transport to anywhere else on Demoth—up the sleeve in zero time to the terminus, over a cross-sleeve to an equatorial orbiter, then down another sleeve to any population center on the planet.
One of the great charms of Bonaventure—you could leave the place so quickly.
"Bonaventure" was a human word, of course. Pre-plague, the city had an Oolom name, but that got changed when humans took over. The Ooloms wanted it that way. They still outnumbered Homo saps overall on Demoth—roughly five million of them to one million of us—but most surviving Ooloms could afford upscale residences in the Thin Interior, playground communities nestled in the skyscraper trees of ancient forests and jungle. They had an unshakable passion for the deep woods; so they hired us humans to work in Oolom-owned offices and factories, while they retired to soar through the canopy in genteel indolence. Even not-so-flush Ooloms headed treeward, if only to work as servants/accountants/dogsbodies to the truly well heeled. For them, any job in the Big Green was better than facing the urban gray.
For twenty years after the plague, then, Demoth sorted itself out... Ooloms settling down in their posh isolated villages, while Homo saps found their own places on islands and coastal plains—anywhere close to sea level, where the air was thick enough for human lungs to bite into.
And for twenty years after the plague, I sorted myself out too... until finally, at the age of thirty-five, I walked into Bonaventure's office of the College Vigilant to ask how I could join.
I'd had jobs before. "Warm-body" jobs like keeping an eye on nanotech-performance monitors, or hauling drums of proto-nute to houses whose food synthesizers weren't hooked up to the mains. I'd also had "Faye" jobs like prancing the puss in stripperamas, or nude modeling for local artists. (A lot of sculptors loved the button scars on my arms, where I used to have freckles.)
But mostly I bared the butt for Ooloms. Oolom men found human women outrageously, capaciously sexy because we were so big. Torso big, I mean—they couldn't care less about cleavage or crotch, but they turned goggle-eyed at the expanse of a human back. Their own Oolom females were so much thinner... and some quirk of the Oolom male psyche had a gut reaction, thickness = arousal. "You're so wide!" one admirer crooned to me.
Gives a whole new meaning to calling women "broads."
Some of the other strippers, the ones who flicked tricks on the side, told me their customers often took a woman's shoulder measurements so they could brag to the boys back home. Considering my own mesomorph build, I could have been the choice rumpus room of the back streets... but I never sank quite that far. I'd take off my clothes for money—where was the crime in treating myself like meat?—but selling my swish was just too disloyal to my spouses.
They were my family. I could devalue myself, but not them.
Which meant that as years went on, as Darlene and Angie and Lynn all had children, I gradually spent more time home helping with the kids than playing Miss Udder around town. The children called me "Mom-Faye"... not the same tug on the heart as plain old "Mom," but I was too much the coward to have babies of my own: afraid it would change me, afraid that it wouldn't.
Even just being Mom-Faye changed me in time. You know how it goes: after a full day of feeding/bathing/diapering, you're too tired to spark out for a night strutting bare-ass, and doing squats with a barbell, naked. You say, "I'll cheapen myself tomorrow"... and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace till you wake one day, look in the mirror, and don't straight off feel disgust. Such a shock. That your soul may not be an irredeemable cesspool.
Then quick, while you're still brave, ask yourself what you'd want to do with your mortal existence if the universe weren't a total dog's vomit.
What do you want? To live in the real. To name the lies. Wa supesh
One of the great charms of Bonaventure—you could leave the place so quickly.
"Bonaventure" was a human word, of course. Pre-plague, the city had an Oolom name, but that got changed when humans took over. The Ooloms wanted it that way. They still outnumbered Homo saps overall on Demoth—roughly five million of them to one million of us—but most surviving Ooloms could afford upscale residences in the Thin Interior, playground communities nestled in the skyscraper trees of ancient forests and jungle. They had an unshakable passion for the deep woods; so they hired us humans to work in Oolom-owned offices and factories, while they retired to soar through the canopy in genteel indolence. Even not-so-flush Ooloms headed treeward, if only to work as servants/accountants/dogsbodies to the truly well heeled. For them, any job in the Big Green was better than facing the urban gray.
For twenty years after the plague, then, Demoth sorted itself out... Ooloms settling down in their posh isolated villages, while Homo saps found their own places on islands and coastal plains—anywhere close to sea level, where the air was thick enough for human lungs to bite into.
And for twenty years after the plague, I sorted myself out too... until finally, at the age of thirty-five, I walked into Bonaventure's office of the College Vigilant to ask how I could join.
I'd had jobs before. "Warm-body" jobs like keeping an eye on nanotech-performance monitors, or hauling drums of proto-nute to houses whose food synthesizers weren't hooked up to the mains. I'd also had "Faye" jobs like prancing the puss in stripperamas, or nude modeling for local artists. (A lot of sculptors loved the button scars on my arms, where I used to have freckles.)
But mostly I bared the butt for Ooloms. Oolom men found human women outrageously, capaciously sexy because we were so big. Torso big, I mean—they couldn't care less about cleavage or crotch, but they turned goggle-eyed at the expanse of a human back. Their own Oolom females were so much thinner... and some quirk of the Oolom male psyche had a gut reaction, thickness = arousal. "You're so wide!" one admirer crooned to me.
Gives a whole new meaning to calling women "broads."
Some of the other strippers, the ones who flicked tricks on the side, told me their customers often took a woman's shoulder measurements so they could brag to the boys back home. Considering my own mesomorph build, I could have been the choice rumpus room of the back streets... but I never sank quite that far. I'd take off my clothes for money—where was the crime in treating myself like meat?—but selling my swish was just too disloyal to my spouses.
They were my family. I could devalue myself, but not them.
Which meant that as years went on, as Darlene and Angie and Lynn all had children, I gradually spent more time home helping with the kids than playing Miss Udder around town. The children called me "Mom-Faye"... not the same tug on the heart as plain old "Mom," but I was too much the coward to have babies of my own: afraid it would change me, afraid that it wouldn't.
Even just being Mom-Faye changed me in time. You know how it goes: after a full day of feeding/bathing/diapering, you're too tired to spark out for a night strutting bare-ass, and doing squats with a barbell, naked. You say, "I'll cheapen myself tomorrow"... and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace till you wake one day, look in the mirror, and don't straight off feel disgust. Such a shock. That your soul may not be an irredeemable cesspool.
Then quick, while you're still brave, ask yourself what you'd want to do with your mortal existence if the universe weren't a total dog's vomit.
What do you want? To live in the real. To name the lies. Wa supesh
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