Episode 211: Asa the Real Boy (Daphne)

If she closed her eyes, she could envision thin branches stretched in front of her and the soft blades of grass wreathed around her. The smell, sterile clean mixed with deathly floral, wasn’t something she could imagine away, despite her longing for somewhere more safe.

She brushed her toes to and fro on the fluffy red rug. In a place of white, it stood out more than anything else.

She’d spent the first bit of time acclimating herself to the room: Movies she had seen before and never wanted to see again, a variety of fruits along with meats and vegetables and other ingredients that could be used. There was a small notebook of recipes too, which she had read all of.

Control of environment was one of the pillars of the most successful in her field. It wasn’t the job she would have wanted for herself, but wanting for herself wasn’t allowed.

She shifted on the firm cushion and glanced at the door again. It stood there, unmoving, and tempted her into a lull of wonder. If he never showed up, she failed her task. She let the fibers of the rug filter between her toes. A loop slipped around one and she used her other bare toes to remove it.

She looked back at the black television screen and her reflection on the glass. She was still alone, still in danger of failing.

She could hear the air conditioning running, the reverberations of the machine as it blew air into the small apartment. The attempt at making the space feel larger had been lost to her in her angst. The paintings on the wall failed to make her feel at home, even if they were scenes from the property and it was the only home she had ever known.

Daphne stood and walked to the bedroom. She was going to go mad sitting on the couch for an endless stretch of time. She pulled open the drawer and slipped her clothes off and tried one of the shirts left for the guy instead.

She wished she had known his name. The fabric stopped just a few inches down her thigh, and the arms were loose along her own body. She stepped in front of a full length mirror and looked at her braided dark hair, frizzy curls escaping from the effort to tame it. She tugged at the hem of the shirt to make it cover more of her and spun in a circle so she could see herself. The blue fabric was crisp and rich, unlike most things in the room; better than most of the things she had been given to wear.

As she spun a second time, she saw him: Dark wet hair tasseled across his head in mayhem, blue-grey boxers slick against mud-coated skin.

She squared her body to his, “Hi.”

She wasn’t wearing the right clothing, and she wasn’t sure if she should change or if she would lose because of her choice.

“Hi,” he replied. He brushed the hair from his forehead to to the side. The muscles of his chest and arms were more defined than she had expected. “Sorry I’m late for whatever this is.”

He had the note in his hand, clenched beside him. Had he read it? Did he not know what he was there for?

He caught her stare and looked down at the note, then back up.

“I’m Asa,” he finished, his eyes focused on her again.

She tried not to crinkle her eyes as she sorted the puzzle that was him out. Instead, she pulled the shirt down just a little more. “Well, you came dressed for the occasion,” she said, in an attempt to tease him. Her blood beat through her body and she fidgeted with her fingers again, the smooth gloss of polish running beneath the pads of each fingertip.

“So that’s a good start,” she added. “I’m Daphne.”

Asa looked down at the paper again and read it, this time absorbing the words.

His instructions were different than hers: he was supposed to perform in a convincing way. She was just supposed to achieve the end result – a pregnancy.

“I should shower,” he declared.

She moved toward the bathroom first – she was closer by a few steps. “Let me get it started for you. Do you like baths?”

Baths were good tools for relaxing people and it would give her time to talk to him, she hoped.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had one,” he replied. “Don’t you just kind of sit in your sweat?”’

She laughed. “Not if you shower first.”

“So.” He followed her into the bathroom while she turned the water on. “Okay.”

In the mirror, she caught him reading the paper again, intent on memorizing each word and every interpretation of what it could mean. At least, she had done so earlier. She knew there weren’t many alternatives. She’d learned to read in the garden, in her little nook, from one of the adults that lived there. She wasn’t supposed to know, but after he had caught her sneaking books full of pictures he had taught her.

He looked a lot like Asa, except older and with darker eyes. Asa’s were light blue, brighter than the clear sky. Almost like hers, except hers were more like the surface of a sea. Like the tricks of water she was capable of, but hid.

The bathroom was filling with steam now. “I’ll shower?” Asa asked. “Then we can talk about this thing?”

“Okay.”

She moved away from the shower, to give him the space she knew she wanted. She sat on the edge of the white stone tub and began filling it with bath salts and lavender oil, water from the spout, and a trickle of her own, just to see if she could do it. She turned the heat up on the faucet, since her water was only room temperature, and made sure any cameras wouldn’t notice the slow stream.

While she wasn’t looking, Asa had gotten into the shower.

“Did you grow up here?” he asked.

She kept her eyes focused on the bath, on what this meant for her: a bad performance and either of them could be in trouble. She didn’t want him to be in trouble because she wasn’t comfortable. She just needed time to relax.

She liked how he looked at least, with his angled jaw and his repetitive reading of the paper.

“Did you grow up here?” he asked again.

“Yes.” Her cheeks burned. “Did you?”

“Yes. We don’t really see other groups. Today we saw two different ones.”

He stepped out of the shower. She focused on his eyes.

“We don’t either. What does your group do?”

While her eyes were locked with his, she let her hand find the knob on the bath and turn it off. The scent of the water wafted toward her, a scent that smelled better than the layers of products that coated her body. She wanted to get in herself, or shower, anything to wash the forced appearance away from her.

“Are we doing a bath together?” he asked.

“This is just for you, for now,” she replied. She moved around him and turned the shower back on. Like a magnet, his body followed hers.

“You can first, if you want,” he stated.

She pulled the shirt off and stepped into the shower. “Together? When I’m done?”

This time he sat on the edge of the bath. “This smells good. What do you guys do?”

“This.” She turned the water up even hotter, letting it cascade down her and scour the makeup and fragrance from her skin.

“You’re not going to drown me?” he asked.

“I’m here to make you feel good.”

She heard his breath stall for a moment, a pure reaction she was unfamiliar with. Her life was scripts and being held together. She was baffled by the drowning comment, about why he would assume that. It made her eager to know more about him.

“That’s what they train you for?” he asked.

“Yes,” she replied.

She turned the shower off and walked to the bath. It was large enough for two, and so she sat at the far side of it. “Is that okay?”

“It’s just different from what we do.”

He slid into the bath too, farther away from her.

“What do you do?”

“Survival skills, teamwork, thinking under pressure…”

“Do you like it?”

She replied in an instant, too fast to hide her interest.

She would love anything that was different, new.

He swallowed, the bulge at his throat falling in the motion. “This? Or everything else?”

“Your training,” she clarified.

“Not really.” He dropped his shoulders and slid so his body was immersed up to his neck. His feet rest on the wall beside her. “I actually thought I was going to die today. I’m still not convinced. Do you like yours?”

“It’s mostly watching movies. This is my first time.”

He was talking, in a way that she wasn’t sure was part of the ideal plan but felt good to her. She wanted to keep talking, and maybe someday (or never) get to the other part.

“People make movies of this?” he asked, breaking her day dream. “That must be a fun job.”

“Maybe. The movies aren’t very good.”

“So you’ve never done this either?”

Never.

She moved beside him, knowing she had to close the gap in time. This was his life, it sounded like. If she failed, he failed, and if he failed he could die.

That sounded like a line in a movie. Maybe he had a role to play. She hated the movies, she hated this job.

She hated their lives, his too she realized.

“I wish we…” she settled back. Frustrated.

“You wish we what?”

She kissed him. “I like reading. More than movies,” she whispered. She kissed him again, and his hands slid into her hair. Her matted braid hair. She pulled the hair tie out so it would flow more freely.

“Yeah? Me too. I like games where you have to think your way through a puzzle too, more than physical stuff.”

“Does this feel like a game?” she asked.

“Everything is a game.”

He kissed her more, and made her drown in the realization that there was never going to be anything more for her. Not in this world or any other should could dream up. She had this: assignments, jobs, training, and the hope that she wouldn’t get him killed because of how she might mess up.

“What’s your prize if you win?” he asked, reading her mind.

“I don’t know. Better jobs. Some people have jobs that are… kind of scary.”

Street jobs. The lowest level reserved for failures. The kind of jobs that made death sound nice.

“Like what?”

“Like, jobs in alleys,” she explained. “Some of us get those, but most don’t. But I might have a job, for awhile.”

“Why do you think that?”

“Because, we both have clothes here.”

“I don’t know why,” he admitted.

Games, all of it was games.

“To be together,” she replied, for the cameras.

She kissed him again, then stepped out of the bath.

“I want to know more about you,” he said.

He got out too, and she handed him a towel.

“If you’re staying here too, we can get to know each other.” She dipped her hair over the edge of the bath and wrapped it in a towel, to see how he would react.

His eyebrows raised, a small smile and amusement crossing his face and he walked past her, brushes his arm across hers and leaving a trail of goosebumps.

They were in this together. As much as it sucked, at least he was nice and felt as lost as she did.

“What do you like doing?”

“I don’t really know. Most of my time is structured. But I like games. What about you?”

“Books, writing, being outside. I like the garden, when I can get there.”

While he opened drawers and studied the interiors, she retrieved his shirt from.the bathroom. She pulled it on and hung the towel up, then returned to the room to find a pair of shorts in her own drawers.

“Yeah I like books too,” he replied. “We’ve only been outside a couple of times. How often do you go?”

“Every day if I can, sometimes only a few times in a week.” The beginning of the week she had her reading lessons, and by the end she often found some sort of surprise like a moving pictures book that, when the pages were flipped rapidly, looked like it was moving.

“Why don’t you go outside?” she asked, a morbid curiosity for his might die and eternal entrapment. At least she had the sun.

“We aren’t allowed. We did go the other day, to a place. A desert. What do you do outside? Does the air here taste good?”

“It’s sweet sometimes, when flowers are blooming. I like to just walk around and find a place to be alone. We’re always in a group otherwise.”

“Why do they let you out?”

“We need to be used to different environments, I guess.” She led him out to the kitchen. He didn’t like having someone behind him, and she knew, just in the few minutes she had known him, it was a tactic to ensure he didn’t die. She wasn’t afraid of what he could do, so she led.

“Maybe, for this, I could take you,” she suggested.

“I think you shouldn’t. I’ve been in trouble today, I don’t know what would happen if I got in more trouble.”

She circled around the island counter in the kitchen and faced him. “What did you get in trouble for?”

“I was supposed to make sure this kid won a race, and he didn’t.”

That seemed absurd. Someone had to lose, in fact only one kid could win by definition. She looked at him, refreshed and new to everything he was seeing.

“Then we should go outside,” she concluded. “There are cameras everywhere, and it will help you win this.”

Outside wasn’t escaping, and there were no rules confining them. The garden was an interior space, with walls all around it. It would be safe.

“Or it will get me in more trouble, and you too,” Asa rebutted.

“Maybe. But the garden is in the middle of the building. It’s not like the beach, open. And There’s an alcove with a good camera angle, and we can take snacks. They’ll like it.”

He walked around the island and kissed her. “Maybe.

She tried not to react. This was an assignment and she knew it was bad to feel things for her partner. It was just a job, even the pregnancy was just a job, and then she would have another job and another partner or client or whatever and on and on it would go.

“If everything is a game… Our lives might be tied t0 each other,” she whispered against his lips. “We can another time, if you want.”

She kissed his neck and his shoulder, like she knew some people liked. She seemed to. He let her, while she cleared her mind.

At least, he let her for a few minutes. Then he pulled away. “What do you want to do besides this?”

Nothing. Everything else was just a bad idea.

She needed to go outside. Even if he was rejecting the idea she would need a break. She felt like her entire universe was clouded, with him at the center of it.

She smiled at him. “Talk. About everything.” She ran her hand down his chest. “Part of our training is about keeping secrets. You can tell me anything, and I’ll never tell anyone else.”

He laughed, breathy and aware that he could tell her just about nothing in a place like this, with all the cameras everywhere.

“Okay, so… I always give Thayer my beans. He’ll eat anything, but I don’t like them.”

Plus beans made you gassy often. They were never served beans and told to politely decline them before seeing clients.

She laughed. They had something in common even if the reasoning was different. “Who is Thayer?”

“He’s another kid in my group.”

So, a best friend, based on how tense his shoulders were.

The thing was, he didn’t have to tell her secrets for her to see them. She wouldn’t ask – they were his to keep – and she wouldn’t share them either. If no one knew she knew, no one would ask, anyway. Silence was her survival mechanism.

“What do you like to eat?” she asked, since he wanted to talk.

“Not beans,” he said with a grin.

She laughed again.

He shifted, more serious. “Or meat.”

That seemed dark and ominous.

“What about you?” he asked, fake chipper.

Whatever his life was, it sounded terrible. Hers was terrible by events not terrible as a whole. She had friends, sort of, and books, sometimes, and outside, at least.

She opened the fridge. While she had been waiting, she had seen one of her favorite fruits: It was dark red and the skin was soft and firm, almost like velvet.

“These are my favorite.” She bit into one she could tell was very ripe and juice dribbled down her chin, purple and sweet and cold from the fridge. She showed him the inside, an aqua blue brain goop with dark purple seeds.

“Do you want to try it?”

“Sure.”

She fed it to him, and their eyes locked as he bit into the fruit. As soon as he withdrew he wiped his chin, then with another grin, hers too. She liked his grins. She liked how smart they made him look, like his mind actually worked on its own.

She filled a bowl with a few more and set them on the table. Each fruit fit in her palm, so they took three or four bites each. She finished the one in her hand and offered him another.

“They’re soo good,” he said after he finished his own.

“You’ve never had these before?” she asked, just to make sure, and because it felt like a safe question.

“No, we eat other stuff. More proteins.”

“Beans and meat?” she teased.

He laughed, which made her smile.

He was small. Not like gross small, but shorter and thinner than some of the guys she had seen before. She liked him that way, because she didn’t have to get on her tiptoes to kiss him. It was almost like they were equals, and maybe in some ways they were.

“Fruits in the stories are about temptation, right?” he asked

“Yes.” She blushed, aware of the connection to her training. “We have lots of fruit… if you want more.”

Asa looked around the kitchen, at everything and nothing at once. “What else is good?”

“Have you ever had brownies?” She opened the pantry door and pulled out a box of mix.

“Brownies? They’re food right?”

She laughed this time, curious what he might think a brownie was. She showed him the picture of thick fudgy brownies with melting chips dripping down the sides. “Chocolate.”

“We should make some plain, some with pomegranate, and some with caramel,” she suggested. She pulled two more boxes out and set them on the counter. If this was his chance to eat delicious things, she was going to enjoy it with him.

“Cooking?” he almost took a step back. “Do… we are allowed to cook?”

“We have a kitchen,” she pointed out. No need to go anywhere. She kneeled to get a glass pan and a mixing bowl from a cupboard. She took her time looking, in part because she wanted to find a way to make this more fun for him.

They also had a show to put on, based on the note he was left.

She found the dishes on her third try, and when she stood she had an idea. She’d seen props used as sensory reduction. He liked games. They needed one person to make brownies, unless one of them was unable to do all the work.

“Will you play a game with me?” she asked.

“A game?” he asked, more interested.

Daphne went to the bedroom, and opened the drawer full of things she was allowed (suggested to) use. She found a black silky strip of fabric and brought it out to the kitchen. “Blindfold one of us, and that person does the cooking. The other has to explain and help with the directions.”

“I’ll cook then.”

She slipped the fabric around his face. He held it over his eyes while she tied it. She kissed his cheek before turning him toward her.

“Okay, so what do I do first?”

“First, you need a measuring cup. Put your hands on me, and I’ll show you where the measuring cups are.”

He put his hands on her waist.

“And don’t let go.”

She walked backwards, around the kitchen island, teasing him with her method.

“I… have never done this before.”

Good, she wanted him to experience new things. She hadn’t either.

She stopped where they had started. “I haven’t either.” She kissed him, the silky fabric caressing her skin.

The game continued, him executing each step like he had memorized the kitchen as best he could have.

She held his hands a few times, her skin prickling against his. He never reacted.

And so she relaxed.

When the brownies were in the oven, the door shut and the timer started (which impressed her the most, he set it within the time range without help), she kissed his jaw to his ear. “What do you get when we win?”

“Life.”

She moved away from him, taking the blindfold with her.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

She just hated this, the games, the risks, the fact that this would be the first and maybe last time he had brownies. That he’d never know their kid – that she would never know their kid.

And it would be her only one. After this, the girls went through a procedure so they’d never have kids again. It reduced job risks.

His slid his hand behind her back so she couldn’t move away, without losing his touch. “What?” he asked again.

She watched him with intent for a moment. He had such a calm face, for someone worried about dying.

“Do you get your life, or new life?” she asked.

They could easily dispose of him after this, if it was a boy.

“Mine I hope.” His eyes flickered down her body. “What do you mean?”

“Nothing. It’s just my imagination.”

Daphne pointed to the oven, where she suspected the batter had turned into warmer goo but nothing solid yet. “The directions say to insert a toothpick. I think that’s your job.”

He put his hand on her waist.

Smart, then.

“Daphne, stop.”

She scrunched her nose at him. He was unperturbed.

“I wasn’t given anything to prevent things.”

“To prevent…oh. Well.” His body coiled. She was supposed to massage his shoulders and kiss down his neck, into that soft space where everything fused together. She didn’t.

Maybe he’d die because she didn’t.

Maybe he’d die anyway.

“We can stop, maybe you won’t have to.”

She moved into his arms. “Do you think it’s a coincidence that I wasn’t?”

“Are you special in your group?”

“No.”

Her special had nothing to do with this job and he didn’t need to know.

She made sure her magic was in check. Despite acting cold and cut off, angry even, she felt defeated and used.

He let her go. “I am. I don’t want to be but Thayer thinks I am.”

“At least you get to stay here,” she threw out there.

Nobody would stay there, though. Not alive.

“So why are you special?”

She watched him, caught between the realization that the cameras saw everything and Asa did. She wished he had just let it go.

Babies were normal. Not special. Replacement parts in a system that disposed of its assets.

The door opened as she opened her mouth. They both turned.

“You’ve failed your assignment,” a guy with wavy hair to his chin stated. He locked eyes with Asa. Asa slipped his arm around her.

“We did?” Daphne felt her stomach drop. She looked at Asa. She’d done this to him.

“I’m sorry,” she told him.

“It was my fault. I was distracted about Pip,” he insisted.

“I know,” the intruder said, like he cared. “Still, you had an assignment.” A girl with the same color hair, but even longer came in. The guy shut the door.

“Some of your classmates were culled this evening and didn’t have a choice. The two of you have a choice, about how.”

The girl glanced at them, a stone wall of no emotion. Asa’s fingers curled against her skin, tension expelling through the small vantage point.

The girl spoke, “We can use a spell, a weapon, or you can come with us and a few others that will be culled and we can remove oxygen from the room.”

Asa reached over the counter to the knife they had opened the brownie mix bags with. “How about you let her go and then I’ll come. Without fighting.”

“Where would she go?” The guy asked.

“Go ahead.” The girl moved her body out of the way of the door  forcing the guy further into the room.

Daphne looked at Asa.

He faked a smile.

She felt sick. The heat built inside her and she shoved it down. Not here. Not now.

She walked to the door and opened it. There weren’t any other choices, and if Asa could think she was alive he might feel better about his own death.

“I’ll take her to her room.” The girl said, a lie Daphne guessed.

“I want her with Guy.”

Another job or a dead culled guy.

“He’ll have fun with her.”

They left the room, and the girl led her to her next assignment.

She made herself look ahead, not back. Back… Asa was dying.

She knew better than to attach. She couldn’t help it.

As they walked, she felt something sharp. She couldn’t breathe. Air stuck in her throat and she clutched it. Her chest burned. She fell to her knees, the white tiles glimmering in the light, reflecting her messy wet hair back.

No wonder they failed.

She felt something in her shatter.

And then, like a fog, the pain lifted from her. She was left with just the agony of whatever felt broken.

She couldn’t name it.

“Come on,” the girl said. She pulled Daphne by the arm and half dragged her to a room with a large silver door.

“In,” the girl said.

Daphne walked in. Fighting was useless.

Inside, a guy, Guy, was lying in the floor.

He wasn’t a kid. He was an adult. A worker. He was her teacher The guy that taught her to read.

They were going to have to be together or they were going to die together.

Maybe this was her fault too.

She sunk against a wall as the door shut. In silence, she just watched him.

He didn’t look at her again, except for a glance as she came in. He waited.

She waited too.

Death came shortly.

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