Passion Model by Megan Hart

Author:Megan Hart [Hart, Megan]
Language: eng
Format: epub

My internal clock woke me, and I slid seamlessly from sleep to consciousness without the startlement that so often accompanies the change.

I pressed the rubber button and removed the flexicord and other gear. The lid of my water bed slid back to reveal a room, dim in deference to the blackness to which my eyes had grown accustomed, but still bright enough to make me squint briefly. I felt no sense of urgency, and for a moment couldn’t think why. Then it struck me. Today was my scheduled off-day.

For a moment, I sank back into the water, but couldn’t stay there for long. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d taken a day of leisure. My job had been life for so many years, even the idea of actually staying home on my off-day for any reason other than an emergency seemed like craziness.

The more I thought about it, the better it sounded. I got up from my water bed and wiped off the dreamcream, then tossed the towel in the disposal. I stretched, the tiny joints in my back popping and crackling. Yesterday’s strife and disappointment seemed shoved far back in my brain, and today stretched out in front of me with colors glowing like Solaria sunshine. Bright.

“Is my Gemma going to work today?” Kaelyn’s fair head peeped around the corner. “Is my Gemma feeling sick?”

“I’m not sick. It’s my day off.”

Her brow furrowed. “But my Gemma does not take her day off. She always goes into work anyway.”

“Not today.” I gave myself a glance in the mirror. “Today I think I’m going to…relax.”

She probably wouldn’t have looked more aghast had I said I was going to eat filth. “My Gemma is sick!”

I laughed and drew her closer to me. “No, Kaelyn. Just…I’ve been thinking. Life is too short.”

Her wings fluttered against my bare arms. “Is it something I’ve done wrong? Is my Gemma going to send me away?”

My heart twisted a little at her assumption that any change in me was a reflection of her status in my household. I smoothed her hair gently away from her forehead and held her still until her wings ceased their beating. “No, Kaelyn. I’m not going to send you away. I would never do that. I love you.”

The dark fathoms of her eyes brimmed with tears. She flung herself against me, shaking with the force of her emotion, and I realized something that shamed me. I had never told her I loved her before.

“Oh, I’d hoped and hoped, but I never thought my Gemma would…oh!”

I rubbed her back, feeling through her light shift the thin knobs of her spine poking up in the space between her gossamer wings. She clutched me harder. I held her for some long moments, neither of us speaking.

When she pulled away, she seemed almost shy. “When my Gemma bought me from the slave trader, I was afraid.”

“I know that.” I let her stand back from me.

She nodded, and her delicate features wreathed into a smile. “But my Gemma has been so kind, never working me too hard.

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