Purity Read online

  “No, I don’t know,” K snapped. “And I don’t have a mother, Boone. I only have you and this is happening because you took my suit. So explain it again—why do I have to endure this painful, disgusting process once a month for the foreseeable future?”

  “Because you’re no longer being pumped full of chemicals that keep you from maturing.” Boone ran a hand through his hair and sighed. “And because your body has realized it’s fertile. I don’t know why you’re going through this process—through puberty—so quickly. Usually it takes months, even years for a girl to develop into a woman. Maybe your body is making up for lost time and that’s why your cramps were so intense and debilitating—I’m not sure. I’m only sure that once it starts, you’re stuck with it. I’m sorry.”

  “Not half as sorry as I am.” K wrapped her arms around herself again and rested her chin on her knees. “I’m frightened, Boone. I…I liked the way I looked before.” Her eyes stung and she blinked rapidly, trying not to cry. “I never wanted this.”

  “I know you didn’t, darlin’,” he murmured softly. “And I’m to blame for it—I don’t know what to say.”

  “Don’t say anything.” K rolled onto her side and stared at the wall. “Just leave me alone.”

  “Sure,” he said quietly, settling down on the other side of the sleeping platform without touching her. “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “I do.” K closed her eyes, trying to shut out the light, trying to forget what was happening to her. I should beg him to give back my skinsuit. If I could just wear it again, even for a little while, it might stop this, stop what’s happening inside me.

  But she was too proud to beg. And even though she hated the strange and messy process her body was going through, she wasn’t sure she disliked it quite enough to go back to her former emotionless state. Her own indecision made her hate herself even more. She was weak now. Weak and cowardly and soft.

  And soon her outer body would mirror her inner self.

  Chapter Fifteen

  In the days that followed her first menstrual cycle, K became even more silent and withdrawn than she’d been after the shower incident. She barely spoke to Boone and her appetite fell off to almost nothing. Boone was fairly sure her body was continuing to develop but he couldn’t be certain because now she kept herself hidden from him at all times. With the advent of her period, her touch cravings seemed to have dropped off so she no longer needed their time outs, or to be held by him at night. They still shared the same room and sleeping platform but now they seldom talked and never touched.

  It was torture.

  Boone hadn’t realized how much he enjoyed holding her, talking to her and hearing that low, contralto voice answer. He missed their work-outs, their discussion of literature and life, K’s quaint way of expressing herself which was a strange mixture of candor and threat with a quiet sense of humor almost no one else could have detected. He missed teaching her to cook and introducing her to new foods. Basically he missed everything about her.

  More than once he thought about offering her the suit back. It was mostly regenerated so she could probably put it back on and wear it effectively now. Without the plasma gauntlets attached, it could hurt no one but her. It might even be able to arrest the rapid physical development she was going through—though he doubted it could reverse it.

  But though he came close several times, he couldn’t bear to let her have it back. Boone told himself it was because he was a doctor—the suit had been hurting her, pumping her full of drugs and inhibitors, controlling her moods and her actions. He wouldn’t give a heroine or blaze addict back their drug supply just because they were unhappy without it, would he? Especially knowing how harmful it would be to them.

  Deep down, though, he knew that was just a rationalization. The real reason he didn’t offer K her suit was that he couldn’t bear to see her turn back into the cold, emotionless robot she’d been when he first captured her. She was angry with him now but even her anger was better than nothing at all. He told himself uneasily that she would get over it, that once her first menstrual cycle was over her hormones would settle and maybe she would see that being a sexually mature woman wasn’t so bad. Wouldn’t she? God, he hoped so. Hoped she wouldn’t hate him forever…because he was almost certain he was falling in love with her.

  And how screwed up was that?

  * * * * *

  K’s body changed more every day. It was a frightening process that made her feel helpless and out of control. When she dared to drop her clothing and look at herself naked in the viewer, she felt she didn’t even know the person looking back at her. Her body was no longer the sleek, sexless weapon it had been for most of her life. Now it had curves where there should be straight lines, mounds and lumps where there should have been flat planes. She was sensitive too, dangerously sensitive at the tips of her newly grown breasts and between her legs. They were weak spots no enemy would hesitate to exploit.

  K hated that.

  But worst of all, worse than her self recrimination and her traitorous body, was her longing to be close to Boone. She was angry with him—he was the source of all her problems, she told herself. It was his fault she was growing breasts and leaking blood like some faulty machine about to malfunction. His fault she was swamped with emotions day and night until she could barely think from feeling so much.

  And yet even as she hated him, she missed him.

  Every night he was right beside her, only inches away. She could feel the heat of his big body against her spine but now she couldn’t touch him. Couldn’t curl up in his arms and feel the hard press of his muscular chest against her back and the comforting warmth of his breath against the back of her neck. K told herself she was glad the touch cravings had left her so she no longer had to endure his skin against hers. But the truth was she felt like something inside her was starving every time she wanted to touch him and couldn’t.

  The irony of the situation was not lost on her. When she’d first woken up without her suit she had been horrified about being contaminated—now she craved it. It was wrong but she couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop it. But at the same time, she had too much pride to do anything about it. So she went through the days and nights as they made their way to Eros not touching or talking to Boone, even though she missed him so desperately tears came to her eyes at times.

  The emotions of loss and longing continued to torment her, even after the bleeding stopped. And then, after the cramps ceased, she had a new pain to contend with.

  She ignored it at first. It started with an emptiness inside her—a feeling of being hollow, of needing to be filled somehow between her thighs. K told herself it was ridiculous—why would her body suddenly demand to have something inserted into it—especially there? It didn’t make sense. But then the hollow feeling got worse and was joined by new pains—sharp twinges in the tips of her breasts and the sensitive spot between her thighs—mostly in the tiny button of flesh that now grew between the lips of her sex.

  Still, K ignored her symptoms. She didn’t like this new body with its curves and mounds, its inconvenient monthly leaking and of course, the endless barrage of emotions it was subject to. It was easier to pretend that nothing was wrong, to pretend she felt nothing as she always had. But the feeling of emptiness grew and the twinges turned into aches which gave way to a throbbing heat until she felt like someone was holding an open flame to her most delicate areas. It grew harder and harder to ignore the signals her body was sending. Harder and harder to pretend she was fine.

  But K tried. She fought it for three days and nights as they made their final approach to Eros, stubbornly silent despite the escalating discomfort. It’s probably just part of this new cycle Boone says I have to go through every month, she told herself uneasily as she tossed restlessly beside him in the dark on the third night. But wouldn’t he have told her if that was so? Maybe he doesn’t know—he’s a male, after all. What does he know about female pain? Except he was a doctor and he’d