Jellia: Mother, ok if I have a bunch of daughters over tonight to practice kissing?
Mother: Fine. Break out some of the less expensive soft, and some cheese and crackers.
Jellia: Thanks! You’re the best!
Mother: Yes. And I hope you remember that the next time I have to tell you no.
“Ok,” Jellia said, standing in front of the dozen daughters on the floor of their living room. “You all know why we are here, and have gotten permission, so… here goes!”
“The first kiss which the packet said I will need to learn is ‘stranger to stranger’. It has two modes, we will practice ‘from afar’ first. Which you use when the person is maybe on a screeny or behind a cash box or something. You put your hand to the back of your hand and then mouth the kiss… oh, I forgot, you have to do that after saying your full name.”
“Oh, listen, we will have to get names. Some of you will have to be sons, cause that makes the kiss different… and some of you will have to be en-kesh and ska and all.”
The daughters were all sorting themselves out, with much giggling, when Cyndy went “Ow! Curses.”
They all watched her as she bent over her bright red punishment bracelett and said, “I am sorry for backtalking my mother. Stupid bracelet.”
“How long is it on?” Jellia asked.
“Oh, two more hours. But I really wanted to come so, here I am, breaking up the party.”
“No, no… happens to the best of us and we are glad you came. Anyway, everyone has their names and titles and all? Let’s practice.”
“Hello,” she said to Cyndy, “I am Kesh Jellia Drendin.” Then she touched the back of her hand and mouthed the kiss.
“Hello, I am Ska Cyndy Festin,” she said with her nose in the air and, after touching the back of her hand collapsed in giggles.
They went around the room and everyone at least did Jellia who, they all agreed, needed to do the most practice.
“Ok, we’ll do it in person later, maybe, but the next one I need to practice is…
“You need to practice actually kissing!” Creia said. “Or that’s what Charlie tells me, anyway!”
“Oh, stop. But, Ok, stand up and come here. Now, Daughter to ska-drek is very important, so we’ll try that. I don’t think I need to introduce myself to my own ska-drek so, here goes, I put my hand on your cheek and we lean… ow!”
The daughters bounced back, rubbing at their mouths, and the room erupted in giggles. “My turn,” Creia said, and she put her hand on Jellia’s cheek and the two leaned forward much more slowly… “Well, that was better,” Creia said, wiping her mouth. “Who’s next?”
“I’m a ska, I can be a teacher,” Cyndy said.
“Ok, that’s good,” Jellia said. This was hard! “So its called ‘Scholar to Instructor’ and I am supposed to start, normally, if we both see each other at the same time. “Kesh Jellia whatever-my-last-name-will-be”, she said, and leaned forward…
“You missed!” the daughters all roared. “You completely missed!”
An hour later Mother came in, a man on her arm. “How is it going, girls?” she asked.
Jellia looked up from the floor, where she had been reading her comp. “Oh, Mother we have studied oh so many types of kisses!”
“And we have spent oh so many hours giggling,” Cyndy said, rubbing her wrist where she had just removed the punishment bracelet.
“Well, let us test you, Daughter,” Mother said, and Jellia rose and bowed, “Obedience to Authority”.
“We will not bother with the kiss… do them all from afar. Now, George, watch how my daughter does. Here, I will snip you the list so you can follow along.”
The daughters all opened their comps and soon everyone was ready. “Stranger to stranger,” Mother said, and Jellia quickly tapped the back of her hand and mouthed a kiss.
“But it says ‘introduce’,” George said.
“Oh, well, that depends on if you know each other. But I guess for Stranger to Stranger… “My name is Kesh Jellia Drendin. There, and tap and kiss and done.”
“Very good. Scholar to scholar?”
“Introduce if needed, clasp their wrist which is supposed to indicate how their comp only you do it on the other arm, then kiss.”
“Is it the same kiss every time?” George asked. “This doesn’t say.”
“Oh, yes and no,” Jellia said. “It depends on how well you know them. For stranger to stranger you are supposed to just barely touch. Lover to lover well, that’s supposed to be an intimate kiss. Most of the others you just sort of touch lips lightly but, you know, significantly.”
“Very well. Now ska to kesh?”
“Introduce if needed, ska touches the hair of the kesh… like you’re patting a littly… then the kiss which you do from afar if they are too little and you don’t want to pick them up.”
“But what is a ‘ska’ and what…?”
“Adult to child!” the daughters all said together.
“And one specific kind of child,” Mother said. “In its plain form it means ‘person’, but more specifically it means not near ready for dating… we would say… and then in even more specific it is a male child who is not yet ready for dating. The system works but it can be confusing. Oh, and they play with it… so a child who was acting all grown up you might call ‘en-kesh’ or ‘en-e-kesh’ just to tease them… meaning ‘ready to date’.”
“Oh, my. Well, you have your work cut out for you. I think it is time for the daughters to go now, though, isn’t it? That’s why we came in?”
The daughters all jumped up and gave a variety of bows ranging from ‘meeting the stranger as a child’ to George, to ‘learning together’ to Jellia and ‘much appreciation’. And soon they were all gone.
“Well, that was a good idea of yours, Daughter. Now, George invited me to spend the weekend. We will sleep here tonight, but we are going out early tomorrow and I won’t be back till after school on First day. But I will keep track of you even as George tries to distract me, so make sure you do your studies and keep good hours.”
“Yes, Mother,” Jellia said, bowing ‘acceptance of responsibility’ to Mother and ‘pleased meeting’ to George. She liked George… he often took Mother off to his place so Jellia had the house to herself. As she got older and older she appreciated it more. Mother had even let Charlie come over for an afternoon, once, while George was here… and having George there made it much easier for she and Charlie to do some serious kissing… since Mother was occupied with George.
Jellia: How doing, Charlie?
Charlie: Oh, hey Jellia, long time no snip. Same old. How doing?
Jelia: Big news. Mother and I are moving exo.
Charlie: What? When? Where?
Jelia: Yup. Day after tomorrow, planet called Libertas.
Charlie: Awesome for you.. Not so much for me, losing my favourite date. You excited?
Jellia: Yup. But there are a few hard things. One thing is that they have a no kissing rule, very very serious rule, until I’m older.
Charlie: Whoa! How much older?
Jellia: Dunno, but a couple years maybe. It depends on how I do with the psych exam. So, anyway, Mother said wouldn’t it be neat if some son were to invite me over tomorrow afternoon for a heavy groping session.
Charlie: She did? Really??
Jellia: Yup. She did. So I’m just sitting here and hoping some son will think of it and snip me. You know we daughters aren’t allowed to invite.
Charlie: Give me a sec, will you Jellia? I have to ask my mother something.
Jellia waited, grinning. Mother had actually released her to go all the way, and even spend the night, but she didn’t think she was ready for that. And she doubted that Charlie’s mother would release him, either. Once she did he would be free to get dates whenever, and she had heard that son’s mothers tended to get annoyed by that.
Charlie: Yeah. Hey, Jellia?
Jellia: Yes?
Charlie: Would you be free to come over to my house tomorrow for a groping session? My mother says that she’ll pick you up. I mean, I’ll come too.
Jellia: What?! I would love to. Right after school? Till about eight?
Charlie: Yeah.
Jellia: What kind of groping? Light?
Charlie: I was thinking heavy. I asked my mother and she approved me to move to that. It will be my first session, I hope that’s Ok.
Jellia: That sounds awesome! Mine too. See you then!
Charlie: Yo, Sam, you won’t believe what just happened!
Jellia: Creia, guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow afternoon!
Jellia stepped out of the skimmer and turned, giving a slow bow ‘child to adult’ to Charlie’s mother and then a bow she hadn’t ever used before, lover to lover, to Charlie. Altho, technically, they weren’t lovers. They hadn’t gone that far.
Charlie’s mother returned her bow with a frown, but Charlie grinned and gave her ‘great thanks’ instead, at which she grinned. She gave him one last look. He wasn’t at all bad looking, although he still had kind of a boyish face and his red hair always made her think of him as kind of a littlie.
Then she turned and started walking to her house, not looking back at Charlie or the life he represented.
That had been disappointing. Charlie had been thrilled, and they had done way, way more groping than she had ever done before, but it had been super awkward. Somehow the fact that they were supposed to be kissing and groping and all had made it awkward, at least for her. His mother had even let them be alone in his bedroom with the door closed but it had been really awkward. She just hadn’t been able to relax.
Well, Charlie had had fun, anyway. That had been all too evident. And it hadn’t been too bad. At least now she felt like she had some experience anyway. Her friends would find out that… she was sure Charlie would manage to snip them, and even exaggerate what they had done… and wouldn’t be quite so worried about her going off to this weird planet.
“I’m home!” she called when she came in.
“We’ll be down in a minute, Darling,” Mother called, but it was a good fifteen minutes before she and some man came in the kitchen, the two of them all over each other.
“Did you have a good time, Darling?” Mother asked, the man still hanging all over her while they ate.
“It was awkward,” she said.
“It always is at that age,” the man said, kissing Mother. “You need a lot more practice.”
“Well, I’m not getting it now,” she said and went off to her room. She had no desire to share in Mother’s last fling. What she wanted to do was to study up on the new planet she was going to.
-
The next morning the man was still there, and still hanging on Mother. “Are you all packed, Darling?” Mother asked.
“Not much to pack,” Jellia said. “So much is different there, and the cost of shipment is so high. Have my wristcomp and a couple of stills. But even the spaceship is providing clothes, some kind of awful jumpsuit that everyone has to wear. So, yes. My little bag is sitting by my door.”
“Well, Grant here is going to skim us to the shuttle pad, and we leave in an hour, and we will be busy, so make sure you’re ready.”
“Yes, Mother,” she said, and the two went off upstairs. Good grief. Mother had said that she was going to have a ‘last fling’ but this was ridiculous. Maybe she should have invited Charlie to spend the night.
It was a bit longer than an hour when the two so-called adults came flying down the stairs. Jellia had been sitting and working on her wristcomp right by the door so she just followed their whirlwind path to the skimmer and sat back. Even Mother seem to realise that they had cut it a bit fine and she and Grant, thankfully, kept their hands to themselves on the way to the pad. Then the two exchanged an intense, annoying, but brief kiss at the door and Grant drove off, waving.
“Who was Grant, anyway?” Jellia asked as the two went in the door.
“Oh, he works in the next department and has been asking me over since forever. So when I wanted a last fling, and didn’t want to spend a lot of emotion on it, I chatted him up and he initiated. I knew he would be eager but not clingy.”
“He seemed clingy to me.”
“No that kind of clingy, Darling. He has probably forgotten all about me already and is planning his next date. Now, here we are.”
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!
Being ‘restacked’ and mentioned in ‘notes’ is very important for lesser-known stacks so… feel free! I’m semi-retired and write as a ministry (and for fun) so you don’t need to feel guilty you aren’t paying for anything, but if you enjoy my writing (even if you dramatically disagree with it), then restack, please! Or mention me in one of your own posts.
If I don’t write you back it is almost certain that I didn’t see it, so please feel free to comment and link to your post. Or if you just think I would be interested in your post!
If you get lost, check out my ‘Table of Contents’ which I try to keep up to date.
Thanks again, God Bless, Soli Deo gloria,
Von
Links
I would like to give credit for the genesis of many of these ideas to the Liaden series by Mr. and Mrs. Steve Miller, which is available for free on the web. They do a great deal of cultural exploration, although they rather dramatically skip the moral exploration. (And their math doesn’t work.)
Other concepts were taken, in one form and another, from the book Freehold by Michael A Williamson.
Introduction
In which I lay out the themes that I intend to explore in this light Dystopia, and ask others to participate.
Trade Master: First Chapter
In which Fenestra, our heroine’s mother, puts in her application for the job of 'Trade Master’ on the planet Libertas, and finds out that it isn’t that easy.
En-Drek Contract
In which Fenestra finds out that, on Libertas, everyone must be in an ‘En-drek’ contract… a long-term, live-in, heavy date between a man and a woman for the purpose of producing one child after the other with one date after the other.
Disappointment and Meditation
In which Jellia, the daughter and our heroine, finds out about her mother’s job opportunity, including its difficulties, and commits herself to meditating on the situation. (And internally commits herself to encouraging her mother to take the job.)
Decision Reached
Jellia tells her mother that she thinks she should take the job, and so her mother puts in her application… and gets the job!
First School
Jellia goes to school and gets to tell everyone about her new adventure.
First Work
Fenestra goes to work, and tells her coworker about her new opportunity.
Writing Class
Jellia writes a poem (a limerick) and tells her classmates more about her new adventure.
Trader Galloway
In which a man comes over for a ‘date’ (Ie to sleep over with her mother) and to tell them all about his time as Trade Master for their company on Libertas. And as how he was almost executed for asking a woman out on a date.
Shopping
In which Jellia and her mother go shopping for the last time, and we explore some of the nature of the planet she is leaving.
Language
In which Jellia starts using some new words at school, and everyone gathers round to find out what they mean.
Kesh-i Cooking Class
In which Jellia finds out that children (Kesh-i) on Libertas are expected to cook.
Trade Master Training
In which Fenestra begins her training for her new role, with an old enemy.
Two Week Date
In which Fenestra and Alex decide to date for the next two weeks.
The Facts of Life
In which Fenestra brings Alex home, and Jellia isn’t impressed. Although she is interested in how dating works for boys.
Snips
In which Jellia spends time snipping with a boy, and brings him home.