Butler, Octavia - Wild Seed

“What do you want?” she asked him.

“Nothing.” He pulled a chair over to the side of her desk and sat down.

“What, no more children for me to raise?” she said bitterly. “No more unsuitable mates for my children? Nothing?”

“I brought a pregnant woman and her two children, and I brought an account at a New Orleans bank to help pay their way. I didn’t come to you to talk about them, though.”

Anyanwu turned away from him not caring why he had come. She wished he would leave.

“It goes on, you know,” he said. “The dying.”

“It doesn’t hurt you.”

“It does. When my children die—the best of my children.”

“What do you do?”

“Endure it. What is there to do but endure it? Someday, we’ll have others who won’t die.”

“Are you still dreaming that dream?”

“What could I do, Anyanwu, if I gave it up?”

She said nothing. She had no answer. “I used to believe in it too,” She said. “When you took me from my people, I believed it. For fifty years, I made myself believe it. Perhaps … perhaps sometimes I still believe it.”

“You never behaved as though you believed it.”

“I did! I let you do all the things you did to me and to others, and I stayed with you until I could see you had decided to kill me.”

He drew a deep breath. “That decision was a mistake,” he said. “I made it out of habit as though you were just another not entirely controllable, wild-seed woman who had had her quota of children. Centuries-old habit said it was time to dispose of you.”

“And what of your habit now?” she asked.

“It’s broken now as far as you’re concerned.” He looked at her, looked past her. “I want you alive for as long as you can live. You cannot know how I have fought with myself over this.”

She did not care how he had fought.

“I tried hard to make myself kill you,” he said. “It would have been easier than trying to change you.”

She shrugged.

He stood up and took her arms to raise her to her feet. She stood passively, knowing that if she let him have his way, they would wind up on the sofa together. He wanted her. He did not care that she had just suffered the loss of a friend, that she wanted to be alone.

“Do you like this body?” he asked. “It’s my gift to you.”

She wondered who had died so that he could give such a “gift.”

“Anyanwu!” He shook her once, gently, and she looked at him. She did not have to look up. “You’re still the little forest peasant, trying to climb the ship’s railings and swim back to Africa,” he said. “You still want what you can’t have. The old woman is dead.”

Again, she only shrugged.

“They’ll all die, except me,” he continued. “Because of me, you were not alone on the ship. Because of me, you will never be alone.”

He took her to the sofa, finally, undressed her, made love to her. She found that she did not mind particularly. The lovemaking relaxed her, and when it was over, she escaped easily into sleep.

Not much time had passed when he woke her. The sunlight and the long shadows told her it was still evening. She wondered why he had not left her. He had what he wanted, and intentionally or not, he had given her peace. Now if only he would go away.

Anyanwu looked at him seated beside her half dressed, still shirtless. They were not crowded together on the large sofa as they would have been had he been wearing one of his usual large bodies. Again, she wondered about the original owner of his beautiful, unlikely, new body, but she asked no questions. She did not want to learn that it had been one of her descendants.

He caressed her silently for a moment and she thought he meant to resume the lovemaking. She sighed and decided that it did not matter. So little seemed to matter now.

“I’m going to try something with you,” he said. “I’ve wanted to do it for years. Before you ran away, I assumed I would do it someday. Now … now everything is changed, but I mean to have some of this anyway.”

“Some of what?” she asked wearily. “What are you talking about?”

“I can’t explain,” he said. “But … Look at me, Anyanwu. Look!”

She turned onto her side, faced him.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said. “Hear and see whatever it is that helps you know I’m being honest with you. I won’t hurt you. You’ll be in danger only if you disobey me. This body of mine is strong and young and new to me. My control is excellent. Obey me, and you will be safe.”

She lay flat again. “Tell me what you want, Doro. What shall I do for you now?”

To her surprise, he smiled and kissed her. “Just lie still and trust me. Believe that I mean you no harm.”

She did believe, though at the moment, she barely cared. How ironic that now he was beginning to care, beginning to see her as more than only another of his breeding animals. She nodded and felt his hands grip her.

Abruptly, she was in darkness, falling through darkness toward distant light, falling. She felt herself twisting, writhing, grasping for some support. She screamed in reflexive terror, and could not hear her own voice. Instantly, the darkness around her vanished.

She was on the sofa again, with Doro gasping beside her. There were bloody nail marks on his chest and he was massaging his throat as though it hurt. She was concerned in spite of herself. “Doro, have I hurt your throat?”

He took a deep ragged breath. “Not much. I was ready for you—or I thought I was.”

“What did you do? It was like the kind of dream children wake screaming from.”

“Alter your hands,” he said.

“What?”

“Obey me. Make claws of your hands.”

With a shrug, she formed powerful leopard claws.

“Good,” Doro said. “I didn’t even weaken you. My control is as steady as I thought. Now change back.” He fingered his throat lightly. “I wouldn’t want you going at me with those.”

Again she obeyed. She was behaving like one of his daughters, doing things she did not understand unquestioningly because he commanded it. That thought roused her to question.

“Doro, what are we doing?”

“Do you see,” he said, “that the … the thing you felt has not harmed you in any way?”

“But what was it?”

“Wait, Anyanwu. Trust me. I’ll explain all I can later, I promise you. For now, relax. I’m going to do it again.”

“No!”

“It won’t hurt you. It will be as though you were in midair under Isaac’s control. He would never have hurt you. I won’t either.” He had begun stroking and caressing her again, trying to calm her—and succeeding. She had not really been hurt, after all. “Be still,” he whispered. “Let me have this, Anyanwu.”

“It will … please you somehow—as though we were making love?”

“Even more.”

“All right.” She wondered what she was saying all right to. It had nothing to do with Isaac’s tossing her into the air and catching her with that gentle sure ability of his. This was nightmare stuff—helpless, endless falling. But it was not real. She had not fallen. She was not injured. Finally, Doro wanted something of her that would not hurt anyone. Perhaps if she gave it to him—and survived—she would gain leverage with him, be better able to protect her people from him. Let them live their brief lives in peace.

“Don’t fight me this time,” he said. “I’m no match for you in physical strength. You know that. Now that you know what to expect, you can be still and let it happen. Trust me.”

She lay watching him, quiescent, waiting. “All right,” she repeated. He moved closer to her, put his arm around her so that her head was pillowed on it.

“I like contact,” he said, explaining nothing. “It’s never as good without contact.”