20

UNFEELING

“I DON’T WANT to do this.” I looked at Ulai, feeling my face tighten as I gazed up at his pale blue eyes. “Seriously. Do I have to do this?”

Voi Pai answered me before he could. I looked over, saw her staring at me with those vertical pupils from where she stood in the middle of the square room. I recognized the room, even...it was the same kung fu palace chambers I’d woken up in when I landed here the last time. I remembered the bed with the wooden frame and the detailed carvings. Even with how old it was though, and how beautifully constructed, it still reminded me of a fort I would have created with Jon and Cass out of blankets and couch cushions when we were kids.

“What is the problem, Esteemed Bridge?” she said, her voice steel. "You agreed to this. You agreed in front of witnesses, I might add, to bond with the group..."

I glanced at her, but Ulai spoke up before I could answer.

“She’d rather not be in the open construct for this.”

“She must.”

“Why, venerable Voi Pai? Can we not simply allow an open scan of her light? That would bond her to the group just as well, would it not?”

"It will take too long," Voi Pai sniffed. "It won't open her light enough..."

"You have allowed it for the younger seers..." Ulai began, but Voi Pai cut him off.

“She will be taking her clothes off for strangers soon enough. It is best to rid her of any false modesty now...” Voi Pai turned, staring at me when she saw me wince. Her odd pupils narrowed to lines inside dark gold irises. “I recognize that this is awkward, Esteemed sister...particularly given your soul’s age...but we have interested parties already. I cannot refuse them forever. Nor can you delay putting off repaying your debt for as long as you seemingly desire. Further, you are now a member of the Lao Hu. You cannot live in my home and use our constructs and not be bonded to the rest of your brothers and sisters...”

“But why like this,” I said, not hiding my irritation. “Can’t you train me for other work? I’m telekinetic for the gods’ sakes. Doesn’t this seem a little...”

“Low born?” Voi Pai said, smiling.

“Wasteful, I was going to say.” Looking again at Ulai, I bit my lip. “If you think you’re going to draw Revik here, playing some stupid game – ”

“The Esteemed Bridge perhaps does not understand the relative issues involved in training an infiltrator versus training a concubine,” Voi Pai interjected, her voice sharper. “One takes years, to do it properly...and we have already begun you in this, as per our agreement. The other, Esteemed Bridge, takes weeks. Months at most. In addition, given who you are, one pays significantly better than the other...” She smirked a little.

“...Sadly, it is not infiltration.”

Gesturing with one manicured hand, she exhaled with a kind of exaggerated patience.

“Your husband, I could use as an infiltrator. He is highly ranked, experienced, and male concubines are far less interesting to most of my clients...even the Sword.” Those predatory eyes returned to mine. “...You, on the other hand, have garnered a list as long as my arm, and that is only from a few, discreet inquiries.”

I folded my arms. “I would have thought a female prostitute would be a bit...common,” I said. “It seems like you can’t go anywhere in America without tripping over a few dozen of them, standing on the streets...”

“This is not America,” she said with a harder smile.

“You have planes,” I grumbled.

“You are missing the point,” Voi Pai said. “The Lao Hu do not sell it, Esteemed Bridge...and you are, for want of a better term, a unique product.”

I felt my jaw clench more. I looked at Ulai, but his face was serious, almost drawn.

Voi Pai gestured towards him, then between us.

“I have given you your favorite pet as a handler,” she said, exasperated. “I am using your training as a means of bonding via the construct...I'm not even requiring a group session of you with my senior infiltrators, as I have with adult recruits in the past. What more do you require of me, Esteemed sister? You have none of even the usual markers in your light...so I must assume you have no idea how to control your aleimi, much less any schooling in the more sophisticated arts. Ulai will teach you. So will the others we keep here for this purpose...”

“What if I don’t want to be ‘taught?’”

“Then you will begin seeing clients tonight,” Voi Pai said coldly. “We will tie you down for the experience, if necessary. You won’t fetch as high of a price, but we can pair you with experienced professionals who will at least help to redeem the experience somewhat...” Voi Pai’s expression remained porcelain smooth, but for the first time I heard some semblance of sincerity in her voice. “...You would do well to take up our offer, Esteemed sister. If you allow clients to access all of your light, it will be much more of a violation. If you are trained, you choose which areas they touch in you...”

I felt my throat close again. It occurred to me in the next instant that this was likely Voi Pai trying to be nice to me. Even as I thought it, Ulai squeezed my shoulder with one hand.

“...She is not wrong, Esteemed Bridge,” he said, soft.

Looking up at him, I found myself nodding. I looked at the female seer, feeling a kind of resignation steal over me.

“So it’s rape or professional whoring,” I said.

Ulai winced a little. His hand grew heavier on my shoulder. “I will not let you get hurt, Esteemed Bridge. She has given me discretion in this.”

“Discretion in what?”

“In your clients, Esteemed Bridge. As well as your sessions with them.”

“So you’re my pimp, Ulai?” I said, giving him a hard stare.

He gave Voi Pai a kind of helpless look, but the female seer chuckled.

“Yes,” Voi Pai said, folding the ends of her sash over in a tighter knot before reaching inside to the pocket of the dress. I watched her extract a hiri, that smile still on her red-painted lips. “That is precisely what he is, Esteemed Bridge.” She motioned towards the bed, clicking her fingers at Ulai. “Begin now. I will remain, to oversee the bonding...”

“I don’t want you here,” I said, blunt.

“I don’t much care what you want in this, Esteemed sister.”

“Leave,” I said. “Please.”

The woman only rolled her eyes at me, clicking in that odd, accented purr.

Ulai looked at Voi Pai, seeming to measure her expression. Then he looked back at me, leaning down somewhat to speak more quietly to my face.

“You will have witnesses at times, Esteemed Bridge,” he said, his voice quiet once more. “It is probably best that you grow accustomed to that, too...and she is right, about the bonding...”

“Nice. So you’re going to loan me out for orgies?”

“Sell...not loan,” Voi Pai corrected me. “And do not worry, Esteemed Bridge. Most will not be able to afford it.”

I tried to fight the anger out of my voice, and didn’t succeed. “You can drop the ‘Esteemed’ bit, sister,” I said. “Why are you keeping up this stupid pretense?”

Voi Pai smiled at me wanly, then tilted her hand in a shrug, holding a gold lighting coil to the end of the dark-skinned hiri.

“Because it’s the difference between charging five thousand yuan for you and one hundred and five thousand yuan,” she said calmly, exhaling smoke as she finished lighting the hiri. She motioned again at the bed, speaking to Ulai. “Proceed. Force her, if you have to. I am not spending my day here, watching you educate a toddler about sex...”

Ulai paled at this, but I rolled my eyes, clicking loudly.

“Fine,” I said. “Whatever.”

Before Ulai could steer me over there with his hands, I walked the five paces deeper into the room and sat on the edge of the low-built bed. Leaning back on my palms on the mattress, I planted my feet in the hanfu dress, waiting for him.

His brow furrowed, making a series of fine wrinkles on his forehead. I found myself wondering how old he was. With his short-cropped black hair and tanned skin, it was difficult to tell. Like most male seers, he was attractive, at least.

“I am three-hundred-and-forty-six, Esteemed Bridge,” he said, sitting down beside me. “Is there anything else you would like to know about me?”

I glanced at Voi Pai, then shrugged a little, human-fashion, as I looked back at him.

“Maybe later, Ulai.”

His ice-blue eyes studied mine. I thought at first he might kiss me, but he reached up, fingering the collar around my neck instead. Seeing the question there, I swallowed again.

“Okay, yeah. Of course. That needs to come off.” I glanced at Voi Pai. “One benefit of this little job, I guess...although I don’t suppose you collar your infiltrators, either?”

“Not generally, no,” she said, rolling her eyes.

I turned around, fighting nerves as I pulled my hair off my neck, allowing Ulai to reach the thumbnail latch that opened the retinal scanner in the back of the collar.

I glanced again at Voi Pai. “You’re not afraid I might just make your head explode?”

She gave me another disdainful look. “I am working on the assumption, Esteemed Bridge, that you do not wish to die before you reach the halfway point to the first wall of my City...and,” she added sweetly, exhaling smoke. “...If I’m not mistaken, having your husband the Sword die a slow death not long after you crumple to the dirt.”

I felt my jaw harden again. Turning away, I conceded her point with a gesture.

“Fair enough.”

The retinal scanner clicked off a second later, after running a bright red beam over Ulai’s eyes. I felt the being inside the organic collar clench and then relax, unravelling swiftly from around the bones in my spine. The sensation made me shudder.

Grimacing a little, I glanced up at Ulai.

“Thanks,” I said. “I think.”

Only one person could remove a particular collar. As far as I knew, they could only hold one retinal imprint at a time, by design. Anyone else had to cut the damned things off, rendering them useless. Apparently, since the collar was still intact, Ulai was my one guy.

My light filtered slowly back around me. My nerves rose once it had, when I realized he was already turned on, that his light already felt charged and warmer as it coiled around parts of me, exploring my limbs. He let me feel that he wanted me and how much.

Fighting not to react, I flinched a little when I felt a sharp pulse of pain off him. My light flared, opening almost without my willing it.

Immediately, his eyes widened. He’d been about to lower his mouth to mine, but instead he paused, meeting my gaze.

“No, Esteemed Bridge,” he said firmly. “Control your light.”

“Meaning what?”

He pushed at the center of my chest lightly with his fingers. It made me wince, but he was showing me something with his aleimi as he did it.

“You are opening too much,” he said. “Pull back...pull back, sister...”

I felt myself flush slightly. Then I was focusing on what he was showing me. After a few seconds, I could see what he wanted me to do.

“Oh,” I said, my eyes still out of focus as I looked at my light through his in the Barrier. “So that’s...wrong?”

“Not wrong. But not for this.” He smiled, caressing my face. “That is for your mate, Esteemed Bridge...no one else.”

I met his gaze, feeling my jaw harden a little. I knew better than to argue the point, but a part of me wanted to. Instead, I found myself following his light again with mine, studying what it did, even as he began caressing the side of my neck. He was pulling on me, coaxing me to pull on him. When I did, I felt his approval, just before he slid deeper into my light, showing me another way to do the same thing, until I was fighting to keep my breathing steady.

They hadn’t been kidding, I realized.

This wasn’t just some test ride to make me feel like a jerk, or even to bond me with the group, or try and break me out of my inhibitions. I was actually going to be trained in this.

Voi Pai must have heard some part of my thoughts through the construct...because she laughed, exhaling smoke.

“Your husband,” she said derisively. “...No wonder he left you.”

I felt my jaw harden more. Pain hit me at her words, but I didn’t look at her.

I forced my eyes back to Ulai’s instead, and the look there reassured me a little. He didn’t want to hurt me, at least. I could feel it in his light, he wanted to make this okay for me, at least as much as he could.

“All right.” My voice came out gruffer than I intended, but I fought it out of my expression, holding out my hands in a seer gesture of surrender. “...Train me. What the hell.”

Ulai smiled. I saw a flicker of something like empathy before he leaned down, kissing my mouth, taking his time as he continued to explore my light with his, tugging at it in slow pulls. His mouth on mine made it difficult to not react as I tried to do as he prodded me, gently at first, then more insistently as he started to respond to my hands on him. His pain worsened when I tried to comply...I found myself fighting to follow his light, unable to focus on the kiss, until I realized suddenly that he was untying the front of the dress.

At the same time, I felt Voi Pai in my light, and realized she was doing that bonding thing, somewhere in the middle of all this. I didn't feel as exposed as I had with Revik in those caves with his rebellion seers, but it was a close second. I felt the attention of most of the construct on me, even as I felt flavors of the other members of the Lao Hu.

A kind of panic hit me, but I fought that, too.

Ulai pushed me back on the bed, gently, but he was big enough that I found myself panicking slightly at that, too. His light blew over mine once more, and in the next instant, I felt his pain pulse higher. I felt myself starting to open again, but he laid his hand on my chest.

“No,” he said, quiet. “Stop.” He switched to my mind. I want that, Esteemed Bridge...I want it very much...but do not give it to me. Or the others. You must learn...it is important for you.

His pain made the pulling worse, but I fought back my light, struggling again for control.

He had his hands inside the dress then, which didn’t exactly help. I was starting to undress him then, but he stopped me halfway through it, pinning me to the bed. Pausing, he looked down at me, his pale blue eyes shining faintly, lighter than his tanned face in the shadows.

“How many seers have you been with?” he said.

I stared up at him. “Is that strictly relevant?”

He pulled on my light again, sending a pulse of reassurance through me that melted my limbs. But his eyes never left my face, and his expression stayed serious.

“How many, Esteemed Bridge?” he said again. “Please. I need to know.”

I tried not to remember Voi Pai was listening to this only a dozen or so feet away...or that the rest of the construct might even hear it by now. I kept my eyes on his as I shrugged a little, fighting my voice nonchalant.

“Three,” I said.

He gave me a faintly skeptical look.

“Two, really,” I said, feeling my face warm. “One of the three was a rape. The other was only one time. Really, mostly just Revik. You know...Syrimne. The Sword, I mean...”

I felt another flicker of pain on him, just before he rested his weight heavily on me, enough to make me react again. Sliding his light through mine in soft tendrils, he eased my legs apart with his. His pain worsened when my light started to respond again, but he pushed it back gently, pushing me to use other structures in my light to control it.

“Ease off, Esteemed Bridge...you are doing it again...”

“I’m sorry...”

“Don’t be sorry,” he said, his voice a gasp. “It is for you I do this...not me.”

He looked at me then, his blue eyes on my mouth, then back on mine. I felt another pulse of pain on him, even as he pressed his weight down on mine, showing me how to pull back my light when I started to react again. His weight was a lot like Revik’s...too much. Even the length of his body confused me. Ulai kissed my throat, pressing down on me again...showing me again how to control it when my light began to respond as if he were Revik.

“And he won’t kill me for this?" he murmured. "...Your Sword?”

Glancing up, I smiled a little at his expression. I shook my head. “No.”

“You are sure about that?”

Realizing he was teasing me a little, I smiled again. “I’m pretty sure, yeah.”

“Pretty sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Pretty sure is...not that reassuring, Esteemed Bridge...”

He was pushing the dress higher on me as he spoke, caressing my thighs and hips, then my belly. I closed my eyes as he started pulling on my light again, showing me how to respond with mine. I fought to focus on what I could feel him showing me, to not think about...

His fingers slid inside me and I jumped, opening my eyes.

He met my gaze, his eyes serious. Before I could speak, he was showing me more with my light, until I was pulling on his fingers, sliding light down his legs, to his feet. He nodded when I pulled it higher, up his back. When I pulled harder, he closed his eyes, giving a low groan. I felt him showing me where to move my hips then, and suddenly I was panicking again. He sent more light, calming me, until I clenched my fingers in his short hair, fighting to relax.

“I’m going to enter you now,” he said quietly.

It felt too soon, but I bit my lip, nodding. “All right.”

He moved his body up over mine, and then he had his hand on mine. Taking my fingers, he slid them down between his legs. I fought not to react, touching him when I felt his light ask for it. I felt him over cautiously, feeling my face grow hot even as I looked down at his prompting.

“You are not used to sex with strangers?” he said. “Not even humans?”

“Not without a lot more alcohol involved,” I said, still looking at his body. I glanced up at him at his silence. “...I'm all right, Ulai...really.”

He groaned when I slid my hand down him again. He was different than Revik...more like Balidor, in that it was curved slightly differently. Still big though, bigger than most humans. I wondered if the shape was an age thing, too, or some race thing, meaning Sark versus Elaerian. It honestly kind of freaked me out. I’d barely gotten used to Revik.

I looked up at him again, and saw his eyes on my face.

“It’s all right?”

“Do I have much choice?” I joked.

“Yes,” he said, frowning. “Of course.”

I met his gaze, feeling my chest tighten a little. “It’s fine, Ulai. Sorry.”

I felt him pulling at me again, and then he was kissing me, holding my wrist in his hand. He did something to my light, hitting me in the chest and then in the belly almost urgently, in a way that nearly paralyzed me, forcing most of my muscles to relax. As soon as he’d done it, I realized he was inside me. He did it while I was completely open...my body anyway.

I cried out, half startled and half from the pain that rose in me abruptly.

He helped me control my light again, and then he was groaning, arching into me with long thrusts of his hips and back. After another moment, I had my arms and legs coiled around his, but I could barely move.

“You are shielding us,” he said, looking at me as I gasped, holding his arm. “Why?”

“The Sword,” I told him.

I saw understanding reach his eyes. He arched into me harder, making me cry out.

“You are blocking Voi Pai, too...and the others...she doesn’t like it, it will make the bonding more difficult...”

“Tough shit,” I said. My voice came out angry, half from his words and half from what he was doing to my body. “She’ll like it less if he shows up here, pissed off because I can’t keep my light to myself...”

“You can’t do it all the time, Esteemed Bridge. You can’t always shield. There will be times when – ”

“We’ll cross that when we come to it,” I said.

Hesitating, he nodded.

Then, lowering his head, he arched into me again, harder, forcing my back into a curve with his hands. I felt his pain worsen as his light relaxed, as he lost himself in the motion. He built a slow rhythm as I coiled my light into his, until both of us were gasping. I had my legs wrapped around him tighter as he pulled me into a different angle again.

He was still showing me things with his light. He coaxed me into subtleties of motion and friction in my body and then groaned when I got it right...only to show me more, trying to get me closer to the exact thing he wanted me to understand. By the end, he was sweating, holding me under him as I fought to answer his mind’s pull, to shift my body where he wanted it, to tense or relax where he wanted me.

By the time he came, he actually seemed to lose control. He cried out as he held me under him, extended all the way as his back spasmed in jerks under my hands.

I lay there, fighting off an almost paralyzing feeling of...I don’t know. Guilt maybe. Regret. Maybe it was some form of self-disgust. Either way, it stayed with me, lingering in the background while he slowly brought his breathing under control.

I would have to do this again, I realized. With other people I didn't know.

It struck me again that, bravado aside, I wasn't sure if I really could do it. I knew the feeling was irrational. Seers did it all over the world, male and female. Hell, it was pretty much commonplace...almost every seer I'd met had done at least a short stint, apart from the monks and those seers who'd been raised in the Adhipan. Even Dorje told me he'd been forced to 'sell it' for awhile, as the seers generally phrased it, when he'd first entered the human world and desperately needed the money.

I didn't think I was better than them. I just didn't want it to be me.

Maybe it was the human-raised part of me, thinking that way. Or maybe they all felt like that at first. Maybe humans and seers really weren't all that different.

For a long time, that was the only real cycle of thoughts that penetrated.

It wasn’t until afterwards, when I was alone and having what amounted to a delayed reaction to all that Ulai had shown me about my anatomy in that hour or so, that I realized that Revik hadn’t told me anything. Like, basic things, about angles...and friction, and what females could do to slow down males, and where to pull on them to hold them at the edge, closer than I’d ever gotten Revik, even when I’d thought I was doing something similar.

He’d done some of those things himself, of course...on the male side, anyway...but he’d never shown me anything about what I could do for him. I tried not to think about what it meant, in terms of how Revik viewed me...if it meant anything at all.

The longer I thought about it, the more my head started to pound.

Even foreplay. From what Ulai had shown me, a lot of “foreplay” happened during intercourse for seers...meaning before the males, at least, had extended all the way inside. What had felt too soon to me was, essentially, a human reaction to what he’d wanted to do to get me turned on. He hadn’t actually built to an orgasm for another thirty or so minutes.

Some of my own gaps in education I’d already figured out, of course, watching Revik with those prostitutes in the Barrier. But the reality of it hit me again, harder in some ways, in those few hours of being alone after Ulai and I finished.

At the time, however, I was more stunned, I think.

For a long moment, I just lay there on my side, trying not to think and still half in pain as Ulai caressed my back, running his fingers through my hair. I didn’t know how tense I was until Ulai pulled me against him. Glancing at him over my shoulder, I peered through the curtains a second later. A kind of relief rippled my light when I realized Voi Pai had disappeared.

Ulai kissed my cheek, still massaging the front of my body.

“She left, yes,” he said, quietly. "The bonding is mostly complete. The rest will happen tonight, while you are sleeping..." I realized he was hard again, even as his hands roamed lower, less cautiously than before. “...And yes, I want you again...” he added, softer.

I felt my face warm. I knew it was stupid to blush at that point, but I couldn’t help it.

“So...lay it on me,” I said. “How bad was I?”

I tensed a little when he paused before answering.

Then he laughed, gripping my hair, tugging on it with one hand. Not answering me, he laughed again, pulling me against him, pressing his erection against the back of my thighs. His pain worsened as he did, and then he was kissing my neck, pulling me to my back, sliding a hand between my legs.

“Your light is unbelievable,” he told me, kissing me again. “Gods...Esteemed Bridge...learn to keep your light in control. Or we’ll have seers fighting over you, even humans...”

“But what about the rest of it?” I said, pushing at his chest.

He shrugged with one hand, dismissive. “The rest you’ll learn. The light part...you can’t learn that.” He kissed my shoulder lingeringly, caressing my breast with one hand. “Can I teach you more?” he said, smiling a little as he leaned on me. “I want to show you something else...in fact, I want to show you a couple of something elses’...”

I fought not to care that he’d basically told me I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. I’d already guessed that, but it didn’t make it any easier to hear. I felt another pulse of anger at Revik, but I couldn’t have articulated to myself why, so I forced it out of my light.

The truth was, it didn’t really matter anymore, what I did.

I couldn’t really think clearly about what came after this...meaning after I left the Lao Hu. Images of myself waiting tables in Bratislava tended to come to mind, and I wasn’t ready to go there yet. Although the thought of approaching Ullysa in Seattle for a job didn’t exactly appeal to me, either. I'd asked for the infiltration training. Hopefully, if I studied hard enough at that, and managed to earn even a low-level sight ranking, I'd at least have some options when I left.

It was easier to just focus on that exact moment, push the rest to the background. Eventually I would have to pick up the pieces of my life...figure out what was left. Somewhere in all that I’d have to think about the fact that I was broke again, that I probably couldn’t go back to the States easily, that I had even less to my name than I had in San Francisco, and now I was a wanted criminal and hated by most of the seer community to boot. I’d also have to think about the fact that seers with no money usually ended up doing exactly what I was doing now.

I would have to think about all of that, and decide which of the twenty or so crappy options I had seemed the least unpalatable.

But now wasn’t that time.

I had a cool twenty million to work off before then. Given that I had no idea what that meant, in terms of either time or people, there was no point in getting worked up over what came after. Anyway, I’d finally done what I’d told Revik I didn’t know how to do.

I’d had casual sex with another seer.

I looked up at Ulai. He was watching my face, and I saw that empathy in his eyes once more. After a pause, I slid my arms around his neck. I felt him react as I did, pain rippling off him as he coiled his light carefully back into mine.

“Okay,” I said, shrugging. “Go ahead. Teach me everything.”

THEY DIDN’T LET me see any actual clients for another few weeks.

Which probably should have been a relief, but actually just stressed me out more, maybe because it built the whole thing up into my head until I was barely eating after a few days.

I tried to keep my brain in kind of a ‘static’ place with the whole thing...meaning, one foot in front of the other, not thinking about what I was doing, but just going with it, like I would with any new job or project. I definitely avoided thinking about what I ‘was’ now, technically-speaking...much less what any of my friends back home would say if they ever found out.

In particular, I tried not to think about my parents, or how my mother would probably cry for about six months straight if she knew where I was right now.

I didn’t want to go there, so I just deleted that part of my thinking. I deliberately focused on the trees, doing my best to completely ignore the forest...even when it was trying to bludgeon me in the face. Voi Pai, in particular, seemed to find my human-like take on all of this either funny, painfully naive, or ‘human-religio-prudish,’ all in about equal measure.

Strangely, I got the feeling that some of this was even driven by compassion.

She at times resorted to ridiculing me to force me to cut it out. Once or twice my depression about the whole thing even seemed to make her angry...or possibly offend her, if such a thing were possible. In any case, her reactions were enough to convince me that, at some point, she’d taken her own turn at this time-honored tradition.

Either that, or someone close to her certainly had.

Oddly, the whole thing seemed to make her like me more, too. Maybe because it leveled the playing field between us...or maybe it was some sisterhood thing I only halfway understood. Maybe it was simply because she viewed me as ‘one of hers’ now, and therefore falling under her protection. Since my first night at the compound, I couldn't help noticing that I felt differently towards the other Lao Hu seers, and they felt far less like strangers. I'd dreamt about most of them that night, and while I couldn't remember a lot of the specifics the next morning, I found I knew a lot about the seers I met...and they all looked vaguely familiar to me, even when I was reasonably certain I hadn't met them before. I also knew most of their names.

Most of my basic freedoms were returned to me within the first two weeks. I was also given access to a lot more of the construct...far more than I ever had while staying in the City as a guest the year before. Voi Pai assigned me my own living space, gave me access to all of the gardens and open spaces, and essentially treated like any other resident of the City.

There were exceptions. Most of those had little to do with me, personally, and everything to do with either my new role for the Lao Hu, or the additional security measures required to keep me alive. No one, from the highest ranking members of the Lao Hu on down to the lowliest human servant, had access to me without extensive security screens.

I found this out almost by accident, actually. I went for a walk in the Imperial Gardens and happened to notice one of the human gardeners I recognized from before. Strangely happy to see the old guy, who’d always had a kind word for me, I waved in hello.

He approached me a moment later, smiling, and holding a trowel. I thought nothing of it until the six Lao Hu guards I hadn’t known were following me had guns on the poor guy, forcing him to his knees on the stone path. I watched, mortified, as they conducted invasive scans of his light and person before they let him go...and couldn’t help but notice that the old guy had peed himself he’d been so afraid of the Lao Hu guards.

After that, I didn’t wave to people.

During most of that period, I spent the majority of my “training” hours with Ulai. He ended up sleeping at my place a lot of the time as a result...often enough that I got sort of used to having him around. He had me practice on a few others as well, letting me take my pick of a group of infiltrators and guards who had apparently volunteered. I don’t know if it was more or less disturbing that there didn’t seem to be a lack of volunteers.

Voi Pai had a few of the other female consorts spend time with me, as well.

Unlike with Ulai, she didn’t specify how I was supposed to spend that time, which I admit was a relief. Being around them wasn’t as strange as I might have thought. In fact, it was a lot like hanging around any other group of female seers, only the consorts were a lot friendlier than the majority of infiltrators I’d met.

I picked up a fair bit through listening to them talk.

Looking at it objectively, I guess we were all supposed to get along, too. Maybe Voi Pai was trying to soften things for me with that, if nothing else by reminding me I wasn’t the only seer in the City working in a similar capacity, despite myths to the contrary.

Three of these consorts decided to adopt me, in a manner of speaking. They came by my place just about every morning to talk. Within a few days, they were also inviting me out for walks, for meals, for winter garden parties of various kinds...even to see a movie in the main theater of the Imperial residency.

“Charlie” spoke almost perfect English. She had some kind of Chinese name, too, which I heard Ulai mention, but no one else seemed to use it.

Charlie was cool, but definitely quirky. Her hair hung long down her back, framing a face as flawless as Voi Pai’s, but significantly more Asian-looking. She didn’t wear her hair up in any of the traditional styles used by a lot of the other girls, and her make up and clothing were generally Western. Her eyes were dark, with flecks of green the color of new pine needles. They stood out against her pale skin, large and innocent-looking inside a baby-round face.

She also had a pet snake named Gulag that a human servant named Ugi carried around for her. A python of some kind, “Gulag” maxed out at about a fourteen to sixteen inch diameter in his middle, and looked capable of swallowing small children whole.

I didn’t ask her if she knew the meaning of her snake’s name in English...or if he ever came along with her while she was seeing clients. I didn’t really want to know the answer to either question, to be honest...and anyway, most of the time when we hung out, she wanted me to tell her all about the United States. Specifically, Charlie was obsessed with American movies...male action stars in particular. She also liked pro wrestling, which she grilled me on endlessly every time I saw her, no matter how often I told her I knew absolutely nothing about it.

Miao, Charlie’s best friend and sometimes-partner, was a lot more quiet.

Even so, I felt like I got to know her a little better, maybe because her light was a little more accommodating and open, so it was easier to get a feel for who she was under the more obvious things. Small and elfin in appearance, Miao had a cultured quality that contrasted well with Charlie’s gregariousness. Her Prexci reminded me of Vash’s, as if she’d learned to speak it during a different historical age.

Funnily enough, rather than Charlie, she was the favorite of many of the American and European men who came to China for commerce or government business. She did a better job of maintaining the illusion of exotic other; as a result, she kept a fairly stable list of clients to whom she, as she told me with a wry smile, gave “the Ancient China treatment” on a regular basis.

Although seer prostitution was technically illegal in China, it was considered a “favor” or “gift” from the Lao Hu to offer a consort as a token of goodwill to select individuals and representatives of countries or industries. Because of the interdependent relationship of the Lao Hu and the Chinese Communists, they often extended these “favors” to those persons deemed important in stature to the Chinese government on request.

In return, they were compensated well by the government for the service.

It was also considered “impolite” for those receiving such a gift to not provide some measure of compensation directly to the Lao Hu, as well. Part of this was meant to indicate that the particular gift had pleased whoever it was. But, more importantly from the Lao Hu’s perspective, the client’s compensation also signified a gesture of mutual respect. The Lao Hu, as well as the Chinese humans themselves, were extremely sensitive in regard to any hint that this gift had not been freely given, or that it resulted from some version of seer slavery that even remotely approximated the Western versions.

As these gifts were acknowledged to be a great honor for the recipient, to not provide some sort of compensation in appreciation was tantamount to a direct insult. As a result, any future gifts would not be granted to that particular person...or company, for that matter, if they represented an organization rather than an individual.

The whole thing was b.s., of course.

Like a lot of things in the City, I couldn’t help but see it as an elaborate and ritual-laden cover for business as usual for seers and humans. I admit, it disappointed me a little, given that the Lao Hu and the Chinese had a rep outside of Asia of treating seers more as equals than their less-enlightened cousins in the West.

Like most myths though, some truth existed in the b.s., too.

For one thing, I was the only consort I saw collared. In fact, I was the only seer I saw collared, anywhere in the City...and the reasons were pretty obvious, given the telekinesis and the need to keep my exact location somewhat unclear to seers even within the City.

I also heard both Miao and Charlie talk about refusing clients.

In the cases I heard them discuss, the refusals had occurred for different reasons...but the fact that they could refuse at all struck me as significant. Consorts or not, they still had some discretion around who they let into their bed. Their handlers did as well, for reasons they didn’t even have to share with the clients. A no was a no from the Lao Hu. They didn’t have to give a reason for the answer, or even listen to a petition to have that answer changed...which also happened on occasion.

Ulai had already mentioned this to me, that I had rights of refusal, as long as I didn’t abuse them. He told me that he would likely refuse some too, either for security reasons (the security protocols around me were ridiculous when it came to clients), or because he picked something up in their thoughts that made them “unworthy.”

I didn’t ask what he meant by this exactly.

I did find it somewhat comforting though, when I heard Miao talk with enormous distaste about a client who had been thinking about the female seers in subhuman terms and had been refused out of hand, with no rights to re-petition. Being an ignorant, racist jerk was enough to get you the boot, apparently.

I admit, after my experience in the White House, I found that gratifying.

I tried to do my best to tune out most of the sex trade stuff, though, to be honest. I kept my focus on infiltration instead. I’d officially joined a group of Lao Hu apprentice seers, and I let those lessons consume my thoughts pretty much 24/7, at least when I could. To my enormous relief, I didn't have to push Voi Pai for this part of our contract at all. A pair of guards simply showed up at my door and led me and Ulai to my first class...and when I arrived, Ulai uncollared me. The three of them picked me up later that same day when the class ended. Since the classes were daily, and around four hours long...and I wasn't seeing clients yet...that left me a lot of time to practice on my own. I used every minute of it, at least that I could.

Truthfully, they were the first real infiltration classes I’d ever been given. Revik had always been reluctant to train me outside of the basics. He said he wasn’t “qualified” to teach straight infiltration...that he’d been trained too haphazardly himself to know how to break it down into the appropriate steps. The truth was, I realized after awhile, he’d been trained by being beaten when he made mistakes.

He never came out and said it, but I got flashes, here and there, of him using a similar method himself, training new recruits under the Rooks. As a result, the whole idea of training me, even without that as motivation, rubbed him the wrong way.

Balidor focused all of his efforts on teaching me how to shield. He, too, seemed somewhat reluctant to teach me a lot, in terms of the more offensive skills. Tarsi taught me a few things, but mostly she’d just been testing me for my potential rank...and trying to educate me about my husband, although I hadn’t known it at the time.

Wreg and the others gave me pointers when I lived with Revik as the Sword. Even Dorje, Maygar and Chan taught me a few tricks, when I asked them point blank.

But I’d never actually been given lessons.

Now, I found my brain close to bursting following every session with the Lao Hu trainees. Sitting with them in a circle around our teacher, an old female seer by the name of Cilap, could be a little embarrassing at times. Most of the other students looked like kids compared to me, although truthfully, I probably only had about five to ten years on any of them in actual age. Due to my more adaptable aging pattern as an Elaerian, I looked closer to my human age...but to most seers, I looked closer to fifty or sixty, if not older.

In contrast, my classmates ranged in age from their late teens to mid-twenties, so looked anywhere from ten to sixteen years of age to my eyes, which still couldn’t help counting age in relation to humans.

After the first day or two, I forgot to care. I was too busy trying to memorize all of the technical tricks Cilap taught us, or that I learned from the other students. Cilap had me focusing on the tracking mostly and blocking and Barrier-sparring with other seers, which I’d never really done apart from haphazardly in the mulei ring. The concept was familiar to me, as I’d watched Revik engage in these kinds of battles a number of times with Rooks, but other than a few tricks I’d learned in mulei, I’d never tried any of it myself.

Straight Barrier sparring with other seers, I'd never done at all.

It proved to be fun, if really difficult...closer to chess than sparring in the physical, even using sight tricks...and confusing from the multidimensionality of fighting inside the Barrier. The first time I tried it, I basically got my ass handed to me by a kid who looked about thirteen. He looked a little sheepish when the fight ended so fast, but then both of us were laughing and I promptly asked him to fight me again.

Within a few days of this, I was hooked.

In terms of shielding and concealing, Cilap had me show the other students a few things I’d learned from Balidor...and then a few things I'd figured out on my own.

She didn’t touch the telekinetic stuff at all, which truthfully, was a relief.

I still hadn’t gotten a straight answer on what Voi Pai knew about the human-killing disease that those terrorists had demo'd in Hong Kong. The most Voi Pai would tell me was that there had been some kind of hit at a lab in the United States that wiped out the disease and its antidote, all but for a small sample. When I asked who'd died in the attack, she pretended like she didn't know what I was talking about. As soon as I arrived in the City, Voi Pai seemed to realize I didn’t know anything about it and mostly pretended like she hadn’t asked me in the first place. When I pressed, I got the equivalent of “don’t worry your pretty little head, Esteemed Bridge,” and “we have experts looking into it.”

When I pressed harder, she retorted that she thought I’d “quit” so what did I care?

I tried asking Ulai, but he genuinely didn't seem to know any more than I did. In fact, he'd seemed surprised when I told him about the hit on the lab in the States.

I tried not to care too much about any of that...it wasn't like I could do much with the information anyway. Voi Pai and I were at least in total agreement that it was better that the Adhipan not know my current whereabouts or any of the specifics of our agreement. As a result, I made one call to Vash to tell him I’d left China...and that was it.

It was better if they thought I was off “finding myself” or whatever. The way I’d left things, I figured they would probably head for America, and not look in China at all. As long as Wreg kept his mouth shut, that is...and as long as Cass didn’t remember anything about seeing me.

I tried not to think about Revik much at all.

It was surprisingly easy...or, maybe just easier than it had ever been before. It was as if some part of me had just closed shop. It left me in an odd kind of limbo when it came to sex, or even just everyday relating with the seers around me, many of whom in the Lao who seemed to be trying to befriend me, or at least get to know me, now that I was living with them.

A large part of me just didn’t care...about any of it. I knew, somewhere in all of that, that I should care, that the numbness I felt wasn’t exactly healthy.

The problem was, I didn’t really care about that, either. It was as if that whole part of me had gone on vacation, and didn’t leave a forwarding address.

I wasn’t depressed though...not actively anyway. I wasn't even trying to kill my feelings. I simply rested in a flatline of indifference...about everything but infiltration, which pretty much consumed my waking thoughts, and even a lot of my dreams. I enjoyed little things, like a hot bath, or a foot rub from Ulai, or the snow falling at night over the reddish lanterns. I watched the birds in the winter gardens, and watched Ulai design and paint more screens. I even painted a few canvasses myself, which I hadn't done once since I'd left San Francisco.

But in some undefined way, I was gone. Not home.

On that level, the whole selling sex thing didn’t even bother me.

The truth was, I’d just stopped caring.

About all of it.