Desperate Wifesband

Shayna Rande tears were every bit as salty as the ones that she shed when her womb mother had died, some ten years before.

The rain was falling lightly, but there was nothing light in her and her family situation.

Their first daughter, Pam, had been a regular affair.

Shayna's wifesband, Rita, had been the womb-mother, and there had been no complications. Rita had brought Pam to the end, and just six months after her birth, she was back at work.

Shayna and her wifesband had no problems, sharing the care of the little redhead like all good married couples do.

When it had been time for Shayna to carry the couple's second daughter, they hitched a snafu - or, rather, three of them.

Louise, Dominique and Sally, the triplets had been a much unexpected turn of events for the family, a great source of joy - and problems.

Three as they were, they meant that Rita and Shayna had to decide, and one of them had to act as a stay-at-home mom.

Rita was the better paid of the two and, also, the one that enjoyed her work more.

Shayna took the mantle of the housebound, though she had always thought that - some day - she would have dusted her skills, get an update and  gone back on the job market.

In the end, favourable conditions never came around.

The very technological branch she was trained for, analogic signal processing, had virtually disappeared in the fourteen years after the birth of the kids.

They had grown up enough that they did not need 24/7 care, now, and Shayna had just begun a re-training program, on the installation of industrial implants electric systems.

Another year or so, and she would have been gone back to work, and aided Rita paying the bills - what was the saying, "tell Gods your plans"? Shayna was a devout Xhristian but, at times, she thought that the Noxonians had it right. They didn't call their God with any capital letter. "Advanced Alien" that it was, though, it was honest... it only kept the world from stop spinning on itself, and some other obscure activities.

The kids were all crying, at her left, watching the coffin of their first mother being lowered into the ground.

Amidst the pain of the loss of her life companion, Shayna felt the sting of impending financial catastrophe.

There was no way that she could manage to complete her re-training course and secure a new job - not before their landlady could throw them in the street. Her lover was dead, her life felt like it was nearly over, and her four daughters were going to be separated by the social services.

That night, she watched herself in the mirror.

Shayna wasn't a great beauty, just an average woman, one like there were thousands. At 44 it was absolutely unlikely that she could snatch some sugar mama - she couldn't have managed it even when she was 22, and her tits had the freshness of just bloomed adultness. She simply was not al that gorgeous.

Before going to sleep, she prayed her God - whichever god that was out there, really - to show her a way, any way out of her situation.

She indeed received a divine answer, but not the one that she expected, and not from any god that she cared to contact.

The dream was calm and cosy - it took a while, before she even realized that it was a dream... she felt no anxiety, and this was not normal for her.

Her dreams were filled of that sentiment, ever since she finished high-school, being usually horror loops of her trying to find an exit from the place, doors shut and rocket boots that couldn't fly her above the damn stupid building.

This place was not the abominating vocational high where her hard-mom - the late Louise the elder - had forced her to go.

It looked like a leisure hotel on some tropical island, almost exactly like the one Shayna and Rita went for their honeymoon. The thought flashed her mind, and filled her with a bout of pain at remembrance of the smile of Rita.

 "What's up your mind, Tiger Lily?" - the voice gave her shivers, crawling up her back.

It was human, but so grave - graver than even men's voices, in "Modern Geographic's" documentaries on the Manserrails.

The monster - she could not call it any other way - looked like a man, a seven feet tall black man, and one that seemed mentally capable.

The men in the menserrails didn't look much human, given that their brains were systematically addled in their intrauterine environments - males were kept as a failsafe, in case the sophisticated technology used to create para-sperm was lost or became unsustainable, but no woman on the planet was any eager to see their gender resurrect and overpower them, as it used to do on Earth Prime (or whatever the rest of the galaxy calls that shitty planet now).

This "Man" seemed a person, a functional human male - something no woman on the planet had ever witnessed.

It was very strange, with that thing on the front - something called, if Shayna remembered well,  penis -  and those very excessive muscular fascias all over the body.

- "So, tell me, what are you looking for, woman?"

- "Are you... God?"

- "Kind of" - Shayna had never considered the Noxonian mythology with anything less than contempt, or she'd already recognized the cocky black bastard as one of the most infamous avatars of their 'god' (small caps and apostrophes strictly required by just mentioned mythos).

Given her strict Xhristian observance - "thou shall not have other other God but the one true God, and that's me, or else..." - this was to be expected.

 Other religions were much more open to syncretism - the Noxonians being a most egregious case, its credo being a maddening "worship who do you want, I do not care;  I am going to be necessary anyway, so one way or the other I will have my stream of fresh flesh", and the Shinto were very hot on their trail with their audacious "any God you may worship has a spot in our pantheon" concept - and tolerated that their believers got contacts with other credos, but  that was not the case for Shayna's. 

Xhristianity was a relatively new variant of an old religion from the original planet, that the Prophet Stian had discovered, hidden in the colony database. and that she liberated with the help of Xri, the martyr.
  
 - "Are you the devil?"

- "Shaitan, the adversary? No... but, in a way, I am in the market of souls - indirectly, that is."

- "So, do you want my soul?"

- "Indirectly. So, why are you so desperate that my world-wide mind filters can pick your screams, in the middle of all the clutter?" 

- "I am not desperate - we are just having some small issues."

- "Ending in the street, destitute, you and your family? Social services splitting up the five of you? No reason to be desperate, no."

- "The church will help me."

- "Indeed, they will, but you know the local government, how it works - first they will split the girls, distributing them among wealthy, childless couples, then you can get back on your feet, and try to appeal to their decisions for the rest of your life... or till the kids grown to legal age. I have a more immediate proposal."

- "Riches and safe haven for my family, in exchange for my soul?"


- "Eh, almost" - the man oscillated his big hand in front of her, in a gesture that she did not really recognize as it used to mean "more or less", way before the FTL probe that colonized the planet departed from their original civilization.

A gesture that had not been included in the programming of the robot-nurses that raised the first generation of kids spawned by the probe, and had -thus - independently resurfaced in only about a third of the world's cultures.

- "Not much riches, but plenty of haven."

- "For my soul?"

- "For your bodacious dedication, your family will have three meals a day, an adequate shelter and complete non-interference from the local agency of children disservices."

- "Is this a dream?"

- "Are your dreams always so business-like?" - The black 'god' grinned, very much un-business-like.

- "So, what should I do?" - Shayna was more playing along than anything else.

- "Go at this address,..." - the huge black handed her a piece of paper, with something scribbled on - "..., describe them this dream, listen to what they have to say, and decide. But I am confident that you will choose for the best of everybody."

Shayna looked at the address on the paper, and recognized that it was somewhat familiar, though she couldn't really focus on it - "Offers Garden Plaza, number 12".

She immediately awoke, and reached to squeeze her eyes, as often when she woke up, and almost stabbed her right eye with the piece of paper squeezed in her hand. She threw it away, as if it was a snake.


The huge wall went on for almost a hundred meters, in both directions. Shayna understood why the address was familiar - this was the enclosed botanic garden that the Church of Noxon used to have in the outskirts of the city.

When the city expanded, it ended becoming a near-centre town feature, and taxes on it skyrocketed during the Atheists reign, so the Noxonians hadbto sell it and  build a new one in Akeron (creating the neo-town, really).

Of the vast complex of condos, facing inward to the garden, only a small section was now property of the church, and likely not for more.

However, the Bursar office for the local Noxon Chapter was still in the last building owned by the church, which was really no surprise, as most of the economics of the church revolved around cable television rights nowadays, being the Noxon ceremonies still the pinnacle of televised S&M for the Great Frakka land. Having the office where all producer companies also had theirs made quite a bit of sense.

Shayna trembled, when she pushed the button - a life of facing the stern mugs of Xhristian nuns, from kindergarten to the end of middle school, had left her vulnerable to those scary old women, and any other kind of monastic woman.

She took her courage with both hands, tossed her heart above the fence, and rung the old buzzer.

- "Hi, who are you?"

The "Nun" - Shayna had problems remembering that this was not a nun but, rather, a Noxon priestess... colour and simplified cut of the robe apart, the pudgy, short woman looked every bit a nun as any of those that she ever met at her Xhrystian schools - looked at her through a couple of glasses.

The clergywoman was clearly way younger than her, something quite unexpected, as Noxonian clergy was composed almost entirely by retired "Officiants" - all women forty and beyond, usually quite  bit beyond.

- "I... I had a dream" - Shayna felt stupid, saying it, but the - uh, non-nun - simply opened her eyes a slight more, to pose more attention.

- "Yes. What Kind of dream?"

In a bungle of nervousness, Shayna started answering, while looking in her purse for the scrap of paper.

- "There was this huge, black man, that gave me this address"

- "A man? Those Modern Geographic Society documentaries are an hassle. A black man that gave you this address?" -  The priestess sound a bit sarcastic, but not nearly as much as Shayna expected. Then, the middle aged mom finally found the piece of paper, and offered it to the priestess, adding "In the dream, he gave me this".

- "Did he? Let's see." - the younger woman took the message in hand, and started reading the unintelligible scribbles below the address, one of her eyebrows raising up irresistibly.

Whatever was written on the scrap, she could read it - then, with sudden urgency, she invited Shayna in, and started walking through the corridors of the building, driving the flabbergasted blonde through a few offices occupied by older, more stereotypical Noxon priestesses.

Then they went up a stair, till they reached an ample office, with a big, bright, arched window.

- "Wait, while I fetch my superior"

Rayna sat on the old, comfortably born guest chair. She waited for some minutes, before feeling

he bite of curiosity, and she took in hand one of the photographic books that were on the shelf, on the visitor's side of the office.

She started flipping its pages, then she hastily laid it back on the shelf.

It was an yearbook of Noxon Officiants, names, ages, their photos in the white, flowing vest that they dress on the route to the ziggurats, and then photos from the services, naked, battered, trembling, and smiling.

She dared not to look at more than those few, initial pages... she went on sitting, thinking about what the hell was she doing in that heathen place. It had been, she was more and more sure, a pretty stupid mistake.

Whatever solution her situation may have, it was out there, surely not here.

Yet, running away, seemed rude...

- "Hi. How do you do?" -  this woman looked every bit as old as everybody would expect a senior Noxonian priestess to be. Late seventies or early eighties, every bit as dignified as a Xhrystian abbess.

In many ways, their jobs were very similar.

- "It was such a long time since I saw the last dream-sheet."

Shayna inferred that the  wrinkled old lady was talking about the mysterious piece of paper, that had apparently crossed the divide between dreams and reality -. or had been composed by one Mrs. Rande, while asleep..
  
- "Ah, yes - I recognise the alphabet." - the priest's smile grew wider again - "it is a fun trick, really."

- "Trick?"

- "Yes - the alphabet is pre-colonization hiragana, but the words are not Japanese, and there are spaces - the language is Common Elish."


- "And what was written?"

- "A most Noxonian message" - the old woman giggled uncontrollably - "Am I right, thinking that you are in some existential pinch?"

-"I, ehm... my wifesband, Rita, has died and left me with four daughters, no job, an open debt with our landlady and a bank account in deep red."

- "Oh... four girls. Age?"

- "Sixteen, the older, 14 the triplets".

- "I see... our God, Noxon, has gently decided to offer you asylum."

- "Really?"

- "Of course, our Church is not as rich as most people believes, so what we can really offer, to you and your children, is a flat inside the officiant's complex in Akeron."

- "A flat inside?... do you want me to become one of your 'officiants'?"

- "Do you want to become one of them?"

- "No, I am a Xhrystian!"


- "That would not be an issue - Noxon does not care whether the officiants believe or not in its divine nature, or do participate to our church activities for any mystic reason."

- "I beg your pardon?"

- "If you believe that Noxon is just some kind of sufficiently advanced alien that faps over images of beautiful women undergoing" - the old woman waved her hand, to signify t
hat she was not going to specify what both knew happened in the Noxon rites - "and, in exchange,  stabilize the rotations of our planet, then participate does not represente worshipping a god different from your own."


- "What are you saying?"

- "If you do not want to become an officiant, there are plenty of organizational jobs that must be covered, and that you can take to contribute to our organization survival. If perchance you fancy become an officiant, there is no reason why you could not, simply accepting its basic nature as a toil that someone must do to keep our world alive."

- "No worship required?"

- "None whatsoever - Noxon does not care, whichever god the women sacrificed to its pleasure may really worship." 

- "So, we can have a flat?  Gratis?"

- "Great is its clemency, and such is its offer. Unfortunately, you must realize that the Akeron Officiant House is, literally, a closed community. You daughters will probably find it an excessively sanitized environment, as no alcohol nor drugs are allowed in."

- "And I do not have to worship your god, in any way?"

- "No reason to - after all, it is not a God. At most, it is some god-like entity that has accompanied the very colonization of our world in the last five thousand years."
  
- "I will think about it"

- "The offer is open-ended, but I think that it would be better if your belongings were out of your landlady's reach as soon as possible. Here, this is my visit card -  if you decide to accept our lord's hospitality, call me, and I  will arrange  everything."


By the end of the week, a the last job hope that Shayna had had disappeared, and she found herself composing the number of the bursar.

By the end of the month, her and the kids were living inside the Officiant's house, where she soon found herself employed as a cook assistant, with an initially meagre pay that allowed her to continue pursuing her re-training courses.

Noxon had been vewry generous, indeed.

Of course, it would have taken a while, for Shayna to realize that she had never been the true target behind its offer.