Future Love

By Edward Hoornaert

In the future, love will get even tougher . . . Set out on a journey into tomorrow in five short stories that explore how love can sometimes sting, sometimes heal—and always transform the mind.

To Cry in Zero G
A spaceman wins the woman of his dreams . . . too late.

Devil, Devil
A stranded time-traveler searches for the love he abandoned in the past.

Thimbleriggers
A crook invents a new form of pornography, but it teaches him about love. Not sex.

Audition at Sexsmith Station
A woman crosses the galaxy for revenge. But revenge isn't as simple as she expected.

Funeral in a Teriyaki Cathedral
A man pursues his beloved beyond death, but finds only the evil in his own heart.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edward Hoornaert
• Release date: Jun 30, 2016
• ISBN: 9781310338526

Edward Hoornaert

Edward Hoornaert is not only a science fiction and romance writer, he's also a certifiable Harlequin Hero, having inspired NYT best-selling author Vicki Lewis Thompson to write Mr. Valentine, which was dedicated to him. From this comes his online alter ego, "Mr. Valentine."These days, Hoornaert mostly writes science fiction—either sf romances, or sf with elements of romance. After living at 26 different addresses in his first 27 years, the rolling stone slowed in the Canadian Rockies and finally came to rest in Tucson, Arizona. Amongst other things, he has been a teacher, technical writer, and symphonic oboist. He married his high school sweetheart a week after graduation and is still in love ... which is probably why he can write romance.

Book preview

Future Love

Tales of love's powers of redemption

by

Edward Hoornaert

http://eahoornaert.com/

Copyright June, 2016 by Edward Hoornaert

All rights reserved

These stories are works of fiction. All characters, names, places and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination, or, if real, used fictitiously . . . with the exception of Sergei Prokofiev, who really did suffer a stroke while his wife was in the next room discussing their summer house and who really did say My soul hurts.

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share it with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Cover design by Edward Hoornaert

Original watercolor, Yearning, by Linda Pajunen

ISBN: 9781310338526

DEDICATION

To my parents. Married sixty years and couldn't live

without each other—literally; they passed away

within two weeks of each other.

That, my friends, is love, past or future.

In the future, love will get even tougher . . .

To Cry in Zero G

A spaceman wins the woman

of his dreams.

Too late.

Devil, Devil

A stranded time-traveler searches

for the love he abandoned

in his past.

Thimbleriggers

A crook invents a new form of pornography

but it teaches him about love.

Not sex.

Audition at Sexsmith Station

A woman crosses the galaxy for revenge.

But revenge isn't as simple

as she expected.

Love and Death in a Teriyaki Cathedral

A man pursues his beloved beyond death

but finds only the evil

in his own heart.

To Cry in Zero G

Our first tale carries us not very far into the future. Commercial space stations are on the drawing board even now, because items like ball bearings and crystalline pharmaceuticals are easier to perfect in zero gravity than on earth.

But what about the crews of these space stations? Working month-long shifts in close proximity, wouldn't they fall in love . . . even if they shouldn't?

Madeleine Dupré noticed first, because she watched him closely. When the crowd finally realized the corpse had fallen silent, they toasted him.

Ladies and gentlemen, a life support technician said as he grabbed his beverage pack, which floated upside down in the air. A toast to Harry Elroy.

To most of these people, Harry wasn't a corpse . . . yet. But this was Madeleine's area of expertise, and to her, he was a dead man. Although she tried to resist, her gaze darted to him. Her face flamed. She took a deep breath and lowered her eyes. . .until the urge to glance at him once more grew overwhelming.

A real hero, that Harry, someone called, and I don't mean just with the ladies.

On behalf of the women on the station, thanks for the O's, Harry.

Speech, Harry, speech.

Madeleine's eyes flicked yet again to the corpse. Harry Elroy stared at his hands, folded as though in prayer. His knuckles were clenched white. What must he be thinking? Feeling? Astonishingly, he'd told no one that . . . that she . . .

Why hadn't he said anything? He must despise her.

She lifted a black-and-yellow beverage pack from the magnetized table, put the drinking port of the beepack to her lips, and squeezed the accordion end. Whiskey scorched her throat.

She squeezed again.

* * * *

Come on, Harry, give us a speech.

Ice slalomed down Harry Elroy's spine. It wasn't death he feared, but making a speech. Techs and scientists intimidated him, even though he'd dragged twenty-four of the dames in the audience down to his level by bedding them. He hadn't gotten around to some of the women yet. Now he never would.

How dumb, dumb, dumb he'd been to waste his final request on an Irish wake. He'd wanted to feel like one of the gang, wanted to get drunk, only to discover he'd never been more alone and didn't want to waste even one precious minute in drinking.

Harry searched the crowded cafeteria for an escape route. Found none. Over a hundred people sat at dining tables or floated at various angles in this, the largest room of Coalition Pharmaceutical's Space Station Forty-Two. Everyone held beepacks. The prickly tang of booze flavored the air.

Madeleine Dupré could've hidden at the back of the crowd—that's what he would've done—but she sat up front, as brave as she was gorgeous. Her bravado had limits, however. Whenever their gazes met, she hunched over and stared at the floor, as though wishing herself invisible.

Most of the others avoided his gaze. Embarrassed, he supposed. Soon, though, the ghouls would lose their inhibitions and stare. In zero-gee Earth orbit, booze pooled in the brain and got you drunk real fast. At least that was what one of his conquests, a middle-aged doctor from India, had told him. Maybe she'd been testing his gullibility, though.

And three hours ago, she'd tested his blood. Thirty-five-hundred rems, she'd said as though he couldn't hear, as though he were already dead. We'd use up all our platelet stock and most of our IV, and it wouldn't be enough. Thirty-five-hundred rems! Just keep him comfortable and happy, until—

Madeleine glanced at him, then away. She must hate his glow-in-the-dark guts. Couldn't blame her, of course, but . . .

Come on, Harry. Yolena Martinez, a quality-control engineer with soft black hair and jealous eyes, squeezed Harry's arm. Make a speech.

The crowd grew hushed, waiting. Sweet Jesus, they really expected him to talk. It was bad enough to attend his own wake, but give a speech to all these Brains?

When he rose, the Velcro pads on the chair pulled from his slacks with a sound like pants ripping. He'd gotten good mileage from the space station's equivalent of a whoopee cushion, and now he grabbed the seat of his pants and looked behind him as though appalled.

A chuckle rasped out of Arnie Zhukov, the lab modules' Maintenance Technician—a fancy name for janitors like Arnie and Harry. Harry, Zhukov said, you haven't changed a bit.

Was he crazy? The whole world had changed, like clicking the remote control from a triple-x movie to a black-and-white tearjerker.

Harry pulled himself straight; he hated the hunched, unmanly posture natural in zero gravity. Yolena, his latest conquest, glowed proudly at the futile act of defiance, which convinced him Zhukov was right. Harry Elroy, the satisfaction-guaranteed bedroom legend, couldn't let a little thing like death change him.

I'm no good at speeches, he said. I specialize in one-on-one with the ladies.

Zhukov, who idolized Harry's bedroom triumphs, laughed. Yolena gazed and Madeleine glanced, but most people didn't look at him. They were probably parsing his words like a high school English teacher and grading him 'F'.

Harry's mouth sprouted cotton. He sought refuge in a joke. Knock, knock, he blurted, hoping that the rest of a joke, any joke, would come to him.

Zhukov laughed. Who's there?

But Harry's mind was blank. He had a knack for talking and acting without thinking, and it had killed him, and now he'd done it again. He said the first thing that popped into his head. Ray.

The only one who answered was Zhukov. The others, smarter, cringed. Ray who?

Radiation.

Dead silence.

Zhukov took a long swig from his beepack. Harry, you're a brave man. A saint.

Again, words popped into Harry's head. No, don't say it—

He said it anyway. Nothing saint-like about what I was doing to Madeleine Dupré.

Yolanda's eyes narrowed into slits as sharp as a guillotine's blade. Reactor Supervisor Dupré turned fire-extinguisher red.

You finally nailed her? Way to go, Harry. Zhukov slapped the table hard enough to loosen his Velcro connection to the chair. He floated upward. So, Maddy, you forgot your hubby down in Brussels long enough to do the deed with Harry. He must have been even hotter than usual to make the reactor go wild.

Despite Madeleine's blush, her features remained calm and unruffled, like royalty. The station's three-months-on, three-months-off shifts were staggered, with fresh blood every few weeks. For the last two years, Harry had looked forward to the stretches when his shift overlapped Madeleine's. Everything about her was delicate