”
She raised the same hand to her forehead sheepishly, as though to say I can’t believe I’m so stupid.
“Cee did mention she was purchasing a bot. Well, aren’t you a marvel. I thought you’d have wheels for feet!”
She had a unique accent, making me wonder if she was born on this Star—Cedra didn’t sound like that. This woman dragged her vowels out in odd places, making her sound exotic. Also unlike Cedra, her canines were imperceptibly short—I only noticed because I felt compelled to look for them. She must be considered a rare beauty on this Star because her “imperfection” wasn’t really an imperfection at all.
As she took me in inquisitively, I didn’t quite know how to respond to her so I sprayed a little more of the plasti-wood cleaner onto the cloth. I briefly wondered if it would be weird or rude to ask to touch her belly. Did the babies move around like they did in the artificial wombs? How would that feel inside an actual human being? I had so many questions, and yet knew I would never receive the answers.
