Are you ready for a Midsummer romance?
Anna
“And you still haven’t had sex?” Elin asks me over a coffee.
I meet her blue eyes and shrug.
“But you’ve seen his penis?”
“Yes.”
“And it works?”
“Every time.”
“Then what gives?”
“I don’t know. He gave me an excuse, but I can’t remember it.”
She gives me the side-eye. “You can’t remember?”
“Last night, I was drunk and had my period.”
“Lust will make you forget a lot of things.”
“It rattles the brain,” I agree.
Elin picks up her coffee. “Well, it’s odd. I want to meet this man for a proper amount of time, not just a few minutes, as he ushers you away. Especially now that you’re ‘official.’ You don’t think he’s actually doing an academic paper on Scandinavian women, and he’s using you?”
“I don’t know if we are ‘official-official.’ And no, he’s not using me for a paper about Scandinavian women. He’s a professional.”
“Professional at making out and then stopping before the finish line.”
“I orgasm every time, so I’m not complaining. Plus, I wouldn’t have wanted to have sex yesterday anyway.”
“Well,” she says, considering this, “for the number of times I’ve been fingered dry this year, there’s a lot to be said for a man who knows what foreplay is. I can’t fault Lev for that.”
“Has it really been that bad?”
“Like sandpaper missiles tearing through my vagina.”
“Yikes.”
Elin takes a sip of coffee, “You were single for so long, I actually thought you might have joined a secret online virtual nunnery or something to avoid all the men who watch too much porn and think women want it rough.”
“Online nunneries exist?”
“They should, in theory.” She grins, thinking of something devilish she’s not going to expand on in public. “And don’t get me wrong, I understand why you put up with Lev not wanting to have sex. In a way, it’s refreshing because it’s the exact opposite of the men I seem to attract. They think it’s about the joining of two organs that fit together like a gas pump to a car, when in actuality, I want a good old emotional connection, intensified by sex, not to live out a man’s amateur porn fantasy.”
“When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound like a problem that Lev is holding back. We have a good connection.”
“Don’t be too smug. It’s still really weird,” Elin says, finishing her coffee.
“I’ll find out why he does it in time,” I say with false confidence. “Now tell me when you need me for Midsummer and what I should bring.”
“Come the night before with the girls and help me set up with Karin and Johan. I’m going to invite almost everyone. I feel like we should have a big party this year. You should invite your Argentinian man so we can meet him and find out why he has these odd quirks.”
“He’s half Swedish, half Argentinian.”
“Invite him. Maybe Midsummer will light up his Swedish side, and the fertility dance will push him to finally do the deed.”
Lev
I see the SUV that’s not an SUV parked on a quiet street near my building. As I approach, I see it flicker, the door opens, and I get in quickly.
A large man who serves as one of the junior officers in Alliance Force greets me. “May the goddesses be blessed. It’s good to see you, Lev.”
“May we walk in their light.” I take off my Dulu holo so that I look like myself to make him more comfortable. “How are you, Sem?”
“Oh, as good as I can be,” he says as he drives down the street. Soon we will turn a corner and disappear when no one is watching. “We’ve been busy lately. Yesterday we stopped Dulu from abducting 25 young women. Twenty-five. It’s insane. And they almost got away with it.”
“What gave them away?” I ask, strapping myself in next to him. Ready to leave orbit any second. It’s never a smooth ride.
Sem punches us up without even giving me a warning. The G-force hits me hard, but he continues to talk. I guess some things you just get accustomed to.
“It was luck,” Sem says. “One of the abductees was on house arrest, and her ankle bracelet was sending off human signals from outside Earth’s orbit.”
“Goddesses.”
“The women were completely traumatized, and we had to keep them overnight at the base to run medical checks and erase their memories. Also, take all their information.”
“Does there seem to be any patterns to the abductions?”
Sem looks me dead in the face, “No. That’s why we need a man like you.”
“I see.”
Sem looks back at what he’s doing. We’ve just crossed over to the moon's dark side, and I see the base. He allows Alliance Force to guide the transport from here. “Surely we have the technology to keep track of all the humans.”
“We do, and we don’t. It’s complicated,” Sem says as we land, unstrap and exit the transport. “Anyway, if the Commander is moody, you didn’t hear it from me. But if he’s a bit short with you, that’s why.”
“Thanks,” I say as we go our different ways on the base.
Walking through the base, I see a few familiar faces, and after a few minutes, I reach Commander Fox’s office.
I hit the bell, and the door announces me on the other side. I hear Commander Fox’s voice grant me entrance.
“You walk in the goddesses' light,” he says, standing.
I bow. “They show me the way.”
“Please sit. I’ve been going through your reports and highlighted some particular issues I’d like you to expand on and write up as an informational guide for the men. It’s all very good if they know these distinctions between humans. We’ve not had a real anthropologist’s work in centuries, so what we’ve been working with is completely outdated.”
“I could do that after I finish my current assignment.”
“Could you not fit it in now?” he asks. “The sooner, the better.”
“It might be difficult,” I say. I’m trying to gauge if he has already filled the anthropologist position. “Swedish people celebrate Midsummer in the countryside without any modern amenities.”
“Oh yes, I’ve been to one of those kinds of houses before. Strange culture.”
“But striving for equality between the sexes. Maybe strange is useful?”
Commander Fox looks at me sternly. “Perhaps you’re right.”
“Fine. When you finish your assignment.”
“Commander, I wanted to ask you about the anthropology position opening on Alliance Force.”
The Commander frowns. “I’m glad you brought that up. You know I was thinking of you for the position.”
“But?”
“But then the High Council demanded that I give it to someone younger who could marry and have children for the benefit of the Alliance Force.”
“I have years of experience, and the rest of your men are young, with more young men to follow, I assume?”
“Lev, I pleaded the same thing to the High Council.”
“And?”
Commander Fox opens his computer and shows me the official communications between himself and the High Council. All I can see is the sentence:
Unless Lev House Nue marries a suitable human woman with the potential for children, then you may not choose him to remain in Alliance Force.
A heaviness spreads over me.
“I’m sorry.”
I take a deep breath and look at my hands. I remember my blood oath. “What if I did have a human woman?”
“I took you for a different kind of man. You can’t just marry any human woman. I wouldn’t allow it,” Commander Fox says.
“No, I expressed myself badly. What if I told you I’ve been seeing a human woman for almost an imperial year? What if she married me?”
Commander Fox thinks about this. “You have evidence that you’ve gone beyond work protocol?”
I nod.
“You realize that you’ll be fined, but at the same time, this might make you eligible for the job here.”
“I know.”
“And you’re willing to do that? It’s going to be very expensive, I imagine. That is, if the evidence is good enough. Is it worth the risk of damaging your reputation as a professional and the UCs?”
“I want to stay on Alliance Force. I prayed to the goddess of home and made a sacrifice to her that if I were offered the job here, I would tell Anna, the human woman, who I really am and ask her to marry me.” I show the commander my hand as proof of my honesty.
“I believe you, but I’ll still watch the video and send it along with the other evidence. Now please present all of this proof and don’t leave anything out. I want you to stay and take this job as much as you want to have it. We’ve gotten used to you, Lev.”
I take out my IC and begin showing him the messages between myself and Anna over the last year. And he records what he wants for the High Council.
After reading most of the messages, he asks, “Have you given her something? You must give her some of your known jewelry for it to look truly convincing.”
“Human women don’t understand that custom.” Then I’m reminded of all the feminine products I’d given her and think, I hope she doesn’t mention those in any messages, or I will be fined an astronomical amount. As of now, I have given Alliance Force permission to monitor my communications.
KU, ebook, and audio (narrated by Jill Smith and Jack Calihan)
