The Priest (3 page)

Mauricio didn’t dare walk closer to the bed.
He stood at a distance, looking at her from the door. She moved a
finger of her outstretched hand and sighed while murmuring
something incoherent. He unwillingly smiled at the singsong quality
of her voice. Mauricio moved one timid step toward her. He raised
his hand and, with a sudden decision, passed it through the curtain
of her falling hair. He smiled again; this time he was fully
conscious of the happiness he was feeling. A strand of hair caught
between his fingers and he looked at it under the artificial white
light. The hair changed color as he moved it this way and that.
Mauricio let the hair fall through his fingers and bent lower to be
at the same level of the girl’s face. He could hear the breath
coming in and out of her mouth. He moved closer to smell her skin.
Mauricio inhaled her scent and smiled again.
You smell of
something clean… and
sweet
. He fought the urge to taste
her.

The distant sound of several hurried steps
froze him in midair. Mauricio sprang upright and to the door in one
single movement. He checked that the hallway was still clear and
ran away in the opposite direction from the approaching steps. He
flew back to the room he left and sat on the floor. For several
minutes, he could only hear his heart beating loudly against his
chest. Then he realized that he was shaking uncontrollably.
Finally, he saw that he had left the door open. Mauricio stretched
one trembling leg and gently pushed the door until he heard a
distinct click. When his heart slowed, he heard voices outside in
the hallway.

“The Priestess said that the last deposit
was enough. You can take him back to his cell. The brat is being
treated right now.” One guard was standing just outside the
door.

“I can’t wait to get rid of her. She's only
causing problems. We had to double the surveillance. And on top of
everything else, we are working two or three shifts per day,
because of
Her-Royal-Pain-in-the-Ass’
presence,” another
guard commented.

“Playtime is over,” one of the two guards
announced. The key turned in the lock, closing the door instead of
opening it. A second of hesitation and then the key turned the
other way.

“Damn…” The guard immediately looked inside
the cell.

“What is it?” the other asked with a
suspicious tone.

“Nothing,” the plump guard said after
double-checking the slave was where she left him. She couldn’t help
but exhale rather loudly.

Thank the Heavens for small favors
.
Mauricio raised his eyes to the ceiling. If the guard who had
forgotten to lock the door had been alone, he would now be at the
receiving end of an unpleasant series of privileges that would
guarantee him retaliation by the hand of the other less-fortunate
slaves. As it was, the woman would never admit to the other guard
of having done something so stupid. Forgetting to secure a slave
meant losing their job. For some reason, the guards working around
the Temple were particularly terrified of doing anything wrong. It
was the subject of infinite speculation among the men.

The guard looked at him with wary eyes, but
she didn’t say anything.

You can’t prove anything.

“I’ll walk with you. I am headed to take
another slave back, anyway,” the other guard said.

“Great,” the plump guard commented.

Later that night, in the privacy of his own
cell, Mauricio’s lips turned up, but he refrained from laughing.
The room had only three solid walls. The fourth was a grid of metal
bars. Mauricio wanted to tell his adventure to everybody who would
listen. He wanted to be the one, for once, whom every other man
listened to, but guards were always skulking around. It wasn’t safe
to push his luck, which he had just drained for the rest of the
year. The stunt he pulled today was nowhere close to the other
little acts of verbal rebellion he had tried on the guards. Instead
of announcing to the world that he had defied orders and almost
touched a woman, he kept smiling to himself. He had realized
several years ago that he preferred to remain alive. A slave’s life
wasn’t life at all, but Mauricio was attached to the little he
had.

For several nights after the encounter, he
barely slept and constantly replayed the memories of the girl. He
thought that if he kept thinking of her, her features would be
etched forever in his mind and he would never forget how she looked
or how she smelled. But memories are tricky companions and tend to
betray one’s heart.

Days and weeks passed. The guards had
resumed their usual alertness. Cells were locked tightly and
conversations were held away from the ventilation grids. He was
asked to deposit his semen on a daily basis, and he complied as he
always had over the years.

Mauricio felt alone for the first time in
his life. For twenty-two years he had longed for acceptance; he had
dreamed impossible dreams, despising his position as a slave with
privileges. He had learned how to dull the pain he felt after the
worst beatings. He had learned to live like a pariah among the
other slaves and had even come to terms with the fact that fathered
women would probably hate
him
. Not any other slave, just
him. He, as a semental, was the reason fathered women were
considered lesser beings by the pure breeds. Because of him, he had
been told, his mother didn’t have a soul.

When he finally realized that he wasn’t
going to see the girl again, his thoughts turned bleak, and he
stopped caring about the flow of time. Not that, for a slave, the
succession of days meant anything. Time for a man was a procession
of similar activities constantly repeated over a lifetime.
Mauricio, different from everybody else by choice, cared about the
way he spent his existence. He knew the day would come when, after
having helped with the creation of an army of fathered women and
after having broken his back in the fields, he would end up in a
retirement facility. No man had ever come back to tell what
happened in the feared retirement facilities. It wasn’t so hard to
imagine why.

But, when that day came, Mauricio wanted to
be sure that he had left a mark. Even if it was something small, it
would be something nonetheless.

Then, the short-lived adrenaline rush had
consumed him inside out and left him bereft of something he’d never
had. He had tasted something he couldn’t define and he had liked
it. Mauricio collapsed under the wall of reality. What was left now
was a hopeless life. He reached the peak of sadness when the guards
came one morning and moved him to another wing of the facility. His
new cell was smaller, colder, and most of all, it was far away from
the field-workers’ cells, closer to the laboratories where he went
to make his deposits every day. Nobody had talked to him before,
but at least he had enjoyed the men’s voices at night. Now he only
heard mechanical buzzing and metallic chirping.

One morning, after his usual monthly
physical check, Mauricio was escorted deeper into the laboratory
wing. He was used to the mercurial moods of the women and changes
of plans were frequent. There could be several reasons for the
unexpected stroll. Maybe the whole wing was being sterilized; the
cleaning was long overdue. Mauricio hoped for a longer walk. He had
woken up, with muscles stiffer than usual, and was feeling
particularly blue. Any change in his routine was welcome. After a
few minutes of brisk walking, not as long as he had wished for, he
was shown inside a deposit room and told to stay put. Almost
immediately, he had a sense of
déjà vu
. Voices were coming
from the ventilation grid.

“How many viable female embryos do we have?”
an older woman asked.

“We have at least three. One is particularly
strong,” another woman, maybe the doctor, answered after a few
seconds.

“Excellent. Do you think we can start the
procedure today?” the older woman asked with a satisfied tone.

“I don’t see why not. I’m ready to implant
the embryo as soon as the girl is here.”

“I’ll call
Her-Royal-Pain
immediately. The sooner we are done with her, the better.”

Mauricio’s mind filled in all the blanks in
the conversation
. Keep talking
, he thought with renewed
hope.
I need to know if you are talking about that girl I can’t
stop thinking about.
The only sounds that came through the vent
were those of a leaking faucet. “Come back, please,” he murmured to
the ceiling, waiting for something to happen.
Would it kill you
to please me, just once?
When it was clear that the women had
left the adjacent room, he sat down and occupied his time tracing
doodles on the dusty floor with his fingers; he found drawing
relaxing. Some days he spent hours covering the window of his cell
with intricate laces made from fingertips on moist glass. One warm
breath on the windowpane and there was a whole new world of
filigree designs; one brush with an open hand, and the canvas was
ready for another masterpiece. Mauricio was good at finding ways to
entertain himself.

In this room, all he had was the dust on the
floor and his fingers. It was more than enough, but he couldn’t
concentrate on the task. Instead of drawing, Mauricio started
playing with the frayed hem of his pants. He circled his finger
around a loose thread and absentmindedly pulled at it one way and
the other. Finally, a thin strip of fabric gave away. Meanwhile he
kept analyzing the words he had heard. With restless hands, he
played some more with the strip of fabric and then went back to the
drawing activity. When he took a distracted look at the design on
the floor, Mauricio saw a half-finished, delicate profile. The
sound of steps came from outside his room. He hastily stood up and
erased the drawing with his foot. The steps didn’t pause at his
door.

“At what time do I have to prep the room,
Doctor?” a woman asked.

“The President’s daughter’s procedure is
scheduled at noon. Have everything ready by eleven,” a second woman
answered.

“It will be done by eleven, then.” A
clicking sound accompanied the words.

“Thanks, Ancilla.” The doctor’s voice was
barely audible. Then nothing else.

Almost at the same time, the door in
Mauricio’s room opened and the plump guard, who had become some
sort of personal escort lately, made a gesture to him, indicating
that it was time to go back to his cell. Mauricio wanted to know
why he had been forgotten there, but he knew better than to ask. He
followed the guard outside silently. Out of boredom, he decided to
memorize the route they were taking. Two turns left, three turns
right. Two different hallways. One hundred and thirty-two steps
from the room that was being prepared for the President’s daughter
to his cell. Give or take.

Meanwhile, Mauricio noticed the commotion
disturbing the quiet of the laboratories wing. There were more
guards than usual scurrying about. Doors opened and closed,
revealing the activities inside. Mauricio saw other sementals
waiting for their turns to be brought back to their cells. So, the
hypothesis that their wing was being sanitized was probably
correct. It had been sheer luck that he had ended up in
that
deposit room twice.

The plump guard didn’t even look at him.
Good, I get the silent treatment today
, Mauricio thought.
Pure breed guards came in two different types: the ones who would
never acknowledge a slave‘s presence if they could help it, and the
ones who draw great pleasure in tormenting men. The plump guard
oscillated between the two types depending on the day.
Keep
minding your business and we’ll both have something to be pleased
about today.
He blended with the walls while the woman made
several phone calls.
I’m not here. I’m not here; you can talk as
much as you want
.

The plump guard seemed to be following his
mental suggestion. “Today, if we are lucky, the whole shenanigan
should end. Let’s hope that the brat can keep the baby, and that
the President isn’t going to shut us down when she finds out.” The
woman paused for a moment to let three busy-looking guards pass
them.

“No, no… the Priestess has personally chosen
the best semental we have here to match the brat’s long list of
requirements…” The woman involuntarily shot a sideway look at
Mauricio.

Don’t mind me, keep talking
, he
thought, flattening against the wall.

“You can’t believe how detailed her list
was. The brat wants a baby girl with brown or green eyes;
light-brown, straight hair; olive skin, not too dark, not too pale.
Ah, and I almost forgot that she also wants her daughter to grow
taller than she is and with long limbs.” She snorted at the last
comment.

This baby is going to look just like
me
. For some reason Mauricio liked that idea.

“And this is just a superficial recount of
what the brat asked. She was in that room for hours writing down
every single insignificant detail about her perfect baby girl.
Fortunately, we have a semental that fits the bill almost to
perfection. Even the facial features are similar to what she asked.
Straight nose, big almond-shaped eyes… No, I am not kidding! She
went so far as to draw the shape of the mouth.”

Why would they need a semental? The girl
is a pure breed. They don’t need me for that.
He was getting
more and more interested in the conversation.
I can’t’ believe
this cow is talking like this in front of me. And the women think
we’re the stupid ones
.

The guard paused for a second, listening to
the other person’s comments and then she answered a question
Mauricio couldn’t hear, “The Priestess didn’t want to take the
chance of having to repeat this… I know, it would be a disaster.”
Another group of guards invaded the hallway with a machine on
wheels composed of a big cylinder towering a medical bed. The plump
guard shut up immediately and covered the phone with her hands.