Chapter Six
An Apology
Given Leslie’s angry mutters about “bitch” and “xeno” and so forth, Leslie’s attitude toward Mia hadn’t changed all that much from what it had been weeks before, on Ormond Beach. Deciding he had left her stewing long enough, “So,” Sornan began, “how did your session go?”
Voice oozing sarcasm, Leslie replied, “How do you think it went? The little bitch pretended to be my therapist and I pretended I was listening to her.”
Sornan chuckled. “I see. A productive conversation then…”
Feeling suddenly stung by Sornan’s mild critique, Leslie spun toward him with a furious expression. “You fucking K bastard. Shut the fuck up! You don’t get to talk to me… pretend you’re being nice… You took away my planet… You took away everything I could have been…” Using the sleeve of her flannel shirt to wipe away her sudden tears, she hissed, “You fucking monsters killed my brother. I don’t want your nice. I fucking want him!”
Sornan wished he could do more to comfort her. Over the weeks that he had known her, they had become friends. They had explored the K Center together. He had even started sparring with her in her “mixed martial arts.” He loved those sessions, because he was doing them with her.
They had begun to share things about themselves and grown closer. Something he very much wanted to continue.
Only, occasionally, she would snarl, just enough to let him know the Resistance fighter was still there and they were still enemies. As she was doing now. But this was Leslie's issue, the core of what she had become. It was what had turned her into that Resistance fighter in the first place. The brother who had been killed and had taken a part of her with him. The one time that she had broken down. The one time she had let him hold and comfort her. The time he had mentioned the possibility of having a part of her memory erased. She knew what that part was. Losing that part would remove her as a danger to the Krinar, but it would also destroy the person she was; the person he had come to care for.
She had begged him to not let that happen to her. She had known which part would go. Her only link to the brother she had loved. He was absolutely certain it would not happen, if anything in his power could prevent it.
Saddened by Leslie’s distress, he thought about how her brother had probably died.
The Krinar knew about the aphrodisiac effect that human blood, taken during sex, had for them; and that the saliva they injected into a human’s blood with their bite had a similar effect on the human partner. They had known about it for as long as there had been humans on Earth. And when they began getting into relationships with humans they had also learned of its addictive potential.
But on Krina, for the small number of charl, humans bonded with their Krinar mates, that had never been a problem. If a couple let their pleasure get them addicted to each other, it was their business and no one else much cared. On Earth though it had been a problem from the very first.
Sornan regretfully thought of the months following the invasion. We didn't even tell them about our practice of taking human blood. We were afraid that they would view us in the light of their own legends, their stories about “vampires,” which we feared might cause the humans to panic. But, of course, they did find out. How could they not, with the fifty thousand of us surrounded by all that mind-bending pleasure just a tiny bite away. And then when we refused to confirm or explain our little, open secret, they decided we were indeed vampires. Then they really panicked. With the humans awash in fiction and with very few facts, their “Great Panic” was probably many times worse than it had to be.
And then some of us started opening Xeno Clubs just outside our Centers. Some of them were responsibly run, but others had been run by some of the least ethical among us, sex clubs for bringing the pleasure of human blood to us Earth inhabitants and the joy our intoxicating saliva gave to curious humans. Humans who thought that we were powerful and wise and knew what we were doing, and who fucking should have been right!
The Council did eventually regulate the clubs and now they're safe or they’re out of business. Humans are only allowed two visits a week and Ks are no longer allowed to share a human for the night. Only, before that happened, Leslie's brother got hopelessly addicted, before he even realized that addiction was a possibility. And then, as Leslie tells the story, “he went around begging Ks to bite him every hour." And maybe, in desperation, he tried to force a Krinar woman, who broke his neck along with Leslie's heart.
Leslie looked drained by her outburst.
Sornan did not try to approach her, but he did meet her gaze. For the first time, feeling the full guilt for Krinar irresponsibility, he knew what he had to do.
He said quietly, "Leslie, I'm sorry. I am so very sorry. Your brother was a victim of our stupid, careless behavior. We had an obligation to make sure he understood the danger of having his blood taken too often and we failed to do it. We should have warned him. We should have kept him safe. Made sure he didn’t give his blood too often. He was an innocent. He didn’t know what he was getting into. We should have warned him about addiction before we ever let him give his blood. We do that in the clubs today. But we failed to do it when it could have saved your brother. I am so very sorry."
Leslie stared at him, with unnoticed tears streaming down her face."Sornan. I... I don't... nobody..." She backed away a few steps, and screamed, "Fuck! shit!" She turned and bolted for the Compound.
Sornan didn’t try to run beside her, that would have upset her more. He simply paced her, as always making sure that she was safe.
The next morning, a work day, Sornan had a full schedule, but he made a ship and went to the Human Compound as soon as he was able.
Leslie was not at the gym or any of the other activities set up for the benefit of the prisoners. Sornan eventually found her in her room. He stood by the open door. “Are you okay, Leslie? Would you mind if I come in?”
She looked up. Sounding a little conflicted, reluctance warring with her need to return to yesterday's conversation and complete it. She finally said, “Yes, yes, you can. I guess you want to talk.”
Leslie was sitting on her cot, so Sornan chose the chair, the room’s only other option. “How are you feeling?”
She hesitated. “I don't know… Not really.
“None of you ever said anything like that to me before, that you guys could be wrong. Even Arus, when he makes those speeches at the UN. He’s okay, you know, for one of you, but I’ve never heard him admit to screwing up.” She looked directly into his face. “I think maybe you guys would piss off fewer humans if more of you did.”
She gave him a pensive look. “Before you found me unconscious that time, I really thought I would be killed if I were ever caught. Everyone I knew thought that was true. We were wrong about that.
“Okay, I have to say I'm glad I wasn't killed. But you Ks use stuff like that. You don’t tell us anything about you and then you tell us how misguided, how uninformed we are. How we just don't understand.”
She stood and started to pace around the room. “Sornan, do you know why I tell everyone about my brother? I do tell everyone, you know. Every K who talks to me gets to hear that story. I even told that story to Mia, back on Ormond Beach, while I was holding a gun on her.
“I tell my brother’s story and it rips me apart inside every single time I tell it. It tears me up because it’s not the story he would want me to tell about him. My friend Rose and I called it my ‘smash-and-trash response.’ I needed my memory of my brother so I could hate you, remember that you killed him. But when I used him like that, it made me feel like I was trashing everything he stood for.” She looked at Sornan her expression seeming almost pleading for him to understand. Then she went on.
“Sornan, Joe was my big brother and my best friend. He was the heart of our family. He was so smart and funny and curious about everything. On K-Day the whole fucking world was freaking out, thinking we were all going to die.
“My brother, Joe, wanted to meet you guys, talk to you, be a friend to you. He didn’t know how he could ever do something like that.
“Then he heard about the new X clubs. He knew what the X clubs were, of course. A place for Ks and humans, who wanted to have sex with each other, to meet. But they were also the only places he knew where ordinary Ks and humans could just get together and maybe just talk. That’s why he went to them, Sornan. He wanted to talk to you, not to fuck your women!”
Sornan asked, “What was he trying to accomplish?”
“I don’t know how it was for you guys,” Leslie replied. “For us, everyone was talking about the Panic back then. The more people heard things about the Ks, the more scared they became. Then they got so scared they attacked you; and you killed them.”
Sornan looked sad. “I wish we had more control over that Leslie. It’s an instinctive reaction especially for us males. Once it triggers, we have a very hard time stopping without killing.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Leslie. “That’s the thing Joe was trying to do. He just wanted us talking to each other, finding out about things like that instinct, so humans could avoid dying and you guys would be less stressed.
“He kept in touch with us. He did have a lot of conversations. Some Ks who came for sex ended up talking to Joe instead.
“But I understand that whole blood thing is supposed to make the sex amazing. He didn’t really talk to me about it. I was his kid sister for God’s sake! But I guessed he was hooking up too, at first, once or twice maybe, but then more and more often, in addition to seeking out or starting conversations.
“With the atmosphere in a sex club I guess it was hard to resist the sex. And then it became impossible. I’m pretty sure he did something to get his neck broken, but I don’t think he had any control over whatever that was.”
“What was he planning to do with all that conversation?” asked Sornan.
Leslie’s expression held both pride and sadness. “He wanted to write about the conversations he had. Long term, he wanted to set up friendship clubs outside the Centers. He told me he knew, that with the Panic, that could be dangerous for the humans. They could be labeled K lovers and be attacked by other humans. But he thought about the good it could do.”
“So, what happened, Leslie?” asked Sornan.
“One of the Ks from the club dropped his body off at the police station in the town where Joe stayed while visiting the Center. The K wouldn't say what happened, he just cited his immunity from human law and left.”
Sornan snarled, “That fucking bastard!” He was quiet for a time, visibly trying to get his rage under control. “What happened to his legacy? His writing?”
She sighed, “Mom and Dad packed it up and put it away.”
He took her hand in both of his. “What did you do, Leslie?”
“I went to New York to study computer science and joined the Resistance.” She gave him a hard look. “Do you blame me?”
“No, Leslie, I don't. I wish I could have known your brother.”
Leslie’s expression crumpled. She collapsed onto her cot, buried her face in her arms, and sobbed. Sornan knelt beside the cot and began to move his hand gently on her back in soothing circles. He murmured, “It’s going to be alright Leslie. It’s going to be alright. I’m sorry for what happened to your family and to you. I promise it will be better for all of you. Your brother won’t be forgotten.”