The Significant (11 page)

      
“Hello.”

      
“Hello,” Kailynn said, blinking out of
her stupor. “You’re a really good swimmer.”

      
“You think so?”

      
“You made it look easy.”

      
“Thank you,” Isa said, pushing some wet
tendrils of hair behind her ear. “Care to join me?”

      
Kailynn looked over the pool and laughed
nervously.

      
“Uh, I don’t think so…”

      
“Why not?”

      
“I…I don’t have a swim suit.”

      
“Neither do I.”

      
“I noticed,” Kailyn muttered. “Why
are
you naked?”

      
Isa shrugged. “It’s my own home.”

      
“But…what if another Elite were to come
over and ask you about something?” Kailynn said, looking at Isa skeptically. “I
mean, if they even do that.”

      
“I would hope that Tarah would give me
some notice of that,” Isa started. “But otherwise, I wouldn’t be bothered. I’ve
had the Elites of the Syndicate join me swimming.”

      
“
Naked?
”

      
“Yes.”

      
“But what if one of them tried to…you
know?”

      
“I don’t think any of the Elites would
ever think about doing something to me against my will,” Isa assured. “And, if
the thought ever did cross their minds, they would know better than to come
onto me.”

      
Kailynn groaned and rolled her eyes.

      
“Do you have any experience with the way
men are?”

      
“I do,” Isa laughed. “But the men that
you know and associate with are
human
,”
Isa said, pushing away from the edge of the pool and drifting backward. “Elites
are not.”

      
“I’m starting to understand that…”

      
“So?” Isa said, raising her eyebrows.
“Are you going to join me?”

      
Kailynn looked over Isa’s naked form
distorted in the water and made a face, feeling nervous about her body for the
first time in many years.

      
“No.”

      
“Come on,” Isa said with a grin. “There’s
no reason to be nervous.”

      
“Well, you
say
that,” Kailynn sighed. “But…if I looked like you, I wouldn’t be
nervous, either.”

      
“If you looked like me?”

      
“You know, a flawless body.”

      
“Kailynn,” Isa said, looking over the
younger woman, “you have an incredible body.”

      
Kailynn pursed her lips.

      
“…I don’t know how to swim…”

      
“Then you better get in the shallow end,”
Isa laughed, jerking her head to the other side of the pool. She turned away
from Kailynn and swam into the shallow end. Kailynn watched the Elite move
fluidly, standing in the shallow waters, the water lapping at the slope of her
abdomen. Kailynn stared at the curves of the Golden Elite’s body, noting the
indent of her soft waist and the swell of her perfect breasts, leading up into
soft, but strong, shoulders.
 

      
Kailynn walked around the pool as Isa
turned to her.

      
“What?” she asked when Kailynn continued
to stare.

      
“You really are perfect.”

      
“No,” Isa corrected. “I’m artificial.
It’s easy to look a certain way when a computer plans every gene.”

      
“Like I said, perfect,” Kailynn concluded
with a nod, stopping at the edge of the pool.

      
Isa’s eyes changed slightly at the words,
a sad look touching her expression. However, she took a deep breath and smiled,
motioning Kailynn into the pool. “Come on. I’ll teach you how to swim.”

      
Kailynn still hesitated. There were a
million different thoughts running through her mind. She knew that, as a
Significant, she was supposed to do whatever her client wanted. However, her
study of Isa’s body was worrying her slightly. She found the Elite extremely
beautiful. She was concerned that her staring, coupled with the fact that they
would both be naked and in close proximity, she would make the Elite
uncomfortable.

      
“There is no need to be so nervous,” Isa
assured, leaning against the side of the pool near Kailynn’s feet. “Don’t worry
about catering to me. If you really don’t want to swim, that’s fine.”

      
“No, it’s just…” Kailynn trailed off. “I
dunno…”

      
“The decision is yours,” the Elite said,
backing away. “I know that as a Significant, you are meant to do as I ask, but
I’d rather you swim with me as a friend, and only if you want.”

      
Kailynn’s eyes met the Golden Elite’s
once again. She was unsure what it was that she saw in Isa’s eyes, but there
was a type of pain, like loneliness, only deeper. Kailynn had come to notice
the excited and nervous looks on the faces of the clients who were so lonely it
had become physically painful. But with Isa, the pain looked different.

      
She decided that learning how to swim
would be a way to keep Isa from trying to work during her leave. It was also a
way to keep Kailynn from being completely bored.

      
“Okay.”

      
Kailynn unzipped her shirt and shrugged
it off, placing it on a bench where there were some folded towels next to Isa’s
robe. She then shimmied out of her pants and placed them on the bench as well.
She decided to strip off her bra and panties before she could think better of
it, placing them on top of the pile of her clothes.

      
She turned around, having to make great
effort not to cover herself. She put her toe in the water, pleased to find that
it was warm. She walked down the smooth steps until she was next to the Golden
Elite. She ducked underwater briefly and came back up, rubbing water from her
face.

      
“First things first,” Isa said. “Don’t
panic. If you are having difficulty staying above water, I will pull you up.”

      
“My life is in your hands,” Kailynn said
with a nervous laugh.

      
Isa started explaining how to tread
water. They stayed in the shallow end of the pool and Kailynn tried to tread
water, finding the task more difficult than she expected. However, as she started
to get the motions down, Isa told her to move further and further into the pool
until she could no longer touch the bottom with her toes. Kailynn tried to
tread water again, but it took her a while to get the motions strong enough to
keep her head above water.

      
After she had that, Isa kept them in the
deep end of the pool and went over to Kailynn, telling her to straighten her
legs before placing her hand under Kailynn’s legs and pulling them to the
surface, her other hand supporting the Significant’s back. She explained to the
younger woman how to keep her body afloat, teaching her the breathing
techniques she had been taught. She kept her hands under Kailynn. When she
tried to remove them, Kailynn glared at her.

      
“Don’t let go!”

      
Isa chuckled and her hands returned,
watching Kailynn as she inhaled and tried to kick her legs gently.

      
Suddenly, Isa’s hands were gone. Kailynn
turned quickly to see Isa backing away with a smile. However, the Significant
lost focus and her body dipped into the water, effectively scaring her.

      
“I told you not to let go!” she barked,
moving her hand and splashing Isa with water before lunging at her. Isa
chuckled and swam further into the deep end of the pool, Kailynn struggling
against the water to get close enough to exact her revenge. Isa watched her
awkwardly swim closer and splash the Elite once more. Isa laughed and ducked
underwater, swimming back to the shallow end, watching Kailynn to be sure that
she stayed above water.

      
“Shit, shit, shit, shit…” Kailynn huffed,
trying to follow Isa, realizing she was in the deep end of the pool. Isa
resurfaced when Kailynn could touch the bottom of the pool with her toes again
and she darted at Isa, splashing her once more.

      
Isa retaliated and Kailynn lunged at her,
grabbing her arm and splashing the Elite directly in the face, being sure her
arm was restrained in case of counter-attack.

      
Instead, Isa grabbed Kailynn’s wrist in
turn and pulled her into the deep end once more. Kailynn tried to swim
backward, but Isa brought her forward.

      
Clamoring to figure out how to stay
afloat with the bottom of the pool suddenly out of reach, she climbed onto
Isa’s back, wrapping her arms around the Elite’s shoulders.

      
“If I drown, you drown with me!” she
declared with a laugh.

      
Isa laughed and started to swim back to
the shallow end.

      
“You can swim when you’re angry enough,”
Isa teased.

      
“You let go of me!”

      
“I knew you would stay afloat,” Isa
assured, her feet touching the bottom of the pool as her hands released
Kailynn’s legs. The Significant unhooked her arms from around Isa’s shoulders
and moved further into the shallow end.

      
“But I was in the deep end.”

      
“Have you never heard the saying sink or
swim?” Isa asked with a devilish smile.

      
“And I was
sinking
!” Kailynn said, a wide smile on her face, unable to keep
from laughing. “If you ever drop me again, I will kick your ass.”

      
“So it wasn’t bad enough that you never
want to get back into the pool?” Isa asked. “Must not have been as traumatic as
you had me believing.”

      
Kailynn stuck out her chin in an
over-exaggerated pout. She turned and started to swim toward the deep end of
the pool, her arms and legs flailing underwater as she tried to propel herself
forward, just to show Isa. The Elite smiled and watched, but was sure to be
prepare to swim to the Significant if needed. Kailynn struggled against the
water in a way that almost made Isa laugh.

      
When the younger woman reached the other
end of the pool, she latched onto the siding and caught her breath. Swimming
was a lot more work than she anticipated.

      
With unnatural grace, Isa swam to the
other side of the pool and stopped next to Kailynn.

      
“This is…a workout…” Kailynn gasped.

      
“That’s enough for today,” Isa agreed,
pulling herself out of the pool, making it look effortless. Kailynn tried to
follow suit, but her arms were shaking from the exertion of her frantic swim
across the pool. Isa reached down and helped pull the Significant out of the
water.

Chapter
Nine

      
For the following three days, Kailynn was
sure that she found Isa and made her go to the pool to teach the Significant
how to swim. However, sometimes finding the Elite was a chore. Isa was trying
to find ways to override the lock on her NCB chair, but Remus would find out
what terminal she was working on and shut that off as well. It was amusing to
watch Isa walk around, defeated, not knowing what to do with herself when she
was not working.

      
But that did mean that, when Kailynn was
lost in thought, or in the middle of doing something with Tarah, the Elite
would appear from nowhere, startling the Significant every time.

      
Kailynn was no longer concerned about
being naked in front of the Elite. The second lesson had helped her get over
her self-consciousness. Isa had been focused on teaching Kailynn some swimming
techniques, and had been in close proximity to the Significant through the
entire lesson. Kailynn was beginning to look forward to the swim lessons every
day.

      
However, the lessons were short and
Kailynn was having trouble finding other ways to occupy her time. She would help
Tarah as much as the caretaker would allow, but Tarah felt uncomfortable with
all the help from the Significant. When Tarah would finally tell Kailynn to go
do something else, she would go to the entertainment room next to Isa’s office
and watch television, but there was little on that was interesting. There were
a lot of television shows that were half-way into a story that Kailynn did not
bother to learn. She had thought that television was more interactive, where
the person could be in the role of a character during the episode, but she came
to learn that Isa did not have that television because she only watched the
news, if she watched television at all.

      
The Elite had laughed when Kailynn said
that people probably prefered those experiences because it was a way to escape
reality. Kailynn suggested it as a means to help Isa escape the stresses of her
day.

      
“Perhaps,” she had agreed, “but I spend
all day at work as a virtual being. I’d like to be in the real world at least
some of the time.”

      
On the sixth day of Kailynn’s stay, she
wandered back into the room she had made a note to explore.

      
The lights came on automatically when she
walked in and the packages of papers were illuminated for her to see. She
walked in, looking among the different words printed on the ends. She continued
down the aisle of colors and shelves, looking over them carefully. She
desperately wished she could read, curious about what the words said along the
shelves.

      
When she rounded the corner of the first
row of shelves, something else caught her eye immediately. Along the wall was a
gallery of paintings. Some were smaller, abstract scenes and others were
stunning realistic sceneries. There was a photoset of the city of Anon being
built. But scattered among these paintings were four large depictions of naked
bodies—two women and two men. The bodies stood out against the solid black
backgrounds, their faces not depicted in the paintings. They were all
positioned differently, exhibiting a side of the body and the musculature of the
frame. One woman’s back was turned, one arm extended above her head as her body
twisted and curled forward. The other was leaning forward, one arm wrapped
around herself as the other wrapped her neck, her body tilted, her ribs
protruding slightly in the position. One of the male portraits was extremely
muscular, his back turned, one hand grabbing one foot and pulling it up behind
his back, leaning back to create an arch with his spine. The final picture, the
one that caught Kailynn’s attention, was a frontal of another man, his frame
built, but not too muscular. He was leaning back, his arms extended out of the
frame, his abdomen and chest pulled tight by the stretch as his body twisted
slightly.

      
Kailynn was studying the collection of
nude paintings when Isa, once again, startled her.

      
“I was wondering where you ran off to,”
the Golden Elite said. Kailynn jumped, trying not to blush at being caught
looking at nude artwork.

      
“You need to stop doing that,” she said
with a nervous laugh. “I’m going to get you a bell or something.”

      
Isa laughed. “I am sorry. I do not mean
to keep startling you.” She looked at the paintings behind Kailynn. “What do
you think?”

      
“Huh?”

      
“Of the artwork,” Isa clarified. “You
were studying it intensely when I walked in.”

      
“Oh, uh,” Kailynn glanced behind her at
the two particular images that had captured her attention, “I think they’re,
uh…” She turned back to Isa. “Why do you have so many pictures of naked
people?”

      
“I have an intense fascination with the
body,” she admitted, stepping closer. “I think it is incredibly beautiful.”

      
“So you have naked pictures? Wouldn’t
that be considered…I dunno…”

      
“Pornographic?” Isa completed. “No, I
don’t think so.” She looked at the male nude directly behind Kailynn, her eyes
following the curves in the artwork. “The body is not only about sexual desire.
It is incredible to see the design of the human body, the way the male and
female bodies differ and the utility of the body in its entirety.”

      
Kailynn turned to Isa, watching the
Elite’s eyes look over the male body.

      
“Doesn’t it make you curious?” Kailynn
asked. “You can’t actually have sex. Seeing these pictures,” Kailynn looked
back at the male nude, “it has to make you wonder what you’re missing.”

      
“Which one of the collection is your
favorite?” Isa asked, ignoring the comment. The younger woman hesitated and
then nodded to the picture Isa had been admiring.

      
“Mine as well.”

      
“His body seems perfect,” Kailynn said.

      
“I agree.” Isa nodded. “Symmetrical,
powerful, the angle really accents the musculature.”

      
“…I was talking about something else.”

      
“Oh?” Isa chuckled, looking at Kailynn.
“And what would that be?”

      
“Well…I’m not an expert or anything, but
I think he has a nice dick.”

      
Isa let out a bark of laughter, causing
Kailynn to smile.

      
“Oh, come on, don’t tell me you never
looked at it.”

      
“I have, of course,” she admitted.

      
“He has no insecurities.”

      
“You don’t know that,” Isa said. “His
face isn’t shown. It’s possible that he only agreed to pose because his
identity would not be revealed. He might be extremely self-conscious of his
body.”

      
“He
shouldn’t
be if he looks like that,” Kailynn said.

      
“I agree.”

      
“Be honest, if he came up to you and told
you he wanted to have sex, you would do it, wouldn’t you?” Kailynn said,
raising her eyebrows suggestively. Isa looked at Kailynn with an unreadable
light in her eyes.

      
“Would
you
?”

      
“Hell yeah,” Kailynn said enthusiastically.
“Do you know who this is? Because I’d like to see if he is as perfect as this
picture makes him look.”

      
“As a matter of fact, I know the artist
and I was there for one session of this painting.”

      
“Then you
do
know who this is,” Kailynn said. “And you know he’s
self-conscious, huh?”

      
“He is,” Isa chuckled. “And he is as
perfect as he looks in this picture.”

      
“And, not once, did he ask
you
to sleep with him?”

      
“No, of course not,” Isa said, shaking
her head. “Elites are forbidden from the sexual life.”

      
“Why is that? I mean, some of the guys I
know, if they
don’t
have sex, they
can’t think of anything other than
having
sex.”

      
“For humans, that is likely true,” Isa
agreed. “However, for Elites, any physical desire, particularly for the males,
is beaten out at a young age.”

      
Kailynn stopped, looking at Isa’s veiled
expression.

      
“
Beaten
?”

      
Isa turned to the Significant.

      
“Yes.”

      
Kailynn stared at the Golden Elite for
several long moments, trying to think of something to say.

      
“Why?”

      
“Because Elites are meant to work,” Isa
explained coolly. It was clear she was reciting things that she had been told
at a young age. “Everything else is a distraction.”

      
Kailynn could not think of anything to
say in response. She slowly turned back to look at the paintings, trying to
think of a way to switch the conversation, but the words sat uneasily in her
stomach.

      
“Do the people know that?” she murmured.
“That all the Elites are beaten as children?”

      
“No, I don’t think so,” Isa admitted.
“Most Elites also learn to keep quiet. As I’ve told you, Elites rarely even
have personality. They don’t question why they’re being beaten. They learn what
brings the beatings and learn to avoid it. It’s programming.”

      
“It sounds horrible.”

      
“Yes, the Academy certainly can be
brutal.”

      
“Academy?”

      
“The Elite Academy,” Isa clarified.
“After Elites are removed from their incubational tanks, they are sent to the
Academy for schooling until graduation at age twenty.” Isa took a deep breath
and slowly let it out, turning back to Kailynn. “I don’t mean to drag down the
conversation.”

      
“No, it’s fine, it’s just…I mean, it’s
not
fine. They’re beating kids.”

      
Isa smiled thinly.

      
“Only until we learn.” She laughed,
shaking her head. “Which some of us never do.”

      
“Oh? Like you?” Kailynn asked, finding it
hard to believe that the calm Golden Elite ever had a difficult time with
teachers at the Elite Academy.

      
“Let’s just say that I used to be a very
slow learner,” Isa said mysteriously.

      
“I think you still are,” Kailynn teased.
“You’re still trying to get the NCB chair to work even though Remus continues
to thwart your plans.”

      
Isa laughed richly, the sound making
Kailynn’s breath catch in her throat. Isa turned her eyes, now bright with
amusement, onto Kailynn, making it more difficult for the younger woman to
breathe.

      
“Yes, he does keep catching me,” she
said. “At this point, I don’t care about getting the chair working. I’m just
trying to see if there is any way for me to work around his lockdown.” She
shook her head. “He’s amused by it as well. It’s been a fun way to pass the
time.”

      
“You mean distracting your Silver Elite?”
Kailynn laughed, surprised.

      
“Of course.” Isa nodded. “I have to
remind him how much he needs me around.” She winked at Kailynn, causing heat to
rise in the Significant’s cheeks. Kailynn chuckled as well, trying to dispel
the feelings churning in her belly.

      
“Sounds to me like you’re a slave-driver
of a boss.”

      
“I just like to keep him in shape,” Isa
said, trying to hide her smile.

      
“That sounds dirty.”

      
“It was intended to,” Isa said with a
nod. “I may be an Elite, but I can still have a sense of humor.”

      
“Can you not work from another computer, or
something?”

      
“Not in the capacity I need,” Isa
admitted. “I can send messages from other platforms, but I need the NCB chair
to handle most of my affairs.”

      
“And you just sit in that chair
and…what?”

      
“Have you never seen one?”

      
“No.”

      
Isa motioned Kailynn to follow her.
Kailynn fell in step behind the Elite, trying not to watch Isa move. It felt
like every move—every step, every strand of hair rustled, every swing of her
arms—was a perfectly choreographed dance, captivating and powerful. Kailynn had
become increasingly curious about the other Elites. She wondered if they were
all perfect. With the way Isa was capturing Kailynn’s attention so easily, it
was no wonder the Elites were such incredible politicians. They commanded
attention and respect by their very being.