Eternity by Berengaria Brown

Author:Berengaria Brown
Language: eng
Format: mobi, pdf
Tags: Book/Menage
ISBN: 9781610342520
Published: 2011-01-14T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Four

Half an hour later, they were sitting around the table in the front apartment again, and Tsadowq handed her a chunky salad sandwich.

“Eat,” he said. “There may be a lot of alcohol at this party tonight, and you need to have your stomach solidly lined with absorbent foods, just in case.”

Nodding at the logic of his comment, and feeling hungry from the morning’s exercise, Yolanda picked up her sandwich and took a bite.

Atal placed a cup of coffee in front of her and what appeared to be a jug of wine between himself and Tsadowq.

“Blood? You do drink blood?” she asked.

“A little, but most of what we drink these days is artificial blood, primarily volume expanders.”

“Volume expanders? What are they, and where do you get them?” Atal grinned. “Each week, dressed in my security guard uniform, I go to one of the laboratories that provides these products for hospitals.

There, I hand over the paperwork Tsadowq has prepared, and I collect the weekly supply of artificial blood and some real blood for a hospital. The ‘hospital’ is a refrigerator in our apartment, and we are careful to vary the exact quantity slightly, so some weeks it is quite a bit more than we actually need, other weeks it is a little less, but we always have enough for our needs.

“The laboratory considers us a valued client, as we always pay on time and never argue about the account. Volume expanders are used to prevent shock following severe blood loss and include ingredients such as hydroxyethyl starch and colloids containing larger insoluble molecules, like gelatin. So, mixed with a little pure blood, which we 42

Berengaria Brown

also buy from the laboratory, plus small amounts of human food, we eat satisfactorily.”

“And you just walk in here with bags of fake blood every week?

Why hasn’t anyone noticed?” she asked.

“People have noticed me doing our weekly shopping. In the trunk of our van, I have boxes and wrappings of everyday foodstuffs and household supplies. After I collect our blood, I climb into the back of the van, take off my uniform, and put my jeans back on, slide the packets of artificial blood into the false cereal and soap powder boxes and soup cans, then carry my shopping upstairs in my shopping bags.

The uniform stays in the van for next time, and the empty containers are flattened and taken back out to the van in small amounts with the shopping bags whenever we take other things outside during the week.”

“I guess you must have had to think up a lot of different strategies so you appear normal,” she realized.

“Fortunately, the restaurant kitchens here give away unused food to a homeless shelter. We buy some real food to offer our friends when they visit. Anything we don’t need we add to the shelter’s collection boxes just as other people do. But yes, the most difficult thing is aging so slowly. We have to move states frequently so that doesn’t become obvious,” said Tsadowq.

Yolanda nodded and took another bite of her meal.

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