I was born a cockerelle. What that means in our society is that I was born a very pretty girl just like all of the other girls in the world. I had perfect white teeth, perfect brown hair, and a perfectly cute nose that poked out the front of my perfectly pretty face. I was about average.
“Get up, nutsack!”
That’s the name my sister Becka, one year my junior, uses to get me riled up in the morning, so I’ll hop up out of bed and do my things that I’m supposed to do.
Because that’s what our society is all about. That’s the spirit of Heartseed. Hop! Hop! It won’t happen unless you make the magic happen. It’s a world where dreams can become reality, but it’ll cost you some blood, sweat, and tears not to mention a slew of other requirements written down in the universe’s long list of hidden rules. Rules I’m not afraid to wink and nod at when I can get away with it.
“I’m up,” I say, rocking onto my fine, regal haunches. “I had a jog last evening, or don’t you remember, Becka?”
“Well, you can go to bed earlier tonight to feel fresher in the morning. You don’t want to be late for your cockerelle destiny.”
“Ahgk!” I sputter, pushing out the morning yuck. Got to get myself in order for dressing time. It’s always a job putting these things together. Got to have the right outfit or the influential girls won’t admire you. You have to show them that you’re on top of your game and ready to charge out into the world filled toe to brow with ambition. I like to shock them a little if I can.
I stand up from my bed and twist this way and that. I’ve got a day out ahead of me. More like a life really. First day at Fission, a lyceum we go to when we come of age after the end of our second decade to get our heads straight. It’s a transition from a life of pondering the future with your head in the clouds, to a life of climbing the ladder to actually get it up there.
I pull on my good-morning robe to get showered, shaved, and a good meal in my tummy before I’m off to win my fortune.
In the upstairs common room, I find my sister Becka dressed for her last year at prep school. She’s got a yellow dress outfit on and raring to go.
“Going to wow them with your sunny disposition?” I ask her, taking the edge of her skirt in my fingers to test its suitability.
Becka swats the fabric of her new look-how-smart-I-am skirt out of my fingers and fixes me with her discerning eyes.
“Well, you’ve managed to drag yourself out of bed. Fantastic work, your highness. Your alarm was going off at six AM, and I had to come in and shut it off because you weren’t waking up. I’m going to get myself an extension cord for your alarm clock.”
“I was hoping to get up and stretch before school,” I moan. “I wanted to have a jog. I’m pretty sure I’ll make their track team.”
“Yes, track, jog, got to keep that testosterone flowing in your charge to the head of the pride. Did it occur to you that your sisters and mother might need their rest? The brain functions best with a goodnight’s -”
I slip into the bathroom and close the door before she can finish her sentence. Truth is, I shaved the night before in anticipation. I’ve been shaving for years, actually, learning how to do it just right so I don’t end up with that icky rash at the end. It’s embarrassing and ugly. I like to have all my parts smooth and soft, with just a little touch of, ‘Hey, the hair is coming back. Can you feel it prickling just a bit?’ The little irritations actually make for a fun birthday suit whenever my mind goes erotic.
“I’ve told you, take the Ruute route,” says my yellow-garbed underling, tapping a fingernail annoyingly at the door. “You can stop all of this silly shaving and have the smooth look all the same, and still keep those silly fantasy sensations of yours you seem to like so much.”
She gets it, but she doesn’t get it.
“I don’t trust it. How can your skin feel shaved like I like it all the time? Doesn’t your brain just get used to it and ignore it?”
“Blah, blah, blah,” she says walking away from the same argument we’ve been having about hair removal for the past three years. I mean, if the hair doesn’t grow back, what’s there to tell your skin that it’s coming back? And even more so, what’s there to show you it is indeed coming back so you don’t forget the reason you felt the sensation in the first place?
Yes, my mind tends to wander into paradoxes and finds itself lost in its own words.
I do my shower thing, as I intend to do. I get my long, brown hair all fluffed up into a tempting waterfall of sensual, soft threads. Then I bundle it here and there, snap a barrette, put in a clip, and weave it round and round to where I like it, to show it I’m in control of its presentation. I like hair on my crown, my eyebrows, and in my thick long eyelashes. But I don’t really need it anywhere else because I think it shows people who see that I am not a regular old cockerelle like those who came before me.
#1
Life in the breakfast kitchen is as boring and unexpected as ever. Mother Olive stands by the sink dressed in her skin-tight youth-ware as I call it. Her maple-red leggings don’t even try to meet the aurora-green tank top she’s wearing at her belly, something commonly seen when she was pregnant with me, so I’m told. Now she’s trying to shrink back into her teens.
“Going for the ripe and savory look,” I say, kissing her good morning on the cheek. “Whatever happened to our proud gardener?”
“I’m still the groundskeeper around here. For now,” she says, shrugging off my accusations. “All my little flowers have bloomed, and this noble spruce is not a young sapling anymore.”
“I’m lost in your metaphors mother,” I jibe back. “Which one of us is the young sapling?”
I do respect my mother. She stood over us, protecting us and raised four seedlings beneath that sky-red canopy of hair.
I look up at up at her, and for a moment I want to play again among the strands of that fiery, vibrant thatch which rolls so playfully over her perpetually sun-touched, slender boughs.
The other girls and I tend to see each other in a different light.
When I look at my oldest sister, Josie, I see a farmer’s harvest, languishing in the market unsold. The melons are juicy, and the skin on the zucchini is taught and swollen in just the right places to make the mouth water. Unfortunately, the products have been sampled so often by so many that indulgence has diminished its allure.
Then there is that sense of disappointment and frustration I taste in our every meeting. I get it. She’s not a cockerelle, and she wants to be a cockerelle. I mean who doesn’t want to be a cockerelle in our society? Cockerelles get all the best of everything just because they’re cockerelles. It’s like we’re superior to the posies which I don’t like to push on anyone, because I believe a person’s genitalia has very little to do with how acceptable they are to society.
Josie is a posy. That’s just how things happened when she was born. She has the same equipment for making babies as the other girls in our little family.
“Okay, hero, it’s time to eat your breakfast and get ready for your first day,” says Olive, curling a finger around a lock of her fine, red hair. That’s where I get the hints of red in my hair, I tell myself. Mom’s side of the genome. “I am so proud of your accomplishment, graduating from prep school,” she says.
“She’s wearing posy clothes,” says Maddie, my second oldest sister giving a crafty wink in my direction. “Look at her. You called me rebellious, Mother.”
“It’s not posy,” I say in retort. “It’s a skirt. I just like the ripe greens against the dandelion yellows is all. Colors make a statement about one’s intentions, whether they’re cockerelle or not. Cockerelle colors are just the old way of doing things. There are other cockerelles like me who are learning to safely bend the fashion squad rules. I like my clothes.”
“Cockerelles generally wear pants on their first day at Fission,” says Josie. “Long pants. It’s like you’re mocking the poor posies.”
I shove a long stick of bacon into my mouth and follow it with a slurp of whole milk to clean the shared airway before I speak again.
“It’s not like you all must wear skirts and dresses and hose and those kinds of things. If you would all just stand up for yourselves, you would see that the cockerelles are really just posies with a pecker. That’s all I am.”
Maddie poses looking at me as though she’s studying the painting of a master artist.
“Ah, yes, we should all be inspired by your artistic flare,” says Maddie, grinning as she’s the only person in the house who actually owns an easel made for such pursuits.
#2
Mother and I are in the car with Becka who is sitting in the front seat. I take the back because I think it’s gallant to let Becka sit up front. Mother likes to test my potential. I should be driving the car at my age. I am the cockerelle of the house, after all.
We roll through neighborhood streets. We see people we know on their way to work. It’s a sunny, happy, late-summer morning. We must always be happy, I think, that we are blessed to live in such an encouraging culture.
The topic has changed from breakfast. Now they’re prattling on about the mysterious powers of charms, accessories steeped in the higher sciences.
“Mom, it’s not like Josie and Maddie haven’t tried,” Becka is saying to Mother.
“Josie did a little more than tried,” I interject.
“We’ve all tried,” says Mother. “It’s just that I don’t think I trust the people who are running our government. I think they lie to us about the truth. They don’t tell us how our bodies really work, because they want to keep us in line. They need posies. Cockerelles require posies. All praise the cockerelles.”
“Settle down, Mom,” says sis. “It’s Margot’s first day at Fission. You don’t want her to think we don’t support and love her.”
The car rolls to a stop on Fission Way. We all get out of the car to say our farewells for the morning.
I hug mother, squeezing her adequate bosom against my youthful breasts.
“You could get implants,” says Becka kissing me on the ear.
“Your attentiveness to my every thought and desire will be missed today,” I tell her, with a little curl popping up to one side of my grin. Her lovely black hair will be missed too as she’s an even better hair sculptor than I am.
“Look,” says mother huddling close so only the two of us can hear. “There’ll be a lot of posies in there looking for their cockerelle. The motivations of posies can be hard to read. How are you going to present yourself to people as a big girl, right? That’s all wishy washy in your brain right now, and it will get better, dear. Just remember to keep one thing in mind while you’re here. There are quite a number of posies inside who want to become cockerelles too. And just because you have the advantage of already being a cockerelle, it’s no reason to treat your peers like they’re beneath you.”
“Equality,” I recite. “Yes, Mother, but what shall I do with my childish rebelliousness?”
“Use it,” she insists. “Use it to fan the flames of your deepest desires. You walk into Fission for your first time only once in a lifetime. Make it a day that you can look back on for inspiration in the future.”
I kiss mother on the lips. I kiss Becka on the lips too.
“Look at me,” I say. “I’m practically a princess coming into Fission to shake things up. I won’t let them bring me down.”
“A cheerleader princess,” Becka snorts, referring to the fashion crown I wear on my head. We all have a laugh. “You’re a little scandal, Margot.”
Becka slides back into the car for the last leg of the trip to prep school.
Mother pats my rear.
“Make certain the other cockerelles know that you’re a cockerelle too.”
Olive kisses me again on the forehead. Mother will always be the tallest posy in our house.
#3
The school building for Fission was constructed reflecting the purpose of the institution in its flowing architecture. Its structures cling to the side of a tall cliff going down hundreds of feet to the ocean beaches below. It was artsy how they did it, because if you took a boat out into the ocean and looked back at the school, the buildings down the face of the cliff took on the shape of a posy on her knees. I had this thought in my head of a girl subdued as I walked inside and made my way down the hallway.
It was a living thing this Fission experience. That’s what it evolved into, at least, over the centuries. Thirty floors winding along rocky crags, providing various spots to hang out and talk about the future on the side a cliff’s towering stone face. You can meet a professor here and join a class if you want to learn something. You spend a few years coming to Fission over the course of your life, and you can come out an engineer or a doctor or whatever jobs are needed in Heartseed. I walk into Fission that day not certain at all what I want to do with my life.
“Let me trade you your drop slips,” says an official looking cockerelle, who, like many other staff members, are trying to spot the new arrivals as they come in.
“What’s this for now?” I ask, looking at the colorful pieces of paper-currency in her hand.
The girl apologizes quick as she can.
“Sorry, Miss, your skirt and stockings threw me off. But you are wearing a pendant around your neck, I see. Wouldn’t be fair if we just handed a cockerelle a stack of d-bills, now would it?”
“Not for the economy of Heartseed,” I reply. “I’m one of us, on the other end of the exchange, I’m afraid. But I see a few posies coming along.”
“Yeah, sorry, my fault,” she says, tipping her official cap. “No harm, right?”
The greeter sells each posy two d-bills a piece, dropping their craft coins into the black leather purse strapped like a collar around her proud buttocks. She calls me back for another go when she recognizes who I am.
“Oh yes, Miss Song, wasn’t it? I’m sure you’ll earn a few d-bills on your first day,” she says, eyeing the crown I put in my hair that morning. “Come to Fission with thoughts of joining the elite by the look of it. I remember when your sister Josie arrived for her first day. That was a site. She bought every d-bill I had in my hand. I was like, you don’t have to buy them all on your first day.”
“Really?” I ask, giving a stifled laugh.
“Yeah, she bought them all with her c-coins. Saved them up, you could tell. She really wanted to be one of those few who go in a posy and come out a cockerelle to make her mother proud. I’ve seen it happen a few times in my time here but not too often.”
“Some are just compelled from within to become cockerelles, hungry for the exotic greens on the fence’s other side,” I reply.
The money changer runs her fingers over the tight-fitting leather leggings she wears, giving the round of her rump a quick pop and me a blown kiss at the same time.
“Posies can dream,” she says. “Your sister Josie bought all of my d-bills on her first day. Cleaned me out. I had to go to the teller and get another pack. And the funny thing is, I still had most of that second one by the end of my shift. Had to hand them back to the teller. I sold more that day than usually I do in a week. Your sister is a hoot.”
I blush with embarrassment for Josie. Oh, she was such an energetic posy back then, so thin and agile. Her stare could still pierce right through you. I imagined when we were kids that she would grow up and get herself a powerful cockerelle to start a family. She was a climber. Instead, she wasted three years at Fission trying to force a transformation from posy to cockerelle.
Thankfully, big sis washed up and became a fixture at mother’s house. She still carries the marks of her insane struggle to become a cockerelle though, bulging breasts and curves engorged. ‘She didn’t quit when she should have’ would be an understatement. Funny what ambition can do to the mind when unchecked by reason. I wish she could have kept her reputation like Maddie.
“I worried how the girl was going to eat,” she says, continuing her go at my sis. “Not like she can spend d-bills. Handing wads of them to a cockerelle doesn’t guarantee a relationship, I told her. She had the nerve to glare at me. It was like I didn’t know what she was really up to or something.”
“I’m not one to tease a posy because she wants to change sides,” I say, putting my fists to my hips as a sign of my displeasure with her stabs. “Sis had plenty of craft coins stashed away. She’s industrious despite her position in society.”
“Yes, but with purchasing power at twenty c’s to a d-bill, trading all those coins at once seems a little desperate, doesn’t it? She can’t eat paper money or even spend it. Got to have more than seed in your diet. And it’s not like consuming it guarantees a transition. You can’t force a root to sprout.”
“She was showing her tenacity,” I snap. “Besides, they’ve yet to prove the ability to change hinges solely on genetics. There is some heart in it too, I believe.”
It’s a waste of time, I know, trying to convince a hickory root. They’re a bunch of zealous tools who believe all that sexist garbage about a cockerelle’s right to positions of power. This one was born that kind of nut.
I turn my head to walk away and let it go, but the bill dispenser is having too much fun.
“Yes, but I believe there’s a difference between being optimistic and charismatic. As the Sisters of Light say, ‘If you want a transition, drink a cup. If you want to be sick, drink a gallon. Well, she drank a gallon and then some.”
I feel my hand curling into a fist to defend my sister’s honor. Then I remember it’s my first day at Fission. I’m all grown up now. No point in doing that.
#4
Each floor of Fission is not the same length or proportion. The top areas are short considering they compose the head of the posy.
I decide to go down through the neck of the building, which is incidentally the neck of the Fission architecture as well, to get to the breasts and see what the view looks like from the tip of her nipple.
Yes, poor Fission, is stuck on her knees with a cockerelle’s root plunged between her lips. It all looks quite somber from the ocean as the girl’s pose puts her in a sort of daze between desire and obligation. I mean, she’s down there on her knees willingly, of course. She’s got that root in her mouth. But the artist who designed the eyes of the structure decided to give Fission a stare of duty as though the posy’s having yet one more in an endless series of gulps.
I spot a posy sitting on a bench out on the tip of the nipple. As I walk closer out of curiosity, I find an enchanting beauty marked by a sullen look. Sensing a fellow novice in her disposition, I decide to go over and talk to her.
“I can imagine what a first day must be like for a posy,” I say. “Nervous?”
“Oh, it’s not my nerves,” she says. “I didn’t set enough coins aside this summer.”
“Hard times?”
“No. I like to play cards. A lot.”
I give a sympathetic laugh as I find my seat on the bench next to her. Together we look out over the ocean and enjoy the morning sun glistening on its surface.
“Yes, gambling. A cruel mistress. Sorry to hear that. Can become a real problem for a posy on her first day.”
“Yes, I could only afford one drop slip. Can’t get a planter with this kind of money.”
“Those are stunning grey eyes of you have,” I say in a bid to cheer her up. “The day is young. You’ve just come of age, and you are very pretty.”
“No girl is ever pretty enough. A d-bill won’t even get me started on the changes I’ll need to make. No one is ever perfect at the beginning.”
“Okay, you’re a pretty girl with a gambling problem and self-image issues.”
“I’m Neea Planter, by the way,” she offers, leaning into me. “Funny little name my mother gave me.”
I notice the tattoo that wraps around her wrist bears the likeness of Kumis, the god of children, working with her tools of motherhood.
“A fitting name for a gardener if that’s your dream.”
“That’s what posies do, right?”
“Not all of them.”
I notice her dress has a small tear in its hem and some stains here and there on the fabric, and my heart softens at her predicament.
“Cards getting in the way of your dreams then. Funny how something so small can stand between you and what you really want in life. I imagine you’re as overwhelmed as I am with all of this adulthood we’re asked to face up to on our first day.”
Neea sweeps her blond hair over a shoulder so it’s not between us.
I skooch away from her a bit and turn to face her to keep my intentions clear.
“I try to be like my mother,” I say. “It’s as though she knows what’s coming in the distance and can use it to motivate her onwards. You don’t have to be a mother if you don’t want to. There are all kinds of other things posies can do.”
Neea gives me a look that says I don’t seem to understand her dilemma at all.
“What?” I ask.
“Well, you’ve got a pendant around your neck. It’s easy for you.”
I touch the symbol on my choker that all cockerelles wear to save posies from confusion.
“You’ve got posies throwing their bills at you in hopes of becoming cockerelle,” she continues. “And there are girls like me with cosmetic dreams best filled by purchasing their seed at the source, all in hopes of meeting a planter who likes what I’m doing with myself.”
“Yes, I understand what you want. But you can’t find it sitting here on this bench staring into the distance. You have to get out there and meet people. Life isn’t all one big d-bill-driven ceremony. You need the support of those who share your ambition. At least that’s how it works in my family. When one of us expresses our deepest intention, the others come together to help see it through.”
“My family wishes I’d put down the cards,” she admits. “They tend to see my problems long before I do.”
“Well, you must draw closer to them and respect their advice if that’s the case. And get away from those people who keep inviting you to their games. There’s a much bigger game out here to play, and the stakes are much higher. It’s your future on the table. Isn’t that enough to fill your need for risk taking?”
“I hadn’t really thought of it that way. I suppose I’m being impatient. I just worry this habit of mine will bleed into my mothering. Can’t have my children starving because I can’t win a game of poker.”
“You must abandon your cards then and embrace the opportunity ahead of you. You’ve got a whole life to live. Think of all the charms you could put on your body to make you whatever you wanted to be. You’re already a very attractive posy. I think you will make a beautiful mother. I think all you need is a little bit of encouragement. What are you really worried about in all of this?”
Neea clasps her hands to her forearms.
“To be honest, I’ve never sucked a root before,” she says.
I do my best not to giggle, but soon we’re both snickering like school children.
“No, no. That’s nothing to be ashamed of,” I say. “My mother raised my sisters and me to keep our special parts to ourselves until we were old enough to make good decisions too. I didn’t run around poking my root into my posy friends when I was growing up. Mothers in my neighborhood wanted their girls grown independent and self-assured.”
“Naturally,” says Neea.
“Right. You can’t have that when some cockerelle is jamming their piece of poplar into your flowery parts when your too green. It’s the law anyway, you know. It makes a girl’s life harder when she shows up at Fission already popped and ready to go. Gets your head all messed up, and you start to think things you wouldn’t have thought otherwise.”
Neea’s smile says she understand my meaning perfectly.
“Have you ever played with your petals?” I ask her.
She blushes a bright red.
“Why?”
I reposition myself where I sit once again, this time like I’m an old relative trying to give her a bit of wisdom from my own drawer of experiences.
“I’ve pulled my own root many times.”
Neea puts a hand over her mouth to keep whatever laughter is in there from getting out.
I shush us both softly.
“No, really, I have,” I say. “I’m quite good at it too, so I know what I like.”
“Well, how does that help me?” she asks, huddling in close as if I’m about to divulge the meaning of life or something.
“I can tell you what a cockerelle likes. I can describe it.”
Neea’s eyes go to my crotch, and I know she’s worried I might pull it out to demonstrate my technique.
“No, we won’t do that, Neea,” I say. “We’ll keep it purely scholastic. It’s not like you’re going to crash your car and die the first time you try and please a cockerelle. There are millions and millions of planters out there looking for a girl just like you. And they will appreciate the fact that you’ve kept yourself pure.”
“Planters like their posies pure?”
“I would definitely play the innocent card as you have with me. You just need to find a cockerelle with family in their eyes. How about if I show you by playing you?”
I recline into a pose that says I’m offering if someone’s buying. I do it right, leaning back, my arm laid casually along the top of the bench seat, the fingers of my other hand tracing little patterns on my thigh distractedly. I make my eyes a little sleepy too. It helps sell the look.
“I’ll pretend I’m a posy, and you pretend you’re a cockerelle,” I say.
This doesn’t fly with her at all by the look in her eyes.
I put my finger to my lips and take off my cockerelle pendant, holding it out so she can touch it.
“See, now look at me. Without the pendant around my neck, you would think I was just another posy.”
“Yes,” she says, “but you can’t do that, can you? Isn’t it illegal?”
I pat my cheeks softly as if I’m afraid I’ve been caught red-handed.
“Only if you were to wear it. A small fine for the embarrassment you cause. But that’s all. It’s an idiotic thing we wear to divide the sexes. Look at me, I’ve got a pecker in my panties and you can’t even tell.”
“Right, because you’re a cockerelle with or without the charm.”
“Yes, of course,” I say, my eyes rolling at her slavery to convention. “It’s a secret I’ll tell you, but the cockerelle pendant is the only charm in Heartseed that doesn’t change anything about you. It’s more like the crown on my head. It signifies what I am.”
She giggles.
“Sorry, I was just thinking maybe if I put it on, I might become a cockerelle too.”
I am quick to correct her.
“No, it’s really just a piece of regular jewelry, not a charm. It doesn’t affect your body or your mind or anything like that.”
She takes the pendant from me and puts it on her neck. She touches her crotch.
“No root.”
“Besides, you don’t want to be a cockerelle,” I say taking the pendant and stuffing it in my purse. “You have to pay a professor, and study, and wear your root out trying to raise enough d-bills to pay your way through. It can really tap you out.”
“You make it sound as if production is a chore for your body. My grandmother told me she could drown a pair of posies in a morning when she first started out.”
I find myself agreeing with her.
“The mind does require the right state to achieve such feats. The training of a gymnast helps. That’s why I spend so much time running now that I think of it. If it weren’t for the economics of our society directing our passions toward constructive ends, I’d say our people would be swimming in an ocean of the stuff. Gets the mind thinking it isn’t the carrot that drives the mule but the cart the beast is pulling.”
Neea sighs at my observation.
“The higher sciences turned seed into gold is how it sounds,” she laments.
“I try not to peer too deeply into the minds of whatever gods created our world. I just look for opportunities to test their laws. That’s what gives my life meaning.”
“I suppose that’s what risk taking is really all about, isn’t it?”
“Yes. It’s our attempt to discover if consequences are truly bound to our actions, or if luck is a thing at all.”
Neea scratches her chin thoughtfully.
“So, I’ll just direct my weakness for gambling into a strength as I use it to make my future.”
“Sounds insane, but it isn’t if you understand the nature of how our world works,” I say. “If you want something you must be willing to risk something. You just need to be confident what you lose is worth what you’re hoping to acquire. And of course, don’t try and take short cuts like gambling if you want your life to have any meaning. Invest your efforts in yourself and the people who know you best and are willing to help you find your way.”
Neea hops up from her seat and charges off with a new spirit in her step. And I decide that I too will apply this philosophy to my life. I will take my own medicine.
#5
A warm breeze blows across the veranda making an introduction for the lovely piece of timber who comes sauntering over to me. She’s an ebony-haired, junior-year damsel with all the dressings of a stalwart businesswoman come to ascertain my features.
“Well, aren’t you a lovely young posy,” she says. “Have any d-bills you’d like to pass on to an up and coming executive heiress?”
It hits me right away that the cockerelle has her wires crossed because I’m not wearing my pendant. Dressed as I am, this proud procreator sees my stockings and skirt just as the leather-bound money changer did earlier.
“You think so?” I ask.
“Lovely, yes. A princess. But what’s your name?”
I look at her like I am measuring her up now. It’s funny. She looks like a taller version of my sister Becka if sis were to lose her fascination for the natural sciences.
“Name’s Margot,” I say, batting my eyes at her. I can’t help myself. The woman is in fact gorgeous to behold. If she’d been a posy, I would have offered her my seed just the same. “You look very smart in that outfit.”
“You can call me Ms. Pendry,” she says. “I’m a little wound up this morning. Then I see something as cute as you, and I say, ‘Here’s where I belong.'”
A funny thing happens then. My stomach begins to flutter. I suppose it’s from all the head-wondering I’ve been doing that morning, but I’m not compelled yet to expose the fact that I have a cockerelle pendant in my purse. I was curious, and it was a good kind of curious.
“Ms. Pendry, you are the very essence of what I find beautiful and comforting,” I answer her little flirt with my own innocent fun. “If I could spend the rest of my life at your beck and call, I would never dream of anything else. You have all the sophistication of a stern warden sent to protect me from whatever hardship life may send my way.”
“You see me as some kind of keeper?” she asks, stepping in front of me so that I may admire her confidence more closely. “I believe you’re confused. You seem to believe I’m here to tell you what to do.”
“I would say your first name was probably glorious or something along those lines. It is the feeling I get in my heart looking at you.”
Ms. Pendry is happy with my ascertainment of her.
“Glory Pendry,” she says, offering me her hand. “Your youthful beauty drew me here, and I relented so I could welcome you on your first day.”
I take her hand as a posy would with the back of my fingers facing her so she can kiss them. It was the angle of her advance that caused me to position them that way, yet it was seeing her gentle eyes that made my tummy flutter. Thank the gods my root is relatively easy to conceal. Otherwise, there might be an embarrassing moment for me at this point, and I would still be the same cockerelle girl to this very day.
Cockerelles were bred in my family to have a small root so as not to hurt the posies, my mother told me after some of the other girls showed me theirs at summer camp when I was eight. Theirs were grander because their parents came from a line of women who thought it a scepter meant for rule. Mother brought me up to believe that it was the posy who was more fragile. She needed to be treated like porcelain and cared for like a babe. And my root was perfectly sized for making a posy feel loved while still delivering the stimulation a girl needed to make it through her day.
“Such kind thoughts,” I tell Ms. Pendry. “Sometimes I do enjoy being treated like a piece of glass.”
“I like to make a posy’s first day at Fission something she can display forever among the curios in her heart.”
Her hold on me is so careful, her lips so gentle, her smile so affirming. I see my game as that of a revolutionary.
My hand moves to my pocketbook.
“After,” she whispers, touching my chin.
My heart is beating. Must I really go through with this to prove myself? What if someone who knows me walks in on us?
“Are you okay?” Ms. Pendry asks me.
I take my own dare and slide out to the edge of my seat thinking my pose contradicts that image of Fission’s likeness on the cliff face.
#6
“I know how they work,” I say, taking the gift. “I was raised in a family of cockerelles.”
Her gift comes in the form of a wide neckband fashioned out of velvety-green fabric that matches my attire. Won’t that make a statement? I think to myself.
“So, you get the idea how this charms works,” she says, helping me fasten it on. “You should keep it to remember your first day and your first time.”
The collar makes me feel like I’m wearing a turtleneck without the shell.
“It will help with the flavor of it,” she says. “Not the root, but the seed. I hear too many new girls who think the stuff is a little bitter or tart.”
I speak up then ready to share my street-smart wisdom from back in the day growing up with fairy tales about the things of sex.
“They say you get used to it. Like coffee or beer.”
Ms. Pendry opens the fly of her trousers.
“It’s best taken like medicine,” she says. “It’s hard for a posy to know the heart of a cockerelle. It’s like getting used to cough syrup, especially if the cockerelle fancies drinking a lot of coffee and beer and other such things that add to its bitterness. But we climbers have to climb. We need our coffee in the morning and our beer in the evening. This collar will help you start to cope with the taste, but in another way, they say.”
“How’s that?” I ask.
Ms. Pendry covers her smile with one hand and lightly teases the hair around my crown with the other.
“I hear the collar makes the seed taste even more bitter the more you use it. You know how charms are with their mysterious powers and effects.”
“Yes, there is a give and take is what I learned in school.”
“Right, then. The collar won’t add weight to you anywhere or nip or tuck or any of that. It’s more like getting used to drinking high-test whiskey after a number of years. It burns your nose and throat going down right away. Then it fills your belly with bubbly warm heat that makes you wonder if you’re going to feel better or vomit suddenly. But then it comes through as usual, thankfully, and ends with that increased inebriation that makes you feel wonderful inside and want another drink.”
“Really?” I ask. “That a charm could make a posy feel such things inside herself from a swig of seed.”
It dawns on me that my sister Josie was given such a trinket along the way that allowed her to press bravely on as she strove to acquire her transformation into the wooden class of society.
“It will alter the way your mind and body perceive the transaction,” she says. “In fact, repetition while wearing it strengthens the mood, if you know what I mean.”
I wanted to laugh outright then and there, but I was afraid I might frighten off my lady suitor. This was too strange to keep locked away in my imagination for another moment. I needed right away to see what it was this Ms. Pendry was going on about. Truth is I do like the effect of whiskey. At least until that moment the alcohol comes back to inform you that your playtime has come at a cost. Then you’re in the toilet barfing your brains out and wishing for the apocalypse as you swear to the gods and yourself that you will never touch the stuff again.
“A posy can get drunk from seed?” I say with all the doubt I can muster.
“It’s not a sloppy drunk, Miss. Though you could drink quite a lot to pull off that kind of end, I suppose. But most importantly, it will give you a boost of confidence as you make your way through the halls of Fission looking for whatever it is your posy heart desires. I’ve given many of them away since my last promotion, and they keep wearing them for years.”
My jaw drops open as her root emerges from her pants to bob in front of me like a sausage getting itself firmly stuffed from within. Her instrument is quite the thing to admire. It’s like a finely built airplane with its pink head curved and shaped ever so precisely from the nose of the craft down its long, smooth body. Still, my jaw hasn’t dropped at seeing it as much as it has the idea she’s put in my mind.
“Posies keep it going for years?” I gasp with urgent disbelief.
“No, they take it off and it breaks the spell,” she says. “That would be self-destructive behavior otherwise. It’s just that most charms are put aside once the desired effect has been reached. You want a different skin tone or eye color? You put in the nose ring, or whatever charm it is, and you pay the hickory for its seed. But when you’re satisfied with the results, you put the thing in your jewelry case and leave it there until you get the urge to try a different color.
“My experience is that posies tend to keep this particular charm around for use even after they find their steady oak. It’s a matter of playtime fun and things like that. Cockerelles don’t use them to subject posies to their sexual appetite. No, it’s more of a nice thing to wear to remind yourself how much you love the person you’ve chosen to be with. That warm feeling sticks with you throughout the day as you await your next meeting together for pleasure time.”
“Kind of like a medication for the lovemaking,” I say.
“Yes, it can be used that way, to build yourself up during the week for a fun evening on the weekend driven with a more intense need than usual. It can quiet the inhibitions quite effectively in its own way.”
“And without all of the tripping and throwing up and saying things that you wish you hadn’t said once you take the collar off.”
“Well, it can be abused, so keep that in mind. You don’t want to make an ass out of yourself. And you must remember that it is the posy’s natural ability to absorb the seed she imbibes, and very quickly, that stops digestion from going in the opposite direction it was intended to go. So, drink responsibly is the word, or you might end up embarrassed.”
The tip of her business moves closer to my face as she seeks to earn her d-bill.
I could just give a laugh and warn this gorgeous climber that she has mistaken me for a posy. But then out of the corner of my eye, I see that Neea girl coming back, and I get confused. How embarrassing will it be for the well-suited woman in front of me if I expose my ruse in front of another posy? And Neea is aware I’m only playing a game. How will that follow me should I run into her again down the road someday? I should feign embarrassment and resist to allow poor Ms. Pendry the opportunity to walk away with her pride intact.
It happens so fast from there, though it does feel natural once the rhythm begins.
I recall an image of myself rolled over on the bathroom floor with my root dangling down above my mouth. I wanted to have a taste of seed to see if it was as awful as it was made it out to be. I couldn’t reach it, of course, but I had the thought of being a posy myself and pleasing a cockerelle so I could invest her seed in some change to my body.
A bit of drool slips out around the process happening in my mouth and runs down my cheek. I wipe it off and dry my hand on my bare leg.
Not that I couldn’t gain the same effect from delivering my seed to a posy. Yes, they do have charms for cockerelles which provide such effects to the wearer. But there is something about the hunt for attention I like. Something in me yearns to gather seed for my garden rather than spreading it.
How it rides back and forth on my tongue fascinates me. I work it around side to side as Ms. Pendry gets her steam on. She makes a sound of delight when my hand caresses her leg.
Certainly, the jewelry box side of intercourse with its prettying of myself the way I like is something I could learn to enjoy. Maybe from being raised among so many posies and so few of my own kind, I am able to so easily let go of that build-a-taller-skyscraper mentality that prep school tried to drive into my consciousness. I just want to enjoy being a pretty posy. I could make a statement about the kind of person I really am inside. I’m not just a cockerelle. I see value in the things of the flower, things that are being kept from me by societies strict rules.
Ms. Pendry’s eyes meet mine and her expression brightens when she sees how happy I am.
It is simple really. All a posy has to do is put it in her mouth and drink it and she can change. In my mind the act of getting the seed out is not so much a chore in that light as it is a sprint into freedom.
I hear much joy in the exchange from Ms. Pendry as she lets me take her first of the morning stiffness deeper into my throat. I caress the base of her branch with my lips and tongue to help draw out that reward which will prove beneficial to the both of us. My mouth waters instinctively at the thought of it flowing down into my tummy for the profit of a good lusty feeling the rest of the day.
#7
Neea is neither amused nor disgusted. I think it must seem to her like walking in on one’s parents making love in the cloistered mind of a child. Her face shows confusion, certainly, but not in a way that says she finds my situation calamitous as I was brought up to believe by all the messages whispered to me through society.
Neea’s eyes open wide with mine as I take more of Ms. Pendry’s shaft in my mouth; thankfully the cockerelle’s reflex to gag is numbed by thoughts of sexual indulgence in our species.
Ms. Pendry’s hands latch to my crown, steadying the transfer of energy from her hips. But I think this is nonsense. I am the one in the position of least difficulty, and I am the one who is to benefit the most from the exchange. So, I take up the work as my part of the bargain using my own muscle and enthusiasm to show my respect for the other’s station above mine in terms of experience.
When Glory’s first batch of the morning comes rushing into my mouth, I find it to be a pleasant kind of go-gurt experience. One in which you squeeze the creaminess out in a big gush if it pleases you to have it that way. Her seed fills my cheeks so quickly, I find it best to pause my breathing to allow its speedy passage into my stomach. There it can do its magic, as that is how I believe the high sciences work in my limited understanding of the universe. Better than letting it make a mess all over my fine skirt and her tailored suit. Wouldn’t that be a shameful morning for us all?
There’s a series of two or three jabs in my mouth as Ms. Pendry is pleased to finish the contract under her own steam and with her own sense of satisfied vigor. I imagine it makes it appear to poor Neea that I am being handled in a cruel way.
At the end of my pleasant polishing demonstration Ms. Pendry is cupping the back of my head with both hands so that my lips land softly around the base of her tall timber. The surge of fluid is aimed like a firehose blasting at the core of the flame which tries to incinerate me from within.
“Such enthusiasm,” says Ms. Pendry. “I can say I’ve never met a posy so committed to her cause on the first day. And with such a lovely attitude. I hope we meet again, though it won’t be till much later in the day.”
“Why so?” I ask, extracting the last bit of seed from her tip with my tongue.
“That is why,” she says, taking out a wipe to finish the job for me. “Your eagerness is direct from your heart to my hickory. It plays a game with we cockerelle when a posy identifies with our root in such a way.”
“And what sort of way is that?” I ask.
“We were talking before about whiskey and coffee and even medicine. This tartness gives my imagination something to toy with as I make my exchange with a new girl. I think it will be unpleasant for her. I will take what I need and leave. But this coolness of mine turns into joy in my fantasy and helps close my part of the transaction. Like teasing a younger posy might give you a laugh, for example.
“But your young enthusiasm has me quite confused, and I like that feeling even better. That you wanted the act itself so desperately as though we were trying to plant a seedling between your lips. What can possibly compare to the pleasure we find in bringing new life into the world? That was the fantasy you gave me. It was quite wonderful.”
“It’s a pure kind of passion I have. Is that what you’re saying?” I ask as I make certain to clean things up between us. I don’t want strands of seed all over her nice pants or on my preppy top. Besides, it wouldn’t look good for me, a cockerelle, to have a line of moisture stretched across my shirt, making me look like a confused girl in front of all the new kids later. The thought of this shame delights me.
“Don’t judge me if I keep you my little secret, is all,” she says. “I won’t be spreading word of you around if that makes sense. I doubt my neglect will hinder you though, as I’m sure your demeanor will draw cockerelles to you like ants to their love of industry.”
Neea slips away during the conversation between myself and Ms. Pendry. I don’t get a chance to talk to her again, though I am under the impression that she was getting her courage up watching us. There isn’t the slightest fear within me that she might go and tell on me for breaking societies rules. Then again, this too might be the cause of some of the butterflies I feel in my belly as I consider it.
“You found me unique?” I ask.
“Yes,” she agrees, “And I was a person who came to believe there wasn’t an original thought in the world to be considered until just now. Your attitude has enhanced my own sense of purpose in life. There isn’t a charm made for that sort of thing.
“My only fear is that like most posies it will turn into a drudgery for you. Even if you do go around wearing that neckband all the time, it would be disastrous for us all if that commitment you feel to your lot in life were taken from the world.”
Her encouragement has given me wings.
“I will cherish and protect it then,” I say. “I will nurture it into a cornucopia that all might share it with you.”
Ms. Pendry shines with such glee as she makes her exit, giving me her calling card should I ever want to see her again.
A posy needs time to pursue her other interests in life, I think to myself. I imagine a road out ahead sharing my uniqueness with the world.
Still, I put her card in my purse as a token to remind me of the sea change I have witnessed in myself today.
#8
My imagination goes from examining the details of changes both physical and mental I would like to try if my fantasy to become a posy were to happen, to considering the likelihood of a true metamorphosis. Could it even be possible? Luckily, I know the real Becka Sharp, a girl whose mind is quite agile when it comes to the science of things.
“What’s wrong with Margot?” is the question that pops out of my sister’s lips as we make our way home at the end of the day.
“Why aren’t you talking about your day, dear?” Olive asks me, throwing a bit of her red fluff over the seat back when she looks at me in the rear-view mirror. “Did you find a professor?”
Mother’s aren’t pressing questions. The two aren’t trying to get to the bottom of anything. But in my mind, I have this secret that is naughty, and I think it best to keep the truth to myself.
“I went all over the place listening to professors talk about what they were interested in and where their research was focused, or how they engineered this building or that bridge. I didn’t really find any kind of standout thing, though I am slightly interested in design.”
“Fashion?” Becka asks mocking the confused rambling in my reply.
“Yes, something like that,” I say. “Probably go in to see some of the clothing designers. Or maybe I could use fabric to create a better decor for our home. I might want to change the drapes in my room, Mother.”
Olive gives a snort, and I don’t see what’s funny.
Becka hisses a tee he.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing,” says Mother with a tinge of apology in her word. “You just reminded me of this woman I know when you said, ‘changing drapes.’ She was such a silly posy. I loved hearing her go on and on about color and contrast, and a fabric’s stretch over a window if you pinned it up just right.”
“Me too,” says Becka who shows a bit of snark on the end of her smile. “You should really think about going down the designer road. Could lead you to some pretty interesting combinations. Maddie is all about design. You do take after her. She’s all about putting flowers and crowns and such things in her hair and on the kitchen settings and on the bathroom sinks and tubs.”
“Yes, Maddie does enjoy her flowers,” says a cheery mom. “She knows the rightest sets of color combinations, how she works diligently in that art shop on Main showing off her talented eye. She’s got the touch of an artist in her perception. You too with all that effort you put into your hair and dressing. Perhaps you could become a fashion personality.”
The rest of the ride home is strangely quiet. I’m in my head thinking about my day of wily tricks. My tummy is so full, and my mind is thinking how wonderful it would be to get another mouthful of seed to make my desire go even higher.
Then I’m in Becka’s room and she’s pulling my collar off. Moments later I’m back in my right mind.
“You put on a root scoop, sis,” she says, waving the green charm my friend Ms. Pendry gave me that morning in my face.
The door to her room is closed. The house is quiet. It’s as though she’s just woke me up. I’m surrounded by the scientific world of my sister’s passion in all the décor and practical accoutrements of her room. One might even call it a laboratory away from the laboratory if she were a professional.
Becka’s demeanor is that of a detective solving a crime at first.
“What?” I ask.
“It’s called a root scoop, you dummy. It makes sucking a root a lot easier for a newbie at Fission. The second and third time around at least. Why were you wearing one?”
“I don’t know,” I say, but the moment has indeed changed. I cannot deny that I was under its influence. I am more awake. I am more aware. Becka and I are alone. I’m pleased there is no hangover from the collar. It’s more like you were feeling all full of fun and wanting more, and then suddenly, click, you’re back in your first-hour-of-the-morning mindset wondering what you’re going to do the rest of the day.
Now Becka’s more like that scientist she truly is at heart trying to unravel some mystery hidden in the webs of dark matter and energy in my brain.
“Posies put these on to them help get through the nervousness in their gut their first day at Fission. Why would you want to put something like this on your neck? You’re a cockerelle.”
That last word resonates in my head more loudly than ever.
“I wasn’t coerced if that’s your angle,” I say.
I touch my throat in amazement at the effects the charm delivered and then took away with such rapidity when it was removed.
Becka slaps me ever so softly on my cheeks.
“Do you want to be a posy?”
I draw back at first. I wait for the steering committee to start shouting in my head that I’m all against it, I have my career to think of, and I need to train so I can be a runner on track team and compete in events. But I don’t hear that at all. I hear instead that I may be unique in that I crave the attention that occurs during the exchange of seed between a posy and a cockerelle. Of course, in my case I crave it on the opposite side of the exchange I was born to be on, the other side of the fence. It beckons me ‘climb over,’ as though I know already the exact nature of a reward I see approaching in the distance. My anticipation is like that which I expressed to Neea concerning my mother Olive. I wish for it in my deepest places though I have never had a taste of its expression.
I see Becka’s eyes, and she looks so much like Ms. Pendry did that morning. And for a moment Becka isn’t my sister. She’s Ms. Pendry offering me an opportunity to open up about my real feelings on the matter.
“Maybe,” I whisper.
“Grandmother Tamera,” she says, and I don’t understand her meaning until she gives me the look.
Grandmother Tamera Song is the lovely lady who planted her seed in my mother’s garden to give Mother Olive Sharp a family of tall, smart ladies. She sired me and gave me her last name as I was born a cockerelle. At the midpoint of my second decade of life she went away as planters often do. It wasn’t a sad goodbye, as there was a new adventure for Tamera across the sea with those wily Brits, or whatever they are over there. I’m assured I’ll see her again and soon along the cycles of meetings which turn eternal in our universe.
What is important is the way Becka says grandmother’s name with the look. Grandmother Song was born a posy. And through a great effort at Fission found a way to change herself into a cockerelle. Then she moved up in the business world, got her things together, and started our family with Mother Olive. They parted ways so they could each have the space they needed to explore other possibilities in the world of Heartseed. It is a common practice for cockerelles once their brood has come of age.
I will always remember grandmother being a very kind and lovely lady with the tautest cockerelle body ever seen. We were close, and I really wished to stay with her always, but nature must take its course.
“You realize what Josie went through, don’t you?” says Becka unfurling her long black hair from the complex braid she put it in that morning. “Josie wore one of these things around her neck too if you recall for three years at Fission. It’s what got her acting so crazy all those years ago before you had even entered prep school. My tween years were spent trying to convince her to abandon the idea. At my age then I could see she had simply become addicted to it. She’d become engrossed by the very methods she hoped would deliver her ambition.”
Now that she mentions it, I do see a picture of Josie wearing one on her first day at Fission and most of the days thereafter. I also recall a little Becka shaking a finger at her senior more than once, trying to convince oldest sis that her method was folly.
“That’s what you two were arguing about? You always have had a knack for spotting a paradox out of balance. Well, I must have slipped it on accidentally,” says me, as the gears in my head start grinding. I’m not certain whether or not my argument is for or against the current topic. “It’s just that I had an experience this morning, and it was pretty cool.”
Becka senses I’ve gone past the tipping point, and it turns her heart sympathetic right to the core, I can tell.
“Really?” A bit of a smile forms on one side of her mouth. “If you want to be a posy, I can show you how to do it.”
This statement is miraculous to me because no one has ever said such a thing like it to me before. I’m thrilled and a little nervous anticipating what it is she’s going to describe to me. My imagination has, in the past, presented pictures of doctors chopping off flesh and sewing this on here and there and back again. It was messy and terrible and not too fun to think about at all.
“I never really asked the question before,” I say.
“Because no one ever does, you goof ball,” she assures me with what becomes a sharp turn toward scientific curiosity. “What cockerelle would want to give up their inherent station in society? The arm twisting comes from the other direction, naturally. Why someone would let that power go is beyond me.”
“I think it is far more queer that I live in a society where posies do not recognize their own power from within and use it shape the world the way they would like to see it.”
“You see it as a power struggle then?” she exclaims with all the fascination of a person discovering a paradox they were unaware of before.
“Mother does argue her points,” I say. “We’ve heard them many a time.”
“I have to agree with you there,” she says, fetching a computer tablet to take notes. “I would like to observe your condition if that is alright with you. Nothing intrusive if you don’t like it. But I do hear the science of psychology beckoning me in the sounds of these ideas you’ve gotten in your head.”
Becka takes her seat on a rolling chair to ask me her next question.
“What lengths are you willing to go to? How far do you want to try and take this?”
I am enticed by her willingness to discuss this thing openly with me. She does have the advantage of pursuing studies quite vigorously in her pass time. Since I’ve known her she has always been serious about discovering the science behind things.
“To the end. And perhaps there I can prove to you that a person needn’t be a posy or a cockerelle to achieve her dreams.”
This pronouncement excites her quite spectacularly. She claps her hands together beneath her chin.
“Well, if anyone deserves to become a cockerelle it’s Josie. She put in all those years of hard work not accepting she wasn’t getting anywhere. Mother recognized the futility of stopping her rebellion considering Josie’s age at the time, and it didn’t help that Grandmother Tamera found it all so funny. You know how people can be with their secrets and paranoia. Josie’s hormones all aflutter at that tender age of transition into adulthood. I can see why planters might leave for a cycle or two considering the age of maturity one has as a parent in our sire’s case around that critical stage in Josie’s development.”
“I don’t understand,” I say looking around as if someone might be listening in on us.
“They’re gone, Margot,” she says helping me up from my seat. “They went out for wine tasting. They should be back later.”
“They’ll be tipsy when they get home,” I reply.
Becka looks me squarely in the eyes. She’s oh so serious.
“Margot, if you want to be a posy, I can help you. And you could help Josie become a cockerelle like she’s always dreamed of becoming.”
“Just tell me what to do,” I say with all the sincerity I can express with such short notice.