Read Online Switched: Brides of the Kindred 17 by Evangeline Anderson - Free Book Online

stiffly.
    “ You’ve been…?” It took Frankie a minute to understand that the
woman was answering her earlier question. Damn, it was confusing to try and carry on
two conversations at once! Especially when one of them was private
and only in her head.
    “ I
said I’ve been well. Now can we please get on with this?” Xirnah snapped.
    Well she might be pretty but she’s kind of a bitch, Frankie thought,
frowning. But still, she had promised to do her best with Kerov’s
girlfriend and she didn’t want to screw things up. She would just
have to try twice as hard.
    “ Let me take your coat,” she offered, reaching for Xirnah’s
shoulders to try and help her out of the white coat she was
wearing.
    “ Stop it!” Xirnah shied away from her hands as though her touch
was poison. “At least wait
until we’ve sat on the sensu-chairs a few meems! You know I can’t
do this without proper stimulation!”
    “ Sorry.” Frankie felt like she was making a mess of this but
she didn’t know how to make things better. “Um, would you like a
drink?”
    “ A
drink of what?” Xirnah demanded, her skinny nostrils
wrinkling.
    “ Um…” Frankie looked around. Did Kerov keep any wine or beer
or anything alcoholic that might help lighten the mood?
    “ What are you doing?” Kerov exclaimed inside her head. “You’re making her even more angry
than she already was! And why did you try to take off her sex
garment? That is against the protocol.”
    “ I’m doing the best I can!” Frankie hissed. “Now will you just
shut up and let me do this?”
    Xirnah glared at her. “How dare you tell me to shut up, you…you Kindred.”
    She used the word as though it was a curse and Frankie knew at
once she was in big trouble. She took a deep breath, trying to
think of how to salvage the situation. She hoped that Kerov would
offer some advice but he was silent now. Either he was sulking
because he thought she was ruining things or else he was afraid if
he talked to her she would talk back again. Frankie took a deep
breath, she had to do
better!
    “ I’m sorry, baby,” she said, stepping forward and putting a
hand lightly on the other woman’s thin shoulder which was strangely
chilly to touch. “I didn’t mean that you should shut up. I was, uh, talking to myself. I was…trying to,
uh, psych myself up for our…our date.”
    “ Our date? You
mean our State-mandated sexual encounter?” Xirnah raised one
white-blonde eyebrow. Her lashes were the same colorless shade of
white which had the effect of making her look almost like she had
no lashes or brows at all.
    “ Exactly.” Frankie decided to go back to the script Kerov had
given her. “Our State-mandated sexual encounter. Hey, why don’t we
go sit on the sensu-chairs for a little while?” she said
soothingly. “I think that would be nice, don’t you?”
    Xirnah sniffed. “I
suppose that would be acceptable.”
    “ Great, uh…” Frankie suddenly realized that she had no idea
what the sensu-chairs looked like or even what they did. “Ladies
first,” she said again, making a sweeping gesture with one
hand.
    Giving her another
strange look, Xirnah stepped past her, out of the small entryway
and through an archway into a larger room.
    Frankie looked
around the new room surreptitiously, wondering where the
sensu-chairs were. The room had a plain black floor and white walls
and appeared to be bachelor-neat—almost bare.
    There was a single
holo-picture of a Kindred couple hanging on one wall. The man
looked enough like Kerov that Frankie thought it must be his
father. The woman staring lovingly up into his face must be his
mother. Well, at least he had a picture of his parents—that was
nice. But there were literally no other decorations.
    One entire wall
appeared to be a huge TV-type screen, very much liked the ones
she’d seen down in the subway station. There were two pointed,
conical blue things positioned in front of it that were about as
high as her waist but she