How'd it go?
She watched Gregory skim away and turned, relieved, back to the house. That had gone… about as well and about as badly as she had feared. She walked into the house and saw her shirt on the dresser in the great room and gratefully put it on.
Ska-drek-a was just then coming down the stairs and she gave her a funny look. “I thought your en-e-drek told you to keep your shirt off,” she said.
Jellia pulled the shirt back on, frantically. Curses! If Ska-drek had seen!
“How did it go?”
“Oh, wonderful. He was totally into me.”
Ska-drek-a laughed, “Anyone could see that! He never even greeted me or your ska-drek.”
“Which is permitted by code,” Ska-drek said, coming in from the kitchen. “Next time he will be required to be more polite, but a first-meet is supposed to have eyes only for his beloved. Did you speak, much? Or was your entire conversation kissing?”
“No, we spoke. Or he asked questions and I spoke. He asked me about my art and about my job at the Garden Party…”
Gregory was walking to his school, they were lucky enough to live close, when he heard footsteps behind him and turned to see Cxaustin jogging up to him. “Well?” he asked after they had clasped wrists ‘scholar to scholar’. It was officially called a ‘kiss’, but Gregory had always thought that was bizarre. “How was she?”
“Perfectly delightful and dramatically exo! She’s been here 270 days, so I guess a lot of it has worn off, but she kept starting to say things… her mouth would just open… and then she would change it in mid-stream. She still uses this exo word ‘mother’ for her ska-drek-a.”
“Does it mean the same thing?”
“Oh, not hardly! I mean, the bio is the same. But on their planet the ska-drek doesn’t do anything. They can’t even chastise!”
“What?”
“Yeah, they have this stupid system where you wear a bracelet when you’re being chastised. Like for a day or so! So everyone can see!”
“That’s horrid. As long as you don’t walk stiff, even next class can’t tell you’ve been chastised.”
“Well, except on the beach,” Gregory agreed.
“Well, yeah… So they chastise you and then you have to put the bracelet on?”
“No, no, they don’t chastise you at all. They make you put the bracelet on, and its all bright red so everyone can make fun of you, and then it shocks you every few minutes, on kind of a random schedule so you can’t get used to it, and then… get this… you have to apologize to it. Well, apologise to whoever put it on you, but you speak the words into the braclet,” he finished, making as if to mouth words into his wrist comp.
“Stars and Comets. Was she willing?”
“Oh, mega willing. At least in private. She didn’t like my groping in public, and she hated flaunting. Well, her ska-drek said she would hate it, and her ska-drek-a looked like she would rip my head off. She was awfully flushed in the beginning, but in the end I think she liked it. Nothing wrong with her!”
“Well, I’m looking forward to meeting her.”
“Well, how was it?” Leah asked. Her belly was just bulging the slightest bit, or so Jellia convinced herself.
“Oh, fine,” Jellia said.
“No, no, you must do better than that.”
“Well,” Jellia said, “He came up and just kissed me and then drug me off down the street. We went to the store, bought hard and chocolates for our party, then came back to the house for our celebration. Then we spent the rest of the time on the couch, groping, while my parents sat in the kitchen and pretended they were watching the whole thing. Which I’m sure they did some of, but I was too busy to notice.”
“And what’s he like?”
“Well, I would say just as advertised but I think he was especially nervous for first-meet, so I got more of the eager li-kesh and less of the ‘mature older sibling who knows code and custom’.”
“Do you two meet at the same time today?”
“No, I don’t have a shift at Garden Party, so he’s going to come over right after school. I will need to be preparing dinner at the same time, so that will be interesting. I have sliced meat and cheese and all planned, since I doubt I will be able to do much cooking.”
They talked for a while then the other kesh-u came in and finally the teacher. Jellia was about to begin a study when Chad said, “Teacher, may I have Jellia for a study?”
“Certainly,” Teacher said. “Indeed I think all the males should study her. Jellia, come here please.”
Jellia flushed, but all the en-e-drek-a had been through this. Teacher arranged her and she spent the rest of the class holding very still while several kesh ‘studied’ her.
“Very well, Jellia, you may stand down. Go look at what the kesh have drawn.
She went from bench to bench and looked at the studies. Chad had done very well indeed, even if it embarrassed her totally.
“Jellia,” Teacher said, “We could all look it up on our wristcomps, and of course I have, but what is your new name?”
“Oh, does that start already? It’s Xoff. I hope I pronounced that right.”
“Xoff!” Chad said. “Farther back in your throat. I have an aunt who contracted with a ‘Xoff’ once and I had to learn.”
“Xoff,” Jellia said, again, as several other students tried out the cough like sound represented by the ‘X’ at the front of her new last name. This was confusing, changing names like this. At least she got to keep ‘Jellia’.
Thank you for reading Von’s Substack. I would love it if you commented! I love hearing from readers, especially critical comments. I would love to start more letter exchanges, so if there’s a subject you’re interested in, get writing and tag me!
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Von also writes as ‘Arthur Yeomans’. Under that name he writes children’s, YA, and adult fiction from a Christian perspective. His books include:
The Bobtails meet the Preacher’s Kid
and
Arthur also has a substack, and a website.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von