SICK HEART

by Huss, JA

  Her face has to be stinging. I hit her quite hard a couple times. But she’s the one who let her guard down, not me.

  I return to my place on the mat and start my kata over again. She keeps her back to me through the entire thing, repeating her three simple drills. I watch her carefully for any sign of slacking, but even though she tires and her form becomes sloppy by the time I move on to my own drills, she doesn’t repeat her no-fucks attitude again.

  Sometime around noon I take her over to the bag and show her the punches I want her to work on. The padding I put over her knuckles will keep her from bleeding through the gauze and tape, but she will split those wounds open again today. She won’t know it until I take her wraps off though. That’s the important part.

  Perception is ninety percent of reality. Thinking it’s true makes it true. And if she thinks that padding is protecting her, then it is.

  Her real test will come tomorrow when she knows better. But for today, she is blissfully unaware. The pain she feels when she punches the bag will be attributed to her prior wounds.

  When I lead her over to the middle of the mat in the late afternoon her face is red, and sweaty, and she has been breathing like an asthmatic for several hours now.

  But I don’t care. We started this day with a lesson she failed. So she’s going to get over that before we stop.

  As soon as we’re in the middle, I turn on her. My fingertips have slapped her cheek before she even knows what’s happening.

  But she reacts this time. A full day of focus has prepped her for this.

  I reach out again, but this time she blocks me. It’s a sloppy block that I could easily penetrate, but I’m not really trying to slap her. I just need to teach her that first girl lesson. Men will hit you in the face. There is nothing you can do about that. All you can do is mitigate.

  I strike again, but her block is better this time. I bounce from foot to foot, dancing a circle around her. She’s not light on her feet—there is no bouncing—but she hops a little, mimicking her bad form with the jump rope, as she tries to keep up with me.

  I strike again, but this time she surprises me with an attempted left hook as she blocks. She doesn’t connect, not even close, but I pause and smile down at her. Then close my eyes, bow, and straighten up.

  She’s scowling at me when I open my eyes again. I make a gesture of, Your turn.

  She thinks about that for a moment, then gives me something between a nod and a head bow.

  It’s pathetic, but I’ll take it. I close the distance between us with my hands at my sides, then clap her on the back, place both hands firmly on her shoulders, and turn her towards the stairs. But instead of going up, I direct her to go down.

  She balks, probably thinking back to her punishment. But I just go first and make her follow me.

  It was almost unbearably hot today, but I can’t get Anya used to a daily shower. We’ll run out of water, and unlike food, fresh water isn’t something we can replace without a lot of effort to collect rainwater and I don’t feel like collecting rainwater this time around. Salt water, on the other hand, is plentiful.

  Anya follows me, her footsteps tentative at first, and when I pass the level where I locked her up, she pauses on the landing near the gate, unsure if she wants to follow me down. I look over my shoulder and wink, which makes her frown at me, her brows furrowed together in a look of confusion. Then I beckon her with a crooked finger and leave it at that.

  Hey, if she wants to go to sleep tonight dripping with sweaty grime, that’s her choice, I guess. But not me. I’ll take a dip in the ocean over nothing any day.

  I go all the way down the steps until I’m standing on a long, narrow landing about twenty feet above the water. Everything down here is slick with algae and when the tide is low, you can get a peek at what’s underneath the surface. But it’s not low now so all I can see is the thick tendrils of dark green algae waving at me, inviting me to jump in.

  Anya comes up behind me and when I turn, I just barely manage to grab her arm before her bare feet slip on the slick surface and she goes down. She grabs onto me, gripping my forearm as she scrambles her feet, trying to get her balance.

  I don’t need to study her eyes for long before I realize she’s afraid. What’s that about? Me? Does she think I brought her down here to kill her? If that’s it, she’s just dumb. So what is it? She can’t swim? She’s afraid of heights? Maybe a little bit of all of the above?

  All of this is very bad news for poor Anya here. But this day started with face-slapping. I gotta round it all out with an equally impactful lesson. Something for her to ponder as she lies under the moon tonight. Something for her to chew on. Something for her to learn from.

  I smile at her, and she, being the insightful girl she is—i.e. one who not only survived a childhood of slavery, but somehow defied her lot in life as Lazar’s fight night sacrifice—understands immediately that this is not a good smile.

  Not for her, anyway. But I’m enjoying myself.

  I wrap my arms around her, pinning her arms tight against her body. She grabs at them, frantic, afraid, and on the verge of panic. But my feet are already moving towards the edge of the platform. There is no time for a tantrum. No time for anything but the soft low words I whisper into her ear as I jump off the platform, taking her with me. “Hold your breath, Anya. Or this is gonna go bad real fast.”

  I don’t know if she does that. Because we are already falling. And then we plunge feet-first into the ocean and the world shifts from sharp, sunshine clarity to murky, slow-motion blur.

  We shoot down like a bullet. At least twenty feet under the rig. The sun is nowhere near close to setting, but it’s lower on the horizon so the rays from above filter down from the surface at just the right angle to partially illuminate the dark water below the rig.

  Anya is squirming in my arms. I have her restrained at the elbows, so her hands are free to try to pry at my grip. But I hold tight for a few more seconds, just enough for her to calm down and see what I need her to see.

  It’s easy to know when she does that, because she goes completely still. We are already floating back up towards the light, but it’s a slow ascent. More than enough time for her to study the legs of the platform through the haze of bubbles and see the breathtakingly beautiful reef the ugly rig above is hiding.

  Large bubbles float out of her mouth, like maybe she just gasped, and I allow myself a smile as we break the surface and I let her go.

  She is coughing and sputtering. But she turns towards me, the shock of the drop replaced by the surprise of the secret reef. She’s not sinking, and her panic is gone, replaced by delight. She smiles at me, frantically wiping at her eyes and trying to catch her breath.

  I cock my head at her and then dive back down. She follows me. I swim around to the other side of the platform leg and watch her study a dozen different kinds of coral and aquatic plants that completely cover the steel underneath. Small schools of fish flitter around us, darting this way and that as bigger fish slowly pass by.

  Anya reaches out towards a coral, but I grab her hand and pull it back, shaking my head at her. Some of them sting. And I’m not really sure which ones those are, so the general rule is that we don’t touch them.

  She looks back at the reef, then up at the surface. I know she can’t hold her breath much longer, but she is reluctant to go back up.

  It makes sense though. This silent world is familiar. That’s why I like it. And when I first discovered that the rig’s platform had actually created an artificial reef back when I was a kid, I felt like I had been dropped into a book. One of those boys’ adventure books where they survive a plane crash or a sinking ship and end up on a tropical island with secrets.

  I found my island’s secret.

  Finally, there is no way she can hold her breath any longer and she shoots up to the surface. I follow, and emerge just a moment later.

  And then we just float there. Two inconsequential people immersed in a whole plane
t of water. I try not to see myself like that when I’m out here. I try not to picture this platform from space, a speck surrounded by the massive weight of the ocean. And then me, just dust, really, in the grand scheme of things. Because when I see this world for what it really is, that thought evokes a sense of overwhelming… smallness.

  Our problems are so small from the perspective of the universe. But to us, they are often overwhelming.

  I try to keep it all in perspective, but it’s hard when you’re surrounded by evil people who want to torture you for fun. Make you fight and kill for money, and ships, and women.

  Anya puts her face in the water and just floats like that. Belly down, arms out, body undulating with the rhythm of the ocean. Like she’s snorkeling without equipment. Every now and then she tilts her head to the side for a breath, and then she resumes her study of the reef.

  I roll over and lie on my back, floating with her, my fingers twisted up in her t-shirt so she can’t float away, my eye on the beams above, keeping it in perspective. It would be a mistake to assume that we are anchored to this platform just because we’re underneath it. It would be very easy to float away. Too easy, actually, to float so far there is no chance of getting back. Even a very strong swimmer might not be able to fight the will of the ocean’s path around a rotating earth.

  But we don’t float far. We just bob with the waves. Up and down. I let her gaze down, but I don’t let her dive alone. No one dives alone out here. Ever. Not even me. That’s why we keep a stash of food out here. Because fishing by myself is a risk Maart won’t let me take.

  Soon though. Soon, Anya and I will run out of protein and we will have to fish this reef. It’s gonna suck, but it’s at least ten days away, so I push that thought aside when she turns over on her back and floats face up with me, her fingers twisted up in the loose fabric of my shorts, mine still holding fast to her t-shirt.

  And it’s nice, I think. To float with her. To be with her. Just two people gazing up at a low, hot sun.

  I turn my head and look at her. She’s got her eyes closed. But her skin is getting cold and she’s starting to shiver. So I grab her hand and we call it a day.

  We have to climb a slimy ladder to get back up to the long, metal landing. I make her go first, just in case she slips. Also so I can look at her ass through the thin, wet fabric of her shorts, but mostly to keep her safe. She’s sustained enough injuries over the past week.

  We both have. It’s time to settle into this now.

  Once on the landing she begins to shiver for real, wrapping her arms around herself in an attempt to keep warm. The sun is on the other side of the rig, so we’re in the shade and there’s no hope of getting warm down here. But once we climb all the way up to the helipad, the heat of the sun is a relief.

  She stands in the middle, face tipped towards the final rays of the day.

  But I grab her hand and lead her over to a ladder on the side of the mechanical building. This one is not coated with algae, but the paint is pitted and flaking from decades of salt water and sun.

  Once we’re on top of the roof the wind is free to whip past us, blowing her t-shirt up like a balloon and making her scramble to keep it from flipping up. I shrug when she looks at me, embarrassed after partially flashing me her tits, and she sucks in a deep breath and points her face back at the sun.

  I do the same, closing my eyes and opening my arms wide, letting the hot wind flow past me. I crack one eye open when Anya walks up next to me and smile when she does the same.

  I’m not exactly tired. I would not call this a particularly strenuous training day. Most of the time I was distracted by Anya. But I’m tired in other ways, the way I was that day we spent inside. Weary. So I drop down to the roof and lie back, hissing a little when my back touches the sun-baked concrete.

  Anya drops down beside me, sighing when she realizes how warm the roof is. I peek at her again. Her eyes are closed and her shirt drying from the wind. Less than a week on the Rock and her hair is already a tangle of unruly, blonde-streaked waves and her skin is already losing the too-pale look she had when I first saw her back on the ship. Her cheeks are pink, but her arms and legs are starting to turn a nice shade of golden brown.

  I look back up at the sun and close my eyes, letting the yellow orb stain the back of my eyelids. This feels nice. The way yesterday felt in the game room. Comfortable.

  Anya flips over on her stomach, hands under her cheek like a pillow, her head turned away from me. She looks like she’s ready to fall asleep.

  I turn over as well. Then my fingertips are pulling up her t-shirt, exposing the small of her back.

  She goes stiff and sucks in a breath.

  I drag the tips of my fingers lightly over her skin, tracing a pattern and making it prickle up in goosebumps.

  She doesn’t move.

  I know what she thinks. She thinks I want sex. And maybe I do. But mostly I don’t.

  I have decided that I will not use sex to get her secret. It’s not fair. I would be one of them if I did that, and I’m not one of them. I might kill for them on command, but I am not one of them.

  So no, I’m really not thinking about fucking her. I’m thinking about knowing her.

  And that is a far, far more dangerous thing. Because once I know her, I won’t be able to unknow her, will I?

  And I’m already about to walk away from almost three dozen people I know very well. I’m not sure I can add another one to that list and live with myself afterward.

  But then she turns her head my way and opens her eyes. They are blue—I know they are blue—but right now, the sunlight plays tricks and turns them the color of the sea. Deep green one moment, bright teal the next. The corners of her mouth lift up into a small smile and she stares at me.

  What does she see? The killer? The trainer? The game player? The diver? Which of these men is the one she likes?

  Definitely not the killer or the trainer. Which is too bad. Because that’s who I am ninety-nine percent of the time.

  She frowns, like she’s reading my mind. And she might be. You get good at reading expressions when people don’t talk. You learn to see inside them. You learn how to know them without their consent.

  But this is a dangerous path to go down so I slip my hand up her shirt instead. She closes her eyes, but opens them back up almost immediately.

  Closing them is giving in. You don’t have to be a mind reader or a mute to know that. And she’s not the kind of girl who gives in without a fight.

  But that’s what I do best. I’m a fighter. So this comes off like a challenge to me.

  I begin tracing bigger patterns over her entire back. Figure eights and spirals. Squiggly lines that start between her shoulder blades and end up in the small of her back, just above the waistband of her borrowed shorts. I keep my touch feather light and super soft. She winces and closes her eyes again, tensing her shoulders.

  And this is a dead giveaway for ticklishness. So I poke her.

  She giggles and draws back, opening one squinty eye to warn me with a half-assed glare.

  I tsk my tongue and sloppily sign, Don’t warn me, girl. That’s just another challenge, with one hand.

  She can’t even follow two-handed sign language, let alone my made-up shorthand. So she squints her eye a little tighter, putting some threat behind her warning.

  I almost laugh, but then poke her again instead.

  She wriggles away this time. But I grab her and pull her back. Poking her a few more times just to prove I can. She twists and kicks and elbows me as she tries to get away. But in my arms, she is very small. And all I have to do is hold her tight to make her helpless. I don’t even need to use both arms. So I have one free hand to keep poking.

  She goes nuts. Like… this is the girl I want to see on the mat downstairs. That’s how nuts she goes. Her back is bucking, her knees are jabbing, and she’s laughing out loud.

  God, she has a nice laugh. It’s a little high-pitched, like it was that first time w
e met on the ship. But it rolls too. Smooth and easy. Something you want to hear more of, not less. And suddenly, that’s all I can think about.

  I want to hear her voice. Is it deep or soft? Hard or sweet?

  I stop poking and rearrange my body so I’m just a little bit over the top of her, propped up on my elbows. I put one hand up and slowly sign, Talk to me. It’s an easy sign and she gets it, because she goes tense again, then shakes her head no. But then she repeats my signs back with modifications, pointing at me, tapping her chin with a sideways hand, and then pointing to herself. You talk to me.

  I already did.

  She shakes her head and makes a sign for ‘whisper.’

  And now it’s my turn to go tense and just stare at her for a moment.

  Because she got it right. The sign is ‘talk,’ but if your other hand is cupped on the side of your mouth, it means ‘whisper.’ Like you’re gonna whisper in someone’s ear.

  Did she just… I squint at her and she frowns in response. Has she taught herself sign language?

  That’s not possible. Not this fast. It hasn’t even been a week.

  Then whisper to me, I sign.

  She shakes her head again. And then she touches my lips with the edge of her fingertips and slowly drags them up my cheek before pulling away.

  ‘Kiss.’ That was the sign for ‘kiss.’

  She wants me to kiss her.

  I know this is a distraction. I know who I’m dealing with. A girl who has been silent so long, no one remembers her last spoken words. A girl who should be dead, but isn’t. A girl who should be anywhere but here with me, but is. A girl who four days ago didn’t know a single bit of sign language, and now knows enough to stun me silent.

  So I should really know better.

  I should push her. Keep going. Because I could make her talk. I know I could.

  But then she leans towards me. And we’re not that far apart, so that kiss she just asked for is now an absolute guarantee.

  Our lips touch and just… linger there for a breath.