Finny tried, she tried very hard, though she couldn't stand to eat meat for months after each encounter. As the years went by, though, she managed to repress her horror and become herself a hardened butcher. Papa congratulated her when she beheaded her first chicken, and Mama herself made much of her. They both showered her with approval again when she butchered her first pig, then her first sheep—but when they were alone, Mama gathered Finny's head onto her breast and let the teenager weep. "I know it's hard, Finny, but the world is hard. It's a cruel place, and the only way to live in it is to become capable of cruelty yourself, and to harden your heart to others' pain."
That was hard for a telepathic girl, very hard, but Finny learned how to make her mental shields more dense and managed it.
The older girls started telling her about menstruation well before her courses began, so it was no shock to her, and she had a passage party just as the older girls had had. Afterward, though, Mama took her aside to make sure she understood how women became pregnant and to warn her against men who wanted to use her. Then her older sisters taught her how, even if a man did manage to seduce her, she could use telekinesis to keep from becoming pregnant. Finny listened intently and rehearsed as much of it as she could without a boy on whom to practice. She wasn't apt to remain a virgin forever, after all, though from everything she was hearing and from what she saw in the barnyard, she wasn't terribly interested in sex. Mama had made it quite clear that, since they were foundlings with no family and certainly no dowry, the girls weren't very likely to marry. It might happen, of course, especially if the young woman were really beautiful, but Finny knew she wasn't. She might be able to bewitch a man into thinking she was, but did she really want a husband who fell in love with the illusion she created, not with the real Finny? Maybe Dory could find a husband, or Orma—they were both beautiful, and certainly they were patient and good-natured, even sweet—but not Finny. She accepted the fact that she would never marry, but she was determined not to become an old maid. Old she would one day be, but not a maid. It was only a matter of time.
Then Orly changed, and she decided that time didn't matter.
She was in the middle of her sixteenth year and a few of the village girls her age had already married and were with child. Orly was a year older. She couldn't say how he had changed. Maybe it was that the last signs of baby fat melted from his face under the sun that summer, or maybe it was only that she had never noticed. Certainly when he came in from the fields and stopped by the well to strip off his shirt and sluice away the dust and sweat of the day, she noticed how huge his muscles had become and wondered why she had never noticed before. It started a peculiar feeling in her, like the special feeling that came from boys' admiring glances but stronger, much stronger. The biggest difference came when they talked. Somehow they managed to be alone even if there were others nearby, alone sitting on a bench in the backyard and talking about the stars or the crops or the newest baby—talking as they always had, about subjects they had always discussed, but somehow the conversations seemed so much deeper, so much more meaningful; it was as though she were hearing undertones and hidden meanings she'd never known before. Both of them had their mental shields up, as they had all learned to do—the constant storm of others' thoughts could drive you crazy, after all, and you didn't want everybody knowing your personal secrets.
They didn't notice Mama and Papa watching them with thoughtful faces, then looking at one another and nodding slowly.
It must have been an accident, of course—certainly Mama wouldn't have sent her up to the hayloft if she had known Papa had just sent Orly up there to make sure the hornets hadn't started another nest. He caught Finny kneeling to pet the swollen cat and called, "Why, Finny! Have the kittens come, then?"
"Oh! You startled me!" Finny leaped up, then saw it was Orly and couldn't help letting out some of that special feeling as she gave him a sleepy-eyed smile. "No, they haven't come yet, Orly. But it's late enough that we need to watch her closely."
"We should have been watching her closely two months ago." Orly grinned as he came closer. "It's a little late now."
He was standing a little too close and Finny felt a strange new presence about him, something like her own special feeling, and wondered if Orly were a projective empath, too. She lowered her gaze and looked up from under her lashes. "Puss didn't seem to mind it at the time."
"Yes, but look at her now." Orly frowned, drawing a little away. "There are always consequences."
Finny felt a touch of distress—she had liked him standing close, even liked the hint of danger in it. She let out more of her own special feeling as she said, "There don't have to be. She'd have two litters a year if we let her."
"You mean you stop her from. . . ?" Orly frowned. "Can't be. I've seen her go into heat only a few weeks after one litter's grown."
"Into heat, yes, but we don't let babies start." Finny spared a wink for the cat. "We females have to take care of one another, don't we, Puss?"
Puss purred and stretched, flexing her claws.
"You certainly do!" Orly said in surprise. "I didn't know."
Finny made a face at him. "Boys don't need to know everything."
"Maybe not." Orly grinned and stepped closer again. "We know what really matters, though."
"Oh?" Finny said archly. "And what is that?"
"Ask Puss," Orly said deep in his throat and stepped a little closer, reached out to almost touch her waist, and his face hovered near, so very near, and his breath smelled sweet and musky. She looked deeply into his eyes and felt her special feeling growing; she clamped her shields tight on the instant, but left an opening for him and felt his mind reaching out. For a moment their thoughts mingled, and she shivered— but she realized he wouldn't close that last inch on his own, so she swayed just a little forward.
He swung toward her as though he were iron and she a magnet and their lips brushed, then brushed again. It was a tickling that called deep within her, and her whole body answered with a wave of sensation that frightened her even as she welcomed it. His lips brushed again, then stayed; hers melted against his, her whole body seemed to melt against his, and he was so hard and strong, his chest pressing from the front, his arms holding her fast, and her lips fluttered open. He gasped, and the tip of his tongue touched her lips. She shuddered and opened her mouth wide. For a moment, tongue caressed tongue, and fire coursed through her—for a moment, then another moment and another.
Finally the feeling ebbed; she realized, with surprise and shame, that she had been pressing her hips against his and stepped away, eyes downcast. "Orly ... we shouldn't—"
"Oh, yes we should," he breathed. "You know it and I know it—but not today."
"Not ever." She spoke sadly, managing to get her hands between them—but that was a mistake, too, because they felt the hardness of his chest and seemed to want to go exploring on their own.
So did his hands, though they didn't stray far from her waist. "Someday, beautiful Finister," he breathed. "Someday."
It was the first time she had ever really liked the sound of her name.
Somehow they met frequently after that, every other day or so, then every day. The first few times, Mama and Papa had made mistakes again, Mama sending Finny down to the creek to pull tubers for dinner, Papa sending Orly there to rake the leaves from it. They would start to talk, not meaning to embrace, but it was as though they couldn't keep apart from one another. Kissing led to caressing, and caressing to a desire for more intimate touching. They began to meet in the barn, in the woodshed, in the grove to explore one another's minds and bodies—never going as far as they wanted, of course.