Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

By now, I thought I was ready to question my parents and find out more, even things they didn’t want me to know. Mum worked as an office manager at the Town Hall so she’d probably be home first. She was a hipsickah so her mind should be harder to read but her thoughts were less complicated than Dad’s.

Something didn’t feel right.

“There’s a girl here!” said Attan’s voice from the living room.

I went into the living room and found Attan, who’d probably only just got home himself, perched on a chair looking at the couch. I looked at the couch and saw a beautiful, yellow haired, faharni katcheyah who smiled at me with big, white teeth and stared into my brain with her gray eyes. I actually noticed her eyes first although she also had very large breasts. She was sucking on a tube connected to a small ball of transparent material containing bubbling, pink liquid and exhaled sparkly pink vapour.

“Er, hi,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Are you going to have sex with her?” asked Attan.

“Please ignore my brother,” I said, starting to sweat and breath heavily, “he suffers from serious brain damage, which isn’t genetic.”

“No I don’t!” said Attan.

“Miandri,” said the katcheyah with a wonderful soft voice. “I’m staying here for a bit because my family are going through some stuff.”

“I’m Clindar,” I said, crouching down to her level, more unsteadily that I’d have liked.

She rolled more onto her back with her shapely legs forming upward pointing triangles.

“What do you mean about going through stuff?” I asked.

“Are you going to have sex with her?” asked Attan. “I know you want to ...”

“Shut up!” I shouted at him, turning towards him and nearly falling over.

“Your father’s that rabbi who doesn’t believe in morals isn’t he?” asked Miandri.

“I think that’s a bit of a simplistic way to put it.”

“You do want to have sex with her,” said Attan.

“Sorry about my little brother,” I said, “it’s time for his medication.”

“She has very large breasts,” said Attan.

“Yeah, people keep saying that,” said Miandri.

I sprung up, grabbed Attan by the neck and dragged him into the hall and hissed, “I’ve got a medical problem that means it’s bad for me to have strong emotions!”

“Perhaps you should avoid sex then.”

“It’s not having sex that’s making me emotional! Now are you going to stop messing up my chances with her or will I have to shut you up?”

“OK, sure.”

I didn’t really trust him but I let him go and we went back into the living room.

“Sorry about that,” I said. “Where do you come from?”

“Drintac.”

“I’ve heard of it but I’ve never been there.”

We proceeded to talk for a few minutes until Mum got home. I perched on the end of the couch by Miandri’s feet, feeling rather awkward but she was lovely.

“Clindar’s trying to have sex with a girl!” shouted Attan when the front door opened.

“Boys!” said Mum. “Can we have a word!”

She took us into the kitchen. I promptly punched Attan in the nose, kicked him in the groin, pushed him to the floor and started pummelling him in the face.

“Stop!” yelled Mum, trying to pull me off him.

“Self defense,” I said. “He fornicating knows it’s dangerous for me to have strong emotions but the fornicating moron keeps telling her I want to have sex with her and completely fornicating ruining my chances!”

“That’s no excuse to ... Attan, you know he’s sensitive about being the only boy in his school who hasn’t had sex.”

“I was just telling the truth,” said Attan. “He started being violent.”

“You were being psychologically abusive!” I said. “Like you always fornicating do!”

“Well you’re such an easy wind up,” said Attan, smirking.

“That’s no fornicating excuse!” I shouted kicking him in the groin again.

“Boys!” shouted Mum. “Can’t you calm down?”

“I’m trying to but I’ve got an abusive fornicating idiot bully for a younger brother and you always take the bit of fece’s side and I’m fornicating fed up with it!”

I was trying to calm myself down so I could read Mum’s mind better but Attan was making it impossible. I was sweating and breathing very heavily.

“Well you’re a fornicating loser who can’t even get a girlfriend!” said Attan.

I was going to jump on the idiot’s stomach and then stamp on his head for that remark, I knew from my limited experience of fights that it wouldn’t hurt much, but suddenly a dark depressive cloud came over me and it was all I could do not to burst into tears. I realized Mum had put her calming spell on me.

“Can’t you control yourselves?” said Mum.

“Why don’t you ever use a spell to stop Attan from fornicating up my things?” I asked.

“Now Miandri’s family are having some problems,” said Mum, ignoring my question. “Her mother’s an old friend of mine from University so I don’t want anything happening to her, including having sex with her, is that understood?”

I think she was lying about something here. The spell had probably helped me to read her mind. I tried to make my mind blank and listen to her thoughts.

“Attan kept telling her I wanted to have sex with her,” I said. “That’s bullying, it’s abuse, he deserves to be killed for that!”

“It was just a bit of fun,” said Attan.

“Hasn’t your sex drive caused enough problems lately?” asked Mum.

“Hormones! Do you think it’s acceptable for the girls to say they get negative infinity points for copulating me! How do you think I feel about constantly seeing complete mucus fornicating nice girls when nobody will do it with me? How do you think that makes me feel?”

“Language!”

“If it’s so fornication important for you to have sex,” said Attan, grinning in spite of the blood from nose running into his mouth, “why don’t you just get a prostitute?”

“Can we just stop arguing about this?” said Mum, pushing us apart.

“The fornicating Love Priest won’t let me.”

“Why don’t you fornicating bash him up then?” asked Attan.

I considered that. It would probably get me locked up but it could open a legal mess.

“No!” snapped Mum, shaking her fists.

“Anyway,” I said deciding to change the subject, “I was told the girl who gave me a negative infinity sex rating did so because somebody told her to.”

“Well you shouldn’t worry about these other stupid kids,” said Mum.

“I wouldn’t care if subhuman bloody diarrhea I hate weren’t having sex in front of me while no girls are doing it with me and I’m pretty sure it’s because of that sex rating. I think there’s more going on than we think.”

“You’re just a paranoid loony,” said Attan but I was trying to ignore him and concentrate on Mum.

“It’s just kids being stupid,” said Mum.

Oh that was a galactic supercluster of a lie! She knew a lot more than she was willing to admit.

“Why did you drive Egrindreth away?”

“She’s a Winemaker now!”

Again not true. Well I knew Egrindreth was a Winemaker but that wasn’t the reason Mum had driven her away.

“I thought Dad was the one who hated Winemakers?”

“Haprihagfen are fundamentalists!”

There was more to it than that.

“She came to me when you weren’t around and said she wasn’t allowed to talk to me about religion and ...”

“Don’t trust anything she says. Haprihagfen are insane!”

“... there was some organization that was supposed to help me and wouldn’t let her or Haprihagfen help me but this organization wasn’t helping me.”

“Conspiracy theories are never true,” said Mum. “You shouldn’t believe them!” She was trying hard to hide something here.

“Nuhar Zorg was just killed by his wife,” said Attan, sitting against the wall. “He didn’t fall through a time warp.”

“I’m not a Nuhara,” I said.

I’d heard not all Nuharas believed Nuhar Zorg had fallen through a time warp and would return. As I wasn’t a Nuhara I certainly didn’t believe that although, quite honestly, I didn’t know what had happened to him.

“Now I want you to be nice to Miandri,” said Mum, “and stop making religionist remarks!” that was directed at Attan.