by E J Frost
Unconscious, unconsidered. These are the
movements of muscle memory. She’s
practiced these motions, the coordination of
shoulder and arm and wrist, to create the
dance the fireballs perform, now above our
heads, now circling in front of her to wrap
around her hands, now thrown out at our
sides as she turns, so many times that she
doesn’t have to think about them anymore.
They’re part of her, and as long as I keep
step with her, neither of us will burn.
She whispers to me occasionally, telling
me which way to turn, or warning me before
a spin. I sink into the dance, beginning to
anticipate her moves, becoming part of her
flow. There are certain moves she repeats. A
long weaving spiral that starts to her left
side, arcs over our heads, and ends at her
right ankle. Crossing circles that flick from
front to back and back again. When she
bends backwards, I bend with her and watch
as the balls paint burning arcs in the black
night sky above us. As the balls cross in front
of us, Kez blows out a long breath, spitting
fire a meter into the air. We straighten within
a curtain of flame. Kez holds her hands out to
her sides; I mirror her, and the chains wrap
around my wrists, the balls spiraling inward
until they kiss my skin. The sweat on my
forearms sizzles. Before I feel anything more
than a lick of heat, Kez flicks her wrists and
the balls whirl outward, the chains
unwrapping until my arms are free. I run my
fingers up Kez’s arms and cup her waist
again. Kiss the back of her head so she
knows how much I’m enjoying this.
She begins moving again, slow steps and
turns. I match her. Within the circle of fire,
with only the whush and crackle of the flame
and our synchronized breathing to match the
slow drumbeat, with our bodies moving in
harmony, a moment of infinite calm stretches.
The only other time I’ve felt this at peace is
after sex with Kez. I don’t understand how
she does it. How she brings this out in me,
but this is her gift.
Finally, the balls burn out. Kez flicks her
wrists so the smoking balls hang suspended
in the air for a moment, then drop to her
sides. She looks over her shoulder at me
with a tired grin and I understand that the
dance is over. I take a deep breath, smell the
sea, sweat and fuel from the balls. Draw
back into myself and bury that perfect
moment deep.
Until the next time.
I smile back at her. “Almost as good as
sex.”
“Almost,” she says. She moves back to
Slip’s pile of gear and drops the smoking
balls into a ceramsteel box. She shakes out
her hands, then turns and throws her arms
around my neck. I clasp her firmly against my
chest and lift her off her feet for a deep kiss.
The crowd cheers and wolf-whistles.
When I let her drop back onto her feet,
her grin’s as wide as I’ve ever seen it. Her
pupils so roundly dilated, her eyes look
solidly black. “We need to do that again
soon,” I tell her.
She nods. “Anytime you want.”
When the crowd begins to break apart
and Slip’s circled the square at least twice,
he comes back to us, counts out the credits
and hands half to Kez. They’re mostly blues
and twos, but they’ll do us for dessert, and a
decent breakfast.
Kez drops most of the credits into the
hideous purple bag, but weighs an octagon in
her palm and looks up at me. Her pupils
contract and she looks uncertain.
“What’s wrong, kitten?”
“Could I . . . I shouldn’t ask when we’ve
got so little, but I wasn’t able to reach Gig
before I sold my vcom. He’ll be frantic by
now.”
“You askin’ if you can call home?”
She nods. Her face is a study. She wants
to make the call so badly she’s almost
pleading, but she trying to hide it in case I
want to save our credits. I smile at her.
“Make the call.”
“Here,” Slip says, handing Kez a
throatband and earpiece. “It’ll reach the
mainland. Ten credits a minute, so be quick.”
Kez takes the comm and slaps the octagon
into Slip’s hand. “Thanks, Slip.”
I beckon the kid with two fingers and
when he moves over to me, turn slightly to
give Kez some privacy.
“Three things,” I tell him. The kid nods
anxiously and I wonder if he’s yet another
orphan, fearful of paternal disapproval. I
change the order of what I was going to say.
“First, thanks for letting her use your comm.
Second, we need a sheet of plaz. Is there any
on the Market?”
“Yeah. Back up on Redburke Street.
Flo’s Fabulorium.” The kid hooks his thumb
towards the Night Market. In the direction of
the port; at least we’re not going out of our
way.
“Thanks. Third thing. We’ve heard the
Eff Tubes are safe for the night. That true?”
The kid nods and radiates relief at the
end of my laundry list. “You need a place to
crash for the night? Kez is, uh, you’re
welcome to come back to my dorp.”
Kidspeak is mostly a foreign language to
me, but I’m pretty sure dorps refer to the
stacked coffins that can be rented by the hour
in most of Kuseros’s cities. They’re strictly
single-sex, and not big enough for two
bodies, anyway. I’m not sleeping without
Kez tonight. I shake my head and thank the
kid before turning back to Kez, who I can
hear saying her good-byes.
She unhooks the comm from throat and
ear and hands it back to Slip.
“Everything okay at home?” I ask gently.
This is where it all went to fuck last time, if
memory serves.
“Yup. Nev’s evening out. Gig will meet
us in Jielt tomorrow with the skimmer.”
“Good. C’mon. Bedtime.”
She gives me a smile that would be sexy
if she wasn’t so tired. It just manages sleepy.
She and Slip say their good-byes, with the
kid exhorting us to come back to the
Cloudlands soon.
Chapter 26
The Eff Tubes are a twenty-meter high
stack of hollow outlet pipes that cross the
beach just to the north of the port. Disused
since the closure of the old desalinization
plant, they’ve fallen to ruin. The softer joints
have disintegrated, leaving the tube sections
free-standing in the sand. Some tubes have
been scavenged for their permacrete tiles
and show moonlight through the gaps where
the tiles have been removed. Others have
fallen over and stand upen
ded in the sand.
Fires flicker in several tubes close to the
waterline. I avoid these, moving up the beach
to higher ground. With the Broken Moon up,
the tide will turn in the night and I don’t want
to end up soggy. Nor do I want to intrude on
the fire-makers’ turf. The tubes higher on the
beach are empty, although some show signs
of having been used. Discarded piles of
cloth. Blackened stones. I avoid these, too.
There are lots of tubes to choose from; I’m
looking for something specific.
I find it in a tube that’s broken away and
rolled across the sand. The section is about
five meters long and half-buried. It’s high
enough to walk into without ducking, but
what’s more important is that the tube is half-
full of sand, which creates an even floor to
sleep on. I’ve slept on curved surfaces
before; not the way to get a good night’s
sleep.
I lead Kez into the tube and continue a
meter in, just in case it rains in the night,
before I gesture for her to unpack. I leave her
shaking out the ground cloth from Flo’s
Fabulorium while I check the other end of the
tube. It’s sunk further into the sand on the far
end, filled so there’s only about a meter gap
between the sand and the top of the tube. A
fringe of cer-cer grass has gained tenuous
hold in the tube’s overhang, creating a softly
glowing screen. A natural early warning
system if anyone tries to climb through in the
night.
Satisfied, I return to Kez. She’s spread
out the plaz sheet, which covers half of the
tube’s six-meter width. She glances at me as
she puts two of Doc Gray’s pillows on the
sheet, close to the tube’s opening. I shake my
head and flick a finger towards the far end of
the sheet. If someone comes into the tube,
that extra second before they reach our heads
could make all the difference between me
reaching my knife and not.
I unwrap the fuel cell that friendly Flo
sold us for two extra credits and place it at
the end of the ground sheet nearest the tube’s
opening. The glow will warn the casually
curious that this tube is occupied, and the
terminally curious will have to come past it
before encountering my knife. It’ll ruin my
night vision, but it’ll do the same to anyone
coming into the tube. I pull the tear strip on
the cell and step back as it sputters to life. It
burns brightly for a minute, then settles down
to a mellow, chemical glow. It will give off
some heat, too, which we might be grateful
for if Doc Gray’s thermoblanket lets us
down.
Kez comes to stand on the other side of
the cell, holding the thermoblanket and
blinking owlishly in the cell’s soft light.
“Ready for bed, kitten?”
She nods.
“You bring the rest of those clothes? If
we put them under us, it’ll be better than
sleeping on the plaz.”
She nods again, probably too tired to
speak, and returns to where she’s left the
ugly purple bag. She pulls three bundles of
cloth out of it, which, when she spreads them
out, turn out to be more man-skirts. Fuck,
she’s killing me. There’s no way I was ever
going to wear a skirt in bright green or
orange. At least the chemical light washes
out the worst of their color.
I dust sand off my feet before climbing
into the middle of the makeshift bed. Unwrap
the freaking skirt and bundle it up to create
another pillow, under which I tuck my two
knives. If I need to deal with the terminally
curious in the night, the skirt’s just going to
get in my way, and I sleep better naked.
Kez’s eyes widen when I take off the
skirt. She stands at the edge of our bed for a
moment, looking uncertain, then begins to
pull her dress over her head.
“Keep it on, kitten,” I tell her. “Unless it
makes you uncomfortable.” It’ll keep her
warm; she won’t stick to me with the dress
on; and having something between her skin
and mine will help keep the little monster
under control.
She lets the dress fall back to her feet.
Sags like a deflating balloon, and sinks to
her knees.
“C’mon, kitten. Night-night.”
She topples over into the bed, scoots
around until her head finds a pillow, and
slumps into stillness. I spread the
thermoblanket over both of us, lie down next
to her and hold my arm out. She burrows into
me.
“G’night, kitten.”
She nods against my shoulder, her eyes
already closed. Her hand steals across my
chest. I cup my hand over hers and close my
eyes.
I’m just beginning to drift when she asks,
“Do you think it’s safe?”
Evidently, she’s not too tired to speak.
“I’ll keep you safe. Go to sleep, kitten.”
“I meant, is it safe to call you by your
name?”
I sigh. Wonder if I should give her a
vasal massage, the way I did her whiny
friend. She won’t thank me for giving her the
runs. “Yeah, I don’t think anyone’s listening.
You’re not tired?”
“I’m too tired to sleep. Do you ever feel
that way?”
Not at the moment, I’m tempted to snap at
her. But my one in a billion deserves better.
She saved my life. She told me she loves me.
If she needs help to get to sleep, it’s the least
I can do. I take a deep breath. Let it out
slowly.
“Sorry,” Kez mumbles. Not too tired to
be oversensitive, either. She begins to draw
away from me.
“Here, kitten. Turn on your side.”
“Huh?”
I help her turn so she’s facing away from
me. So that vulnerable bare nape is to me. I
give it a soft kiss. Smooth my thumb over the
spot I’ve just kissed, then down over her
neck. Her muscles are knotted. She’s had a
long day, my kitten. I scoot a little closer in
our makeshift bed, slide my thigh between
her legs, cuddle against her back so she can
feel my warmth. Then I knead her neck and
shoulders until the muscles are soft and fluid
under my fingers.
She’s silent while I rub her neck except
for small murmurs of pleasure. I close my
eyes, relax into the rhythm of what I’m doing
to her. Find I’m not too tired to speak, either.
“When’d you learn to spin the fireballs,
kitten? Was it after you got burned?”
She mumbles something I take for assent.
“Musta taken a lot of courage to handle
fire like that, after you’d been burned so
bad.” I kiss the nape of
her neck again. My
brave kitten.
She nestles back against me, her round
ass-cheeks rubbing into my groin. The little
monster immediately perks up. Guess neither
of us is too tired for that, either.
I put my arm around her. Nuzzle her nape.
I’m going to take her like this. From behind.
Enjoy the new vulnerability of her neck to
the fullest.
Then I hear a soft snore.
I chuckle. Figures.
I give her neck another kiss; roll onto my
back so her soft ass can’t provoke the little
monster any further. She scoots back against
my side. I smile into the darkness behind my
eyelids and finally let myself sleep.
The rustling of the cer-cer grass wakes
me. Four-fifteen by the chrono in my eye.
Kez is a warm weight against my side. We
were both so tired that neither of us has
moved since we fell asleep.
I slide my hand under the pillow. Grasp
the handle of the survival knife. Shift Kez off
my other arm and flex my hand to restore
circulation. My right shoulder’s still griping,
so I may need to fight with my left hand.
Kez murmurs.
“Shh, kitten.” I sit up slowly and run my
hand across her shoulder to soothe her back
to sleep. Tuck the thermoblanket around her.
Whatever’s disturbing the grass, I’ll take
care of it. Kez needs her rest.
I rise and move a few steps away from
our bed and the flickering fuel cell. Let my
eyes adjust in the darkness.
A rat-man sits on its haunches two meters
away from me. At the bottom of the sandy
slope at the far end of the tube. The rat-man
wrings its hands, like it’s washing its paws,
and blinks huge, black eyes at me. Otherwise
it doesn’t move. Non-threatening. No visible
weapons. But then, the Kuus rat-men didn’t
use any, either.
It’s wearing more than the Kuus rat-men
did: a fringed loincloth that puddles to the
ground between its long, bare, clawed feet,
and a beaded poncho that covers its chest
and shoulders. Since the night’s gotten cold, I
can understand why it would want some
clothes, despite the light covering of
brindled fur I can see on its exposed limbs.
But then I notice the curves that the poncho
covers and realize this one’s different from
the rat-men of Kuus in another way.
This is a rat-girl.
“Somethin’ I can do for you?” I ask
quietly, still hoping I can deal with this
without waking Kez.
