Read The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) Online
Authors: Misty Provencher
The Fly House (The UtopYA Collection) (7 page)
"Doesn't matter." She unwrapped another Twinkie. "Are you going to lie?"
"Not particularly. You know, too many of those will ruin that beautiful figure."
"That wasn't a question," Maeve said, taking a bigger bite than necessary. She stuffed the bite into her cheek and took another. Insolent. It twitched his hard-on beneath the table. "Do you want to play or not?"
"Sure, yes, definitely. Shoot."
He adjusted his rear on the seat, r
aising enough to rustle up his pajama legs with a little tug on his knees. Unsatisfied, he shifted again, crossing his legs and draping one arm on the table. He left the other to dangle across his thigh. He tried to arrange himself openly, casually, but stiff was as close as he could get.
Maeve swallowed down the huge glob in her mouth. "So, are you married?"
"I, uh..." He bought himself a moment by picking lint off his knee cap. He really didn't want to talk about Chloe. Not to the girl he was truly in love with. "I was married. She died in her chamber, shortly after I woke."
The lines in Maeve's brow softened. "I'm sorry."
"Yes, well." He picked off another piece of imaginary lint. "Those chamber bugs...that's what I call them. They got into her chamber and bit through her wiring. I don't know if that's what did it, but...I'd rather not talk about it."
A long moment stretched past them. He was sure Maeve wanted to ask questions, about the bugs, about Chloe, but to her credit, she only chewed up her second Twinkie. His hard-on sagged from the shame and it made him angry.
"And you? Are you? Married, I mean," he fumbled miserably, uncrossing his legs only to re-cross them in the other direction. He swung his foot like a nervous woman, waiting for her to answer. He pushed his butt through the open back of the folding chair. The metal protested with an embarrassing squeak.
"Nope," she said.
A rope uncurled in his gut. She looked just like Mona Lisa to him then. Smooth and flawless, creamy skin. Her mouth a delicate Christmas bow tied elegantly over her tapered chin. But she had no secrets. The thought of her, pure and virginal, stirred him again. The warmth in his chest was just as it had been from the moment he'd found her chamber. He wanted to hear her say it again, a hundred times.
"A girl like you? Beautiful, as you are, you never married?" His voice was a little giddy. This beauty before him could be his. Without any competition present, this girl, who would have been out of reach before, due to marriage and social stations and maybe even age, was here and now. She was available and in reach in this new reality they shared. They might be the only two people left on this planet and a thrill zipped up his spine, considering that they could be the Adam and Eve, the only hope of the entire human race.
Placed on the crown of that kind of future, he forgot all about sitting straight or adjusting his clothes to hide the beginnings of his middle-aged paunch. She was never married. The tight coil of the rope jerked the sleepy rod below his belly. Could she possibly be...a virgin? He almost groaned out loud.
She tipped her head, thick waves of her hair cascading over her shoulder. Somehow those curls were like a bungee cord, suddenly retracting his fantasies. Her file said she was twenty three. Twenty three, unmarried, and still a virgin? What were the odds? Not in their old society, where middle school kids were losing their innocence in the back of buses. But, the idea of her being with another man sent a curl of rage spiraling through him. Or what if she was a lesbian? His hand closed into a fist, as if she'd cheated on him. Then, the thought stirred into a black cloud. What if there had been many men? What if
—
"Have you ever had sex?" he blurted. He had to know, even though he was appalled with himself for being so indecent, so intrusive. Still, he leaned off his chair, anticipating the answer he needed and dreading the one she might give him.
Maeve only chuckled. It unnerved him. Her gaze should have fallen away in shame, but instead, it remained rooted on his, an amused grin on her lips. Not a virgin, he thought and the frown was not just for her long-lost hymen, but for the line he envisioned of the men or women who may have had Maeve before he ever had the chance to. She chuckled again and then leaned off her chair, fiddling with her sock. She removed something from it, some piece of jewelry, which she held up, the sparkle coming from both the odd earring and her smile. She leaned back on the chair, arching her back a bit as she pulled up her pajama shirt. He was mesmerized.
"Are you a virgin?" she asked. She squeezed a tiny roll of flesh over the top of her navel and proceeded to jab the earring through it. He felt a little ill and looked away, straightening his spine. The idea of it clashed against his vision of her; Mona Lisa would never have a pierced navel. He searched for invisible crumbs to dot off of the yellowed cloth.
"Of course not. I told you, I was married."
"You're saying that you were a virgin when you got married?"
He jerked into a different stance in his seat, a strong heat forming, unlike the kind that fueled passion or colored cheeks. This was an indignant anger, coiled deep in the epicenter of his pride. He wasn't sure he could love this woman after all. Her face and her choice of words didn't match her elevated society status in the least.
"A woman of class never asks a man about his sexual life," he told her. Maeve's grin played at the edges of her mouth. She sat back, studying him.
"So, you're trying to tell me that you were Snow White on your wedding day." She picked up the can opener from off the table, moving the handles like she was cutting the air between them with lazy scissors. "Or, you're so ashamed about wanting a ball gag jammed in your mouth and your 'mommy' paddling you that it's impossible for you to get that enormous pole out of your ass and just talk about sex."
Steven Burtman blasted to his feet.
"How dare you," he hissed. "We are strangers! Your etiquette is an embarrassment to your family, your class, and your sex. You should be ashamed."
Maeve sat back in her chair, staring up at him flatly. "If you haven't noticed, genius, there's no one here to be embarrassed about your creepy fetishes, but you." Then she rose up to face him, stepping so close he felt her breath on his neck as her eyes bore into him. "And here's what you need to know about me, Steve-O: I am
never
ashamed."
CHAPTER
SIX
She was breathtaking, even just hanging wet clothes on a line between two Buntle trees, but Phuck groaned the moment he caught sight of her escort. It was the old woman, Breathe. Phuck had better chances approaching Karma if anyone else in the world
was with her, besides Breathe. Even Diem. Even Diem with an entire hoarde of ravenous dragons.
Phuck had watched Breathe bludgeon a man, one of their very own guests, during a party sponsored by her own House. During a dance, the man had only tried to drift a finger over the flesh hills that lie beneath Karma's neck. Breathe had eradicated the offender from the dance floor with nothing but the heavy cook spoon that Phuck had given her only the day before. Phuck considered approaching anyhow, but then he noticed that same cook spoon protruding from the basket of clothing
—never far enough from Breathe's reach to be of comfort to him.
The pleasurable jump in his belly region became an itch that he couldn't relieve. He hunched down among the Buntle trees, his entire countenance sagging, although the expression was mostly hidden by the dark blur in the center of his face. But whether his features could be seen or not, Phuck felt every twinge that raced across them. If it weren't for Breathe, he knew that one moment alone with Karma was all he needed to make her fall in love with him.
He was Plutian, after all.
But the pride in that thought faded as he watched the beautiful girl dip into the basket again. And he watched her shrewd escort scan the tree line as he pushed deeper into the shadows. His shoulders sank.
He was Plutian, after all.
As simple as it was to arouse the human body into a loving response toward him, he had no similar magic in convincing a sagacious old woman that he was suitable for a quick mating with her granddaughter.
He wasn't even sure if a quick mating would satisfy him anymore. The past several days, he had tried to block the reoccurring thoughts that brought him full circle on his desire for Karma. His lack of control over it confused him. His brain constantly flooded itself with thoughts of her and his human body responded to the thoughts without his consent. His urine straw rose with an entirely different urge whenever she was about. His brain hopped around like a useless little hampig whenever she smiled at him. The scent of her alone nearly killed him once; he'd stood near her and inhaled so deeply that he nearly popped both the air bags inside his chest.
He worried at the effects the human body was having on him at first, how its senses continually sought out the pleasures she brought him. Even more unsettling, his lack of control no longer seemed purely limited to only mating her. He was overcome, time and again, with a prickling, itching kind of anger whenever a human man looked at her. He had been ready more than once to wield his own heavy cook spoon, even against humans that were paramount to his business ventures. It was shameful to give a human priority over his operations, but he felt powerless to avoid it. Worse, even his shame wasn't enough to convince Phuck to shed his human skin and free himself of the peculiar feelings he had while inside it.
So, he lived with his craving for Karma, the desire so deep in him that his belly region flitted again with just the thought of her. Not that he would eat her. Of course not. Humans were quite narcissistic about their taste. Phuck often grew tired of having to assure them that Plutians had no palate for human flesh. Sometimes, he wanted to bite a chunk out of them and spit it out, just to prove his point.
Hiding in the dark of the Buntle trees, he promised himself that whatever was between men and women, he would find a way to create it between him and Karma too. He was similar enough to a man; he'd gotten the body parts right, even if he hadn't been able to master the human face.
The humans made sure to let him know too. He felt they were rather exaggerated with their responses about it. They didn't bother to notice how he made it nearly perfect at the outer edges. They were only concerned with the deep shadow upon it. He could not figure out how the smudge occurred, or how to remove it, but there was a thumbprint of darkness that deepened in shade toward the center of his face. He had the eyes and mouth mostly correct, he was sure of it, and although the nose was the most difficult to make out, mired in a dark pit at the epicenter of his masterpiece, if he squinted and strained a bit, it was definitely there.
He couldn't understand or appreciate the human's anxiety over such a small mistake. The body was perfect, but the face
—they gaped, they shrieked, one had fainted. He felt it rather dramatic. The face was good enough, even if all its parts were not pristinely clear.
But Karma, she was different. The girl had barely even winced when she first saw him. He entertained the thought that she was impressed with how he'd gone to such lengths, unlike the overseers of the past, to conform to human shape. To blend. He found it fascinating and exciting and an interesting challenge, to be one of them. He thought it would make for better business dealings, since the humans would be more comfortable with one of their own. He was sure of it.
She grit her teeth a bit and reserved her full smile, but she offered him her hand.
"Oh no," he'd said, mimicking her smile to be more comforting. "We don't eat human."
"Oh!" She'd dropped her hand back to her side and stepped away. A sure sign of respect, he thought. Her eyes darted from him and his belly region had done that first flop, like a Ratfish jumping up from the depths of a pond or a hampig diving from the jaws of a dragon. He couldn't look away from her, even when she refused to look back. She'd seemed perfectly willing to let him eat her, if he so desired. How could he not admire her willingness to please him?
Karma's voice su
ddenly carried into the trees and Phuck responded by leaning into the wind, hoping it would bring her scent, along with her words.
"We say our dream is for children to have a beautiful life, but then we torture each other," she told the old woman. "We are those children, doesn't anyone see that? We criticize and complain about one another all the time, when what we should be doing is giving others what we can, our piece of their beautiful life. But we don't do that. Instead, we focus on what we don't understand about them. It's useless, Breathe. We judge one another on a complicated knot of misunderstandings and motives and slanted perspectives. Life is an entirety. To hope a child has a beautiful life should not mean we only hope that the beauty lasts their first few moments of innocence, in the beginning of their time."
"Oh," Breathe's chuckle was deep and forgiving. "You are a thinker, child. You work with your mind, instead of your hands. We should have named you Notion. You certainly are full of them. Beautiful, impossible notions."
Karma's hands fell to her skirt, hidden in the folds. Phuck thought she spoke the most beautiful nonsense.
He peered out at Karma, stealing a glimpse of her every-colored hair. The strands were prisms in the light, reflecting all the brilliance of so many shades of color, it would be impossible to identify them all.
It stirred his goal to have her in every way he could, as soon as possible. He wanted her to devote herself to his body, talking her beautiful nonsense to him and only him. If the old woman would just move out of his way, he could try to send a pleasure wave to Karm
a. He wasn't sure how the girl would respond, or if she'd even know what to do with it, but he found that exciting to think on too. He imagined her through her skirts, the soft core of her becoming as ready for him as when a sheathen went into swol.
His hips quivered as he positioned himself to do what he had come to do. He aligned his body between the opening of the trees and summoned his excitement, gathering it into a sizzling ball of pleasure that burned in the engorged, twin weights that hung near his thighs. He dredged the energy upward with his mind alone, until it was crackling in his chest. On second thought, he decided to reduce the amount of it a bit, so as not to overwhelm the girl completely. He just wanted to give her some warmth. A tickle that would ease into her secret places and, when he revealed himself, turn her thoughts to ideas of him. He didn't want to knock her over and send her rolling across the ground with it. Not with her grandmother, and her grandmother's beating spoon, both present.
The energy pounded inside him, but he waited for the right moment. He waited until the girl bent down toward the basket, her bottom facing him squarely. He released the energy with a stifling throb. It surged out from the Buntle trees, like a blood-red heart or a cherry-colored orgasm, aimed right at Karma's behind. A ticklish smile crept across Phuck's partially-visible mouth as he watched the red-hot energy bound its way toward her.
But Karma's body sudde
nly jiggled, as she lost hold of whatever was in her hand. She laughed as her grandmother's heavy spoon slipped from her grasp and fell to the ground. Karma moved aside to pick it up. Phuck watched in horror as his pulsing sexual sun continued across the field, true to path. He wanted to look away as Breathe stepped into its direct line and bent to scoop up her weapon of defense.
The energy plowed straight into the back of the old woman's skirt. She bolted upright with a quiverish gasp.
"Are you alright, Gra?" Karma reached out to steady the old woman. Breathe's hand shot to her forehead, the aftershock wedging the old woman's expression between her wrinkles and into the soft places that hadn't been visited in quite some time.
"Yes, fine," Breathe said. Still rattled, she smoothed her skirt to regain her senses. When she looked back at her granddaughter, the old woman's smile was still a bit loose.
"What happened? Are you hurt?" Karma asked.
"Not at all, my love, not at all," Breathe nearly sang. "Let's just hurry with the clothing. I just thought of something rather pressing that I need to speak of, with Journey."
"You are hurt. Tell me."
"I'm absolutely not hurt. I feel wonderful. Honestly," Breathe said.
Phuck, exhausted from the disappointment, as much as the loss of energy, slipped from the trees, unseen. He only turned back once to glance at the two women. Karma stood, still assessing her grandmother, as the old woman hurriedly hung the last shirt upside-down from lopsided laundry pins. The empty sleeves did handstands without bothering to touch the ground.
***
Diem escorted Wind back to Fly House, hurrying her along, since her interruption put him behind schedule. There was a great deal of work to be done yet, but it wasn't work that he could do with Wind looking over his shoulder. He was relieved when Fly House was finally in view.
Karma sat on the front porch bench with Eon sitting on the steps at her feet. He whittled something from a chunk of Spindling. The usual murmur of the first evening meal wave of House members carried out thickly from the common dining room at the back of the House, along with the clatter of cups and dishes. Every now and then there was a sharp laugh or a deep guffaw, a snap, a stutter, a lull in conversation. Diem could identify every voice in the blend, and was grateful they were all inside instead of out, as he and Wind approached. Eon paused his knife.
"Blessings," he greeted.
"Blessings," Diem returned, but he didn't miss his best friend's smirk.
"Out in the long weeds, this evening? I heard the snakes are biting."
Wind wound her arm around Diem's bicep. "Diem keeps me safe."
"Yes, but who keeps Diem safe?" Eon gave her a wink. He shaved a piece from the wood in his hand. "And I hear some snakes can't be tamed."
"Not your snake," Wind said, but Diem knocked her with his elbow.
"My sister doesn't need to hear all of this."
Karma sighed. "It's nothing I haven't heard before."
"Better that you hear it now, Karma," Wind said, moving out of Diem's easy reach, "than to have a man show you what it means."
"I said," Diem growled, "my sister doesn't need to hear it."
"Yes," Eon added, dropping his carving and wiping the shavings from his hands. "For once, in your life, Wind, shut your caw."
"You think you two can keep her innocent forever? Come on. We all know men have a way of finding women, no matter how hidden they are. Besides, I heard that Phuck is considering a mating with you, Karma," Wind sang. Both me
n's eyes flipped to Diem's sister in time to catch her trying to tame her repulsed shiver.