Travelling by ether she's done a thousand times, but being groped by someone while in transit, Saint Zolestine would have to admit this is a first. Naturally, she isn't worried their flesh is going to meld or anything. Ether transport has been proven 35.2 times safer than space chariot. But the fact of the matter is, no one gets off on touching anymore. Ever. Except, that is, on backwards and woefully perverse Terra.
She isn't sure how to feel in her situation. She has never met a male who still feels excitement over the arbitrary proportions and symmetry in a face. On the Firmament, pleasure lies much higher and farther from flesh. Her kind has removed all the middlemen inside the mortal shell until there's nothing left but the brain receptors stimulated by electric charges to produce dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and oxytocin. The biochemical rushes come in symphonic potions called Jubilee, a special, prescription type of Manna.
In a detached manner, she thinks how public disturbances are weird. A part of her is already imagining doing the things she knows she should be doing while another part makes excuses for not doing anything. It's either she doesn't want to make a scene involving herself or she wants to give the other party the benefit of the doubt.
Because that's the way Seraphim have been raised as fledglings: to always be polite, to be passive when something out of the norm is taking place around them, to not be quick to judge, to stay unemotional and level-headed. In short, Seraphim fit the role of victim to a T because an offender is most likely well-acquainted with Seraph flaws and routinely uses them to his advantage. And for as long she has known him, Riktor's a pro.
Blinkers are something all right, Saint Zolestine thinks. Riktor couldn't wait two seconds before he showed his true colors. As they hurtle through the ether tube amidst the routine phantasmal lightshow, she feels the back of his hand sort of accidentally brush the left cheek of her buttocks through the thin fabric of her palazzo pants. A sort of electricity runs through her corporeal body.
So this is what touch feels like, she thinks to herself. She knows very well the effect has nothing to do with ether-jumping. It feels like all sensation has left her body to the exclusion of one spot: the contact with his hand. As though the innocuous part of her body had been blown up and sensitized a hundred times. It's such a weird feeling. Neutral; neither pleasant nor unpleasant.
Through the precious seconds that all these things are happening to her, Saint Zolestine becomes distantly aware of a few pairs of Seraph eyes looking at them with just the slightest curiosity. Not that this is going to leave a lasting impression on any of the other passengers of the jump. They have the transient license of voyeurs. They'll soon shrug the whole thing off and go on with their monotonous existence with no memory of anything amiss in today's commute.
They all hit the landing pad simultaneously. And for the first time since she first did ether-jumping, she finds herself off balance, tilted backwards. All the other passengers take the gravity shift in stride and don't waste a second to form an opinion of them – the two strange beings touching.
She thinks: I'm gonna fall fall fall fall... but Riktor catches her by the waist. His hand wraps around her intimately, all the way down to the small of her back. Her eyes take in the man's very close, unshaven face and dark visor. Only one thing registers in a distant corner of her mind: He's smiling. He's got that stupid smirk on his face.
"I'm sorry. I..." he says as he helps her back to her feet.
That's when she dry-heaves.
This is the worst. She has never in her entire life felt dizzy on an ether-jump. But here she is retching like a child or, worse, a Blinker bumpkin.
"You all right?" Riktor says with concern.
Saint Zolestine, with enough force to hurt her wrist, swings her right arm to slap away every trace of the cheeky grin off his face.
****
They're at the Terran Drop Port, if you can call it a port. The only thing that gives it a right to the name is a relatively new and fairly decent sign in luminaric letters, probably put up by a local minister for Seraph dignitaries and aid volunteers. It's a shameless ruse. As soon as you step under the massive torii gate with the crude sign, you see a wide space like a warehouse with nothing but a single strip of sensors and a series of knife arches running through the middle, as though everyone can't wait to get to the real destination and this is just an unpleasant place you have to pass through.
At least it has a roof to protect our heads from the black rain, she thinks then looks doubtfully at the exposed plumbing and wiring in the ceiling.
They look like viscera. Like the whole building has been gutted and left to die in a great deal of pain. Merchants offering return ether-jumps hold court in pitiful, tiny booths dotted along the edges of the warehouse. She recognizes the Firmament brand names screaming for attention while the staffs manning the booths look dazed, like they're still trying to figure out how far they've fallen.
Saint Zolestine and Riktor venture through the endlessly flowing throng of reception personnel, liaisons, drop-port porters, hawkers and pickpockets. The noise is unbearably loud by Firmament standards.
"OK, come on," he says apologetically, deciding to come clean because he knows she can read his criminal intent if not his very mind. "I know I deserved that. I got carried away because... uh... well, you looked, erm, heavenly. I meant it as a compliment..."
"That's exactly the point," she hisses. "I'm not a Terran woman. If I felt like it, one signal from me and you'd be executed by an Abaddonian locust. Harassing a Seraph is a hellfire offense. I could have you incinerated right here. They'd suck away even your ashes and leave no trace of you or your stupid grin."
She speaks without breaking stride, the way retracted-wings Seraphim do, as though her feet aren't fast enough to get her through the Godforsaken place.
"I knew the risks before I did what I did," he spoke, much softer this time.
They're now in an underpass or airlock of sorts underground. The lights are artificial and dim even though it's morning. They're Terran government-issue lamps with low wattage. Terrans have photophobic, nearly blind eyes and need to constantly wear special visors. The lamps don't hurt the Blinkers but they could induce a headache for a Seraph from the sun-kissed Firmament. They aren't any good for reading or some such meticulous work. It both embarrasses and pains Saint Zolestine to think it but the lighting's perfect for one thing and one thing only: illegal procreation, which is reportedly the national pastime around these parts. She has to be extremely careful.
"Lay a finger on me again and I'll slay you myself. Not one diplomat of your government would bat an eye."
"Understood," he says.
She feels his regret – his remorse – is genuine.
****
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Thou Shalt Not Kiss
RomanceHE'D RISK AN ETERNITY IN HELL FOR A TASTE OF HER HEAVEN. In the early twenty-second century, the Rapture is no longer prophecy but history. The ravaged land is populated by the unrepentant, the desperate, and the depraved. Stringent population con...
