Penumbra

by Dan Ackerman

  How much did Oggie do for show? Carefully practiced, meant to give the right impression, but not an honest one.

  “I’m sorry,” Arden said again. He meant it, for what he’d done, for what everyone else had done. He was sorry for all the bad, cruel, and ugly things in the world.

  “It’s alright, sugar.”

  “I just…I want you to be there. I want you to be my friend. Really my friend.”

  “I know.”

  They never finished their game. They went to bed. The next morning, they sat down to breakfast like nothing happened.

  Oggie came to watch practice, even though Arden tried to walk back his insistence that he come. He did a good job pretending to be fascinated with Arden. Cheering him vapidly from the sidelines, waving and smiling. He looked the part, dressed up nice, sitting with Cathie, Zira, and a few of their friends.

  Arden had asked them to keep an eye on him, which they did, but it wasn’t with particularly kind expressions.

  They would smile at him when he spoke to them, then glare and whisper when he had his back turned.

  Arden saw it all.

  Oggie couldn’t make lunch afterward, he had work.

  As Arden, Zira, and Cathie walked together, he said, “Oggie’s nice, isn’t he?”

  “He’s very good-looking,” Zira said.

  “Mmm. But he’s nice, too.”

  Neither of them responded.

  “How’ve you been, Arden?” Cathie asked after a while.

  “Good.”

  The women exchanged glances.

  “What?”

  “Nothing,” Cathie assured.

  After a few long, uncomfortable moments, Zira said, “I think he used to see Richter Paulsen.”

  “Who?”

  “Your pet.”

  Cathie said, “And Emmie Ulster.”

  “Quite a few others,” Zira added.

  “Never moved in with any of them, though,” Cathie noted.

  Arden tried to smile at her. “He’s good company.”

  “Hmmm. Really? Did, he, uh…Did you pay off his debt, too?” she asked carefully.

  “He. I.”

  Arden didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t know what was worse. Sleeping with someone he owned or trading freedom for sexual favors.

  He never came up with an answer, just waited a while and changed the topic.

  When they parted ways, Cathie firmly, kindly insisted, “Take care of yourself.”

  Not too many days later, Oggie came home red-eyed and scrunch-faced, went into his room, and cried into a pillow.

  Arden could still hear it through the door, but Oggie wouldn’t answer or unlock the door when he asked what was wrong.

  Oggie had come home crying again. He’d always say something like, “Just some rough customers!” and go into his room.

  He’d be back to his usual self in the morning, teasing Arden, spoiled and luxurious.

  Arden knocked on the door and said, “Og, let me in.”

  “No, sugar, just…! I’m fine.”

  Arden sat outside the door and listened to him sniffle. It made him sick.

  He didn’t know what, exactly, was wrong, but he knew it had to do with him. He didn’t know how he knew, but he felt it in his gut that pretending to be Arden’s pet took a toll on him. Maybe the thralls picked on him, or maybe the peers did, or maybe having to spend time with Arden took too much out of him.

  He toyed around on his tablet, then put on his shoes and headed out.

  Down to Quarter Two.

  This time he didn’t care about the awful looks sent his way as he went deeper in.

  He rapped on Rhys’s door. Half a dozen people listed this place as home, common enough in the Quarters.

  A man he didn’t know answered it. His smile faded when he saw Arden. He’d been expecting someone else.

  “Get Rhys.”

  The man stared, then disappeared back inside.

  Half-dressed and sleep-rumbled, Rhys emerged. His face changed from confused to fearful when he saw Arden.

  “Can we talk somewhere?”

  Rhys licked his lips. He nodded. “Uh, it’s…” He glanced behind him. “It’ll be a little more private this way.”

  Arden followed him to a seemingly abandoned part of the Quarter, a common room with the barest furnishings. He took a seat on the rickety chair Rhys indicated.

  “How can I serve, Your Eminence?”

  “Oh, shut the fuck up,” Arden snapped.

  Rhys physically flinched. Subtly, but Arden saw it.

  He sighed. Huffed, really. “Sit down.”

  Rhys sat. He kept his eyes down.

  “We…” Arden struggled to think of the right way to say this. “We have unfinished business.”

  Rhys nodded without looking up.

  “I, uh. We’d talked about you setting up a few contacts, people who’d keep an eye on my uncle.”

  “Yes, Your Eminence.”

  “But you know lots of people, right? Like. You could get me information about anything, anyone, I wanted.”

  “Yes, Your—”

  “Call me that again and I swear I’ll fucking screech,” Arden said.

  Rhys looked up briefly, his brow knit. “I…”

  Arden had meant only to find out what he needed to know. He didn’t want to talk about anything else. He really didn’t want to see Rhys.

  Except that he did.

  He had really, genuinely liked him, enjoyed his company. He missed him, didn’t want to miss him, resented him, and felt guilty all at once.

  Enough to make a person sick.

  Or, at least enough to make him drink.

  He sighed.

  Rhys had taken a seat far away from him, significantly out of arm’s reach, how he would have before they’d started their affair.

  Arden pulled his feet up onto the chair and rested his chin on his knees. “How are you?”

  “I.”

  “I know already. You don’t have to keep pretending.”

  “Know?”

  “Did you have some kind of accident? Hit your head again? I know about her.”

  “Her…Oh!” Rhys let out a breath, half-chuckled, then shook his head.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Gertrude.”

  Arden couldn’t help himself when he said, “What a hideous fucking name for a baby.”

  Rhys opened and closed his mouth. “The baby’s name is Darcy.”

  “That’s better. Gertrude is your…partner?”

  Rhys shrugged. “Gertie’s…It’s sort of complicated with Gertie.”

  “Right.”

  “We were sort of seeing each other. She was sort of seeing other people, too. We broke it off a while ago. Better as friends, you know. But…” Rhys shrugged. “She found out she was pregnant. So, we’re, uh. Co-parenting. As friends.”

  “Not partners?”

  Rhys shrugged. “She’s seeing a few people. I’m…not.”

  Arden’s throat tightened. “And you just, you never wanted to mention any of it? Months and months together and you never wanted to say a fucking thing?”

  “I didn’t know how you’d take it.”

  “Well, I would have gotten you a fucking present, for one.” Arden crossed his arms.

  Rhys undid and redid his hair.

  “I didn’t come here to talk about any of this. I just.” He pulled in a breath, then sighed.

  “Arden, I’m—”

  “If you say you’re sorry—”

  “I am!” Rhys insisted. “I didn’t ever mean for it to get that far.”

  “No, you just wanted to get rid of your debt and that woman…Gertie. Her debt. And be done.”

  “No.”

  “Well, it’s what you did!”

  “I didn’t think it would get that far. I didn’t think you’d do those things. I thought I’d ask for too much, or you’d get bored, and you’d call it off. But you kept giving me things. You kept wanting me around.�
�

  Arden shouldn’t have come. There had to be someone else who could help.

  “And I…”

  Arden started berating himself for having hope. It struggled inside him and he kept crushing it. He dreaded what Rhys would say next because no matter what, it would hurt. It would feel awful, twisting and shredding him up inside. He shouldn’t have come here.

  “I really did…I really do like you. I really am sorry I hurt you. Please don’t…Please don’t cry.”

  Arden blinked but couldn’t keep the tears back. “I just needed help with Oggie.”

  “Oggie,” Rhys repeated.

  “He’s my—”

  “I know who he is.”

  Arden tried to say something, but he couldn’t. His throat hurt too much, his mouth slimy and swollen. He sniffled, sucking snot back in with the most hideous sound. He scrubbed his face with his shirt. “Stop looking at me.”

  “I’m worried about you.”

  “Fuck off,” Arden gurgled.

  Rhys came over closer to him. He hovered.

  Arden wiped his face again, like wiping his face would make him stop crying. “Just stop standing there!”

  Rhys stepped back.

  Arden had never wanted to hit someone so badly and not done it. He curled tighter around himself.

  Fuck.

  Rhys sat down beside Arden’s chair. He put his hand on Arden’s shin. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  Arden took his hand. “You stopped coming to work.”

  “You said you never wanted to see me again.”

  “I.”

  “And you threw a lot of things at me.”

  “I didn’t hit you,” he reminded childishly.

  “Oh, thanks.”

  “I could have.”

  “You’re something else, you know that.”

  “I have good aim.”

  Rhys squeezed his hand.

  “Come back to work. I need help.”

  “Okay.”

  Arden oozed out of his chair. He wrapped his arms around Rhys and squeezed, more because he needed it than he thought the gesture would be welcome.

  Rhys patted his back.

  Arden gave himself a few moments, pulled back, and wiped his face one last time. “I need help with Oggie.”

  Rhys nodded. “The formulas will be hard to kick, but—”

  “What? No. He’s upset about something. I think people are giving him a hard time, but he won’t talk to me about it.”

  “You came down here to ask me for relationship advice?”

  “I…Yes. Well. I want to know what people are saying to him.”

  “He’s…Listen. He’s involved in shady stuff if what people say is true,” Rhys said.

  Arden waved a hand. Oggie hadn’t shied away from sharing his less than savory exploits with Arden.

  “And you know he’s, uh…he sort of does this professionally, right? Sleeping with peers.”

  “We’re not even sleeping together. It’s, uh. It’s this whole thing, I’ll fill you in some other time. Just talk to whoever it is you know in this seedy underbelly and find out what I need to know.”

  Rhys nodded.

  Arden sucked in a breath. “What a fucking mess.”

  “How have you been, though?”

  “I. Uh. I’ve been okay. You?”

  Rhys smiled. “I’ve been spending all day with Darcy. I’ve been great. She can roll over and she’s babbling.”

  “Adorable.”

  They sat in stilted silence.

  Arden said, “I, uh. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay.”

  They stood, looked at each other, and fidgeted. With a few starts and stops, they headed back towards Rhys’s apartment.

  They parted ways without saying anything else.

  Oggie had stopped crying by the time Arden got home. “That you, sugar?” he called and appeared in the doorway of his bedroom looking a hair less exquisite than usual.

  “You feeling better?”

  “Oh, I…Don’t you worry about me, shug, I just.” He waved a hand. “You want a drink?”

  “I was going to head to bed.”

  Oggie nodded.

  “Do you…”

  “No, no, I was getting ready for bed, too. Goodnight.”

  “Night, Oggie.”

  In the morning, Rhys came by while Oggie still slept. He lingered in the door when Arden answered, his eyes taking in the changes to the rooms.

  Since Oggie had moved in, Arden had gotten a few new things—most to replace the things he’d broken.

  Oggie’s had picked most of them out and his taste ran differently than Arden’s. The rooms didn’t exactly look mismatched, but the furniture and decorations Oggie had selected stood out as accent pieces.

  Arden liked it.

  “Quick turnaround,” Arden said, just so he had something to say.

  “No, I uh…I thought you wanted me to come back to work.”

  “Oh. That.”

  “I thought you’d be asleep.”

  “I’ve had to wake myself up and get to meetings on my own for a while now.”

  Rhys looked at the floor.

  Arden smiled. “Come in. There’s stuff to go over anyway. New reports and everything. Unless you’ve been keeping current?”

  “A little bit.”

  Arden raised an eyebrow.

  “I’ve been home with Darcy.”

  “One baby and suddenly our revolutionary is complacent.”

  “I…” Rhys’s face flushed, more than what gentle teasing should have provoked.

  “What?”

  Rhys sighed.

  Arden gestured to the table.

  They sat.

  “Go on,” Arden insisted.

  “So. The thing is…” Rhys looked at the curio on the table, a plant leaf in a piece of amber. “I never told you a lot of things. About me. About how, uh, I swore I’d never have kids, never feed into this capitalist machine that eats us alive.”

  Arden kept quiet but couldn’t help but widen his eyes.

  “This group of us, we’ve known each other for years, we all decided we’d put our foot down, take direct action. It ended up being mostly, uh, complaining and stealing things like medical supplies, extra rations, or things from rooms we cleaned. Stupid shit. But it felt, well, it felt better than nothing.”

  Arden nodded. “Sure.”

  “Then I got in with you, started feeding you ideas, started making actual changes, which was great. People really thought I was getting stuff done. People got a little funny about me sleeping with you. I felt funny about it, too, especially when I basically did it to get out of debt. But I knew…you know, I couldn’t bring a kid into the world and saddle her with debt she’d never repay. Watch her work herself to death.”

  “I already figured out that you had ulterior motives, Rhys, but thanks for the details.”

  “I’m just, I just want you to know that…that however it started, however I used to feel about you, it’s honestly different now. I just, I would look at Darcy and think about how we all get born without asking to and do the best with what we’ve got. With what we’re given. So I.” Rhys sighed. “I meant it when I said I was proud of you. And I ended things because it was wrong for me to use you like that. You should have someone who…who cares for you the same way you care for them. We don’t have to talk about it ever again, but I wanted you to know.”

  Arden shrugged. “Alright.”

  “That’s it?”

  “What else should I do? Tell you I loved you, that I might still love you, that you made me feel happy? Beg you for another chance?”

  Rhys shifted. “No.”

  “I am sorry I threw you out like that. It was shitty of me.”

  “It was,” Rhys agreed without venom.

  Arden licked his lips. “Maybe one of the shittier things I’ve done.”

  Rhys almost smiled.

  “So can we mov
e on? I can’t pretend it never happened, but I still need you. Eden still needs work. Alright?”

  “Alright.”

  Arden got up and searched for his tablet, to have something else to do, to give himself time to settle.

  He wanted to throw up.

  He nearly called for a shot.

  He hadn’t done that in a while. He hadn’t need to do that in a while. His body had made its own numbness, but this might be too much. The jagged edges of the world had started poking at him again.

  Maybe they’d go away.

  He returned to the table with his tablet, pulled up the most relevant reports, and started showing them to Rhys.

  It kept him focused.

  After an hour, Oggie came out of his room and called, “Sugar, I…Oh!” He spied Rhys and pulled his robe closed.

  He liked to walk around half-dressed, watching Arden for a reaction.

  Sometimes Arden thought about giving it to him, but he didn’t know what kind of test this was. Years in a locker room made him good at ignoring the nudity of others.

  He thought it kind of frustrated Oggie.

  “Didn’t know we had a guest, sugar,” Oggie scolded.

  Arden watched the two of them watch each other. He wouldn’t have wanted to walk between them with the way they were trying to kill each other with their eyes. “Just work.”

  Oggie came over and leaned in.

  Arden prepared himself for a kiss on the cheek. He got one on the mouth, warm and possessive. He nearly pulled back. He placed a hand on Oggie’s chest and murmured into his neck, “He knows we aren’t sleeping together.”

  “Not very good at keeping secrets,” Oggie whispered back.

  “Sorry.”

  Oggie tweaked his nose. “Could have warned me a little sooner. You want a drink?”

  “Maybe breakfast,” Arden suggested.

  Oggie ordered breakfast and put a splash of vodka into his juice. He offered it to Arden.

  “No, thanks.”

  He didn’t offer any to Rhys. All the while he ate, he kept a judgmental eye on Rhys.

  When he went to take a shower, Rhys mentioned, “So he really doesn’t like me.”

  “You weren’t exactly making nice either.”

  Rhys took a bite of fruit salad instead of saying anything.

  “Don’t!” Arden warned. “Say it.”

  “I still have permission to speak freely?”

  Arden rolled his eyes. “I guess.”

  “He’s a bad influence. All the formulas…”