Tales of Midbar: Secret Priest

“Why’s that so ridiculous?” I asked. “They do have a reputation for messing up people’s lives.”

“This is stupid even by the standards of things they’re reputed to do,” said the lawyer. “Nobody’s going to believe this.”

“There’s also the problem a lot of powerful people are members,” said Dad, “so having this sort of claim made may cause the judge or somebody to rule unfairly against us.”

“But it’s Pendina making the claim,” I said.

“If she says that and we win the case,” said Dad, “it would imply Benai Nibeyim really are behind this and they won’t want that.”

“I’ll try to persuade her lawyer that making this sort of claim is a low, dirty trick and they shouldn’t do things like this,” said my lawyer.

Everybody else was out and I was at home with just Miandri doing homework. Normally I worked at the kitchen table but she preferred to do it laying on the living room couch, sucking on her glass ball as normal. Therefore I was sitting in a chair in the living room so we could keep each other company. I finished my homework and looked at her. She was only wearing a night dress with a plunging neck line so it showed a lot of her cleavage. Also most of her shapely legs were exposed.

I needed to say something to her, so I asked, “Do you know anything about Benai Nibeyim?”

“They’re just these people who do stuff and their meetings are really boring.”

“You’ve been to their meetings?”

“Just a few. Mum and Garis go to them.”

Garis was her step father. By that time I knew her biological father hadn’t worked, he’d just been supported by her mother. Her mother had eventually got fed up with it and, after having the legal limit of three children (there were some exceptions; if children die young or you have a multiple birth and there was no limit to how many children Nuharas can have), she’d divorced him and married Garis and had two more children by him (re-marriage to somebody who had less than three children was another exception). Although Garis was a hipsick, as was her biological father, she seemed to get on fairly well with him.

“So you’re mother and step-father are Benai Nibeyim?”

“They don’t take it very seriously,” said Miandri, blowing some pink vapour, “they just go to some of the meetings.”

“Aren’t they supposed to be involved in conspiracies?” I was now standing over her, breathing heavily and trying to keep calm to read her mind.

“Some people say that but they’re just boring.”

She wasn’t being entirely honest about this but now she was smiling at me and staring into my mind with those eyes.

I sat on the edge of the sofa and leaned across her. “Apparently Pendina claimed the Benai Nibeyim told her to give me a negative infinity sex rating but the lawyer thought she was lying about that.”

“The whole sex rating thing’s stupid,” she scratched her shoulder and moved the strap of her nighty down a bit. “You should just have sex to follow your predestination, not as some sort of competition. If you follow your strongest predestination line, you’ll probably find the person you should marry but your’s just kind of disappears. It’s like totally weird, I’ve never seen that before. It may mean you’re predestined to marry somebody who hasn’t been conceived yet.”

This wasn’t the first time she’d mentioned predestination lines. They were invisible (but Miandri could detect them) lines which showed how you would be connected to other people or things in the future. Apparently people tended to loose them as they got older and died about the time they ran out. She’d told me I had a lot, even for somebody my age.

“I’d rather not wait another fifteen years or so, at least, for her to be born and get old enough to want sex.”

It occurred to me that surely most people had connections to people who weren’t conceived yet, their own future children or grandchildren for example, so why hadn’t she seen a predestination line like this before?

“Nuhar married a six year old,” said Miandri, still just laying there holding my Dad’s book and smiling at me.

“He was a pedophile!”

“The Nuhara’s say he was prefect so that must be acceptable.”

“I only like girls once they grow boobs, especially if they have very large ones.”

I cast my eyes at her breasts.

“Why are you suddenly interested in Benai Nibeyim?”

“The lawyer I spoke to this afternoon wanted to know why the Benai Nibeyim would want to mess up my sex life.”

I was trying hard to read her mind but mostly just getting these very friendly vibes. She didn’t answer, she just stared back at me.

“Well you seem to know more about them than I do? Do you have any ideas?”

“You can’t really change anything, all is predestined.” She shuffled herself into a more laid back position, dropping the book and putting her hands behind her head. However, in the process, she pushed her left hand through her night dress strap so it was now hanging loose.

“So if I was to kiss you now, that would be predestined and there’s nothing we could do about it?”

She just smiled back at me so I bent down and kissed her on the mouth. The vapour gave it a weird, sweet, peppermint taste.

After a bit she said, “I’ve got some reading to do. It’s one of your Dad’s books about how sexual morality is outdated.”

“Oh, I’ve finished my homework. You’re not my half sister are you?”

“Of course not.”

“I know my father’s met your mother.”

“I’m my mother’s third child, the last by her first husband. I think our parents knew each other before they were married.”

“You’re mother’s really my mother’s friend more than my father’s anyway. I guess that means my father met your mother after he met my mother.”

“He says here it’s good for young people to have sexual experiences,” she said, going back to her book. “Something about epigenetics.”

I put my hand on her bare shoulder and started working down. I went outside the fabric when I got to it and felt her left breast. I was a bit puzzled I couldn’t feel her nipple. After a bit I pulled the nighty down slowly. She had a large, pale ariol but no sticking out bit, just a tiny hole in the middle. I didn’t think they made female bodies like this, or male ones for that matter.

After I’d explored her body a bit more, she said, “Do you have a contraceptive spell?”

“No.”

“Do you know where your parents keep their’s?”

“I think Mum keeps it in her handbag, which she always carries with her.”

“I expect your family will be back soon anyway. Perhaps it isn’t predestined now and we should just try to calm down so they don’t freak out.”