Page 33 of Clonely You

“Because I know nothing about farms but I do know about using computer equipment. I’m sure I can help you.”

“I didn’t ask for help.”

“You would never ask for help,” he agrees. “But I am volunteering it. Why exhaust yourself trying to do everything on your own when your lover is freely offering to assist?”

I have no answer for that, other than I haven’t had a lover around before him. I’ve gotten used to doing things on my own simply because I’ve been all alone. I have to wonder, if Rafaela was here and living with me, would I insist on doing everything myself? Or would I tell my sister to help because it would be expected of her?

“Quit making me think,” I mutter.

Aithar laughs with delight at my cranky response. I’m glad he’s not offended by my mulishness. I don’t know what I’d do if I hurt his feelings. He heads over to the churning rig and puts a hand on the crank, looking up at the machine with enthusiasm. “Shall we get started?”

“We?” I ask, curious. “You’re going to let me help you?”

“By ‘help,’ I mean that you will be providing me with instructions and guidance. Nothing more, my dearest beauty.” He glances around and spots a bucket, then grabs it and brings it over to me. He flips it over and pats the bottom of it, a makeshift seat. “You stay right here and instruct me, and I’ll do everything.”

I sit, but as I do, I stare up at the nearest milk tank and the way the needle is hovering at the “full” line. That’s a lot of milk. That’s a lot of butter that could be fucked up. “But…what if you do it wrong? I get that you’re trying to help me, babe, but this is also the way I make a living.”

“You called me ‘babe.’” He gives me another adoring look. “It is the first time you’ve referred to me as a baby creature as a term of endearment.”

“Focus, please, babe.” I snap my fingers at him and gesture at the tanks and the churns. “I can’t take a loss on a full tank of milk, Aithar. No matter how much you want this to be a learning exercise.”

The look he gives me is patient. “I have thought of that already! I will purchase this entire batch from you if I ruin it.”

Just the word “ruin” makes me clench up inside. “But I don’twantyou to ruin a batch.”

“Well, I do not want that either, my delightful dairymaid, so please instruct me well.” He gives me a jaunty, challenging look and leans against the churning equipment. “The more specific the better…but allow that I am new to this.”

I press my hands to my forehead. “Aithar, I hate this.”

He’s at my side again in a heartbeat, taking my hands in his and squeezing them tight. “I know, my heart. But do you trust me?”

I whimper.

He hunches down, forcing me to look him in the eye.

“Dammit. Fine. Yes. I trust you.”

The big alien grins down at me, all flashing white teeth, and pulls me in for a whirlwind kiss, as if that seals the deal. Then, just as quickly, he breaks the kiss and bounds away from me. “All right! Tell me what to start with first.”

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

AITHAR

I haveno idea what I’m doing, and the little pained sounds that Michaela makes as I work tell me that I’m not doing things just as she likes. My poor heart loves to have control of a situation, and every time I slop a bit of milk from the hose, or every time some of the butter doesn’t make it out of the churn and lands on the floor, she moans as if wounded.

Each time she makes a sound, I get a little messier. It’s not about making butter right. It’s about being terrible at this and showing her that the world doesn’t end if something goes wrong.

I finish the first batch quicker than we both expect. I’m strong and I want to show off for my female, so I crank the linked-churns speedily and give her enthusiastic smiles as I do. We eye the finished product, and Michaela is unhappy with it. “The texture is all wrong,” she tells me, and we both examine the clumps. “It’s not as thick as it should be. Maybe churn slower this time?”

We put aside the butter from the first batch that is now “my” butter and begin the process again. The cream is separated from the milk, and the milk is bottled as something called “skimmedmilk.” We take the cream and put that in the churns, and I run the crank, agitating the row of butter-making churns until Michaela is happy with the product. As I go slower this time, it leaves us more time to talk. She tells me what it was like when she first arrived here on Risda, and I want to ask her a thousand questions. I could listen to her talk forever. She asks me to volunteer information, too, so I tell her about my first memories as a slave working comms on a coal-mining station in a deep space system. Neither of us have particularly good memories of these times, but sharing them makes them seem less ugly. They’re just part of our past.

Once the second batch is churned, we rinse it clean of the leftover liquid (she calls it “buttermilk,” I call it disgusting) and salt the large mass of butter and press it into loaf-shaped molds. From there, it goes into a refrigerated unit, where it will be popped out of its mold and wrapped in plas, a label slapped onto the center and brought to the store in Port.

“What do you do with the extra milk?” I ask her. I know the skimmed milk is bottled and sold at the store. “The butters milk? The smelly one?”

Michaela shrugs, leaning over and watching as I push the cleaned and salted butter into molds. “I haven’t figured that out yet. No one buys buttermilk because it’s got a sour taste and it’s not popular. I bottled it to sell once and all the bottles came back full. It seems like a waste to throw it out, so I’m still trying to figure out how to proceed. I know people use it back on Earth, but I can’t remember for what and I can’t look it up, of course.”

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