21
Whenever Teresa saw that Rhys was in a surly mood, she did her best to cheer him up. She considered it her duty for the group, and it made her feel warm inside to see the positive effect of her presence on their leader.
Unfortunately, it didn’t always work.
Inside the togetherments, Rhys shuffled through hardcopy balance sheets, investment records, and bills. He used a primitive numerical calculator, frowning at each result. Teresa could smell his perspiration in the closeness of the corner where he had gone to think.
She would have suggested that he just use the facilities available in COM for budgeting, bookkeeping, simple information access, but she knew it would anger him. Rhys wanted none of the “spy terminals” in his sight, though Teresa had never heard of the computer/ organic matrix actively spying on anyone through an access screen. She felt that sometimes Rhys had unrealistic fears and concerns.
“I will think for myself, no matter how many headaches it causes.”
Now, she walked up to him slowly, swaying her hips—she was tall and blond today, well tanned, with full lips and long eyelashes. Teresa had made love to him a dozen times in this body, and by now she’d learned what aroused him, how to be flirtatious and seductive. “Can I do anything, Rhys . . . anything at all, to take your mind off your troubles?” She made her voice husky, with a provocative lilt.
He looked back up at her with a dissecting stare, then a frown. “Why don’t you come back in a more interesting body?” He turned back to his paperwork. “Something I’m not tired of looking at.”
Stung, Teresa bit her lip. “Of course, Rhys. I’ll try harder.”
Teresa went deep into the togetherments, wanting to be held and loved. Maybe if she had just married Garth or Eduard when they’d left the Falling Leaves, they could have had a stable, normal life. But that hadn’t been what she wanted, and it wasn’t really what she wanted now. She kept trying to convince herself that the Sharetakers gave her what she needed, but even that was wearing thin.
She stopped in front of a petite brunette with a body like a gymnast and convinced her to swap bodies. The brunette was perfectly happy to become a slender blond, glad to do something that Teresa said would please Rhys.
When she returned to where Rhys was working, he had put away his paperwork and sat waiting for her. As Teresa stepped into the open chamber, he cracked his knuckles, appraising her body. “That’ll do.” He took her wrist and led her to the thin mattress in the corner.
Although they still hopscotched sexes occasionally, Rhys preferred his redheaded home-body. Over the past months he had stopped swapping with Teresa at all during lovemaking. He had developed some kind of aversion to having her on top of him in any form, especially if she was larger and stronger and masculine. He wanted to be in control.
Rhys made her switch into so many different body-types that she made herself dizzy just trying to please him. Eventually, Teresa realized she had completely lost track of her original body. When she first discovered this, she was shocked and alarmed. In all the time she’d been with the Sharetakers, she had worn the form of male workers, female lovers for Rhys, male lovers for other Sharetakers whenever Rhys suggested it. She had taught herself not to wonder anymore.
When she tried to track down the person wearing her home-body for that day, Teresa had discovered that it was gone. Entirely gone. One of the quietly disgruntled Sharetaker converts, a woman named Jennika, had left the enclave and never returned. She’d run away in Teresa’s body, and nobody knew where she’d gone. Nobody cared.
But some nights she still woke up wondering who she was, what she was supposed to feel like. Teresa would touch herself, even taking a moment to remind herself whether she was male or female, and feel her heart racing. Whenever possible, she would visit Garth and stare at the detailed sketch he had drawn of her original home-body, memorizing everything about it. She tried to remember what it felt like to be her . . . and then she tried to forget. She would have to wear a stranger’s body for the rest of her life.
As a girl back in the Falling Leaves, Teresa often lay awake in darkness, surrounded by the peaceful sounds of sleeping companions, quiet snores, the rustle of blankets. Although her eyes were open, she could see only vague forms, nothing clear and definite. Teresa was the only one who stared into the sky and looked at clouds, who pondered the imponderable. “What happens after death? Why are we here? Does what we do matter?”
Next to her, Garth had breathed heavily, deep in his dreams, while Eduard tossed and turned on the other side of her, restless as usual. Daragon slept on the opposite side of the room. They had all been brought here as infants, like items donated for a white-elephant sale.
During Garth’s recent art exhibition, she had wanted so much to talk to him and Eduard, to open her heart . . . but somehow she couldn’t bring herself to share her doubts, not even with her two closest friends. Those thoughts hurt too much to express, even to herself.
Now, in the Sharetakers’ togetherment, feeling sore and badly used in the darkness, Teresa lay awake again. She could still smell Rhys’s sweat, the sour dampness of their sex, the clamminess of the sheets. He had taken all that Teresa offered . . . and she had offered him everything.
In the enclave, she could hear sounds of quiet laughter, kissing, breathing. Shared pleasure and sweet nothings, simultaneous moans that became a purr. The noises seemed so different from her lovemaking with Rhys. Rigid but quiet, she listened, trying to pinpoint the difference. What had she done wrong?
Something in her posture must have awakened Rhys. Coming instantly alert, he rolled over to face her and propped himself up on an elbow. Teresa could see his teeth and his eyes in the dimness. Out of the blue, he said, “Do you know where you can get money? The Sharetakers need more to survive.”
“Rhys, I already gave you everything I had.”
“Well, that was nothing, or damn close.” He sounded angry with her, but she knew he was just stressed from the enclave’s troubles. “You must know where you can get your hands on more.”
Her heart pounded. “Everyone has a different situation, Rhys. We come together because we need the community.”
“Sure, sure. But we’re not a free ride, either. I don’t think you’ve contributed enough to the group.”
Teresa didn’t manage to cover her astonished gasp. “But I work as hard as any other member! I hardly ever sleep.”
The leader shook his head. “What about your friend Eduard? He’s got plenty of money. Didn’t you say he just got a fancy new job? Just ask him again—you don’t need to tell him what the credits are for.”
“I couldn’t do that. Eduard’s my friend, and I couldn’t possibly deceive him, or take advantage—”
Rhys got up, grabbing his pile of rumpled clothes. “Maybe I’d better leave you alone for the rest of the night so you can think about where your loyalties lie—and who your true friends are.”
He stalked away. As she huddled in the dark, alone and afraid, Teresa silently answered the question for herself.
Yes, she knew who her friends were.