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Chapter 2 – Our first kiss was overrated
If I wasn’t an untouchable, would I be sitting here eating this piece of meat with this man, whom everyone calls “Your Highness”. I don’t even know who he is. Maybe that should be my first question, but what I actually wanted to know was if I was a sex slave or not. I was getting anxious at the thought of it, and I wanted to get it out of my mind. I wouldn’t have asked this question, if I had been well-rested, and comfortable, but as you have it, I wasn’t either, and I was getting tired, sleepy, and filter-less.
“I have a question for you.” I said, yawning as wide as I could. “I mean, I don’t know who you are, or what you do, but obviously you are not of the untouchable caste. You are one of the Aryans. So why buy me? I mean, you know I’m from the untouchable caste. You know that you could have probably gotten someone whiter, and prettier. But you paid a lot of freaking money for me. So, you are hoping for something here, but I don’t know what. But I know I can probably not give you that.”
That’s when I fell asleep mid-sentence. That’s pretty common with me. Pushing myself beyond limits and falling asleep mid-thought.
I slept for what seemed like an eternity. That’s when things got crazy.
I woke up all tied up. My legs were tied together, as were my arms. All I could do was sit up before a computer admonished me to sit still.
“Ma’am, you are going to have to sit still, or I will have to shock you to punish you.”
Uh, what? Shock me? What the hell is this crazy machine talking about?
I moved. I had to move. It was uncomfortable being bound up, but more than that, it was uncomfortable not moving for minutes on end.
I had to pee as well. But I don’t think that was happening. I moved and as the computer promised me, there was an electric shock that went through me.
All thoughts of moving or peeing or anything else went straight out of my head. I sat as still as I could.
But being human, I had to move every few minutes, and every few minutes, I felt the shock reverberating through my body. To say it was intense was not exaggerating a bit. I was sure I would come out of this experience with white hair, and incontinence.
Where the hell was the man who bought me here? Is this how he gets his jollies? Watching random women shocked by a computer when they move while tied up? $2 million seems an exorbitant amount of money to pay to watch this show.
Confused. Tired. Hungry.
All of the adjectives described me.
But I didn’t move.
At one point, I fell asleep and fell to the bed, receiving the shock of my life.
God knows how long had passed. But I was feverish from all the shocks, and non-movement.
Finally, the crazy man walks into the room.
He notices me lying there all tied up, and he rushes into the room panicking. He ordered the computer to switch off, and untied me in one foul swoop.
I pushed myself away from him as soon as possible, and started massaging my leg that was numb from non-movement, and tingling with pins and needles. He moved closer to me, saw the tears in my eyes, and slowly started rubbing my feet, calves, and quads with his warm hands.
I don’t know why I was crying. I guess, this was all unfair, and I wanted to be back home, back at work, back to my normal life.
It seemed like I was stuck here, but I didn’t know why.
I didn’t understand what was going on, and no one was explaining to me. It felt all a bit overwhelming.
I pushed his hand away, and walked as best I could to the washroom. After peeing for an inordinately long time, I washed my hands. Looking at myself in the mirror, I stopped crying, and just stood there.
I didn’t want to go back out there. I didn’t want to deal with whatever was going on.
I decided to hide in the washroom.
He knocked eventually.
“Garisha? Are you alright? I’m sure you are hungry. I have breakfast out here for you. I’ll explain everything to you. Just come out, alright?”
He was trying.
I didn’t care.
I switched on the faucet and sat under the shower for what seemed like a long while. I had undressed, but the hot water couldn’t warm up my body. I felt cold. And sad.
I might have cried a bit under the water, but no one would be able to tell.
The bathroom door opened, and he walked in.
“Ummm, how the hell did you get in?” I said, when he peeked into the shower. “I locked the door!” I said, covering myself up as best I could.
“I was worried about you. Are you alright? You’ve been in here a long time.”
He looked concerned, which was nice. But he didn’t look like he wanted me physically, which irked me a bit. Stupid I know, but c’mon, I’m sitting here naked, and he didn’t flinch an eye.
I shook myself free of these stupid thoughts, and said, “I will be out in five. I’m fine.”
I dried myself off, and walked out in a bathrobe. It didn’t matter anyways. He had seen me naked, and didn’t seem to care.
Maybe, he was into men.
I was hungry and it was time to stuff my face again.
I sat down, and without a word, piled my plate with food.
I ate. And ate. And ate some more.
It might seem like my stomach was a bottomless pit, especially when I compared how much I ate to what he ate. But I hadn’t had meals like these in ages. The untouchable community had strict delineations on how much food we are rationed out, and I spent a lot of my life in a constant state of hunger. My mother used to say to me that my first words weren’t Mama or Papa, but Hungry.
I think that’s an exaggeration by her, but probably accurate. You have no idea until you have lived the life where hunger occupies all of your thoughts all of the time, how much food matters. A lot of times it would be better to have no food at all, rather than not enough food.
Eating something and then realizing it’s not going to be enough to satisfy the gnawing of your stomach is the harshest punishment out there. If they wanted to control the untouchables by leaving them hungry, they have succeeded. Most untouchables speak about nothing else but food. What food they want to eat? What food they will eat once there is no rationing? What food they eat in their dreams?
I wanted to take full advantage of filling my stomach. It has been a while since I have been able to eat enough to stretch my stomach to its limits. So, I did.
He watched me while I ate.
Did I taste what I ate? Sometimes. But mostly, I ate to quell that hunger that I have been feeling for decades now. That hunger that never leaves me.
I think I ate for my mother and father who never got to eat enough because I was always hungry and they had to give up their rations to feed me. Even that was never enough.
Once, I was finished, I pushed my plate away, wiped my mouth with my sleeve, and sat in rapt attention.
Now I would find out what the hell is going on here? I mean, what am I doing here?
“You said, you were going to tell me what I’m doing here.” I said, when he didn’t say a word for a minute.
“Yes. I did. I’m just trying to figure out how to say it without sounding like an ass.”
“That’s going to be highly unlikely, so just tell me.” I was being mean. I know. But I was losing patience.
He raised his eyebrows at that, smiled, and then said, “You are right. Okay. Here’s the deal. My parents want me to marry someone. You are the only one I have met over the past few months that I would want to spend any time with, so I decided to bring you in and see if we could spend a month together without killing each other.” He winced as he said that, but I was still confused.
“We have spent time together before yesterday? When?” I looked closely at his face, but I couldn’t remember ever spending time with a green-eyed, dark-haired devilishly handsome man. Of course, he’s handsome. He’s an Aryan. They eliminate all of the non-beautiful, non-perfect people out of their community.
How do they do that? Simple. By killing off any babies that aren’t born perfect.
He leaned back, put his forefinger on his lips, as he contemplated. “Well...” Big pause. “Do you remember that homeless man that came in a week ago to your hospital? He had been beaten up badly, and he didn’t have any money to pay for his treatment. You paid for his treatment out of your lunch money and did some pro-bono extra work so that he left a couple of days later spic and span?”
“Yeah, of course. Poor guy. He was really badly beaten up.”
“I know. I was that homeless man.”
I reeled back. “What??” He couldn’t have shocked me if he tried harder.
He laughed at my reaction.
“I sometimes go out without my guards, and my titles, so I can roam the land that I own and meet the people that are indebted to me. Usually, people ignore me. But last time, I must have looked especially dirty or something. This group of Aryans found me, and beat me up for being poor. That’s what they said. The funny thing is that here in this world, these people were supposedly my friends. Obviously, they didn’t know who I was while they were beating me up.”
“Couldn’t you have fought back?” I asked, confused. Most Aryans are given intense combat training, as most of them will go into battle at some point in their lives, against the civil wars and revolutions that keep on cropping up from time to time.
“I could have. But they anaesthetized me, so I was basically paralyzed while they beat me up. “I know. They sound like horrible people and they are. I truly didn’t know that’s what they were like though.”
“Unfair battles are pretty common in the Aryan community. You just witnessed a part of it.” I said, as I had experienced it myself several times.
He looked up at me, into my eyes, and I looked away. I wasn’t ever going to share that story with anyone, not even my potential future husband.
“So, you are joking about marrying me, right? You know I’m from the untouchable class. You are an Aryan. The only thing I do know for sure is that you cannot marry an untouchable. We are dirty, you know. Tainted. Garbage. The scum of society. We would be better off dead, but they need someone to do the dirty work, so they keep us around.”
I leaned forward to grab an apple off the table, and he grabbed my hand.
He came around the table, and pulled me off my seat and towards him. He hugged me tight, as he breathed in my hair and my scent.
He looked into my eyes, and said, “Don’t ever say that about yourself again.”
Umm, okay, I’m pretty sure this man is insane.
I try to wriggle out of his hug, but he wouldn’t let me.
“You shouldn’t be hugging me like this. Whatever your status is in society right now, I mean, it must be high considering this house you live in, it will fall to the ground if you are seen consorting with me. You should let me go.”
He wouldn’t.
“You don’t know who I am?” He asked with a bit of incredulousness in his voice.
Oh shoot. Is he someone famous that I’m supposed to know of? I don’t have a TV or time to watch TV. I also don’t have money to buy magazines. I avoid the community centers where people play games to pass time.
I looked up at his face squinting a bit, to perhaps activate some memory buried deep within me. But I had no idea who this man was.
“I have no idea who you are.” I said, looking away ashamed. I should really be more aware of world events, but as things stand, all I know is how to do my doctoring duties, and that’s all.
“I love that. In this world, where everyone seems to know who the hell I am, and wants to be around me, I have found the one person who doesn’t. I want to celebrate. Would you like some champagne?”
I looked at him like he was crazy as he truly was. And nodded yes. I have never had any champagne, and I think it would be nice to try it.
He used an intercom system to ask the butler to bring some champagne.
He let me go to do that, and I finally bit into that apple that I had been holding on to.
“We can have the champagne. But I don’t know if I should tell you who I am. I don’t want to shock you.” He said, smiling.
“Ha-ha. Very funny. No seriously, tell me. Are you one of the Senators from the football team, or one of the Statesmen? I want to know.”
He looked at me to gauge how I was feeling or what I was thinking, and then blurted out who he was.
I should have sat down for this. If I tell anyone else who he is, it might not mean a lot.
But for me the fact that he is who he is meant the world. You see, when I was a little girl, hiding from the big bad man who used to beat me every night, I wrote down these words. “God, please save me from the darkness. Please send me The Lightman. The man who controls the lights of the world. The Emperor’s son, the deity’s child. I want to be free and only that one person can make me be free. Please send me help.”
The Emperor’s son was standing in front of me. We called him that because he was the son of the man who controlled all of the Aryans, and 50% of the wealth in the world. I had heard when I was a child, that if you married the Emperor’s son, you would be safe from the beatings. It was in one of the poems we sang to each other. I didn’t know it was just a mystical poem that didn’t mean anything. To my child’s mind, it seemed like fact.
I wanted to be free and I wanted to escape the beatings. I wanted my salvation.
But it didn’t come.
After a while, I stopped believing that the salvation would come. I was actually glad it didn’t come. I became this strong independent female because the salvation didn’t come. Maybe the timing is perfect. Now that I’m who I am, the Emperor’s son can come into my life and I won’t care much.
“You are the Emperor’s Son.” I said, smiling. “Do you remember that poem that was repeated by little girls all over the slums decades ago?”
He nodded. “Yeah, it was the cause of a lot of random girls coming up to me and wanting to be kissed. Forcing me to hire bodyguards. Ironically, I didn’t need bodyguards from bullets or assassins, but from over enthusiastic admirers.” He laughed at that as a knock sounded.
I was still in my bathrobe, so I ran into the closet, and changed, while I’m assuming the champagne arrived.
I put on a long black dress that was hanging from one of the rungs, as it was the only thing that was similar to the black dresses we were rationed out at the slums. It was the only color I had worn for decades. The only color I felt comfortable in.
I walked out to see the Emperor’s Son, Daniel, I think is his name, pouring a couple of glasses of champagne. Bubbly stuff. I wondered how it would taste.
He turned around and looked at me for a second longer than I expected.
“That dress suits you. Here’s to the fable of the Emperor’s son solving all of your problems.”
We clinked, and I sipped cautiously. Yum. Bubbles. Sweet. Delicious.
I like.
I sat down on the ground as I had been taught to sit. The ground was much warmer here than at home. The wood floors were warm to the bum, rather than the tiles I was used to.
He grabbed my hand, and pulled me to stand.
“From now on, you will be sitting on the sofas, and chairs as my equal. Not on the ground. Understand?” He said this staring into my eyes with such intensity that I understood what girls said about their knees giving out when they looked into some boy’s eyes.
I hated being such a girl around him, especially because he’s probably used to girls fawning over him. So, I corrected myself, straightened myself out, and nodded primly.
Calm and steady goes the ship, I told myself.
I sat down on one of the couches and sank deep into the plush leather.
Wowza. My face lit up. Is this how the rich people of the world sit? No wonder they look so happy all the time. This sofa is so comfortable, I would be ecstatic all the time as well if I got to sit on it in my free time.
I laughed in delight at the couch and said out loud, “God, this couch is so comfortable. Why would you ever not sit in it? My ideal day now would be sitting on this couch all day long. All day long. Don’t ask me to get up off it now.”
I snuggled deeper into the couch, enjoyed a couple of sips of champagne and sighed in pleasure.
I looked up to smile at Daniel, and noticed an odd look on his face. He didn’t look happy.
“Everything alright?”
He didn’t say a word, and walked up to me, sat down next to me, took the glass of champagne from my hand, placed it down on the table in front of us, and pulled me to sit on his lap.
“What are you doing?” Uncomfortable as hell, I wasn’t used to people touching me so intimately.
And then he just looked at me. No kisses. No hugs. Nothing else.
A few minutes passed by, and I returned his stare. Two can play at this game.
In those few minutes, I memorized his face. It wasn’t that hard. It was a pretty face, and easy on the eyes.
Why do all Aryan men have such long eyelashes? It’s absolutely unfair.
Deep intense eyes, perfect bone structure, long limbs. They do know how to keep the genetic pool tight and beautiful.
“Do you know what I’m thinking right now?” He said.
“Not a clue. No way in hell I ever know what an Aryan man is thinking.”
“I was thinking, they know how to build beautiful women in the untouchable community.”
Melting.
I melted.
I was a pool of melted human in front of this man.
God, he knows how to say the right things.
Laugh it off, laugh it off.
I didn’t. I got uncomfortable.
I started struggling in his arms, wanting to get off this ride that I was on. It was way too perfect, and I didn’t believe it anymore.
This is how it is in the fairytales, and I know that fairytales do not exist.
The other shoe is going to drop, and when it does, I’m going to be hurt badly. I prepare for that now by avoiding the sweet platitudes dripping from this man’s extremely kissable mouth.
He held on strong.
He pulled me in and gave me a little peck on my forehead. My favorite place to be kissed.
“I know you are probably thinking this is insane, and it probably is. But there is something else you should know. We’ve met before that homeless man incident. I didn’t want to talk about it so early on, but time is running out for both of us.” He cleared his throat as if to prepare, and a loud gong went off somewhere in the house. His eyes panicked, and he said, “Garisha... I need you to pay attention to me right now. That gong... It means, we have even less time than I thought. I was hoping to extend out our courtship, but...”
He nibbled on his juicy lips, and he saw me looking hungrily at them. That was when we kissed for the first time. Daniel would tell me it wasn’t the first time later, but that is another story for another time.
Time...
Isn’t it funny that we never think about Time until we are running out of it?
The gong was blasting away in the background while we kissed, and all I could think of was, “Will someone please stop the blasted gonging?” My first or not first kiss with Daniel was ruined because I couldn’t stay present in the moment. I remember it as being pleasant though.
Not what I like saying about a kiss.
“Garisha. The gong means that the vortex is coming here soon. It is going to take you somewhere. I don’t know where. But I promise I’ll find you, just like I found you in this time, I’ll find you wherever you go. I swear...” The gong stopped, and a look of horror came over his face.
He was looking at something behind me, and I was afraid to turn.
When I did turn, it was just a puppy standing there. A cute puppy.
“Aww...” I said, getting up off his lap to go pet the puppy.
He didn’t want to let me go. “Daniel... I’m just going to go pet the puppy. He’s whimpering. He must be all alone.”
I didn’t know what it was, but I had this insane desire to go pet the puppy. I was never this fond of dogs before, but right now, there was nothing more important in the world than petting that puppy.
Daniel finally let me go, after squeezing me into a tight hug, saying, “Remember that I will find you. I have found you before. Okay?” He had tears in his eyes.
Well, I couldn’t worry about that right now. The puppy was whimpering and I had to pet it.
And pet it, I did.
Chapter 1 is here - https://steemit.com/writing/@boomshikha/chapter-1-the-love-auction-dystopian-sci-fi-romance-novel
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