The Claiming (28 page)

“He’s in love with you, you know. That’s why its tearing him apart that he can’t get through to you.”

Jana felt the blood rush from her face. “In love?”

Blane looked at her in disgust. “What did you think was wrong with him?”

“Me.”

His brows rose. “Exactly.”

“He is always angry with me now. He hardly ever shares himself with me, unless I make him so furious that he wants to beat me, and then he makes love to me instead.”

Blane turned red. “Don’t! For God’s sake! Didn’t I tell you you were not to talk about such things with anyone?”

Jana looked at him guiltily. “But I have no one else to talk to. And, you asked….”

“NOT about that!”

Jana was silent for several moments. “But you said he loved me and I was trying to tell you he doesn’t! Not hardly ever anymore.”

Blane dug his fingers in his hair, looking for several moments as if he meant to tear it out. “It’s not the same thing!”

Jana’s brows rose. “It’s not?”

“I really don’t want to discuss the fine points of this. Alain would slay me dead on the spot if he came in and caught me discussing … that with you.”

“Well, I don’t understand it at all,” Jana snapped irritably. “Everyone says something different! Alain said that was what it was! And I don’t see how you can expect me to understand if you won’t explain it to me!”

Blane studied her for several moments. “Fine! I want you to know I’m damned uncomfortable about this whole business. But the way I see it is I got you and Alain into it. The least I can do is try to fix the muddle you two have made of it. I’ll distract Alain. You meet me by the creek. Then you can say anything you like, ask me anything, and I’ll explain it the best I can.”

***

“Jana?”

Jana stood up, peering cautiously through the bush she’d been hiding behind. Relieved to see it was Blane, she moved into the clearing.

“What the devil were you doing back there?”

“I didn’t want to take a chance on running into Marty again,” Jana said, still looking around nervously.

His brows rose, but he looked at her suspiciously. “I thought you were anxious to go back to Marty.”

Jana sighed. Now even Blane looked upon her with distrust. She thought, though, that he probably would not want her to explain that she was no longer a virgin and Marty would have no use for her. “I can not.”

Blane shrugged, dismissing it. “It’s just as well you changed your mind. Alain told him he’d kill him if he ever set eyes on him again.”

Jana’s eyes widened in surprise. “He did?” She thought about it for several moments, wondering why she felt pleased when she should have been horrified. Another thought occurred to her presently. “Do you think that means that Marty left for Earth?”

“Depends. Is he stupid?”

Jana thought about it. “He seems clever enough.”

“Then I expect he’s back on Earth.”

Jana stared at him a moment and finally moved to the fallen tree, taking a seat. “He would not want me back anyway,” she said dejectedly. She had not liked Marty. She had not truly wanted to return to that life, but it would have been simpler. She was tired of complications, tired of her confusion.

“There’s no reason for you to go anywhere. You have a home here. Alain worships you. He’d do anything for you.”

She looked at Blane in surprise, then frowned. “What does that mean?”

Blane rolled his eyes. “He’s in love with you, goose. I already told you that.”

Jana looked away, angry suddenly. “Everyone talks about love, but no one will explain so I can understand! And even if it’s the truth, I don’t see how that makes a difference. ”

“Well, if no one’s explained, that’s because it’s damned hard to explain! Look, if I described a leaf to you and you’d never seen a leaf, would you be able to understand what I was talking about?”

Jana’s face fell. “You’re saying what Marty said. No one taught me love so I don’t know what it is and can not feel it.”

“I knew I should have beat that little bastard to a pile of jelly when I had the chance! I’m sure as hell not saying that, and I don’t believe it. I’m just saying you’re not seeing it and recognizing it for what it is! It’s the word you’re not familiar with, not the emotion!” Blane said angrily. “At least, I suppose you had no one to care about you before, so it’s not familiar, but Alain loves you … and I damn sure don’t see why you can’t love him too. He’s a good man! I know he might seem, sometimes, that he’s cold and unfeeling, but he’d not like that at all inside, that’s just … well, it’s because of … things that happened to him. He’s always like that until he knows he can trust someone. Cautious.”

“What does a person feel like when they feel love? How do they know that’s what it is?”

Blane scratched his head, suddenly looking doubtful. “Between a man and a woman? I’m not so sure. There’s been a couple of times when I thought…. But it turned out it wasn’t. Alain loves you. Can’t you tell from the way he looks at you? From the way he acts?”

Jana stared at him, taken aback. “It’s being angry all the time? I don’t think I want that.”

Blane burst out laughing. “I must say it serves that madman right! If he wasn’t scared to death you were going to break his heart and run off and leave him he wouldn’t be acting like such an ass! If that isn’t just like someone in love I don’t know what is!

Look, people do really, really stupid things when they’re madly in love. It’s kind of like being insane—that’s why they call it madly. You do and say all the wrong things and get just the results you were scared to death you were going to get.”

Jana digested that thoughtfully, wondering if there was truth to it. She had not been behaving in an altogether sane manner herself. If she’d thought about it at all, though, she would’ve considered it was because she was scared out of her mind. “You think, because he’s so angry all the time, that that means he’s in love with me?” she asked doubtfully. Marty had been angry all the time too, or most of the time, but he hadn’t seemed to think he was in love with her.

“I know he’s in love with you. I can tell by the way he looks at you.”

“He hardly looks at me at all! And when he does, he’s usually glaring at me because I’ve done something, or he thinks I’ve done something he doesn’t like!” Jana said angrily. “That can not be right.”

“I’m talking about the way he looks at you when he thinks no one will see,” Blane said dryly. “Look, he’s got his pride. He’d rather show his temper than allow anyone, especially you, to see his weakness. He might be crazy about you, but he doesn’t trust you and he isn’t going to let you see, or tell you, he loves you when he knows it would be something you could use against him if you don’t love him.”

She could understand that … or some of it, anyway. She supposed it was a need to protect oneself from emotional pain. “He was very, very angry with me the other night.”

“When you climbed out the window?” Blane asked coolly. “Of all the hair brained things you’ve done, that was absolutely the worst. You nearly scared the man to death! Of course he was angry. I’d have wrung your neck if you’d scared me that badly!”

Jana blushed but then sighed. Her head hurt from trying to make sense of everything he’d told her. She didn’t think she would ever understand it, no matter how he tried to explain it to her. “I do not think I will ever understand your ways. I have not lived as you have lived, Blane.”

“I know that! You’re forgetting, I was the one that picked you out for Alain.”

She shook her head. “I have no brothers, no sisters, no mother, no father. More accurately, I suppose, I have many of each, but it is not at all the same. I do not know any of them. None of the courtesans know, because we are the same. We were genetically engineered to be … whatever a customer might choose. You were wrong to choose me for Alain. I am not perfect for him.”

Blane began to pace the creek bank. “All right, so I didn’t … don’t understand, not completely anyway, but I still think it would work if you’d let it.”

Jana gaped at him, feeling a surge of anger that she was always blamed for what she did or didn’t do, even when she tried very hard to behave just as she ought. She could accept that it was partly her fault. She knew that she had done things she shouldn’t. She could accept that there were things she should have done, but had been too ignorant to know she was supposed to and that that, also, was her fault for being as she was. But it seemed unjust to blame everything on her.

It was partly Alain’s fault, too. If he had at least tried to explain things to her instead of expecting her to figure it out on her own, she might not have said or done some of the things that had turned out to be the wrong thing.

It occurred to her, however, that it really made little difference now who’s fault it was. Whatever might have been was no longer a possibility.

“Alain is disgusted with me because I am afraid to grow his child in the primitive custom of Orleans. He does not love me. I was so frightened when I discovered it. I told him that I could not do it, that I had to have it removed, and he is not at all the same anymore. He is always angry with me, even when I haven’t done anything wrong … that I know of. I know you think I am disgusting too, but I can not help it. I did not even know until I came to Orleans that such a thing was possible. It is not the way I know.

“And Lill has told me such tales! I had not believed her. I had thought she must be making up lies only to see how horrified I was. When I learned that they were true I thought I would die of fright, and then I was sorry I didn’t, because now, unless I can go to a place where they can remove it, then I will die a slow, horrible death and I don’t think I can face that.”

Blane held up his hand. “Stop. Look, I don’t know what that lame brain told you, but you can’t believe the half of it. Common sense ought to have told you everybody wouldn’t be happy about it if we expected you to die a slow, horrible death.”

“Oh,” Jana said thoughtfully. “I had not thought about that. I was so afraid I couldn’t think of anything but what she’d said…. The young Zell was huge when it was de-canted. There was so much blood! And the insides came out. Do they put them back in?”

“You’re not having a Zell, nit wit! And the mother Zell’s insides didn’t come out! That was afterbirth. It’s supposed to come out when the baby’s born. What’s de-canted?”

“It will not be big like that?--You’re just saying that to make me not be afraid! How can it not be big when I must carry it almost a year before it is de-canted?”

“Born, you mean? Are you talking about when it comes out?”

Jana nodded.

“Well of all the lame brained things I’ve ever heard! You aren’t bigger than a minute yourself! How the hell did you get the idea that it could be anywhere near that big? It probably won’t be any bigger than you were when you were born!”

Jana looked like she might faint—or throw up.

“As large as that!”

She jumped to her feet, wringing her hands, looking as if she wanted to run but couldn’t figure out where to run to.

Blane strode over to her, grasped her shoulders and forced her to sit down.

“I can’t! I can not do this! Please, Blane! I have to get it removed—NOW! Before it gets any bigger!”

“Good God! How big were you when you were born?”

“As I am now,” Jana gasped breathlessly.

“I mean when you were born,” Blane said dryly.

“As I am now!” Jana snapped. “I was de-canted as I am now!”

“That’s not possible!” Blane snapped, looking like he was torn between disbelief and the urge to laugh.

“It is possible. I was de-canted two years ago. I have not grown at all!”

“How long were you in that thing?” Blane demanded, appalled.

“Five years. I was accelerated, though. Usually it takes ten to produce a fully developed bondage. But I do not know how it grows … this way.”

“It doesn’t grow like that!” Blane snapped, obviously horrified. He balled up his fist. “It’s probably about this big right now. When it’s born it’ll be about this big.” He held up his hands.

It still looked big for something she was going to have to expel from her body, but not nearly as frightening as she’d imagined. “Truly? You’re not just saying this because you don’t want me to be afraid?”

“It’s the truth.”

She digested that, then frowned when she thought of a flaw in his answer. “How could it live if it is so small?”

Blane sighed. “Look, I’m no woman. I don’t know that much about babies myself, not as much as you need to know, at any rate. They’re tiny. They’re weak. They’re fragile little things, and without someone to feed them and take care of them, they do die. That’s why they need a mother. They can not survive without one.” He sat down on the log, facing her, then took her hand and placed her palm against her belly. “Has it moved?”

Jana nodded jerkily. “I think so.”

“This little baby is part you and part Alain. It’s not a thing. It’ll look like you, or Alain, or maybe a little bit like both of you,” he said quietly. “It can not live without you. It needs you. It needs your love. If you will stop thinking of it as something that shouldn’t be there, some alien thing, and start thinking of it as a tiny copy of Alain, or of yourself, you will find that you can not help but love it.”

“Like Alain?” Jana said a little breathlessly, feeling something like wonder as the image filled her mind. The loud snap of a branch distracted her. She jumped, looked around quickly, more than half expecting to see Marty, despite Blane had said.

Alain was standing no more than three yards from where they sat. Blane jerked his hand back guiltily. For several moments, no one so much as blinked. Slowly, Blane stood up to face the rage on his brother’s face.

No one said anything for long, interminable moments. Alain had stared at her for so long, Jana felt as if his gaze had burned through her. When he’d transferred his gaze to Blane, however, fear seemed to freeze her blood.

Jana could not help but wonder how long Alain had been watching them. Somehow, though, she did not think he’d heard what Blane had said or, surely, he would not be looking as if he wanted to kill Blane on the spot.