Begotten Under Satellites
Short Story
Zain coiled off me, unsticking our slimy bodies off and laid beside me. Gasping, we glanced at each other, laughing. The warm night breeze played with blades of tall grass around us and through them to me, drying Zain’s sweat off my skin.
“Don’t you worry somebody’s looking at us?” I asked, staring up at the sky, studded with thousands of tiny sparky dots, illuminating our bodies.
For a second, he said nothing, only snorted over one of swift exhales. “I hope they’re looking,” he said.
“What?!” I twisted, side to him, and covered my naked buttocks with his overall, the closest piece of cloth around.
“I hope they’re also listening,” he shouts, “because I want them to know this was the best fucking fu — “
I put a hand over his mouth. “Are you nuts?” I whispered. “Somebody could hear you!”
He giggled that his hairy chest shook, mumbling something inaudible over my hand. “What?” I asked, lifting a hand.
“You’re so cute when you’re worried,” he said in a calm and sweet voice that always scattered butterflies in my belly. “But Yo, honey, there’s no one for miles around. Only me and you,” he said, kissing my nipples and blowing on my chilly skin through his nostrils.
I sighed, tilting back my head when he suddenly stopped.
“And them, of course,” he said and stretched his left arm up.
“That’s what I’m talking about,” I said. “Do you think they’re watching?”
“I hope so — as I said.”
“You’re crazy!”
“You bet I am,” he said in devilish voice and turned his face up to the sky. “I’m a crazy fool in a crazy world. So what? Is it crazy for you I’m enjoying this world, guys? Disgusting? Inappropriate? Well, I don’t give a fuck, frankly. Because this, this is fucking world. This is fucking nature, this woman. With the body of the goddess, this woman moves like the One. No, she’s the One! She’s the — “
“Stop it,” I whispered over grin, stretching my hand back to his mouth, but this time he fought me, defending, avoiding me from stopping him.
“She’s fucking hot even now, fighting me! Are you looking? Well, I don’t mind, neither blame you. Being you, I would do the same and pity myself I didn’t live when I could — ”
“Enough,” I said, now in a firmer voice. Zain began to fall into politics and that topic was always a walk by thin ice.
“What’s wrong with you?” he asked in an angry tone, the one he had had five minutes before in such a different situation, triggered by his hormones, not my words.
“Why are you so grumpy? So cocky?”
He laughed. “Grumpy or cocky?” he asked.
Both, I thought, irritated by his childish nature. He was handsome and clever at once and fucking perfect in bed — though I could not remember the last time we did it in bed — however, sometimes he behaved like an infant.
“Come on,” he said, squeezing my cheeks with fingers, pulling my head to his for a kiss. “Let it be. Enjoy this.”
He kissed me then, as sweet as only he could do. Every time he did it, I felt like floating on a cloud carved in a heart shape. Every second with him was like a ride I never wanted to end. He might behave like a child, but I was the same child whenever he kissed me. Carefree, young and brave — that was how I felt when I closed my eyes, drowning in his kisses.
Yet, when I opened my eyes to look at him, I saw white dots flashing far away in his background that frightened me.
“Zain, please — ”
“What?” he asked, pulling back with eyes wide and surprised.
“I can’t, I’m sorry — ”
“You really got angry?”
I sighed. “No, but — ”
“But?”
“I’m scared,” I said and turned my eyes down at his nipples.
“Scared?”
“What if I can’t bear it? A child?”
Turning back, he laid beside me without a word. “Then we’re fucked up,” he said.
“How do you mean fucked up?”
He glanced at me with mouth corners dropped down. “Then we won’t have children. You know what that means, right?”
I swallowed and nodded shyly. I knew girls who could not bear a child, I heard things that happened them after —
“It means you’ll have to spend all your life just with me and my stupid jokes,” he said with a giggle and tickled me in the armpit.
I jerked off and fought him back, wiggling over green grass. He was right — even with no childbirth, I still would have this one.
“No, but really,” I said, ”what if — ”
“And who the hell said we need kids so desperately?”
My eyes widened. “You don’t want them?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m just…it’s not a question of life or death — ”
“Well, it is,” I said.
He chuckled. “Is it?”
“I don’t want to lose you, Zain.”
“And why the fuck you should lose me, babe?”
“You know Pam, my bestie, right?”
He sighed. “I do, but Pam didn’t lose Luke due to her infertility — ”
“Yeah? Why then he did leave her?”
“Because she started freaking out — ”
“Ridiculous — ”
“Not so necessarily,” he said. “Since she miscarried, she started freaking out Luke will leave her and go for some younger, fertile, because she saw herself as meaningless.”
“That’s Luke’s version — ”
“Yeah, but although Luke told her nothing of she thought was true because he loved her and only her, she began to suspect him whenever he went out without her. She spied and investigated him until she became completely unbearable.”
“So he dumped her and found the younger and fertile girl.”
“You know what?” he said and leaned to me with a scowl on his face. It’s terrible, I thought; I should have kept the fucking quiet. But at least I did now, not even shaking my head. “Why do we have to speak about some other people? Fuck them! Fuck the others! I don’t care what’s goin’ on between other couples. I watch just about us — “
And then my heart melted. Every time this child turned to a man with father-gene, I started to thaw like ice cubes in an empty glass.
“I just…I don’t want to disappoint you — ”
“Disappoint me?” he asked in a squeaky voice, laughing. “Because you might be infertile?”
I nodded, dropping my eyes to trampled grass between our bodies. But soon, Zain lifted my head up by my chin. “Fertile or infertile, I love you, Yo. More than have ever loved anyone.”
I blinked, and tears ran down my face. Not sure if it was a love I felt for him or fear I may lose him, but I cried like a child — which maybe I would not be able to bring to this world.
“I don’t love you because of children,” he said, “but because of you. Because of who you are, for what a woman, a person, you are, Yo. We’ve passed so many things, so many terrible times that changed this world beyond recognition, and many people have not even the luck we have to be here, look and feel this world. But we do; we do have it. We’re here. We’re those lucky. We’re alive, healthy, have one each other. What more do we need?”
“Children,” I said, sobbing. Because whatever he said, I knew the men nowadays wanted children more than anything. I did not know if that veil of rarity shrouded over global world fertility stood behind; however, I learned how demanding men were for fertile women. And although Zain was always rather a child in the body of an adult, I knew sooner or later his time would come, and his mind would change.
“So, we will have children then. Begetting a child this way,” he said, circling a forefinger before my eyes, “can be the most natural way, sure, but still just the option.”
He blinked, and I understood. He pointed at himself, fathered through artificial insemination and then adopted by his current parents. Who could talk more about unnatural ways of having a child than him?
Then he hugged me and laid on the grass with me in his armpit.
“Look, Yo,” he said, pointing up at the sky again with his other hand. “If they’re staring, let them stare. Let them see we’re here. After all we went through, we’re here and now, loving each other. We don’t know what may happen next minute. We don’t know if we’ll ever see the sun again. But while we’re here, while we’re still here, let’s just enjoy what we have. Let’s just live and love, let’s just enjoy the night.”
I turned my eyes from his beard to the sky and flattened my body tight to his again. What more do we need?
“But maybe some things I’ll keep for my eyes,” he said, grabbed his jacket and put it over my back, followed by our laughter.
