The time Ornette spent in cryostasis passed like a bck second on a clock’s face. The hand moved, and what was bck became white. What was night became day. What had been sleep became consciousness.

  Ornette opened her eyes.

  The client coordinator who was there to debrief her was a woman she knew from before her escapade on Venus, although she looked a few years older. Her name was Bellview, and she was kind because she’d had a hard life.

  “Welcome to Earth,” she said to Ornette once she was certain the woman was awake.

  Ornette blinked at her. “Nice to see you, Bellview.”

  “The pleasure is all mine,” the woman replied.

  Without further ado, she began filling in the bnks in Ornette's knowledge. She told her the year, the month, the day, and the time. Then she told her where they were. It was the Sleeping Beauty Inc. North America Division in New York, just where she’d asked to be delivered. Once the mundane details were established, Bellview asked her the important questions.

  “Am I arranging for another contract for you immediately, or are you taking a vacation?” Bellview asked.

  Ornette had already decided what she needed. “I need a pce to stay for the night. I need to review my finances and make arrangements for myself. I don’t know if I need another contract. I need time to think.”

  “I understand,” Bellview said. “Do you want me to arrange for a hotel or a monthly rental?”

  “Monthly. I would like at least a month to organize myself,” Ornette replied. “Do I have any clothes in my locker?”

  “You arrived with more clothes than any other model who was sent back to Earth after the failure of Goldilocks Zone,” Bellview expined. “I thought you knew.”

  “I knew I was being sent gowns, but not clothes. They’re mostly from Fen, I believe,” Ornette said, flopping down on her back.

  “There were a lot of clothes from Fen, but there were also a lot of clothes from someone named Desmond,” Bellview said as she consulted a screen to her right. “He sent other things too: jewelry, watches…” She kept reading until she nded on something really interesting. “He also sent you the key to an apartment downtown.”

  Ornette sat up. “He did not! Why didn't you open with that when you were talking about accommodations?”

  Bellview giggled. “Sorry, I wasn't sure if you'd want it."

  "Yes, I want it," Ornette squealed.

  "In that case, the key is an eleven-digit number, but with it, he has included an invitation for you to stay as long as you want. He says he has a surprise for you.”

  Ornette looked at the screen with the information posted. “Huh? A surprise. What could be more of a surprise than the presents he sent with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Bellview said with a chuckle. “It’s probably good. The address for the apartment is in a swanky part of town. I’d consider it a holiday to go to that street just to walk down it, but you get to stay there! Are you going to go?”

  “Yes,” Ornette answered, swinging her legs off the edge of the cryochamber. She tried to stand up, but she was so dizzy, she fell back down again.

  “They should not have put you in cryostasis so soon after your head injury, but it was within parameters according to the tech who loaded your chamber onto the sorship. Your scans were good. You didn’t break any of the bones in your head. You should feel fine in a day or two.”

  “Can you call me a transport?” Ornette said, dabbing at her head with her fingertips. “I want to go to Desmond’s apartment and see his surprise.”

  “Naturally. Would you like me to arrange an overnight bag for you?”

  “Please. Take the fee out of my earnings.”

  “Of course.”

  ***

  Ornette arrived at the apartment building wearing the same white and yellow dress she had been wearing when she had been auctioned off on the show. There was no need for her to freshen up as far as she was concerned. She had been wearing the same thing for months because of the long flight from Venus to Earth, but to her, it had been no time at all. She’d only been wearing the dress for a few hours.

  From the outside, the apartment building was a skyscraper like a silver spire that spiked into the air. The outer walls were so reflective, they were the same blue as the sky. Ornette admired it for a minute before she took her overnight bag from its pce on the sidewalk and carried it into the lobby.

  Inside, the pce was like a castle from the future instead of the past. There were long rectangur firepces where artificial fire blossomed and curled. She was greeted by a concierge who knew who she was and was expecting her.

  On the way to the room, the woman told her about the pool, the gym, the spa, the fact that each suite had a kitchen, a chef could be ordered to cook for her privately, or she could order something to be prepared for her in the downstairs kitchen and delivered if she was in a hurry. To Ornette, the pce sounded like a hotel, but it wasn’t. Each suite was owned by a rich person.

  The suite she was led to was high, and even though the elevator was fast, it wasn’t fast enough to bring them almost to the top immediately. When the elevator opened, it opened directly into Desmond’s suite. It was the entire floor.

  Ornette bid farewell to the concierge and let the elevator door close behind her before searching for her surprise.

  It was easy to find.

  It was a little box on the gss coffee table in the front hall. She opened it, wondering what it could be. She pulled off the wrapping… and it was a tiny fortune teller made of paper.

  Ornette picked a color, then a number, then opened the fp. There was part of a word. She opened it. Inside the fortune teller was written the words, ‘I’m your sve.’

  “Huh?” she said aloud.

  “Do you like it?” a voice said.

  Ornette turned to see Desmond coming around the corner. He was still himself. White hair, navy eyes, white clothes, but most notable were his bare wrists.

  “No bracelets?” she asked, staring at him in awe.

  “Not unless you want to give me one,” he said softly.

  “You’re not a sve anymore?” she breathed, hardly believing what she saw.

  “Not unless you want to make me one,” he said, coming closer.

  She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. No one was shocked. No one fumbled a hundred excuses why they couldn’t be together. No one walked on them and insisted they let go.

  Suddenly, she pulled off, thinking of a reason why they shouldn’t be kissing all by herself. “The st thing that happened to my mouth was that your father’s dog licked me… like a lot.”

  “Like I care,” he muttered, pulling her back to him, and kissing her with mad abandon.

  “What happened back on Venus?” she whispered to him in a break when he kissed her neck. “You beat me here.”

  He pulled off to answer. “Yeah, I beat you here because I’m rich and I took a faster ship. Like Sleeping Beauty Inc. was going to fly you and your girls in a first-css ship. I’ve been waiting for you. I have to keep my promise to you. I promised you that you could have a month with me as your sve in exchange for some of the errands you did for me.”

  “Oh, that’s why we’re here,” she said in a sing-song voice.

  “That and I can’t wait another second to be with you. Can’t we get you out of that dress? Fen made it for you, and I can’t stand to see it on you.”

  Ornette put up her hand. “I am not the kind of sve master who insists on bedding her sves. I hold myself to a higher moral standard. As a matter of fact, I can’t have a sve at all. I hereby set you free.”

  “I don’t want to be free,” he compined. “I want to be a good little sve and satisfy all my mistress’s cravings.”

  “This mistress does not want a sve. This mistress wants…”

  “To be owned?” he supplied, rather disgusted.

  “She wants…” Ornette held her breath. “To have a husband, not a one-time y. I promise I’m good in bed. You won’t be sorry for marrying me before taking me to bed.”

  He looked at her funny. “You know my great aunt would kill me for getting married without her permission.”

  “Does she know you’re here?” Ornette asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Does she know you came here to be with me?” she continued.

  “Yes,” he scoffed.

  “Does she think you’re here for a one-night stand?”

  Desmond let his shoulder drop and looked at her with a funny face. Then his expression cleared. “I understand. You’ve been used for your body enough. You don’t want to give up your body to another man who’s just going to use you and discard you.”

  Ornette peered up at him, suddenly shy. “Is that okay?”

  He looked down at her and smiled. “Actually, it is. The only thing is that I am going to need our wedding to be private.”

  “How private?” she asked.

  “Private enough that no one can stop us. If news gets out that I’m marrying you before we’ve signed the papers and consummated the marriage, Silver Ashley will have snipers at the wedding saying we’ll both be shot if we don’t step away from each other. We can’t give her time to get to us. A phone call would be all she’d need to awaken her forces. If we get married quietly, we could be married for months before she’d know anything about it. Afterward, it will be a nightmare. You have to know that she’s a pain in the ass and we won’t be rid of her until she dies. Are you okay with that?”

  Ornette nodded. “She’s actually my kind of girl. I really got her. Do you know what I mean when I say I ‘got’ her? Everything she said made sense. Everything…”

  “Please stop talking," he said, turning his head away. "I might rethink this if I hear more about how much you think like my great aunt. We can get married in a courthouse upstate. What do you think of that?”

  “It’ll be perfect.”

  “No white dress,” he said, trying to make it sound as non-luxurious as possible. “There won’t be anything fancy. No guests. No presents. No string quartet. There won’t be anything nice. There will just be me, and I’m not that handsome when I’m nervous. You’ll surely be disappointed.”

  “I surely won’t be,” she said. “Listen, I’ve had enough fancy clothes to st a lifetime. I do not need a bouncy wedding dress. Second, how could we even get guests? I don’t know anyone except a bunch of Sleeping Beauty Inc. models who may or may not want me dead for ruining their show and a bunch of oversexed businessmen and designers who could always use another notch on their belts. Yuck. Not having anyone there would be the best possible situation. Who cares about music or food or whatever? All I want is you. If you’ll be there, if you’ll marry me, you’ll make me the happiest woman in the universe.”

  He took her hand, kissed it, and twirled her around.

  THE END

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  Author's Notes: This isn't really the end. I will post an epilogue on Monday, so I look forward to that. I'll mark the story complete after that. Cheers!