Eland and Jeanne (Tales of the Shareem) (3 page)

Eland before this had never been outside the DNAmo compound. In the last few crazy days, however, he’d learned the difference between the women who were patrollers and everyone else.

Patrollers wore gray or dust-colored coveralls, scraped their hair into severe buns or shaved their hair off altogether. They watched every event on the street and loved to stick their noses into everyone else’s business.

Eland had seen them badger men who were most definitely
not
Shareem to show their identification, demanding to know who they were and where they were going. Not until their wives rushed out and defended the guys would the patrollers let them go.

The streets of Pas City, the working-class area of the metropolis, were filled with covered market lanes where people who labored for a living came to buy goods, hang out with friends, and entertain themselves. The few thoroughfares were clogged with people hurrying to work or home to shut out the world—most streets were narrow and didn’t go far. Hovertrains rushed past the backs of buildings, which had startled Eland at first. But most people here seemed to have tuned out the noise.

The higher portions of town, so Eland had learned from vids at DNAmo, contained the houses of middle-class and highborn women. There, women ruled their homes with iron hands, had hordes of servants to fetch and carry for them, and had husbands who were either pampered men or complete doormats. Men had lesser status on Bor Narga; hence DNAmo had created the Shareem—men to fulfill women’s fantasies of being on bottom.

Down here in Pas City, reality was harsher. Both men and women had to work to keep their heads above water, though true poverty was a thing of the past. Men walked alongside women or ran the market stalls, and even co-owned businesses, something higher-born men would never be allowed to do.

Eland had been dropped in the middle of it all, with no money, nowhere to go, and no one to help him. What’s more, he stood out like a boulder in a field of dainty flowers. Bor Nargan men were small in stature, none above about five and a half feet, while Eland, larger even than most Shareem, clocked in at nearly seven feet tall.

He was broad and big, his blond hair, which he’d chopped short right before he’d run from DNAmo, thick and tangled. He had a black chain hugging his bicep, fused there years ago. He’d been bred from the best of the best DNA harvested by the company, so his face was square and regular. The researchers had called him handsome, but what did Eland know? All Shareem looked like him.

Unfortunately, standing out right now would get him killed. On top of that, he had no ident card. Nothing to prove, should he be asked, that he had a legal right to be wandering around Pas City—which, of course, he didn’t.

“Find Rees,” Eland’s friend Rio had advised him before Eland had run. “I hear he can get us false identities, plus a way off this rock.”

Find Rees.
A great mantra, but what the fuck? In a city of twenty million, surrounded by desert ready to eat him alive, Eland was expected to find one Shareem who’d managed to elude the best patrollers, trackers, and bounty hunters on the planet.
Right.

Eland waited until the four patrollers passed, then kept to the darkness as he walked in the opposite direction. When the sun came up, though, there’d be no place to hide.

Eland made it to the edge of a market setting up for the morning. The vendors did a brisk business first thing, then shut down in the sultry heat of midday, then opened back up again in the evening.

A woman and her husband were unpacking wares at their stall, paying no attention to what was in the shadows beyond their booth. Eland crept forward, snatched up a pile of robes the man had dropped, and slipped away before they were aware of the theft.

***

Jeanne awoke from the best sleep she’d had in a long while, relaxed and contented.

That is, before she looked at the clock.
“Shit!”

She rolled out of bed and into the shower, wondering why she felt so at ease under her panic. It was as though she’d taken a soothing sleeping pill, when she’d only had a wonderful dream ...

Jeanne jumped, going hot all over as the memories came flooding back.

Eland falling in through the door, pressing his hand to her mouth, begging for water. Eland in this very shower, his body the most amazing thing Jeanne had ever seen. Touching himself, daring her to watch him.

Then Eland taking her own to the floor, his mouth on her breast, his hands bringing her alive. The feel of his teeth through her shirt had sent a shock all through her, opening her to something entirely new. She remembered him telling her to sleep after he’d brought her to her peak, and Jeanne doing so, no matter how hard she’d fought it.

But he was gone now. Eland’s loincloth had vanished, and so had he. The apartment felt different without him in it, smelling of air freshener but very empty.

Jeanne closed her eyes and leaned against the shower wall, thinking of his hands on her, and her wild reaction. She’d wanted all of him, to go down on her knees and take him, to do whatever he told her.

Jeanne had been on her own for years, and she’d developed a good sense of self-reliance. She worked, she lived, she took care of herself. She didn’t need to bow to anyone else, no matter how far down on the Bor Nargan food chain she was. Women from the hill could sneer at her, but Jeanne stood on her own two feet and looked them in the eye—or in the veil, because the highborn women kept their faces covered.

Never had she dreamed of bending obediently to another, especially a male, and what’s more,
craving
it. Eland did some kind of magic—or gave her some sort of drugs—he must have.

Jeanne jerked herself upright, stopping her fantasies. She was late. Independent or no, she’d get hell for not being on time, and she didn’t want to lose her job.

She really did feel like she’d taken a tranq. When she stepped out of the shower, she checked her medicine that she kept for the rare occasions she was sick and needed to sleep. It was one dose short. Eyes narrowing, she opened her disposal chute.

Someone had pushed the button to send her garbage down the hole on its journey to be obliterated, so nothing was there. But she knew damn well Eland had taken the medicine and dosed her with it. No wonder she felt so rested.

Snarling at both the man and herself, Jeanne pulled on clean work clothes and left the house at a run, remembering to snatch up robes and her breath mask at the last minute.

Eland didn’t have a breath mask. The thought cooled Jeanne’s anger. He didn’t have robes or proper clothes either.

Why the hell had he left her apartment? She could have helped him, made sure he had everything needed to take care of himself on this brutal planet.

But Eland was gone, out there, defenseless. Jeanne was worried about him—a new sensation for a woman as independent as herself.

She wouldn’t feel happy though, until she knew he was safe. Not that she had any idea how to go about finding him in this giant sprawling city, but she would have to try.

***

Pas City was endless, and fucking hot. Eland wandered all morning, trying to make a plan. The robes he’d taken blocked out the worst of the sun, but even so, he was scorching and couldn’t stop thinking about the huge, cold pool back at DNAmo.

No, DNAmo was a cruel place, and Shareem were well rid of it. The minute one set of people tried to create an obedient, complaisant set of people for use, things got well and truly fucked.

Eland would rather be out here, free, and baking in the heat than stuck inside a factory lab, expected to do whatever the hell the experimenters told him to and be grateful.

Screw that.

Eland had to find somewhere to hide, though. In spite of the robes that partially shielded his face, he was big and tall and stuck out among all these smaller people. He could pretend to be from off-planet, but he only spoke Bor Nargan and had no idea what people from other planets were like.

Patrollers walked everywhere. They weren’t just milling around, doing their daily harassment, they were looking for Shareem. He’d heard them ask people on the street if they’d seen men who looked like them. Sooner or later, someone would remember noticing Eland, and point a patroller in his direction.

Damn it.

As Eland walked, his thoughts filled with Jeanne. Her gasp of fear when he fell in through her door, the softening of her eyes when she realized he needed help. The touch of her work-roughened hand when she’d handed him the water.

The warmth of her lips on his, the taste of her. She’d wanted him, her body had flowed to his, needing to join. She hadn’t understood the need completely, Eland had seen, but she would come to understand.

Eland had wanted to wrench away her sleeping tunic and feast on her breasts. He could have shoved her down to the tiled floor, parted her legs, and licked her, tasting her fine liquid. No, he’d shave her first, slowly, carefully, until she was bucking and moaning, begging him to stop tormenting her and take her.

He’d take her all right. First he’d lock her wrists, maybe threading a slim gag into her mouth to stifle her cries. He’d lead her up to taking the whip, slowly at first, teaching her to trust him. He’d make her know that everything he did would be for her pleasure.

Maybe a wand, fitted to her exactly. Sliding into her while she lay bound, unable to move, unable to stop him pleasuring her until she couldn’t help coming.

The fantasy was a nice one, and absorbing. Eland hadn’t realized he’d come to a complete stop until a klaxon went off nearly in his ear.

He was standing in an unshaded alley, alone, thank the gods. No one had seen him staring at the wall, his cock getting harder.

The alarm made him jump about a foot and come back down. People on the main street were running, stalls were snapping shut, masks were coming out from under robes, men and women fitting them over their faces.

Eland didn’t have a mask. He didn’t know what they were or what they were for, but he had a bad feeling he was about to find out.

A couple of women in work coveralls pounded down the alley and pushed past him.

“Sandstorm,” one tossed over her shoulder. “Get to cover, idiot.”

Good advice. Eland had seen vids about Bor Nargan’s sandstorms, which, in their season could hit every day. He’d been fully protected from them inside DNAmo, which was weather-tight. No one was allowed in the exercise yard or the roof gardens when they struck, but otherwise, everyone simply continued doing their jobs while the storm raged on outside.

What Eland hadn’t known was how ordinary people in the city dealt with them. Simple—they had someplace to take cover, and breath masks to keep sand out of their lungs.

Eland had neither shelter nor mask.
Crap on a crutch.

His pleasant thoughts of Jeanne and her beautiful eyes scattered and died as a yellow-brown cloud poured up the alleyway at him. The door the workers who’d passed him had dived through was already shut, gritty sand beating on it.

Eland groped his way toward another door he’d seen before the sand struck, a small, rusty rectangle that probably led to a maintenance alcove. Didn’t matter. All he needed was an Eland-sized place to squeeze into and wait out the worst of the storm.

The door was locked, of course. Eland slammed all his Shareem strength into it, rewarded by the door—a sliding one—creaking open a sliver. Eland dug his fingers into the inch-wide crack and heaved until he ground the door fully open.

He dove inside, just as an opaque cloud of sand and stinking dust slapped him. The cloud followed him into the tiny space, stealing his breath, grating in his eyes.

Eland grabbed for the door, trying to shut it again, but he could barely budge it. He shoved one foot sideways to find better purchase on the sandy floor…and found himself falling into empty space.

At least
, Eland thought as he fell and fell,
I can breathe again
.

Chapter Four

“What’s up with you?” Tara, Jeanne’s closest friend at work asked as lunchtime neared. “You’ve been quiet all day, never even laughed at Krina’s jokes.”

“I’m busy,” Jeanne said, trying not to snap, though she’d been impatient all day. Jeanne had covered her hair with a colorful scarf tied at the top of her head—she liked a little color to go with her tan-drab work coveralls. But even that touch hadn’t cheered her today. “This is what we do at work. Work.”

She lifted the last of the small cargo boxes from the belly of the two-pilot transporter and tapped the controls that would send them to the right destination.

“Yeah, so the sandstorm backed us up a little,” Tara said. “Chill, Jeanne. These off-world fly-boys aren’t going to be in a rush.”

“I just want to get it done.”

And not think about where Eland was and if he’d survived the sandstorm. Why hadn’t he stayed with her?

Jeanne remembered the haunted look in his eyes. Likely he wouldn’t trust her—wouldn’t trust anyone.

“Let’s get some lunch, anyway,” Tara said. “I’m starving. Choking on sand gives me an appetite.”