Master of None (16 page)

Guilt and fear added to his problem. Raemik had crept into the boys’ quarters late, long after curfew. He never said where he’d gone, nor had Nathan ever asked. Wherever he had been, none of the other boys took any notice, or if they knew kept it among themselves.

Nathan had been the only one awake, unable to sleep, propped up against the wall listening to the quiet breathing of children. Tired of wrestling with Vanar calligraphy, he had left his reader on, glowing faintly unread beside him. No one stirred as the boy slipped past the sleepers. Nathan watched him in silence as Raemik unclipped his sati and let it unwind at his feet.

The boy stood with his back to Nathan, legs bare under his mati, then turned to stare back at him. Nathan found he was unable to look away, his heart suddenly beating too fast. Slowly, the boy drew his mati over his head and stood naked in the darkened room, his pale skin glowing like moonlight. Slender young muscles still soft with adolescence, Raemik stepped out of the mound of cloth his sati made on the floor, closer to him. Horrified, Nathan felt his breathing becoming hoarse, electricity dancing on his skin. The boy glanced down at Nathan’s crotch, then back, unblinking.

To his dismay, the smell of the boy’s young flesh transfixed him. He was close enough to touch him, grab him, drag him down roughly on top of him. Slowly, Raemik knelt over him, one hand beside him for balance, and waited, fear in his eyes along with the trust and willingness.

If the boy touched him, he’d be lost. He didn’t want him, Raemik was not his sister. But the resemblance sang to the same erotic desire Nathan felt toward Pratima. The intensity of his need appalled him, frightened by what the boy had aroused.

It took every fiber in him to smile and shake his head. “Raemik,” he whispered. “Go to sleep.”

The child didn’t change expression, but simply turned and wriggled under the sheet over his own narrow mat, his face toward Nathan, eyes open. Nathan finally had to turn away to avoid the look, and it was a long time before he could fall asleep.

The next morning, he hiked to the clearing, now as afraid Pratima would be there as not. He was both relieved and disappointed to find it empty. A flutter of color in the notched bole between the old tree’s two trunks caught his eye. A reader-sized package wrapped in bright protective envelope had been left wedged in the tree’s hollow. Inside was a book, the antiquated kind, thick paper pages pressed between a cover of leather. It was old, incredibly so, but preserved in better condition than most of the antique books in Yaenida’s extensive library. He knew instinctively it was priceless.

He opened it to a colored plate of the svapnah plant he had described to Pratima. The printed words were in Vanar script, but a note inserted between the pages was scrawled in an oddly childish Hengeli handwriting:

“Learning is easier with a carrot rather than the stick.”

He spent an hour reverently looking through the book, reveling in the beautiful prints of native Vanar plants. Then, carefully replacing it in the envelope, he settled into the hollow of the tree, his back against one trunk, his feet propped against the other, pulled his sati up around his waist, and masturbated quickly, almost frantically. Branches swayed as the wind flicked leaves, gold and red veins lacing through the deep, wide green. Silk tongues of air flared against his skin as the sensations rushed through him.

His fierce orgasm ripped up into a scream of starved exultation, leaving him trembling, a sheen of sweat on his body, and feeling strangely empty.

If anything, his hunger only intensified. He alternated between wishing he’d never met her to desperately wanting her to appear in the clearing. Not even the years he’d spent on the all-male crew of the
Warthog
had driven him as mad as the thought of Pratima, so close and so far beyond his reach. And the continued unwanted attention from the sahakharae made his frustration even more acute. After he tried yet again to tactfully rebuff the overt advances from a few more aggressive sahakharae, chiefly from Tycar, he lost his patience. He made his point with a bit of yelling and heated shoving.

The sahakharae quickly backed off, leaving him alone with all the aversion to a leper just as the men in the charity shelter had. But he was satisfied with the result. Problem solved. So he thought. When he arrived a few mornings later in Yaenida’s library, he found he had been sadly mistaken. He had not even gone in to the room far enough to bow and take his seat before Yaenida stopped him.

“I do not as a rule involve myself with men’s disputes,” she said harshly. “If there are difficulties, the senior kharvah handles it. It is his domain. But”—she looked up at him, eyes bloodshot behind their thick, tired lids—“there
is
the language problem. So I’ve been asked to speak to you.”

“I can explain—” he started.

“I am not interested,” she cut him off curtly. “Half a dozen sahakharae are threatening to leave my House. Twice that number of kharvah complain you are disruptive and violent, and it is being unfairly tolerated because you are an exotic. I’m getting complaints from my daughters that the men’s arguments are affecting their private lives, and I am personally extremely cross at being forced to deal with this. My time, limited as it is, is valuable.”

He stood stiffly, clutching his reader against his chest. “I apologize, Pratha Yaenida. It wasn’t my intention—”

“I don’t give a damn what your intentions were,” she snapped, the cold anger in her voice far harsher than he’d heard before. “Violent behavior within my House will
not
be tolerated. You know that. You go back and fix it, do you understand? I want my men happy. I expect to see them
very
happy, Nathan.”

“I don’t want to fuck sahakharae, Yaenida!” he protested.

“Then fuck that boy sleeping with you!” she shouted, slamming one knobby fist against the arm of her chair. “What the hell’s the matter with you! You don’t like boys, find a damned taemora, there’s at least a dozen unmarried women parasites around ready and willing to ease your appetite. You’re not required to be celibate. You’re a man, you’re not
expected
to be. If you have a need,
do
something about it, but I don’t want trouble from you again. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” he said, whispering.

She seemed to collapse within herself, as if the energy spent had physically drained her. “Good. Now get out,” she said brusquely. “I’m too tired today.”

He bowed, and turned, but hesitated at the door, knowing he was risking further wrath. “Pratha Yaenida—”

“What!”
she shouted at him with more exasperation than strength, glaring.

“I didn’t know,” he said simply. “About the taemora. About anything. How do I play by the rules if I don’t know what they are?”

She stared for a moment before her expression softened. “I believe you,” she said, bemused. She waved at him weakly, beckoning him back. He sat down on the edge of the hard chair as she canted her head at him. “But I know you’ve registered at a kaemahjah. If you felt the need, why haven’t you gone back there?”

He shrugged. “The only thing they wanted from me I didn’t find all that enjoyable.”

She seemed amazed. “What happened?”

He told her. When he finished, she was smiling, once again amused, her anger vanished. “A medical examination isn’t usually considered an erotic experience.” She scribbled on a piece of paper before folding it over. Rooting around in her reader for an address, she wrote it on the note in her delicate Hengeli. “You’re not being asked simply to provide sperm. Go here and give them this.”

He took it, eying her questioningly.

“Nathan, Vanar men are expected to want sex. That is their primary function in our society. Why would you think anyone required you to be chaste and virginal? Go, please, and enjoy yourself.” She sank tiredly into the chair. “But I meant what I said: no more trouble.”

XII

T
HE KAEMAHJAH WASN’T ALL THAT MUCH DIFFERENT THAN ANY LARGE
social club on Remsill or the upscale lounge of a liner: drinks, dancing, music, laughter, conversation.

And, of course, sex. Lots of it.

All women were legally allowed to marry three kharvah, although most Middle and Common caste women married fewer. But in the High Families, when senior women took more than one kharvah out of circulation for business reasons, a lot of unmarried women were left over. Most of them were the younger daughters and cousins who stayed at home to support the Family business. Or they were taemorae, hired employees hoping to acquire enough business connections to begin their own households while canvassing the younger men with more prominent family connections in search of a kharvah or two of their own. Or they were women who simply elected to remain unmarried, whether childless or not, either finding mates among their own sex or satisfaction in a kaemahjah, the house of joy.

This particular kaemahjah was a popular outlet for women from respectable houses looking for male company. Some came to relieve the stress of Family business, to have their tender muscles and egos massaged. Some came only to be entertained, to dance or talk, uninterested in sex at all. Some came in for the sole purpose of getting pregnant, earnest women who fucked with an intense determination that was somewhat alarming to Nathan.

The vast majority of men who chose to become sahakharae were not homosexual, which surprised Nathan. Most were younger sons from Common Families without prominent-enough connections to have attracted a marriageable woman. Boys with enough talent or good looks hoped to find a sponsor to train them, with ambitions of attaining a position in one of the Nine Houses. Once sterilized, they gave up any prospect of those family ties that welded Vanar society together. But many of them earned a significant income in the kaemahjah to supplement their official function of keeping tensions at home under control, saving for a comfortable retirement.

There was also a pool of kharvah with ever-changing faces drifting in and out. They came to meet possible marriage partners, or to visit lovers they had been prohibited from marrying for reasons of Family business concerns. Others came because their wives couldn’t spread their time far enough between business and several kharvah to keep everyone happy. And there were plenty more like Nathan who simply came because they were frustrated and bored.

After two months, Nathan began to feel the seasoned pro. The staff at the kaemahjah greeted him now by name, even if they all mangled it into “Nay-teen Karoo.” An older employee assigned herself as his guide and protector. He had been preoccupied with a tall, exquisitely lovely woman doing her best to chat with him, struggling to understand his clumsy Vanar while stroking his thigh delightfully, before his self-appointed guardian interposed to warn her off. At first, he had been annoyed—the tall woman had been highly attractive—until he discovered she had rather explicit tastes that there were other men more accommodating toward.

Apparently, they had special hospitalization coverage.

He also discovered he had the absolute right to refuse any offer he didn’t care for, a strange sensation of control he hadn’t had in a long time. Rarely was anything more than a simple “no” needed, and at the slightest hint of insistence, kaemahjah staff firmly intervened. Nor, in spite of his preconceptions, did he feel like a prostitute; no money ever changed hands. Although small inexpensive gifts were sometimes offered, just as often they were reciprocated. His stipend was paid by the government of Vanar, the amount considerably higher now that he was Nga’esha kharvah rather than mere naekulam. The money was deposited directly into an account to pay for his time regardless of whether he had sex or simply sat and drank and listened to the music.

For the most part, all he did do was drink and listen to the music while watching the dancers. His Vanar had improved after Pratima’s gift, increasing his vocabulary enough to hold his own in a discussion on native Vanar botany, should any women who shared his passion ever show up.

So far, none had.

At first, it had even been fun, a chance to escape from the constant male company and revel in plenty of guilt-free sex. He had partied with boyish enthusiasm, a few favorites more than once, but after a while, the novelty wore off. He was not among the men sought out for their elegant and witty conversation, although he was welcome to join in the groups, listening attentively, trying hard to understand the jokes. When he did, he was so pleased with his own accomplishment he sometimes forgot to laugh.

He learned to smoke the traditional Vanar water pipe, enjoying the mild narcotic languor and the hallucinatory sharpness of his senses. There was no limitation on either smoking or his drinking, and if he drank himself into a vomiting coma, he knew he would be taken care of without disapproval by the staff. But after a few times of waking up hungover and disoriented in a sterile white room, stinking of sour vomit and sweat, that luxury wore thin as well. Occasionally, he would drink enough to lose his inhibitions and try dancing. The women thought it hilarious to watch his poor imitation of the polished, elaborate movements of men with bodies trained since infancy. But he did try to keep making a fool of himself to a minimum.

He attempted to learn
qaellast
, studying the endless games without much success. The rules seemed deceptively simple, but he had yet to win a single game, even against the worst players. Eventually, only the staff offered to compete with him, patiently explaining in slow Vanar whenever he made his frequent incredibly stupid moves.

No one seemed concerned that he spent most of his time by himself, drinking and smoking. He passed the tedious days in a dreamy, quiet state skirting the edge of depression. At least he could relax here as he couldn’t at the House, where he was endlessly smiling and obeisant, lowest of the low, bowing and scraping while suppressing the urge to punch his fist through something. Yaenida had less and less time for him, ensconced with her senior daughters behind closed doors, engaged in one business matter after another. Once his daily kowtow had been performed, he escaped to the clearing. After a time, even that refuge had turned to more emptiness, Pratima’s absence disheartening.