Page 15 of The Outcast
Aubri hmphed. “One should think you would back me up here. It’s your bloody culture that I’m defending.”
“Oh.” I sat up in my chair to pay better attention. “I must have missed that.”
Freya caught me up. “We’re discussing sleeping arrangements. Aubri insists that everything at the academy should be as close as possible to the reality that the Explorers will meet in Old Europe. She wants men and women to sleep together in tents.”
“They must!” I agreed.
Thor scoffed. “Fine, but then we’re back to my argument that all applicants to your academy will be male. No female will get permission from her family to sleep with men.”
“We already have more than a hundred female applicants,” Sparrow pointed out.
“And do they know they’ll be sleeping with men?”
“No.”
Thor swung his hand with a gesture saying,I rest my case.
“They understand that the culture is different in Old Europe,” Aubri argued. “We’ll explain it to them on the first day, but if we are to prepare them for their lives in France we have to stop thinking as Northlanders the moment we set foot inside the Academy. The culture at the academy will be French.”
“Does that mean that Sparrow will be sleeping with men as well?” Mason asked with a frown.
“Of course.” Aubri sighed. “Once we have rooms for all instructors, she’ll have her own bed, but whenever we’re simulating expeditions, Sparrow will be sleeping with the rest of us instructors. I did that in Old Europe and no one touched me.”
“It’s not just sleeping arrangements,” I said. “A team of Explorers does everything together. Working, eating, and sleeping included. When possible, we even bathe in rivers or lakes. That’s just how it is.”
Thor, Mason, and Freya gaped at me, and then Freya said, “On a normal French Explorer team, do people also have sex together?”
“Sure, if they want to, but it’s mostly in the beginning when a new team member joins the group. With the teams being fairly stable and the rule of a maximum three sexual encounters with the same person, it can’t be any other way.”
Freya’s voice fell to a near whisper, as she asked, “What about you, Banni? Did you sleep with your team members?”
“I have in the past. The last one was a woman called Britany who came on a few expeditions with us in the spring before she quit. I never had sex with Indiana or Aubri despite my offers. Then there’s Val and Alex, but we’re not attracted to each other that way. Listen, you people need to understand that we don’t have sex with people we’re not attracted to. I know it seems that way to you, but we French don’t fuck just anybody.” Banni pointed to Belle. “How many did you have sex with while you lived in France?”
“That’s none of your business,” Mason said sharply.
“Fine, but my point is, she sure as hell never had sex with me or anyone I know.”
“Banni is right,” Belle said while curling a finger through her baby daughter Violetta’s hair. “Plenty of people don’t have much sex at all. It’s not a requirement.”
“Do you support men and women sleeping and bathing together?” Thor asked Belle.
She shrugged. “I don’t see a problem with it.”
“May I remind you what happened when you two slept together?” Thor pointed to Mason and Belle.
Aubri intervened. “Look, Thor, I get that it’s different from our way of living, but you weren’t there when Victor made a point of how he doesn’t believe we can find Northlanders who would be capable of living the French way. I want to prove him wrong.”
“Couldn’t we compromise?” Freya asked. “Training dogs to be birds makes no sense. They’ll never be able to fly, so why not let them run, dig, and chase the way they were born to do?”
“Huh?” We all stared at her.
“Couldn’t we let our Explorer teams do things their way? What’s wrong with having two tents instead of one or bathing at different times? If our people feel more comfortable with separate arrangements, why not? As long as it doesn’t affect their work, I don’t see the problem.” Freya looked to Aubri and Indiana. “You two didn’t follow conventional rules and you still did a fine job.”
With her hands now placed on her hips, Aubri glared at Freya. “Then you tell Victor that we’ll do things our way. Be my guest. But I promise you that he’ll argue that if our Explorers can’t assimilate to the French way of doing things, they need not come.”
Tilting her head, Freya met Aubri’s glare with calmness. “I’m afraid Victor isn’t much interested in anything I have to say.”
“That’s what I thought. Maybe, once we prove to him that we Northlanders can do anything twice as good as the French, we can make demands. But for now, we need to train teams of superior Explorers to wow the French.”
